Episode #21: Zelda

Jennifer goes on and on tonight about Zelda Fitzgerald, the subject of two books she has just read and the object of her current obsession.    Was she a flapper or philosopher?  Both, perhaps, as well as a dancer, a writer, a painter, a muse, and a girl who may have lost her mind but found her soul.  It was inevitable that Zelda, that iconic "It" girl of the 1920s and wife of literary giant F. Scott Fitzgerald, would make an appearance in Circa 19xx Land; after all,  the early Twentieth Century belonged to her...and she belonged to it.  How could we not invite her to our party?  Jennifer continues her exploration of the Jazz Age by revealing her "second favorite" George Gershwin piece and then dashes over to the CSN news desk to file a report on how Dolly Parton shops for antiques.   She wraps up with a sure-fire regimen for combatting the "Sunday Scaries" (in 5 easy steps!).  How many podcasts out there can cure insomnia and the Sunday Scaries?  Just this one.  Oh, and we find ourselves back in the Vintage Century Reading Room tonight for part 2 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 short story, "The Cut Glass Bowl."  It's nearly 2 hours (2 hours!) of exciting content...and a lot of Jennifer talking.

Links for Tonight's Show
Zelda by Nancy Milford
Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda
The Collected Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald edited by Matthew Bruccoli
"Beauty and Madness: Caesar's Things, a Christian Novel by Zelda Fitzgerald"
"Yes, Dolly Parton Does her Own Antique Shopping"
Fox News:  "Sunday Scaries Cause Work-Related Stress for More Than Half American Professionals"

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Transcript

Zelda – Script

Well, hello there!  Imagine meeting you here in Circa 19xx Land!  Welcome!  I’m so glad you’re here.  I’ve said this before, but I honestly don’t know how you have found our little corner of the podcasting universe.  This is an obscure little show that now one knows about.  The fact that you somehow landed here is amazing.  I hope you’ll stay a while.

So, what was your adventure this weekend?  I had a little adventure.  I mean, it wasn’t super exciting, but adventures don’t have to be exciting all the time, do they?  My adventure involved a drive to Springfield Missouri today.  That’s a three-hour drive that seems a lot shorter when someone is with you, so my mom came along.  Well, while we were on the road we got caught in a torrential downpour that seemed to go on for miles and miles.  Visibility was really bad—I mean to the point that it was impossible to drive.  So, we decided to make a stop and wait the storm out.

Now, knowing me, where do you think the best possible place to wait out a storm would be?  An antique shop right?  Right.  It just so happens that there is a great one in Lowry City, between Clinton and Bolivar, Missouri.  Davis Brothers is one of my all-time favorite antique malls.  Imagine this place—it’s along the side of the Missouri 13—it’s a non-descript maroon building, not particularly interesting.  But inside—oh, my!  This place is all about true antiques.  There is nothing newish about this stuff.  It’s the real deal.  There are some spectacularly beautiful old things crammed in there.  It’s not super huge.  I mean, it’s not tiny, either, but it’s not like a huge antique mall.  But it is loaded with stuff.  You can easily spend an hour in there.  Over the years I’ve picked up quite a few beautiful things at Davis Brothers, and the folks there are really nice.  I’ve even shopped in there with Olive.

Let me add a side-bar here.  You know, a lot of antique malls now allow you to bring your small dogs with you to shop, and as a dog-lover, I think that’s great.  I love bumping into dogs shopping with their owners, and especially in the Winter, it gives the dogs a little outing that they may not ordinarily get.  Olive is not a good shopper, though.  When I stopped into Davis Brothers one time when Olive and I were enroute to Springfield, she was so afraid of how big and strange it all was that I had to carry her.  Otherwise she wouldn’t move.   

There’s a huge mall in outside of Kansas City, the Brass Armadillo, that also allows dogs as long as you bring a towel for them to sit on and you put them in one of their carts.  Well, I thought Olive would really enjoy riding around in the cart—and she did.  The problem was that anytime I stopped pushing the cart—you know, to actually look at stuff—she would start crying and making a nuisance of herself.  So, no, Olive is not a good shopping companion.

Anyway, back to Davis Brothers…

My mom and I stopped in there to wait out the storm, and the minute we walked in the door, the rain became more intense.  I guess they have a tin roof because it was quite noisy in there, and we could see out the windows that the sky had become really dark.  There were other people held captive there, too, waiting for the rain to die down.  So, there were all were, surrounded by thousands of old, wonderful things with old, mysterious stories.  It was like a dream.

Now, here’s something kind of sad, though.  There’s an Amish community in the area, so you often see people riding in buggies pulled by horses on the side of the highway.  There are even signs on the highway alerting you to the fact that you may encounter one of these buggies.  Well, a couple of Amish gentlemen had set up a little tent to sell some of their crafts, and they had to scramble to get everything put away.  Meanwhile, their horse and buggy were caught in the rain, too.  The rain came up on everyone pretty quickly.  

You may be wondering—Jennifer, did you buy anything while you were waiting out the storm?  What a question.  Of course I did.  I bought this beautiful, rather large, ceramic horse statue.  (I know this sounds weird, but honestly, it’s really pretty).  I also bought an old gold urn-shaped umbrella stand that I’m going to use as a plant stand.  Again, hard to picture, I know.  Just trust me—it’s super awesome.

The rain eventually stopped, but now that I’m back home in Kansas City, there are dark clouds again.  Not a very cheery atmosphere.  But you know what, things are always sunny and bright here in Circa 19xx Land, so what do we have to worry about?

[Musical interlude]

 OK, before we finally get to our show tonight, let me tell you about tonight’s candle.  It’s called “Life is too Short to be Vanilla.”  I picked this one up at Walmart.  I’m generally pretty unhappy with the candles I buy at Walmart, but this is a new brand, so I thought I would give it a try.  Now, as usual, this isn’t pure vanilla.  I wish it was.  It seems like everyone has to throw other scents into the mix.  I want straight vanilla, but that’s harder to find than you would imagine.  This one combines vanilla with buttercream and marshmallow.  What?  Yeah.  I don’t really smell the marshmallow, though.  I smell the vanilla and the buttercream.  So far, I’m actually liking it.  I don’t know what the brand is.  It has a fancy label on it.  It says “distributed by Walmart,” so I’m sure it’s pretty rare an fine.  (ha, ha).  But, I have to say, I kind of like the buttercreamy smell.  So, again, this is called “Life is too short to be Vanilla.”

Enough chit chat.  What’s tonight’s show about?  Well, we’re spending time with perhaps the most iconic woman of the 1920s, Zelda Fitzgerald.  Zelda was the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, American author of The Great Gatsby, of course, but also This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night, and The Last Tycoon.  People have been fascinated by Scott and Zelda from the very beginning, and numerous books and films have told the crazy story of their life together.  I mean, this duo had it all:  youth, glamour, and fame on the one hand, and also destitution, tragedy, alcoholism, despair, and madness.  What started out as lives full of possibility ended quite badly.  Theirs is a cautionary tale.  As an outsider, viewing their world from nearly a century later, you want to point to their lives as an example of how NOT to live.  But there was brilliance in them as well.  Scott was an alcoholic, Zelda lost her mind.  They both died relatively young and tragically—yikes, especially Zelda.  Oh, what a way to go.  Anyway, we all know the basic arc of their story.  But I am particularly interested in Zelda, and whether she was able to, in losing herself, FIND herself.  Was she able to find truth in all of the interior chaos?

As an introvert, I’m very interested in the interior lives of people and cultivating a spiritually rich and pure interior life.  Zelda’s interior life was scrambled.  But within that dark madness, was she able to ultimately find light?  I’m not completely sure—but I’m hopeful.  We’ll talk it all out tonight.

We then switch gears entirely and learn some antiquing tips from…wait for it…Dolly Parton!  Yes, apparently she’s been caught shopping antique stores in Nashville.  Wouldn’t it be cool to run into her? 

From there, I want to talk about a phenomenon that came to light recently due to a study Linkedin just released on what they refer to as “Sunday Scaries.”  Yeah, that’s a real thing.  Wow, and I thought it was just me!  I want to dive into this topic, as well as the advice LinkedIn provides for coping with Sunday Scaries.  Spoiler alert:  I don’t think their advice is helpful—but I consider myself something of an expert on this topic, so I think I have better advice for you if this is something you struggle with.  Now, I know this may seem like a weird topic to cover on Circa Sunday Night, but actually, it’s not.  I started this show for the very purpose of dealing with what I have always called “Sunday Night Dreads.”  There’s definitely a tie-in between Circa Sunday Night and these bothersome Scaries.

Next up we’ll explore another signature musical piece from the era of Scott and Zelda.  You’ll remember in our last episode we studied up on Charleston by James P. Johnson.  Tonight we have another treat for the ears…we’re going to hear some George Gershwin.  I mean, of course….right?  BUT…stay tuned because it’s probably not the piece you’re thinking of.

And finally we’ll return to the Vintage Century Reading Room to continue our story from last week, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Cut Glass Bowl. 

Alright, so…let’s head to our time machine and get buckled up. [pause for buckle].  Hold on. OK, we’re headed for the year 1918, Montgomery, Alabama.  Are we all set?  I’ve upgraded my gizmos here, so let me power them up.  [sound effect].  Off we go!

[fade time machine sounds into music].

So, here we are…Montgomery, Alabama, late July, 1918.  It’s hot.  And humid.  The air’s heavy.  Can’t you feel that perspiration coming on?  What a time to have a dance.  And yet, that’s exactly where we’re going, because we want to witness that cosmic moment in time when two wild forces came together: Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre.  

[Fun 1920s party music with voices]

Scott and Zelda met at a country club dance in Zelda’s hometown.  Scott was an out-of-towner.  He was a first lieutenant in the 67th Infrantry which had moved into Camp Sheridan, in North Montgomery.  Zelda had just graduated from high school and was the most popular girl in town.  According to Nancy Milford, in her book, Zelda, she almost didn’t go to this dance.   It was so hot.  Fate intervened, though, when she was asked to do a special dance—Dance of the Hours—to entertain the guests. 

[Dance of the Hours with voices]

Zelda was an amateur dancer.  She took ballet lessons, and that was her thing.  There are still pictures of her from this period wearing dancing costumes.  Now, dancing actually plays a rather large role in her story years later.  But anyway, she agreed to do her dance at the party, and it was then, again according to Milford, that Zelda caught Scott’s eye.

Here’s how Milford captured that moment:  

He was standing at the edge of the dance floor watching her and quickly asked if anyone knew her.  Someone told him that she was a local high school girl and too young for him.  (she was 18, by the way, he was 22).  But the vivid girl with the long golden hair was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen and he asked to be introduced to her.   Once having met, they were drawn toward each other, for if ever there was a pair whose fantasies matched, it was Zelda Sayre and Scott Ftizgerald.  They shared a beauty and youth which seemed to make them allies against the more sober world before them.  They even looked alike.

Scott was strikingly handsome, his features classically regular, almost delicate, with a high, wide brow and a straight nose.  His eyes were perhaps his best feature, heavily lashed and a clear ice green that changed color with his moods.  He wasn’t tall—about 5 ft 7, but he cut a smart figure in his officer’s tunic, impeccably tailored by Brooks Brothers in New York.  It was his freshness—a clean, new look about him, that people immediately noticed.

[For her part] Zelda, as a teenager, was striking, her skin flawless and creamy and her hair as golden as a child’s.  Other girls began to secretly use bleach on their hair, but Zelda didn’t need to.  She borrowed rouge and lipstick from her older sisters to heighten her coloring and her powder was the whitest she could find.  She also wore mascara before any of the other girls did.  One of Zelda’s classmates (interviewed for Milford’s book) said, “You can’t imagine how lovely she was.”

It wasn’t long before they were seeing each other.  But to commemorate that first chance meeting, Scott would later carve their names in the doorpost of the country club.  (By the way, I was curious as to whether or not that doorpost was still around.  Sadly, no.  While the Alabama Country Club still exists, they tore down their old clubhouse—which had been built in 1905—and replaced it with a new one in 1990.  Yes, this is heartbreaking.  How could they have torn down the place where Scott and Zelda first danced?  I don’t know.  Somehow they managed.)

Anyway, the romance of the decade developed from there.  Jackson Bryer and Cathy Barks, in their book Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda, note something in passing that happened around this time that, as a person of faith, I think is rather momentous, and foreshadows dark days ahead.  Scott writes in his journal that 1918 was “a year of enormous importance.  Work, Zelda, and last year as a Catholic.”  He renounced his faith.  I couldn’t find a reason.  We know that Zelda’s family wasn’t overly fond of Catholics, so that may have had something to do with it.  Zelda’s family didn’t seem to have any faith to speak of.  It certainly wasn’t part of their lives.  So, not only did Scott give up his Catholicism, he didn’t seem to embrace any degree of faith.

And, as a faithful person, I read that and instantly thought:  Ah, there it is.  You can’t cut yourself off from God, the source of pure contentment and stability, and be surprised when life becomes the opposite of that.  This points to a divergence in the world views of Scott and Zelda years later.  Scott seems to drift farther from God; Zelda, on the other hand, may have found God in the midst of her madness.  Wow.  This is why I am fascinated by their story.

We’ll come back to Scott and Zelda’s relationship, but remember our interest is in Zelda tonight.  So, let’s get some background on her.

In preparation for this episode I read a couple of books that were extremely entertaining.  I’ve already referenced them both.  The first was  Zelda by Nancy Milford.  That book was an in-depth biography and while it was published back in 1970, it’s still considered the definitive work on this subject.  It was actually on the short list for a Pulitzer Prize.  The second was Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda, and that one was really fascinating because it contained the love letters between them—from their earliest, happiest years, through their later years as things began to unravel,  all the way to the very end.  The last letter in the book, from Scott to Zelda, is dated December 19, 1940, two days before Scott would die suddenly of a heart attack at 44 years of age.  Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda was edited by Jackson R. Bryer and Cathy W. Barks, with an introduction written by Eleanor Lanahan, Scott and Zelda’s granddaughter. I also read several articles, and I also tried to wade through some of Zelda’s writing.  (Yes, she was a writer, too.)  

I have to tell you, I didn’t like young Zelda very much.  She seemed like a very self-centered, undisciplined girl who had been spoiled rotten and had no regard for societal rules and would do anything for attention.  Have you ever run into someone who just seemed to try too hard to enjoy life?  Well, that’s the impression I got of Zelda.  I have to say, I came to like her more when life got difficult and softened up some of her rough edges.

But I’m jumping way ahead again. Let’s start at the beginning. Zelda was born in 1900, and she was the sixth and youngest child of Minnie and Anthony Sayre.  Minnie was over-indulgent and let Zelda get by with too much, really.  But Anthony, a state supreme court justice, was described as remote and strict.  It’s also worth noting that Zelda’s siblings were all much older than she was.  Her closest sibling was a sister who was around 9 years older than she was.  So we have an interesting setup here: we have a child that was the baby of the family—almost like an only child, since her siblings were older and married when she was still a young girl.  We have a girl who very likely craved her father’s attention, and maybe even resented the fact that her mother doted on her overmuch.  

Now, I’m jumping to conclusions, here, which is dangerous.  We can’t possibly know what all the animating factors were here, but I just can’t help but feel the dynamics in her family played a role in her lack of success in managing her life later on.  There’s also some speculation about the mental health of other members of her family.  Her sister Marjorie, for example, may have had a nervous breakdown.  She certainly had some issues that the family didn’t talk about.  And Minnie’s mother—Zelda’s grandmother—took her own life.  So in addition to the family dynamics I mentioned earlier, I wonder if perhaps Zelda may have had a predisposition for mental problems.

So, let’s take a look at Zelda’s teenage years, because that’s when the vivacious Zelda that we hold in our imaginations begins to emerge.

As a teenager, she already started to make appearances in the Montgomery society pages.  And while she didn’t have great success forming close friendships with girls her age, she had no problem capturing the attention of the boys.  Here’s a little snapshot of her social life from Milford’s book:

She stopped taking ballet lessons because she was too busy going out.  She had dates every night of the week.  One of her beaus remembered her quite well.   “She was a restless person with lots of energy,” he said.  “She was in for anything.  Let’s do something for the hell of it.  I remember once at a dance it got hot and Zelda slipped out of her petticoat and asked me to put it in my pocket for her until we got home.  And I did.  She was like no other.”  

Perhaps it was her lack of inhibition that many of the girls found unmanageable.  Zelda was equally impatient with their more conventional behavior.  One evening, while, double-dating at an outdoor play being given at Miss Margaret Booth’s School for Girls, Zelda suggested to her date and the other couple they should leave.  It was a dull performance, but the other girl attended the school and could have been expelled if she had been caught walking out.  Zelda watched her for a moment and then said sharply, “Oh get some guts about you!” and left.

Zelda said of herself that she cared for two things:  boys and swimming.  There’s a snapshot of her standing next to a boy beside a swimming pool, their arms draped jauntily around each other’s waists.  Zelda is standing with her hand on her hip and she is laughing into the camera.  Beneath the snapshot is the inscription, “What the Hell—Zelda Sayre!”

The man who was with her later said, “Zelda just wasn’t afraid of anything—of boys, of being talked about; she was absolutely fearless.  There was this board rigged up at the swimming pool and, well, almost nobdy ever dived from the top.  But Zelda did, and I was hard put to match her.  I really didn’t want to.  She swam and dived as well as any of the boys would have.  But she did have a bad reputations.  There were two kinds of girls:  those who would ride with you in your automobile at night and the nice girls who wouldn’t.  But Zelda didn’t give a damn.”

With the gentility of the Sayres and her fathers’ position in the community behind her, Zelda was in an important sense immune to criticism.  Her stunts and escapades would be commented upon in private to be sure, but as the daughter of Judge Sayre she was granted a sort of social deference.  She could rely upon the knowledge that her father’s position and reputation would protect her.  That immunity had, however, another and potentially damaging aspect—one which Zelda did not grasp fully at 17, but understood all too clearly alter in her life.  For even as her father’s position protected her, it also absolved his children from the early social efforts necessary in life to construct strongholds for themselves.  In this respect they were crippled (Zelda’ word for it) by that insulation of family position.

So, in retrospect we can detect some warning signs that there will likely be trouble ahead.  

One of the reasons Scott is instantly attracted to Zelda is because she’s the “top girl.”  He had all kinds of dreams about his future, and one of those dreams was to have the most popular girl on his arm; the girl that all the other men wanted to be around.  She definitely fit that bill.  Even after Scott began seeing her, she continued to be courted by other men.  And get this:  According to Milford,

“The aviation officers in town used to perform fancy stunts in their airplanes over the Sayre house just to get Zelda’s attention.  These exhibitions were then forbidden by the commanding officer of Taylor Field—but not before two officers had crashed on the nearby Speedway, one of them a desperate beau of Zelda’s—a mustached gentleman whom she had enjoyed kissing.  In the spirit of rivalry, and inspired young infrantry officer performed the manual of arms for the infantry before her door.”

You get the idea:  she was a catch, and Scott became desperate for her.  They have this intense—if volatile—love affair with one major obstacle:  Scott wanted to hit it big as a novelist before marrying her.  He went to New York, where he didn’t meet with much success, while she was back in Montgomery continuing to see other men, which infuriated him.  So, he decided he couldn’t let her get away.  He headed back to Montgomery to propose.

Here’s more from Milford:

When everything in New York had failed him, his career and his writing, he turned to Zelda with a proposal of immediate marriage made as much out of desperation as of love.  It was an effort on Scott’s part to redeem at least a fraction of his dreams for success and happiness, but Zelda must have felt it to be founded in failure and she could not accept marriage on that basis.  Scott said that he had to have her with him in order to succeed, but perhaps Zelda sensed that if she did marry him and he was still unsuccessful, the onus of his failure would rest squarely on her shoulders.  Scott would never forget her refusal.  He would in time explain it away by saying that she was afraid to risk a life with him until he was a money maker.  But that was unfair; it was only as his own faith in himself waned that hers became increasingly unsure.  Finally Zelda told him to leave.  He boarded the next train back to New York, with his mother’s ring in his pocket, certain that he had lost his girl forever.  

Well, of course we know that was not the case, don’t we? It wasn’t too terribly long before Charles Scribners and Sons published Scott’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, and with his prospects much improved, he proposed again, and they were married on April 3, 1920.  They were at the very beginning of their decade—the decade that made them the “it” couple—for a short while, anyway—and that they would remember fondly when things went haywire.

The first years of their marriage are the stuff of legend.  When we think of Scott and Zelda, those are the years that we picture in our minds—endless parties, hobnobbing with the who’s who of the day.  Scott drank heavily, and they lived perpetually beyond their means.  Money was a major issue for them throughout their married life.  And Scott was driven to be a great American writer.  The writing, the drinking, and Zelda.  Those were the things that seemed to fuel him in those early years.  

Meanwhile, Zelda was writing, too.  She kept a journal, and we know that Scott “borrowed” from her journal entries pretty freely, and she knew this.  When Scott’s The Beautiful and Damned came out she was asked by The New York Tribune to write a review of it.  In the review she notes parallels between her life and the life of Gloria Gilbert, a main character in the book.  She famously writes

It seems to me that on one page I recognized a portion of an old diary of mine which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and also scraps of letters, which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar.  In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald—I believe that’s how he spells his name—seems to believe plagiarism begins at home. 

The truth is, Zelda had talent of her own that was calling out for expression.  In her mid-twenties she took up ballet again.  She threw herself into ballet—knowing that she was far too old at this point to be great at it.  She worked herself to exhaustion, however, trying to make up for lost time.  Many believe that it was this obsessive commitment to dance that ultimately weakened her mental state and led to her first breakdown.

From 1930 to 1948 Zelda was in and out of mental hospitals.  She had three severe breakdowns.  Let’s take a look at the timeline:

Breakdown #1:  April 1930
 Zelda begins to act strangely and with paranoia.  At a luncheon with old friends she sat quietly not saying a word, and then suddenly looked at them and accused them of talking about her.  She became frantically obsessive about her dance lessons, terrified that she would miss a class, and also obsessive about her teacher, Madam Egg-or-ova.  Madam Egg-or-ova began to notice odd behavior in her as well.  Nancy Milford writes

One afternoon Zelda invited her to tea.  They were alone in the apartment and it became clear to the older woman that there was something strange happening to Zelda—her gestures, her face, and even her voice seemed increasingly peculiar.  When they had finished their tea, Madame Egg-or-ova sat down on the couch facing Zelda.  Suddenly Zelda threw herself down on her knees at Egg-or-ova’s feet  Trying to prevent the situation from going any further, Egg-or-ova rose calmy and told Zelda that it was late and that she had to go home.

Zelda entered a hospital called Malmaison on the outskirts to Paris.  She was in a state of extreme anxiety, and restlessly paced the room, saying “It’s dreadful, it’s horrible, what’s to become of me, I must work and I won’t be able to, I should die, but I must work.  I’ll never be cured.  Let me leave, I must go to see Madame Egg-or-ova.  She has given me the greatest possible joy.  It’s like the rays of the sun shining on a piece of crustal, to a syphony of perfumes, the most perfect harmonies of the greatest musicians.”  On the 2nd of May, Zelda abruptly left the hospital against her doctor’s advice.

She returned to her dance lessons with a frenetic exuberance.  Less than 2 weeks later she was dazed and incoherent.  She heard voices that terrified her, and her dreams, both waking and sleeping, were peopled with phantoms of indescribable horror.  She had fainting fits and the menacing nature of her hallucinations drover her into an attempted suicide.  Only an injection of morphine could comfort her.  The demonic dreams which she experienced became more real for her than reality.

Back to the hospital she went.

Breakdown #2:  February, 1932
 After what seemed like a period of improvement, Scott and Zelda took a vacation in St. Petersburg Florida.  Zelda’s mental state began once again to deteriorate.  Scott admitted her to the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of Johns Hopkins University.  It was less than one month after entering the clinic that Zelda finished her novel, Save me the Waltz.  Yeah, so while all this was going on, she was writing.

Breakdown #3:  February, 1934.  She required complete bed rest and monitoring to guard against possible suicide attempts.  She was described as “dangerously thin.”

While Zelda was treated, she never fully recovered and was ill the rest of her life.  She was productive, though.  She wrote some short pieces for magazines, a couple of novels, Save Me the Waltz, and Caesar’s Things, and a crazy play with one of the greatest names of all time:  Scandalabra.  

Because I love the title so much, I tried to wade through Scandalabra, and couldn’t get through it.  It’s just a mess.  Here’s a modern assessment of it by Carolyn See at the Los Angeles Times:

Zelda Fitzgerald’s play, Scandalabra, should be read by every writing student.  It is a perfect example of the horror that can result when you don’t write about what you know.

[It’s worth noting that at the same time Zelda was writing her novel Save me the Walz, Scott was struggling for years to write what ultimately became his book, Tender is the Night.  Because he was drawing on their lives together as material for his own writing, and because she had drawn from the same source for her own autobiographical novel Save me the Walz—thereby infuriating Scott—he laid down some rules.

Matthew Bruccoli, editor of Zelda Fitzgerald’s Collected Works, wrote that Scott had forbidden her to write fiction that would preempt material he wanted for “Tender is the Night.”  If she wrote a play, it must not be about psychiatry, nor should its locale be the Riviera or Switzerland; moreover, Fitzgerald must be given the right to approve her idea.

Scandalabra is, then, according to Carolyn See, about nothing at all.  

Apparently no one has actually read Scandalabra;  I couldn’t find a single plot line, synopsis, or review about it.  All anyone ever says is what a mess it is.  I even own Zelda’s Collected Writings, including Scandalabra, but even it doesn’t have any information about it.

Save Me the Walz is the novel for which she is best known as a writer.  Save me the Walz is essentially the story of Zelda’s life.  Here’s the Synopsis from Wikipedia.  The plotline here mirrors her own life almost exactly.

labama Beggs, a vivacious Southern belle who "wanted her own way about things", comes of age in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era and marries David Knight, a 22-year-old Yankee artist of Irish Catholic stock. Alabama met David when he was an Army officer stationed near her Southern town during World War I. Knight becomes a successful painter, and the family moves to the French Riviera where Alabama has a romance with a handsome French aviator.  Later David abandons her at a unpleasant dinner party to spend the night with a fashionable dancer.

Determined to be famous in her own right, an aging Alabama aspires to become a renowned prima ballerina and devotes herself relentlessly to this ambition. She grows further and further apart from her husband and daughter. She is offered an opportunity to dance featured parts with a prestigious company in Naples—and she takes it, and goes to live in the city alone. Alabama dances her solo debut in the opera Faust. However, a blister soon becomes infected from the glue in the box of her pointe shoe, leading to blood poisoning, and Alabama can never dance again. Though outwardly successful, Alabama and David are miserable.

At the novel's end, the unhappy couple returns to the Deep South where Alabama's father is dying. Though she says otherwise, her childhood friends assume she must be very happy, and they envy her privileged existence. She searches for meaning in her father's death, but finds none. While cleaning up after their final party before returning to their unhappy lives, Alabama remarks that emptying the ashtrays is "very expressive of myself. I just lump everything in a great heap which I have labeled 'the past,' and having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, I am ready to continue."

The last paragraph shows the Knights immobile and dissipated as a couple:

"They sat in the pleasant gloom of late afternoon, staring at each other through the remains of the party; the silver glasses, the silver tray, the traces of many perfumes; they sat together watching the twilight flow through the calm living-room that they were leaving like the clear cold current of a trout stream."

Save Me the Walz was written at a very tumultuous time in the Fitzgerald’s marriage.  There was tremendous financial strain.  Scott was drinking heavily and struggling to write.  Zelda had been institutionalized.  Unfortunately, Save Me the Walz was a critical and financial failure at the time of its release.

Her next (and final) novel was Caesar’s Things, and this is the part of Zelda’s story that holds the most interest for me.  This unpublished and unfinished manuscript is an expression of her religious awakening in the mid-1930s.

Around the time of her third mental breakdown, Zelda had what some have described as a “religious conversion.”  I say some people describe it as a conversion because there are others who attribute her newfound zeal for Jesus Christ as just another manifestation of her mental illness.  I don’t believe that.  Is it possible that someone in a mental delirium could meet God there?  Yes!  I think God waits for us in the dark places when we have hit rock bottom and don’t know where else to turn.  Why?  Because—as C.S. Lewis said, sometimes we can learn in no other way.  We don’t listen when God is whispering to us.  We’re stubborn, we think we’re too smart to believe in Him, we think we can figure it all out.  There is no convincing us—until we have nothing left, and there is nothing else for us to do than seek Him out.  

I think it’s entirely possible that’s what happened to Zelda.  She became very zealous in her beliefs.  She began attending services, and talked to friends from her past about Jesus and their need to repent of their ways and find peace.

Caesar’s Things is, like Save Me the Waltz, is autobiographical.   There’s a nice piece on Zelda’s book by Sharon Kim of Christianity and Literature Blog.org.  Her article is called “Beauty and Madness:  Caesar’s Things, a novel by Zelda Fitzgerald.”  She provides this background on the novel:

The novel’s theme and title come from the words of Jesus: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17; Matthew 22:21; Luke 20:25). Writing about herself in third person, the narrator confesses her mistake in giving to Caesar what should have been God’s. In portraying Janno as one of Caesar’s things, Fitzgerald aims to point the way out of Caesar’s domain and into the kingdom of God.

This narrative has a clear symmetry: three chapters on Janno’s childhood and three on her adult life, with a transitional chapter in between. Both halves of the novel follow a distinct theological pattern: an arc of creation, fall, and redemption. They both begin with descriptions of edenic newness— a “garden” or “paradise”— then focus on a central sin: misuse of money in the novel’s first half; misuse of human love in the second, following the two-part structure of giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Both halves also contain a redeeming vision or epiphany.

Redemption.  That’s what I hope Zelda found after losing so much.  This is the really encouraging part of her story, I think.  Unfortunately, she died in a tragic way.  

Are you ready to hear how it all ended?  

Well, Scott had already died, and she was now at Highland Hospital in Ashville, North Carolina.  On the night of March 10, 1948, a fire broke out in the hospital kitchen.  According to Wikipedia, Zelda was locked into a room awaiting electroshock therapy.  The fire moved from the dumbwaiter shaft, spreading onto every floor.  The fire escapes were wooden, and they caught fire as well.  Nine women, including Zelda, died.  Her body was so badly charred that it had to be identified by dental records and by one of her slippers, which was found beneath her.  She was 47 years old.

Sad, sad, sad.  

By the way, not only did she leave her writing behind, but paintings as well.  So, she just kept throwing herself into all of these creative ventures.  She even had an exhibit of her pieces while she was alive, and of course there is a lot of interest in them now.

So, that’s the story of our girl Zelda.  May she rest in peace.

[Gershwin interlude.  Play intro to Rhapsody in Blue, but then fade to background for voiceover].

GERSHWIN

Well, what do you know?  George Gershwin’s in the house.  

Of course that’s his Rhapsody in Blue.  This is a really early recording by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra from…hold on…I think it’s 1928?  Yeah, 1928.  This piece was actually commissioned by Paul Whiteman in 1924.  Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Rhapsody in Blue is a 1924 musical composition written by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band.  It premiered in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music" on February 12, 1924, in New York City.  Whiteman's band performed the rhapsody with Gershwin playing the piano.  

Rhapsody in Blue is one of Gershwin’s most recognizable creations and a key composition that defined the Jazz Age. Gershwin’s piece inaugurated a new era in America’s musical history, established Gershwin’s reputation as an eminent composer, and eventually became one of the most popular of all concert works.  

Well, of course, it’s a masterpiece.  We all know that piece so well—I mean everyone knows it, even people that know nothing about jazz or classical music, or music of that period.  Can you imagine being in that first audience back in 1924, hearing it when it was entirely new and strange.  Wow.

BUT as great as Rhapsody in Blue is, it actually isn’t my favorite Gershwin piece.  I have several Gershwins.  My all time favorite, though, is a song called “That Certain Feeling.” 

[Play that Certain Feeling.  As Voiceover]

 A friend of mine gave me a recording of the Gershwin piano rolls as a gift when I was back in college, and I played that song over and over again while I studied.   (That is STILL one of the treasures in my music collection, by the way) I nearly wore a hole in that song.  Oh my gosh, as I listen to it now it brings back so many memories…

Oh…I love that song to this day.  That is NOT the song I want to feature tonight, though.  No, I thought I would share with you a Gershwin song that is probably my second favorite.  I mean, I’ve never met a Gershwin piece that I didn’t love, but I think my second fave is a piece called Cuban Overture.

Cuban Overture was a piece Gershwin wrote after vacationing for a couple of weeks in Havana in February, 1932.  He wrote it in July and August of that year.  It was actually originally titled Rumba, but was later renamed.  Now, this is a long, substantial piece on the order of Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, but even though Cuban Overture met with critical acclaim when it debuted, I don’t feel like it’s as well known. 

So, let’s play it right now.  This is Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra with George Gershwin’s Cuban Overture from 1938.  Trust me.  This is so beautiful. 

[Cuban Overture.]

DOLLY PARTON’S TIPS FOR VINTAGE SHOPPING

Ok, now it’s time to pop over to the Circa Sunday Night news desk for the latest info from the world of entertainment.  You know you can always count on me for your entertainment news.  No, that’s not quite right.  BUT, here is a little tidbit that caught my attention.  This is from Southern Living magazine:

Yes, Dolly Parton Does Her Own Antique and Vintage Shopping and She Has Some Tips

Rebecca Angel Baer

Earlier this summer it came to our attention that there were several Dolly Parton sightings at antique and vintage shops in the Nashville area. As WKRN reported, Parton was spotted at several spots including Three French Hens in Nolensville. Owner Stacey Harris-Fish told the local news outlet, "I'm a Nashville native and I've had the opportunity to meet several of our entertainers over the years, including Dolly coming to our store several years ago. She is absolutely the most kind person.  She’s the same in person as she is on stage, very friendly very caring— very, very genuine."

The Smoky Mountain Songbird was also seen in Simply Vintage Antiques in Mt. Juliet that same week, WKRN reported. Now, what exactly was Parton bargain hunting for in the antique shops? Well, when we spoke to her about the launch of her new perfume, Scent from Above, we just had to ask her!

"I've been out looking for some things for my husband," she said, noting that she was looking ahead of his birthday last month.

"I was fixing a fun little garden for him. Not a flower garden, vegetable garden, although he has that. But I was just wanting to find some fun little things for him that he loves like old timey trucks and that sort of thing."

"I went to several shops and there were different people that would come in and they would see me and then they'd take a picture and then they'd go post it I guess. And so, everyone knew I was out shopping. But at least you know I'm a regular person getting out and doing regular things," she said with a laugh.

Parton shared that she enjoys going antiquing and that you can find treasures at great prices if you know the right time of day to go. When we asked her what her strategy was, her response was no surprise to us as we know she is an early riser.

"Well the earlier you can go the better. And I'm an early person so I'm usually one of the first ones there…I'm ready to go soon as anything opens up. If there's some public thing I need to do. Whether it's a drug store or antique mall, I'm always the first one there when they open. Whether it's 8:00, 7:00, or 9:00."

If you find yourself antiquing in the Nashville area, you just might want to get an early start. You just never know who you might run into on your quest for the perfect vintage tea set.

"Well I like being able to do that when I can. Just pick up little things and piddle around. I'm just a regular girl."

Well, how awesome.  I haven’t been to Nashville in years, but I can imagine they have some fabulous antique shops.  Ok, hold on.  I’m going to look up how far Nashville is from Kansas City…oh, it’s farther than I thought.  Google Maps says that it’s 8 and a half hours by car.  What a fun road trip that would be. Hmm maybe some day.

[Music interlude]

SEGMENT:  SUNDAY SCARIES

Well, I just have to share something with you that I read online the other day.  You know, the reason I started this show is that Sunday nights have always been dreadful to me.  Saturday and Sunday you live a different kind of life, right?  You have freedom to pursue your own interests, enjoy life, give yourself time to think about things you want to think about, hobbies you want to learn, places you want to go.  And then Monday comes along, you return to work, and all the things that make life worth while have to be put on hold for five long days.  And then, of course, there’s all the pressure to achieve things you don’t really care all that much about, and the scrutiny and judgment you have to endure.  After living through this cycle for decades, it just becomes too much.  I have found myself in tears on Sunday nights thinking of the week ahead more times than I could possibly count.  Now I thought I was the only one who felt that way, but then I talked to co-workers and others and discovered how really common those feelings are.  I’ve always called them “Sunday Night Dreads,” and I decided that to do a little show (that’s right—Circa Sunday Night) to make people feel a little better and get their minds off things.

Well, it turns out the “Sunday Night Dreads” are even more common than I knew—and, by the way, there is a real name for this phenomenon.  It’s not “Sunday Night Dreads,” but “Sunday Scaries.”  Yeah, so this is a thing—and according to a recent study by LinkedIn, a lot of people experience them.  In fact, the number of people who feel this way is growing.

Here’s the story I saw online.  This is from Fox news:  “'Sunday scaries' cause work-related stress for more than half of American professionals.”

More than half of working professionals in the U.S. are facing anxiety ahead of the workweek.

The phenomenon, which LinkedIn is calling the "Sunday Scaries," is impacting 66% of professionals, according to a recent work survey from the online job board and social network.

According to LinkedIn’s survey, Sunday Scaries are defined as the "stress and anxiousness" a person feels on Sunday nights before they have to return to work on Monday.

Nearly 3,000 Americans were surveyed to help LinkedIn determine the prevalence of Sunday Scaries in America.

Forty-one percent of the survey’s respondents said they believe the coronavirus pandemic has caused or worsened their Sunday anxieties.

Let me stop right there.  I can only speak for myself, but the pandemic has not worsened my Sunday nights.  Because I now work from home, that has substantially lessened my bad feelings.

Millennials and Gen Z were said to be the most afflicted with Sunday Scaries, according to LinkedIn. Both groups had 78% of respondents who report having pre-work stress on Sundays. 

“The Sunday Scaries are not necessarily a sign that you need to leave your job or change careers," Catherine Fisher, a career expert at LinkedIn Career, told Fox News.

She went on, "There are a few things you can do proactively to help you feel excited to get back to work, including building an action plan on Sunday night so you can hit the ground running on Monday morning or planning something to look forward to on Monday, like a virtual coffee date with a favorite colleague."

Ummmmm, no.  Building an action plan for Monday?  No, that would just take up valuable weekend time to put together, and it wouldn’t make things better anyway.

Asking for help when you’re feeling overwhelmed is another actionable step workers can take if they’re experiencing Sunday Scaries, according to Fisher.

"It's OK to ask for help," Fisher said. "Spend some time brainstorming challenges and possible solutions to discuss with your manager, who may be able to help things feel more manageable."

Again, I think they are missing the mark, here.  Your manager is probably not going to have the answer.  I am a manager, and I likely would only be able to offer minimal help to my staff on this topic.

Having dealt with this problem for decades, I can tell you what has really helped me in 5 easy steps!

1.       Reject the anxiety.  Anxiety is not from God, so why spend time with it?   Push anxious thoughts and worry out of your head.  Literally visualize yourself pushing them out of your head.  

2.       Replace those thoughts with prayer.  God wants you to be happy, to have peace that surpasses all understanding.  He thinks you are so amazing.  He is your biggest fan and your all-powerful protector who is never surprised by anything.  In your prayer, just tell God that you trust him.  “Jesus, I trust in you” is the simplest, most beautiful prayer in the world.  Just say it, and do it.

3.       Create a pleasant Sunday night ritual.  Do some things that you enjoy, and just savor the present without worrying about what the week may bring.  Most of our worries never amount to anything, anyway.  My hope is that Circa Sunday Night can be part of that ritual.

Now, when Mondays come along…

4.       Make it your mission to comfort your co-workers on Monday mornings, knowing that chances are very good that they are anxious, too.  Focus on making them feel better, rather than on frightened you are.  They’re afraid, too.

5.       Plan something fun for the lunch hour.  Something you can look forward to.  The most difficult part of the week—the steepest part of the hill—is Monday morning.  If you can reward yourself with something pleasant at noon, before you know it you’re in the afternoon—the Monday home stretch, and everything gets better from there.

So there you have my prescription for confronting the Sunday Scaries.  Let me leave you with the most searched and bookmarked Bible verse on the Internet last year, according to Christianity Today:  It’s Isaiah 41:10:  “Do not fear for I am with you.  Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you;  I will uphold you with my righteous hand.”

[Vintage Century Reading Room Song]

We’re getting sleepy, aren’t we?  Or is it just me?   Well, it must be time for the Vintage Century Reading Room.

Remember last time we read part 1 of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story “The Cut Glass Bowl.”  Remember this story is following the married life of Evelyn and Harold Piper, and a central motif is a cut glass bowl that they had received as a wedding present.  When we left off, Evelyn had been caught in a scandal.  She was spending some “social time” with a young man named Freddy.  When Harold came home unexpectedly, Freddy hid in the dining room, but Harold discovers him when Freddy knocks into the bowl.  A big scene ensues, and Evelyn gets really upset—but she discovers she really loves Harold, and throws Freddy out of the house.

That’s where we left off.  Let’s see how things progress with Harold and Eveyln.

The Cut Glass Bowl, Part 2

Concerning Mrs. Harold Piper at thirty-five, opinion was divided—women said she was still handsome; men said she was pretty no longer. And this was probably because the qualities in her beauty that women had feared and men had followed had vanished. Her eyes were still as large and as dark and as sad, but the mystery had departed; their sadness was no longer eternal, only human, and she had developed a habit, when she was startled or annoyed, of twitching her brows together and blinking several times. Her mouth also had lost: the red had receded and the faint down-turning of its corners when she smiled, that had added to the sadness of the eyes and been vaguely mocking and beautiful, was quite gone. When she smiled now the corners of her lips turned up. Back in the days when she revelled in her own beauty Evylyn had enjoyed that smile of hers—she had accentuated it. When she stopped accentuating it, it faded out and the last of her mystery with it.

Evylyn had ceased accentuating her smile within a month after the Freddy Gedney affair. Externally things had gone an very much as they had before. But in those few minutes during which she had discovered how much she loved her husband, Evylyn had realized how indelibly she had hurt him. For a month she struggled against aching silences, wild reproaches and accusations—she pled with him, made quiet, pitiful little love to him, and he laughed at her bitterly—and then she, too, slipped gradually into silence and a shadowy, impenetrable barrier dropped between them. The surge of love that had risen in her she lavished on Donald, her little boy, realizing him almost wonderingly as a part of her life.

The next year a piling up of mutual interests and responsibilities and some stray flicker from the past brought husband and wife together again—but after a rather pathetic flood of passion Evylyn realized that her great opportunity was gone. There simply wasn't anything left. She might have been youth and love for both—but that time of silence had slowly dried up the springs of affection and her own desire to drink again of them was dead.

She began for the first time to seek women friends, to prefer books she had read before, to sew a little where she could watch her two children to whom she was devoted. She worried about little things—if she saw crumbs on the dinner-table her mind drifted off the conversation: she was receding gradually into middle age.

Her thirty-fifth birthday had been an exceptionally busy one, for they were entertaining on short notice that night, as she stood in her bedroom window in the late afternoon she discovered that she was quite tired. Ten years before she would have lain down and slept, but now she had a feeling that things needed watching: maids were cleaning down-stairs, bric-à-brac was all over the floor, and there were sure to be grocery-men that had to be talked to imperatively—and then there was a letter to write Donald, who was fourteen and in his first year away at school.

She had nearly decided to lie down, nevertheless, when she heard a sudden familiar signal from little Julie down-stairs. She compressed her lips, her brows twitched together, and she blinked.

"Julie!" she called.

"Ah-h-h-ow!" prolonged Julie plaintively. Then the voice of Hilda, the second maid, floated up the stairs.

"She cut herself a little, Mis' Piper."

Evylyn flew to her sewing-basket, rummaged until she found a torn handkerchief, and hurried downstairs. In a moment Julie was crying in her arms as she searched for the cut, faint, disparaging evidences of which appeared on Julie's dress.

"My thu-umb!" explained Julie. "Oh-h-h-h, t'urts."

"It was the bowl here, the he one," said Hilda apologetically. "It was waitin' on the floor while I polished the sideboard, and Julie come along an' went to foolin' with it. She yust scratch herself."

Evylyn frowned heavily at Hilda, and twisting Julie decisively in her lap, began tearing strips of the handkerchief.

"Now—let's see it, dear."

Julie held it up and Evelyn pounced.

"There!"

Julie surveyed her swathed thumb doubtfully. She crooked it; it waggled. A pleased, interested look appeared in her tear-stained face. She sniffled and waggled it again.

"You precious!" cried Evylyn and kissed her, but before she left the room she levelled another frown at Hilda. Careless! Servants all that way nowadays. If she could get a good Irishwoman—but you couldn't any more—and these Swedes——

At five o'clock Harold arrived and, coming up to her room, threatened in a suspiciously jovial tone to kiss her thirty-five times for her birthday. Evylyn resisted.

"You've been drinking," she said shortly, and then added qualitatively, "a little. You know I loathe the smell of it."

"Evie," he said after a pause, seating himself in a chair by the window, "I can tell you something now. I guess you've known things haven't beep going quite right down-town."

She was standing at the window combing her hair, but at these words she turned and looked at him.

"How do you mean? You've always said there was room for more than one wholesale hardware house in town." Her voice expressed some alarm.

"There was," said Harold significantly, "but this Clarence Ahearn is a smart man."

"I was surprised when you said he was coming to dinner."

"Evie," he went on, with another slap at his knee, "after January first 'The Clarence Ahearn Company' becomes 'The Ahearn, Piper Company'—and 'Piper Brothers' as a company ceases to exist."

Evylyn was startled. The sound of his name in second place was somehow hostile to her; still he appeared jubilant.

"I don't understand, Harold."

"Well, Evie, Ahearn has been fooling around with Marx. If those two had combined we'd have been the little fellow, struggling along, picking up smaller orders, hanging back on risks. It's a question of capital, Evie, and 'Ahearn and Marx' would have had the business just like 'Ahearn and Piper' is going to now." He paused and coughed and a little cloud of whiskey floated up to her nostrils. "Tell you the truth, Evie, I've suspected that Ahearn's wife had something to do with it. Ambitious little lady, I'm told. Guess she knew the Marxes couldn't help her much here."

"Is she—common?" asked Evie.

"Never met her, I'm sure—but I don't doubt it. Clarence Ahearn's name's been up at the Country Club five months—no action taken." He waved his hand disparagingly. "Ahearn and I had lunch together to-day and just about clinched it, so I thought it'd be nice to have him and his wife up to-night—just have nine, mostly family. After all, it's a big thing for me, and of course we'll have to see something of them, Evie."

"Yes," said Evie thoughtfully, "I suppose we will."

Evylyn was not disturbed over the social end of it—but the idea of "Piper Brothers" becoming "The Ahearn, Piper Company" startled her. It seemed like going down in the world.

Half an hour later, as she began to dress for dinner, she heard his voice from down-stairs.

"Oh, Evie, come down!"

She went out into the hall and called over the banister:

"What is it?"

"I want you to help me make some of that punch before dinner."

Hurriedly rehooking her dress, she descended the stairs and found him grouping the essentials on the dining-room table. She went to the sideboard and, lifting one of the bowls, carried it over.

"Oh, no," he protested, "let's use the big one. There'll be Ahearn and his wife and you and I and Milton, that's five, and Tom and Jessie, that's seven: and your sister and Joe Ambler, that's nine. You don't know how quick that stuff goes when you make it."

"We'll use this bowl," she insisted. "It'll hold plenty. You know how Tom is."

Tom Lowrie, husband to Jessie, Harold's first cousin, was rather inclined to finish anything in a liquid way that he began.

Harold shook his head.

"Don't be foolish. That one holds only about three quarts and there's nine of us, and the servants'll want some—and it isn't strong punch. It's so much more cheerful to have a lot, Evie; we don't have to drink all of it."

"I say the small one."

Again he shook his head obstinately.

"No; be reasonable."

"I am reasonable," she said shortly. "I don't want any drunken men in the house."

"Who said you did?"

"Then use the small bowl."

"Now, Evie——"

He grasped the smaller bowl to lift it back. Instantly her hands were on it, holding it down. There was a momentary struggle, and then, with a little exasperated grunt, he raised his side, slipped it from her fingers, and carried it to the sideboard.

She looked at him and tried to make her expression contemptuous, but he only laughed. Acknowledging her defeat but disclaiming all future interest in the punch, she left the room.

 Ah, married life.  We’ll continue our story next time and see how Evelyn and Harold make out.

Well, as we wrap up our little show tonight, let’s push those Sunday Scaries right out of our minds.  Tomorrow is a new day, a fresh start, an opportunity to begin again.  It’s going to be awesome.  And anyway, Friday will be here before…we…know it.  Have a great week, and when its over, come on back and see me and Olive.  We’ll be right here.