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The sun peaked over mountainless central Jersey skies a few moments ago. It was a good night. Confronted some 25 year demons. And I’m always looking for opportunites to say, “free at last, free at last.” I do think about Dr. King a lot; just read my novel. So I feel a weight uncarried this morning, like everything is right in the small confines of a cluttered office. I’d never ever say things are right with the world–a credibilty assasination if I did. A cluttered office is a beautiful thing. Paul Revere made his famous ride in part to preserve the self expression of a cluttered office. I heard about the government this morning working to make sure all Americans have access to broadband fast internet, the way of the health diagnostic future. Atlantic blue fin tuna and other marine life  in the world’s overfished oceans are subject today of UN conference in Qatar. Throughout my novel, I talked about tuna becoming extinct and a small regionalized war over that last catch. Start your hoarding. And in response to enough questions on how novel ‘Vichy Water’ was born, here’s an excerpt of an interview I did with Norm Goldman.

Norm:

How did you decide you were ready to write Vichy Water?

Calvin:

Four years ago, almost to this day in March, I was supposed to play tennis but it was raining. No tennis. I had all this energy and no where to go.  I’m quite spiritual and things have been popping into my head for a long time. Some of these things are quite random but I’ve learned over the years to “go with the flow.”

So, “something”(this has come to be one of my favorite words, hard to define, it keeps changing intent) said to watch Casablanca, which I’ve seen 44 times. I watched it again. Then, the last scene when Bogart(Rick) shoots German Major Strasser(Conrad Veidt, a wonderful character actor) “Round up the usual suspects.”

Claude Rains(Louis) wants to celebrate the death of Major Strasser, so he picks up a bottle of ‘Vichy Water’, opens it and is about to pour, when he realizes anything “Vichy” was connotative of the collaborationist French regime, so he drops the bottle into a steel garbage can(like what I used in high school). The moment the bottle hit, I let out a blood curdling scream, “oh my God.”

My wife thought I was having the big one like Fred Sanford. I yelled down to her, “There’s a novel that just came into my head.” ‘Vichy Water’ was ALL there in that second. And because I’m so spiritual, I knew it had to be done (my first novel). I went downstairs and spent two weeks outlining. Here’s where this gets hauntingly eerie. Four years later, when I finished the design for the cover, I discovered (with all kinds of hard copy, witnessed proof) who  put this “something” into my thought: my Grandfather who passed in 1937.

I never knew him. Sure, this all sounds a bit out there. I’m quick to mention to those with raised eyebrows, that I’m quite well-rounded, after all I go to 50 Rutgers University sporting events a season, play beer pong and go to environmental seminars. One other thing, all this Grandfather stuff is haunting; it eventually becomes book #4. More later.

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