Dan Wakefield, author and screenwriter

Dan Wakefield has written the novels, "Going All the Way," and "Starting Over." Both of those books were made into major motion pictures. Now, he writes books on spirituality. "How Do We Know When It's God?" is his spiritual memoir. This link is his website.
Dan lives in Florida, so I sent him a list of questions for this interview and today he replied in an E-mail.

Q: Many baby boomers who grew up all over the country during the 50s are fascinated with that time period and have a general feeling of nostalgia for all things connected to those years. Do you think all children are sentimental about the years during which they grew up, or was there something special about the 50s?
A: I don't think all people are sentimental about their youth- especially those who grew up as Jews during WWII, as well as all children whose homes were bombed or (those who had) parents or family members killed in wartime- and probably many who grew up in our Depression of the '30s. The '50s was a time of peace, except for Korea and there were no new wars when Ike was president (1952-1960.)

Q: What year did you leave Boston? And please speak a little about your decision to move to Florida and about your present life there.
A: I left Boston in 1992, lived back in NYC until I went to Florida in 1994- for the reason I was offered a good position as Writer in Residence at Florida International University.

Q: You have said you believe in "putting aside the 'numbing' distractions of television and music." Do you watch any television or go to the movies... and are there any recent television shows or films you have seen that you enjoyed?
A: I go to movies and I think "Mad Men" is the best thing I've ever seen on TV and the only accurate description of the '50s on TV or film. I also watch "The Good Wife" and "Glee."

Q: Do you think there has been a general "dumbing down" of American culture in the past few decades?
A: Yes.

Q: Helen Weaver, in "The Awakener," suggests that today's Village may be just a facade and that the real Village may still be there underneath... just like it used to be. Do you think time creates a sort of pentimenti that drives imaginations to dream of time travel?
A: Helen Weaver said that in my book, "New York in the Fifties." "The Awakener" is a terrific book and a great remembrance of Kerouac and the era!

Q: If you believe in reincarnation, do you think it is possible to be reborn into the past?
A: I don't believe or disbelieve in reincarnation. I am open to anything, but I just don't know. I'd like to come back as Babe Ruth.

Thanks, Dan Wakefield!

Here is more on Dan, a writer from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Dan Wakefield has approved the use of the above photo at this blog.

Holiday Party at The Comic Strip Live, 2009

Hello Bob and Gladys and Dean Obeidallah!


Who is this? Why it's Bob and Gladys and Howard Feller!


This is the very funny Michele Balan.


This is the inimitable Robin Byrd.


This is the great and talented Nore Davis.


See ya next year!


These photos are from the 2008 holiday party at The Comic Strip.










These photos are from a 2008 event at the Drama Book Shop:



These were taken in November 2008, at an event at the Drama Book Shop with Ilene Kristen and Brian Gari. I am holding Brian's book "We Bombed in New London." I also got his mother's book "Don't Wear Silver in the Winter" which is about her relationship with her own mother. I could not put it down and read it in one sitting.

'Tis the Season

In 1897, Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Sun. This was her letter:

Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in THE SUN it's so." Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West 95th Street

These are photos of 115 West 95th Street that I took today.


Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus.

And this is a photo I took around the holidays that I call "Cute in NY."

Ain't We Got Fun

Jack Kerouac sings!
listen to this!

Beat Poetry Contest

My poem, "WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY," was chosen as the first place winner of the Beat Poetry Contest at: The Daily Beat. Please go to Rick Dale's website to read my poem. And thank-you, Rick!

Here, as well, is my Jack Kerouac inspired poem.

WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY
by Marjorie J. Levine

Almost dusk:
Last summer on one Wednesday, in July,
I sat on a bench, a grey wooden tired
Bench on a boardwalk out at old Long Beach.
In the sky a lonely and lost grey kittiwake tipped
As the hot pink sun set in blazing technicolor over
Hot pinkish sand and the fading blue ocean water.

That morning:
I had thought about seeing great art...
Vermeer, or Courbet, or maybe Monet.
But, I drove to the beach instead to think
To think about everything creative that had been
Created before I got here, and when I was here,
And what will be created when I leave this place.
When one day I leave my place and all places in my
Consciousness that is now in this time and was
At a past time and will be in some next time;
Maybe all time exists at the same time.
The great minds of theoretical physicists search
For the "Theory of Everything" as they sit
In their cluttered rooms, their great thinking rooms.
In universities, they ponder the mathematical equations
And Schrodinger's cat and all those mysteries.

In the evening:
It is during the quiet and still and sad night when
I miss most the people I never met:
Edie Beale, and the Rat Pack, and even Rod Serling
Who made me want to time travel: to go back to simpler places
Like Nedick's, or the Belmore, or Bickford's, and Willoughby.
Then the longing, a longing when distant sounds and faraway
Foghorns drive thoughts to reflect on a life visible through some
Smoky cracked mirror, a haunted and haunting steamy mirror.
As I am sort of old now and getting older
There is a vague and odd feeling that I,
Like the kittiwake, somehow must have lost the way.

© 2009 Marjorie Levine

WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY

Here's my poem that won Rick Dale's Beat Poetry Contest on December 3, 2009.

WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY

Almost dusk:
Last summer on one Wednesday, in July,
I sat on a bench, a grey wooden tired
Bench on a boardwalk out at old Long Beach.
In the sky a lonely and lost grey kittiwake tipped
As the hot pink sun set in blazing technicolor over
Hot pinkish sand and the fading blue ocean water.

That morning:
I had thought about seeing great art...
Vermeer, or Courbet, or maybe Monet.
But, I drove to the beach instead to think
To think about everything creative that had been
Created before I got here, and when I was here,
And what will be created when I leave this place.
When one day I leave my place and all places in my
Consciousness that is now in this time and was
At a past time and will be in some next time;
Maybe all time exists at the same time.
The great minds of theoretical physicists search
For the "Theory of Everything" as they sit
In their cluttered rooms, their great thinking rooms.
In universities, they ponder the mathematical equations
And Schrodinger's cat and all those mysteries.

In the evening:
It is during the quiet and still and sad night when
I miss most the people I never met:
Edie Beale, and the Rat Pack, and even Rod Serling
Who made me want to time travel: to go back to simpler places
Like Nedick's, or the Belmore, or Bickford's, and Willoughby.
Then the longing, a longing when distant sounds and faraway
Foghorns drive thoughts to reflect on a life visible through some
Smoky cracked mirror, a haunted and haunting steamy mirror.
As I am sort of old now and getting older
There is a vague and odd feeling that I,
Like the kittiwake, somehow must have lost the way.

© Marjorie Levine 2009