Flower Shops Savage MN

Savage MN Press

Harrowing memoir examines childhood in Haiti

It is also the scene of one of many disturbing domestic altercations. Her sister, Soeur, throws herself from that balcony to halt a savage beating: "Papa's belt came down across the small of my back. I screamed for him to stop, which enraged my father more. His eyes popped out. ... 'Look at me papa,' she said. My father stopped to look at her. There she stood on the balcony's railing, arms at her sides, heels together, chest in, her hair, dark and soft, swept back in a smooth roll. ... It was sixteen feet to the dirt and root-laced ground below. Soeur landed with a thud." "A Sky the Color of Chaos" is Fievre's first book in English; she has written nine books in French, the first published when she was just 16. She writes with precision: Every sentence is ripe with flourish. Details often overtake action: the sounds of street vendors, spit that flies from a screaming mouth, the colors of tropical flowers, all the minutia that provides a retreat for a young girl who is trying to make sense of a senseless world. The initial chapters plunge the reader into key moments of her life: the day her mother barricades the family in a room to escape Fievre's raging father; the day she buys a pocket knife for protection; the time she told her father she hates him. Fievre freezes each moment, observes it in slow motion, taking time to reflect on every detail. These moments, fleeting as they seem, add up to a life wrought with fear and insecurity that she would be eager to leave behind. Perhaps Fievre's only real haven existed in the world of the imagination. She writes about the many ways storytelling was her refuge. She would listen to the stories of the family chauffeur for hours. She stayed up late frightening Soeur with creepy tales. Even her father stoked her imagination. Telling stories allowed her to hide from his moods. "Sometimes Mother and I would switch places, and I became the storyteller. My stories were not the subtle kind - for the streets were hot with violence." As she matures, Fievre plots her escape. A series of tragedies occurs, providing her with a bottomless source of motivation. She clings to the idea of becoming a doctor in the Dominican Republic, flirts with running away with a boyfriend. Finally, she realizes that she can write her way out of her circumstances and earns a scholarship to Barry University in Miami. "A Sky the Color of Chaos" is a strikingly honest, raw examination of Fievre's life, of the fears that could have left her as damaged as her own father or as ravaged as her country. And she knows that she will always carry them with her. "Little girls, they're afraid of everything," she writes. "They don't yet know that the shadows trailing behind them are also a part of who they are." ... http://www.bellinghamherald.com/entertainment/article52227705.html

The Terrible Beauty of Brain Surgery

I believe in blundering man and in the provisional moment. But something about the aura of the Soviet Age attracts me, sometimes with an almost savage force. The car swung to the side and stopped next to the hotel. A group of people were seated around a table outside, and they stood up as we walked over. I recognized Henry Marsh from photos and from a documentary about him. “Ah, the famous writer has arrived!” he said. He was shorter than I expected, with a body I at once thought of as tough and resilient; his movements had a touch of old age about them, while his eyes, the upper part of which were hooded by his lids, looked simultaneously energetic and mournful. His handshake was firm, and I glanced surreptitiously at his hands, which were sturdy, with broad fingers, like the hands of a craftsman. Fejzo introduced me to the others. Paolo Pellegrin, the photographer who would be recording the procedure, a tall man with curly hair and glasses who appeared to be in his late 40s; his strikingly handsome young assistant, Alessio Cupelli, who had covered his long dark hair with a head scarf; and Mentor Petrela, who ran the department of neurosurgery at the hospital in Tirana. He was in his mid-60s, elegantly dressed, smiling, his eyes full of warmth. “We have booked a table at a restaurant nearby,” he said. “Do you want to join us?” At the restaurant, we gathered outside on a narrow terrace just as a call to prayer was sounding. Fejzo conferred with the waiter, and while Marsh and Pellegrin took up their previous conversation, I listened to the strange voice of the muezzin rising and falling out in the dark. I didn’t understand the words, but the sound of them filled the air with mournfulness and humility. Man is small, life is large, is what I heard in the ring of that voice. Pellegrin removed his glasses and rubbed his eye, and after he replaced th... http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/magazine/karl-ove-knausgaard-on-the-terrible-beauty-of-brain-surgery.html

WINERY OF THE YEAR… SAVAGE GRACE WINES (WOODINVILLE, WASHINGTON)

This is a fine line to walk, and I have found that Michael Savage has accomplished this at Savage Grace Wines. A bit of a renaissance man, Michael Savage was involved in music and other things such as being in analog audio oriented software development before he started in wine. As he put it, “I still believe in tapes, not digital.” In 2011 wanting to learn more about wine, he studied for the WSET (Wine & Spirits Education Trust) diploma. While preparing for the exam, he decided that instead of learning about it, he should probably just make it. He enrolled in the wine program at South Seattle College that same year and then made his first vintage of Cabernet Franc (2011). Talk about being on the fast track. “I like the Loire Valley Chinons, Burgundy and Beaujolais Crus. I like the softer style wines that are fruit and fermentation driven, rather than oak driven.” Michael adds “I also like lower alcohol wines and I felt that might not be possible in Washington. I started discovering some cooler sites in the Columbia Gorge for wines like Pinot Noir. I started to go in big on Columbia Gorge fruit.” His 2011 Cabernet Franc was produced in a shared space with Lauren Ashton Cellars in Woodinville. He helped make their wines while working on his first wine, a Cabernet Franc. Now he and his wife have their own space in Woodinville and production is up to 2,400 cases a year of Cabernet Franc (Rattlesnake Hills), Pinot Noir... http://blog.seattlepi.com/bluecollarwineguy/2015/12/29/winery-of-the-year-savage-grace-wines-woodinville-washington/