A couple of years ago, back when I was toying with the idea of starting a blog, I did some looking around to see what others were doing. You know, if you engage in a blind blog hunt, you’re going to find a lot of crap. Sometimes you get lucky though. My good fortune somehow led me to Ambiviblog. My first impression was, this stands out, this is a real writer here. It’s funny, usually when I find a new blog, I check out the bio information; I want to know who I’m dealing with. This one, I just started reading. Right away, I felt like I knew the author and I was interested in what she had to say. So, for almost two years now, I’ve been a regular reader.
A few weeks ago, I was doing some late night, after the gig reading and I finally looked at the “About the Author” section. It turns out that Amba, the blog name she uses, is really Annie Gottlieb and is indeed a real writer.
I’ve been a freelance critic, writer and author since 1969. I’ve written for nearly every major women’s magazine (most recently for O, the Oprah Magazine;) wrote a lot of reviews for The New York Times Book Review in the golden age of John Leonard and after, and for the Village VOICE in the golden age of Ross Wetzsteon; have reviewed Elmore Leonard, Thomas Harris and Naomi Wolf in The Nation; am the author of DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? Bringing the Sixties Back Home (1987) and co-author of WISCHCRAFT; THE CUBE: Keep the Secret; SECRETS OF THE CUBE; and A RETURN TO INNOCENCE (DEAR PATRICK). Wrote the accompanying text for artist Thomas McKnight’s VOYAGE TO PARADISE. (Links to come.) Currently at work on (tentative title) THE SPIRITUAL SURVIVAL KIT.
Annie writes about stuff that matters. She doesn’t pull punches, doesn’t sugar coat life, it’s honest, witty, intelligent stuff. She doesn’t let her exceptional technique get in the way, she makes it interesting.
Annie says…
The only software I really need is the English language.
…and she will get no argument from me.
So, like I said, this one night I started looking around Ambiviblog and, I found out that Annie’s husband is Jacques Sandulescu who, it turns out is also an author. Here is a link to Jacques’ homepage that has the first three chapters of “Donbas; A True Story of an Escape Across Russia”.
“Donbas” is an amazing tale.
I have a line in one of my songs that goes, “My old man was tougher than me”, that was inspired by a conversation I had with my friend Rollo about how our parents had lived through the depression and WW2. Rollo said;”You know Jack, they were tougher than we are.” I don’t know about the “greatest generation” and all that jazz but, I know this; tough people come from tough times and extraordinary tales evolve from extraordinary circumstances. Donbas is one of those stories and Jacques Sandulescu is one tough cat.
“Donbas” is the story if a 16 year old Romanian boy who, while walking to school one morning, was accosted, put on a train to Siberia and forced into slave labor in the coal mines of Stalin’s Russia. While there, he survived on starvation rations, worked so hard that he gained favor despite his prisoner status, survived a shooting and a near death beating at the hands of a guard and, survived a cave in. While recovering from the injuries sustained from the mine collapse, he learned that a doctor had made the decision to amputate his legs so, he made the decision to escape, in the dead of winter, riding in open coal cars across Russia, Poland and Germany. The writing is as it should be; straight forward and unadorned. I’m going to loan my copy to my 18 year old stepson, Ryan. I don’t do that often, not because I don’t trust him with the books but, because when I hand him a book, I want to make sure he reads it. It’s an important book and it should be required reading in schools.
There is a lot more to Jacques’ story and Annie’s as well, Ambiviblog is a good place to start and I encourage all of you to check it out.
Also…
Annie Gottlieb at Amazon.
Donbas at IUniverse.
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