My wife Gloria is 90 and IF ONLY, my new novel, is
dedicated to her. She has been the most important individual – as inspiration,
editor and manager - of my life. You look at her photos as a young woman from
the time when we met (she was 36 at the time) and you understand why In Praise
of Older Women turned out to be such a lively novel. The articles reproduced
here, especially the one written by her daughter Martha, give you a glimpse of
our lives and her contribution. For the last few years I have to do some of the
things she did for us - and I’m horrified to realise how hard she worked. The
photos in which we look our age were made only a few days ago. As you can see
we are still laughing, even after being together for over 54 years.
Here is the secret of enduring marriages: the couples
must feel passionate about the same things. She was the first woman I met for
whom literature was the most important thing in life. You have to be passionate
about things outside of yourselves. Our favourite pastime was walking in the
museums and great churches of Europe. She is also the most intelligent
woman I have ever met.
11 comments:
Lovely post.
Agreed--beautiful photos too
Yes, lovely post. Admirable.
Dear Mr. Vizinczey:
You are the Einstein of novel writing.
As “fortune comes to the bold,” allow me to send you chapter 1 of my first novel, it is me.
Only a few days ago I realized your name is not Andras Vajda. You wrote "In Praise of Older Women" so well that I was certain it was about a real person and that he had written that book.
Reading "Accidental Millionaire" is even helping me think better. THANK YOU! Your intelligence is rubbing off on me. I am indebted to you.
Have you read "The Guide to Concise Writing" by Robert Hartwell Fiske?
Best,
Carlos Fabara, M.A.
If you choose to grant me the honor, you may like to send me a message via my facebook page: Charles Fabara. I am a professional educator.
Here is a taste of my forthcoming contribution to the body of knowledge, whose body, I'm not sure, ha HA:
ALWAYS HAPPY
Good posture instantly improves your health.
Standing or sitting erect allows you to inhale more oxygen and exhale more carbon dioxide.
To feel better, breathe better.
And when you run, it’s best to twist your torso, oscillate your arms, and extrapolate your limbs.
The day came when an extraterrestrial invited a man and his best friend to his planet. Months later they accepted and went. What they perceived and experienced there will astound you.
DR. CHOOSE WHAT
Dr. Choose What is a perfectionist… highly intelligent, tall, handsome, healthy and athletic. On special days, he curls his mustache up at its ends. Women act funny when he’s around, and he adores them. He’s English and speaks with a British accent.
His parents gave him a perfect childhood, and he understands himself perfectly. He has a perfect self-concept and perfect self-efficacy. He’s also always honest with himself and with everyone who hasn’t given him a reason to lie to them.
His number one project is visiting planet Permanent Pleasure to experience its perfect society because he feels an overwhelming desire to transplant as much of their know-how as possible to the nation he is now a citizen of, the United States of Overconsumption.
Certain that it would improve life tremendously, he wrote a new law, “The Legal Right to Access Every Pertinent Fact About Each Product or Service,” and convinced a City Councilwoman to propose it. It’s being debated.
He completed two master’s degrees, one in Political Science, and one in English. His Ph.D. is in Public Management and Leadership and he is a professor at Contiguous Improvement University.
“Contiguous improvement,” encapsulates the fact that it’s easier to see when someone else is doing something the wrong way than it is to see the things one is doing wrong.
PROFESSOR FIND OUT HOW
Professor Find Out How is Dr. What’s best friend and research partner. She’s so attractive her name should be Professor Wow! She wears black rimmed glasses, styled short hair, and is funny and always making jokes. She was born in Russia and speaks with a Russian accent so captivating many people have said they want to keep hearing it. She’s also one of the most solicited unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrial life experts.
PERFORM EACH ACTION PERFECTLY
Perform Each Action Perfectly is an extraterrestrial. He was born and lives on planet Permanent Pleasure where he directs the Interplanetary Collaboration Council, a public-private partnership which shares, barters, and sells know-how to entities on other planets.
PART TWO of my narrative
His ancestors shared antigravity technology with the Egyptian pharaohs to help their workers lift the building blocks they used to build the pyramids. His parents named him Perform Each Action Perfectly to remind everyone that because God gives perhaps 95% of all humans a perfect brain and body, everyone who’s not physically or mentally challenged is able to easily perform each action perfectly, and live perfectly.
Understanding that Creation is perfect, and that human beings are as perfect—at least structurally—debunks many of the status-quo’s cornerstones, because though the vast majority of people accept the status-quo and never question it, ‘in reality, anyone who invests the time to dissect it will discover that it is a web of lies astutely and sometimes maliciously weaved in between facts to fool everyone into thinking it is completely fact-based” says Dr. What, and adds, “note well that 'things are often not what they appear to be'.”
Though performing an action perfectly might sometimes take a little longer, it always feels better to do a thing perfectly, and it’s more advantageous. It also bolsters the excellent habit of always performing each action perfectly.
Perfection springs forth from the basic shapes: the circle, the square, the triangle, and their 3-D extensions: the sphere, the cube, the pyramid, cylinders, cones, and any combination of those basic shapes are the perfect components of each and everything God designed, created, continues creating, and maintaining perfectly for humans to enjoy. To help you see that many more things than you may think are perfect, make a list of the perfect things in your environment, then list the imperfect things in it.
Why everyone on Planet Earth does not do everything perfectly—whenever nothing or no one other than him or herself is stopping that person from doing it that way—is a great research question.
Though on planet Permanent Pleasure perfection is the norm, if a thing is up to 5% imperfect it is still considered perfect.
Two years ago, on a day when both scholars were in Dr. What's home, a UFO appeared above his house and Perform Each Action Perfectly simultaneously communicated with both of them telepathically. After making sense of that seemingly supernatural incident, they started to communicate with him by cell phone, then they switched to communicating by interplanetary video teleconferencing. In time they got to know one another as well as any group of people can via that platform, they also discovered that they were very likeminded, and got to like one another so much that Perform Each Action Perfectly invited Dr. Choose What and Professor How to visit planet Permanent Pleasure.
They considered his generous invitation for months and asked him many questions. Last week, they accepted his invitation and agreed to meet this evening in a field on the outskirts of town and board an interplanetary vehicle which will transport them to planet Permanent Pleasure for a two-week visit.
Part 3 of the first few pages of my narrative to give you a sample of my writing.
I read "In Praise of Older Women" in 1970, reread it days ago, and love it
TRAVELING FASTER
THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT
It’s 7:55 P.M. on Sunday—the quietest day of the week, the Moon is full and there’s not a cloud in the sky.
In a rural field, a new pink-orange colored taxi is making its way on a dirt road, the city’s lights are in the distance. The driver is a young immigrant and is wearing a neon-green turban. The two scholars are his passengers.
As soon as they see a sign which says “Interplanetary Port,” in his high-class British accent Dr. What tells the driver, “Stohp! We’re getting awff heah!”
The driver steps on the brakes and stops the taxi. In her Russian accent, Professor How asks the driver, “How mahch eez dee fer?” And in his Bangladeshi accent, the driver replies, “Sixteen doughlahrs, Mees. Do you vant me to opeen dee trank?”
“Yez, pleez.”
He pushes a button on the dashboard and opens it—THOOK! She hands him a $20-dollar bill and tells him “keep the change.” He smiles gratefully.
The two scholars exit the taxi and go to get their suitcases. As Dr. What is placing a suitcase on the ground, a flying saucer in the sky and about 100-feet from the taxi and begins to descend.
Its landing pods ooze out. It lands and continues emanating an otherworldly hum.
On their way to the field, the passengers told the taxi driver, “We need you to take us to a field near Douglastown where a flying saucer will arrive and extraterrestrials will take us to their planet.”
The driver automatically laughed. “Ha-ha-ha.” He was certain they were joking.
The matt white interplanetary vehicle looks like it just came off an assembly line. Suddenly, a powerful light shoots out from the roof and illuminates the area between it and the taxi. A partially luminous staircase oozes out from its side, descends diagonally, and settles on the ground.
Atop the stairs, a pair of luminous doors slide open and four extraterrestrials walk out. They look just like humans. However, the men are more handsome and the women are more beautiful, and both are much more intelligent and more evolved. The leader waves “Hello!” The two scholars wave back. The four extraterrestrials walk down the stairs, step on planet Tricks, and walk calmly towards the taxi.
Seeing the four extraterrestrials approaching makes the taxi driver want to scream, but knowing it would only work against him, he controls himself.
When the ET leader sees his two until now only cyber friend’s faces closer… he recognizes them, smiles, and in his Southern U.S. dialect tells them, “Good evenin’!”
His dialect is close to identical to “Loonie Tunes” character Foghorn Leghorn, because when he was a child his parents sat him down to watch American cartoons and television programs so he would learn English. Somehow, he identified with Foghorn Leghorn, loved his dialect and copied it.
Though talking in-person with Perform Each Action Perfectly for the first time is making the two scholar’s emotions bubble, they subdue them and echo his friendly, “Good evenin’!”
The ET leader smiles, points his finger playfully at Dr. What and tells him, “You must be Doctor Choose What!”
“Oee am,” he replies.
He smiles and also playfully points his finger at Professor How and tells her, “And you must be Profesah Find Out How!”
Smiling, she tells him, “Yes,” and inquisitively adds: “I think… I’m Doctor How.” Realizing she’s joking, everyone laughs and they all begin to bond. Then, she tells him, “And you must be Perform Each Action Perfectly!”
“I am. It’s a pleajah ta greet both ah you in-person for the first tahm! Ahm lookin’ fouwird ta showin’ ya around our perfect planet.”
PART 4
I am amazed that you self-published your first novel. WOW!
The scholars are very happy to hear him say that.
Holding his hands on his waist, Perform Each Action Perfectly asks his two friends, “Are you ready ta fly ta planet Permanent Pleajah with us tahnaht?”
Gratefully, and with conviction, Dr. What tells him, “Yes. We’re ready!” Professor How says, “Yup,” lifting her right thumb.
“Excellent! Let’s go.”
He looks sideways, sees his three assistants, turns his head back and asks the scholars, “May my assistants take your suitcases up to our spaceship?”
Feigning skepticism, Professor How asks, “Ahr dey stroung enahf?” The assistants laugh the loudest.
“Yez. Pleez doo,” she tells them.
His three assistants walk to the back of the taxi. Two of them pick up one suitcase each, and carry them up the stairs into the spaceship.
Seeing that the third assistant isn't needed, Perform Each Action Perfectly points his index finger at him, and swoops his hand and orders him to return to their interplanetary vehicle. The assistant salutes, extends his arm, and disappears!
Astonished to see him vanish, feeling shocked and vulnerable, the two scholars look at Perform Each Action Perfectly hoping to hear his explanation.
“Ah can empathize with how seeing a mahn disappear mus make ya feel. Howevah, some of us ahr able ta disappeahr.”
“Oh my Gohd!” exclaims Professor How, “we had no idea peepel cood actually disappear at vill!
“Only some of us can!” And to dramatize what he’s about to tell them, he turns his head diagonally upward, raises his hands, and points both index fingers up and out, “But anyone who was born with the power ta disappear must obtain a lahcense from da City ta exercise it, because if they have not obtained a license to do so, and instantly appear or disappear in a public place where other citizens are present they will be fined…”
“Ven and eff dey reeapeer…,” quips Professor How.
Perform Each Action Perfectly laughs, then extends his right arm gracefully to invite his guests to walk up the stairs to the spaceship’s entrance. They accept his kind invitation gladly and walk excitedly towards the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, an extraordinarily beautiful female flight attendant with a great smile and an exemplary figure greets them and invites them in like the VIPs they are. Perform Each Action Perfectly follows his guests and walks in behind them.
The spaceship’s sliding doors close. As the passengers are snapping their seat belts on, over the loudspeakers the captain—who also speaks in a Southern dialect—acknowledges everyone, welcomes the two scholars, and tells everyone to prepare for lift-off in exactly 2-minutes. One-minute, fifty-seconds later, she counts down “Ten—nine—eight—seven—six—five—four—three—two—one.” The interplanetary vehicle rockets up, transforms itself into an extraordinarily bright light, hops, curves, ricochets and vanishes into the distance.
I just saw your piece which mentions In Praise of Older Women and The (Accidental) Millionaire, I guess you meant An Innocent Millionaire.Thanks for the comment and the subject of the rest of your piece ias similar to my latest novel, IF ONLY. I hope you will
read it. It is free I think on Kindle. Good luck and Happy Easter!
Stephen Vizinczey
Hello, Stephen. I just found out, after many years of not hearing from you, that you published a new book, If Only, in 2016. That is amazing and it makes me VERY happy. I had not still seen a picture of your wife. You won't remember for sure a written interview which a friend (José Luis Perdomo) of mine did, with the help of your wife, of course, and which I translared into English. It was 1995, I believe. If I'm not wrong your wife speaks Spanish. By the way, I was born in El Salvador and have lived in Germany, Spain, France, USA, Mexico, but I currently live in El Salvador. Though I have allways written poetry, I discovered novel some years ago, living under extreme conditions: lack of money and separation from my kids. So, under such circumstances I found solace in that much broader or simply different form which is the prose of the novel. And here I am strugling with myself mainly so that I can keep on working on that project without losing my hopes. But you know way better than me how that is.
Thanks for writting what you have written. Your work is extraordinary and I'm sure it will remain alive, just like the work of Balzac, Dostoiewsky and the rest of masters you have admired so much. I'll look for If Only right now.
Please send my regards to your lovely wife and take good care of you both.
Sincerely,
Alfredo Espino
Stephen, I forgot to mention that I'm almost 59 years old, which makes me now and then think of myself as a kind of circus freak, pretending to write a first novel. Sometimes though, I think that the years spent writing poetry and reading books and just LIVING -which can also mean gaining some character and experience- might be a plus. I wonder how you see this.
Regards,
Alfredo Espino
Dear Alfredo,
Are you on facebook or twitter? Would be good to follow
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