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Hot Schmaltz by Ethel Schwartz

This is the true story of how I got the pseudonym Ethel Schwartz. Of course, it began as a joke.

A group of guys were goofing off outside the college’s administration building when they decided among themselves that the next girl who walked around the corner would be named Ethel Schwartz and she would be the campus’s official sex symbol.

Yes, it was me. However, I don’t know if I fit the role of the campus’s official sex symbol.

I can take a joke. Besides the guys were in my circle of friends at Bridgewater State College, now a university. They were among those who ran the student paper, which was first called Campus Comment and then Hard Times, and the lit magazine, Roots and Wings and then Conceit. They went to the coffeehouse Friday nights and were in the middle of any protest. We all hung out at the coffee shop downtown and at friend’s apartments.

And, they were probably stoned that day. 

A few of them called me Ethel for a little while. But I went a step further. I decided to name the newspaper column I wrote “Hot Schmaltz by Ethel Schwartz.” Schmaltz is rendered chicken or goose fat. Schmaltz can also mean extremely or excessively sentimental music or art. Frankly, I just liked the way the five words went together.

As Ethel Schwartz, I got to write whatever I wanted like the time I went to a drive-in theater that was showing two Russ Meyer flicks. Meyer produced low-budget, sexploitation films like Vixen, one of the two playing that night.

Above is a clipping of a column I found tucked in an old lit magazine from long ago. (Schwartz was spelled incorrectly.) In it, I reviewed three books by Rod McKuen — in poetry form. They were: Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows, Listen to the Warm, and In Someone’s Shadow.

Rod McKuen made a lot of money writing schmaltzy poetry. The girls in my dorm — that’s where I borrowed the books to read them — loved his stuff. I thought he was a hack. In those days, I fancied myself a poet.

Here’s how the column’s review begins:

At times I feel

there’ll be no flag days any more

and, then you come, Rod McKuen

waving yours.

And how it ends:

The moon is a hello navel for the sky

and beneath its belly

you write a journal of love’s top and bottom

inside and outside

under and over

down and out.

Rod, but there must be something more!

Okay, if McKuen’s poetry wasn’t bad enough, the review was, too. But it was written by Ethel Schwartz, my persona in a previous lifetime, which was the inspiration for two books: Peace, Love & You Know What and Professor Groovy and Other Stories. (By the way, Prof. Groovy will be free on Kindle on April 13-14.)

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Ralph Ellison

Finding the Invisible Man

I was on the second floor of a second-hand store checking its supply of used books. Ten books for a buck, the sign said. In the E section, I found a copy of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Hard cover circa 1952. The book jacket wasn’t pristine, but I didn’t care. It is worth a lot more than ten cents.

Inside the book I found a folded piece of paper that said “National Book Award for 1953. Fiction. Judges: Saul Bellow, Martha Foley, Irving Howe, Howard Mumford Jones, and Alfred Kazin.” I suppose it has been with the book since whoever bought it new back then.

I had been wanting a vintage copy of the Invisible Man for a while because this book has so much personal value to me.

In the second semester of my junior year at then-Bridgewater State College, now a full-fledged university, I took a Black Literature course with Dr. Barbara Chellis. She was a dynamic professor her students couldn’t pin down.

Dr. Chellis also taught an American Lit. course I took. One year she would say Emily Dickinson was a hack. Next year, when her students were ready to echo that theory, she praised Dickinson as a private poet who never expected to be published.

When we read The Scarlett Letter, Dr. Chellis cut her hair monk-short, wore severe clothes and an ornate silver cross. I learned about Poe’s “knowledge is power” and why people write from her.

Dr. Chellis was brilliant and compassionate. One time I was stoned when I took a mid-term exam. Without a lecture, she asked me take it again. I know you can do better, she told me.

That semester, I moved into the same apartment house as Dr. Chellis and her companion, another woman who taught in the history department. They lived on the first floor, and from our kitchen window on the second, I watched them hang out in their yard. My roommate lied to the landlord, telling him we were nurses and not college students. 

I remember the day I came home as Dr. Chellis drove her convertible into our driveway. The top was down. She slammed on the brakes, backed up, and glared at me. We got our eviction notice shortly afterward.

But I got her back, sort of. We had a huge, noisy party before we moved out. 

And, then there was the presentation I had to do for her Black Lit. class. I chose to speak on Ralph Ellison’s theme of invisibility in his Invisible Man, that nobody can see who we really are including a professor who had me evicted from my apartment. I recorded my speech ahead of time and played the recording it in front of the class so it would seem I was invisible when I spoke. 

Dr. Chellis gave me an A for the presentation.

The last time I saw Dr. Chellis was when I went to her office to get my final grade, another A. She was cordial and encouraging. She asked me why I no longer dated a popular student she liked. I simply said he broke up with me. The truth was he was gay and didn’t want to love a woman. 

I went to Europe that summer. When I returned, I heard Dr. Chellis had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, which later killed her. It seemed terribly unfair.

Here is a quote from the Invisible Man: “All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was.” Thank you Dr. Chellis.

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Hypnotism, Memory

Confessions of a Teenage Hypnotist

I will admit I was a socially awkward teenager. My solution to becoming a popular one was to learn hypnotism, and while the end result didn’t make that happen, it was an interesting experience. Plus, it had an unexpected benefit in college. Read on.

To backtrack, I lived a very sheltered life as a kid, which looking back meant I read a lot, used my imagination, and got good grades in school. But I never had a boyfriend although I did have my crushes. I was never part of the so-called in-crowd or even invited to a party. I had to wrangle a date for the junior and senior proms. (Yes, that’s me dolled up for my Junior Prom. I got to go thanks to one of my best friends’ brother.) I did have close friends I remember fondly, but truthfully, they were outsiders like me.

At our town’s Millicent Library, I discovered a book that instructed the reader how to perform hypnosis. Don’t ask me the title. It was a long time ago. But my hope was that it would improve my standing in high school. 

I needed a willing subject to practice hypnotism. So I enlisted my kid sister, who was seven years younger and a willing participant.

Upstairs in our bedroom, I swung a shiny, golden pendant in front of her face. I spoke those oh-familiar commands in a sotto voce, willing her to go to sleep, a deep sleep. Her eyes indeed got heavy. 

Yes, it worked. My sister did go under.

I even tested my sister to see if she was faking, but she wasn’t. We went through the usual tricks you see on stage, like making her believe she was drinking water when she wasn’t or that she felt hot or cold. Remarkable.

A couple of times, I took the experiment further. I was inspired by the story of the Irish woman, Bridey Murphy, who delved into her past lives when she was hypnotized. So, I asked my sister to tell me about previous life experiences. We went back a few. My sister wasn’t rich or famous in any of them, but she told me enough details so I believed she was being genuine.

I hypnotized her a few times and dropped the experiment. Frankly, our parents wouldn’t have been happy if they knew what I was doing.

Ah, but the story isn’t over. Years later, when I was a sophomore in college, I got stuck taking philosophy 101 because it was general requirement. Ugh, I quickly realized I didn’t have a head for that kind of thinking. I felt I was in big trouble.

But then one day in class, the professor started talking about the possibility of reincarnation. Finally, here was something I got. I raised my hand.

I told the prof about hypnotizing my sister and taking her to past lives. He was not only interested, he stopped me after class. He told me if I gave a lecture about my experience to his classes, I could skip all of the exams and papers. I would get an A for the course.

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse and certainly the easiest A that I ever earned.

There have been a few times when friends heard about this story that they wanted me to hypnotize them. Each was a failed attempt, however. Perhaps the willing subjects didn’t believe I could do it or unlike my kid sister, they didn’t trust me.

And now that I have your attention, I want to note this bookish girl became a bookish woman. During the past several months my publisher darkstroke books has released two: Following the Lead, no. 6 in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, and The Sacred Dog, a dark thriller set in my favorite setting, rural New England. Here are the links: https://mybook.to/followingthelead and https://mybook.to/thesacreddog

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