RAINY DAY REMEMBRANCE

July 2, 2023 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Published in The Saratogian April 1, 2001

With last names like Smiley and Funk, you know there’s bound to be something creative going on in the imaginations of this Ballston Spa duo. The couple, both natives of San Diego, Calif., purchased a house at 63 East High St. last May. Luellen Smiley and Rudy Funk have turned a once-ramshackle 1860’s structure, now known as The Follies House, into three furnished apartments oozing with zany charm. Smiley’s brochure touts the place as a “playful vacation residence designed to inspire.” On the wide front porch, a sign offers visitors “Free Records,” paying homage to one apartment’s main decorative inspiration: classic stage musicals. Called the Broadway suite, its walls are adorned with record covers, programs, ballet slippers and even a dance costume. There are dice on the end tables, a life-sized poster of Humphrey Bogart, colorful paper parasols and peacock feathers. For tenants who bring their own films, there’s a projector screen and, tucked into an alcove, a working Victrola. Vintage Broadway memorabilia is everywhere. Then there’s the nearly ceiling-height replica of a bass guitar. “This was actually a costume someone wore,” said Smiley, pointing out the head and arm holes. “These are the kinds of things we like, the really unusual and unheard of.” Growing up in California, Smiley aspired to be a dancer and maintained an interest in the arts.

In recent years, she became keen on the idea of renovating and decorating an older home, although the village of Ballston Spa was not first on her list. “When we first came here, I wanted to be in Saratoga, and when I drove through Ballston Spa I said, ‘I’d never want to live here,”‘ Smiley said. “But then we rented here, and I didn’t want to go back on the road. We loved this street. We think this village is really starting to happen.” The couple went to work feverishly last spring to ready the apartments in time for the track season. While not a bed and breakfast, the apartments are designed for temporary tenants — people new to the area or vacationers. Smiley’s off-season rates are $800 a month for the Broadway Suite and $700 for the Boomers Pad. The one-bedroom Boomers Pad is designed with vintage ’50s and ’60s furniture. Smiley said she and Funk combed area antique shops, including those in the village, for many of the offbeat pieces, including the vinyl records and oversized pink sofa. The house’s history mirrors the eclectic style the couple has brought to the home. “It was built by a man actually named Dr. Doolittle as a wedding present for his daughter,” Smiley said. “You can see the little touches everywhere. There are butterflies and sun rays carved into the woodworking and doorknobs. It’s a love house. It was built with love.” Smiley said she and Funk have combed files at Brookside History Center looking for old photographs of the house in order to decide what color to repaint the facade. “The exterior of the house is next on our list, and while we haven’t located any photographs, we’re thinking pastels,” Smiley said. “Inside, we used a lot of pistachio and pink.” While Funk commutes to and from California for business purposes, the pair weathered their first winter this year, relying on the kindness of neighbors for jobs like snow-blowing. “We’ve never seen winters like this,” Smiley said. “I’m from the other side of the world. But this is a very supportive community. That’s one of the things we love about the village.”

Smiley has immersed herself in the closely-knit community, joining the Ballston Spa Business & Professional Association, the local chamber of commerce, and helping promote an upcoming Art Walk. The Follies House recently was given a beautification award for significant improvements during the past year. In her brochure for potential tenants, Smiley points out area highlights including the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and destinations within the village, such as the museums, the glassworks studio, Art Ink., and the new gallery and loft spaces on Low Street. Smiley said she also recommends people take a stroll along East High Street, a historic district known for its Victorian homes. “I’ve seen little villages, big villages — but what I see here is the most beautiful village,” Smiley said. “The potential is here. There’s a sense of magic here and the transformation will happen. I’m certain of that.”

Cari Scribner

April 6, 2023April 11, 2023 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

POP-UP THOUGHT ON A RAINY THURSDAY.

Direction is a choice; move back home, move near your children, move for a job, but in my case, I move because my act in Saratoga will come to a close. I’m like a blank space between two paragraphs; it sounds like freedom, no commitments other than being the best I can be. Starting over in a new location is about redesigning within.

I’m still a nomad, searching for adventuresinlivingness. As I lay my head down on my pillow, the interim is asking me to be peaceful, faithful, and confident. It’s about time!

Reminds me of when I went off to college, a liberating extension of those early days when belonging to things didn’t matter, life mattered. If you are single and without children, this is the knife that we must slice into a piece we accept, or no peace will lull us to sleep.

ON THE ROAD FROM SOMEWHERE TO SOMEWHERE, I CAN’T REMEMBER. MAYBE SANTA FE TO SAN DIEGO.

Comment

WHAT IS A LOVE STREAM

September 23, 2022September 24, 2022 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

TWO EMBANKMENTS WEDGED BETWEEN A STREAM

THAT RIPPLES THE UK TO THE USA.

WHAT FALLS BETWEEN THE MEANDERING

USHERS GENTLE WAVES, LOVING CARESSES

SMASHES WHEN THE WAVES ARE EVIDENT.

SOAR TO BRING THEIR STREAM TO REST

TO FIND THE BEST

BELIEVING EXIST AND DESTINY FLOW

THEY DON’T KNOW

IF THE STREAM WILL ENTWINE

ENSNARE OR EMBRACE

EMBANKMENTS MEANT TO SHOULDER

UNTIL THEY ‘VE FOUND EACH OTHER

THE CHIMES IN OUR LIVES

June 5, 2022June 5, 2022 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

You see a chime, the moment it responds to a breeze, the sound is beautiful, like Chopin’s Nocturne 1. Sounds that accompany a descending light mist, or setting sun, but the chime improvises its sounds and movements when a vivacious wind girdles its ether. This abstraction reminds me of sensitivity. It can be soft and gentle, nurturing to the souls of those less peaceful, but when the velocity of attack hits, sensitivity is a walloping eruption of rage, drifting on uncontrollable. I’ve been punitively and cordially of being too sensitive. There are more good reasons to alter my sensitivity than not to, but the one reason that hovers above all else is that everything we do, feel and act in life needs revision. We should never stop evolving into more thoughtful, loving, or wise human beings. Every day, there is an opportunity to leap into saintly hood. It is the same with my writing it can be better.

The next adventure is closing in on me as foreclosure is over the June horizon. The dismantling of possessions brings me some sort of twisted alignment to my life. Picking and choosing what to pack, eliminating what Dodger and I bought together, and vacillating over treasures that are now more weight than worth. If I am ever to rest in one address, I’m sure it will be a headstone and a plot of dirt. I chose a destiny to relocate, and so the highway off-ramp will evolve, I just have to be patient.

It is the inner self that concerns me, and how I will adjust and adapt to leaving my favorite house. When I was thirty, I was afraid of getting married, and when I was forty, I was afraid of not having children. Now that I am sixty-nine, I have a fear that once was my chant, the idea of moving.

The word coddiwomple is English slang, defined as “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination”. If you are anything like me you may be coddiwompling your way through life, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS OR SOLITUDE

August 31, 2021September 17, 2021 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

IT’S CALLED NON-CONVENTIONAL but on our own personal level, if you fall in that broad culture and it is a unique and historically significant tribe, especially in the arts and the military. Artists skip from creating to counting change, very few make a comfortable living. The Military are more unconventional than any other profession. I’ve tried to imagine choosing to fight our wars knowing I could be shot or tortured.

Do you think that not choosing the basics: family, friends and a comfortable living are enough? They are, now I know that.

How did this become my spotlight, like a bulb that flickered and whispered, you thought you knew more. Well, I didn’t and now I am adapting my fictional life to nonfiction. Beginning with: relinquishing luxuries, vacations, replacing outdated or broken furnishings, buying my favorite designer garments, and most important a monthly budget. Now instead of withdrawing from my savings account, I am depositing. Friends and family pose a more rigorous effort to the depts. I’m a loner. There is nothing glamorous or mystifying about this stain at least not for me, more like solitude for longer periods of time.

Photo by Philip Townsend. London 1964

As I watch and hear the interviews of Veterans, Gold Star Families, Military groups, former Iraq and Afghanistan Marines, Army, The Navy and Airforce, and the ones left behind because their hero was killed have one knot that holds them together, and it is their family, their comrades in arms and friends.

It’s raining, the tiniest little drops, like new bourns. The sky is a saddened muted white gray, like it’s in mourning. Hoagie Carmichael is singing Two Little People, simple lines that rhyme. Without music, and I don’t listen as much as I did a month ago, I’d be in bed today, it is a day for music medics to carry my pen where it sinks.

I was selfish, spoiled, and myopic, now I am awake to eternal gratefulness for being born American.

Trying not to watch the news as my heart needs a reprieve from Afghanistan. I’ve never appreciated, honored, respected, and loved our Military more these past two weeks. Do you know that feeling? What happens next? Eventually this presses to a USA attack.

Buck up guys and dolls and be a civilian soldier.

VOTING HAS BEGUN ON TALEFLICK.

March 11, 2020March 12, 2020 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

IT’S HERE. “CRADLE OF CRIME-A Daughter’s Tribute” is LIVE in the TaleFlick Discovery contest.

Hi Readers:

Voting has begun on Taleflick for this week’s winner. It ends on Friday at 4:pm. CRADLE OF CRIME- A Daughter’s Tribute is on

Page 8. There you will see a voting button. Let’s win!

Head over to the TaleFlick Discovery page, where https://taleflick.com/pages/discovery all visitors to the site will be allowed to vote (once) ON CRADLE OF CRIME- A Daughter’s Tribute

https://taleflick.com/pages/discovery

Sojourn in Europe

September 5, 2016 ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Intersections between mid-late-life adults with youth; anyone under the age of forty is an adventure in livingness. I remember strangers that counseled; passed on a prized preface to life.

It was my first solo trip to Europe. Emboldened with the freedoms in every cupboard of life: abandoned career, home, and possessions I lived out of a suitcase for about a year. Three of those months were in Ireland, France, and Italy.

I was dining in Venice, alone, down to coupon crushing finances and no interest in going back to the USA. The rise to relocate plunged a new view ; find a job in a glass foundry or a museum, and rent a little room in Venice. The Venetians of my age, artistic, independent, and humanely trusting enchanted a woman who’d been sharking San Diego in commercial real estate. I got eaten alive. Venice was the shore that I wanted to curl around and become fluent in Italian, learn to cook, and wrap a scarf.

I was standing next to a bar-bistro melting in the lustrous conversational elan’ when a couple in their sixties approached me. The corner of the bar waxed us in and for the next hour, that man changed the direction of my life.

” Yea, I knew you were American. Where you live?

” San Diego.”

” Oh! I’d move there if I could. ” I cannot recall where they lived other than the Midwest.

“What kind of work do you do in San Diego?” He shouted.

“I was in commercial real estate–leasing and marketing.”

” Good for you! That’s a great career.”

” It was. I want to live here… in Venice

He set his wine on the counter, I remember that, and pulled at his trousers or tie, and then he said, “What would you do here?”

” I don’t know yet?”

” You can’t beat what you left. Are you crazy?”

Before I answered he continued a breathless sermon peddling the virtues of my life; not jumping into a fantasy, and to forget about moving to Venice. My references to challenge, adventure and change met more opposition than I’d expected. He deplored my naiveté. “You shouldn’t go through with it. San Diego has the best climate. It’s coming up in the world, not just a little getaway resort. If I were your father I’d bring you back myself. ”

They departed when his wife begged him to calm down and I returned to the evening’s allure. There was a scar left, an abrasion of my plan. Over the next few days, I met a group of Venetians, younger than me. After revealing my plan to live in Venice, they drew me into their group. I haven’t any diary of Venice, so the names and dialogue are absent. The memory is vague, a collage of framed vignettes. We went to a friend’s apartment, who had a spare room to rent. This friend, a young man with speedy senses whipped me around the apartment. He spoke English, with saucy speed, and he had more friends. By the end of the evening, I was tumbling in a wave of stimulation. It was too much too soon. The next week I was in Milan unknowingly colliding with Fashion Week.

After three months, my wardrobe was wasted from hem to neckline. My shoes: a pair of lace up boots, lace-up sandals, and flats. I landed in Milan at the Train station, and then where did I go? OH I remember. It was my last night with Julius; my traveling European Chef companion. We stayed at Relais & Châteaux, selections for three weeks. We dined and slept in surroundings that dubbed European film sets. I was dazzled and too overfed.

The last night with Julius was in a very chef gathering restaurant, busy waiters, lots of background noise; the place to say goodbye and not cry. After dinner, we strolled around the Piazza and window shopped.

” Look at these shoes. I’ve never seen shoes like this-not even in Beverly Hills. ” Julius chuckled at my unworldly impressionable outbursts. He enjoyed educating me on all things European.

” In Italy shoes are the most important part of the wardrobe.”

” You mean seriously. ” I asked.

” Oh Yes. They will judge you by your shoes. Not every one of course, but the important types will.”

The next morning I rose to the uncertainty of traveling without Julius. That’s when I got on a train headed for Annecy, France. I have no memory why Annecy, other than the couple I met at Lake Maggoire who might have suggested I visit the Southeastern part of France before going to Paris.

May 25, 2016June 11, 2016 ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

Santa Fe today

Santa Fe today, Friday the 13th. Listening to soundtrack of Man & a Woman, my lyrics, my movie. The end is what I imagine mine. The day was blowing cottonwood and white wisteria in a blow glow of dance. There is a certainty about my movements, different than yesterday. I declare this day of summer, sandals,pedicure, trying on my bathing suit, making a palette change, and putting on the ritz. The gloss and bronze, and maybe even going outdoors. Shopping and going to the Lowriders Day in Santa Fe.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

WHO IS BUGSY?

January 25, 2016January 25, 2016 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

LUCILLE CASEY SMILEY

All my life people have asked me the same questions:” What’s it like knowing your father is a gangster? How old were you when you found out? Aren’t you afraid of his friends? You know they kill people.”
I live in a temporary tide-pool, a lily
floating against the current, weighted
down by a suit of armor that shields me
from the beauty, love and freedoms stirring in my bud.

What seemed insignificant at the time was the diving board into my Dad’s history. I was watching a Bugsy Siegel documentary on my television in San Diego during 1993. It was the first one I’d seen. Three historians joined in on the violence Bugsy honored and esteemed. Half-way through the celebratory lynching of Bugsy and his pals, a reporter made the statement that ‘It’s obvious Allen Smiley was there to set Bugsy up for the hit.’ Andy Edmonds stated that Dad conveniently disappeared into the kitchen during the time of the shooting. It wasn’t until a photograph of my dad appeared on the screen; a man with thick graying hair that I noticed an expression I’d never seen, horrifying misery. I moved closer to the television to see his face up close. A kaleidoscope of emotions rose to the surface: anger, shame, curiosity, and disbelief. I was forty years old.
The first time I’d seen those photographs of Ben Siegel slumped on that sofa; an eye bleeding down his face was a day back in 1966 at the age of thirteen. My best friend Dena lived in Brentwood with her divorced mother and siblings. We hooked in the unfamiliar and confusing imbalance of a broken home life. Dena was suffering depression after her parents divorced and I was dangling from my father’s fingertips hopelessly conflicted after my mother died. Dena wouldn’t let a day go by without calling me. ‘Are you all right?’ She didn’t like my father and her reasons were mature beyond her years, ‘Your father scares me.’ After school one afternoon we stopped in the Brentwood Pharmacy. Dena was looking at the book rack and I was following along.
“Lily, my mother told me your father is in a book, The
Green Felt Jungle. It’s about gangsters. Wanna see if they have it?” I agreed to look because Dena was interested, but it meant nothing to me. She twirled the book rack around as I stood behind her watching.
“That’s the book! Let me look first and see what it says,” she whispered. I could feel her arm tense up as I grasped it.
“Oh my God! There he is,” she said. We hunched over the book and read the description of my father, “Allen Smiley, one of Ben Siegel’s closest pals in those days, was seated at the other end of the sofa when Siegel was murdered.” Dena covered her mouth with one hand and kept reading silently.
“What does that mean? Who is Siegel?” I asked.
“Shush–not so loud. I’m afraid to tell you this. It’s awful.”
“What’s awful? Tell me.”
“Bugsy Siegel was a gangster in the Mafia. He killed people. Your father was his associate.”
“I don’t think I should see this.” I turned around abruptly to leave the drugstore. Dena followed me out.”
“Lily you can’t tell your father you saw this book. Please don’t tell him I told you.”
“Why not?”
“My mother told me not to tell you. Swear to me you won’t tell your father!”
“I won’t. Don’t you tell anyone either.”
A few days later after Dad left for the evening I opened the door to his guarded bedroom. I walked around the bed to a get a closer look at the photographs on the wall. It was the first time I could read the inscription.

LIGHTS ON SANTA FE

November 28, 2015November 28, 2015 ~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

A NATIVE AMERICAN LIGHT SHOW.

YOU CAN BECOME WHO YOU DREAMED OF, DO WHAT YOU DREAMED OF IN SANTA FE , because Santa Feans do not care.

I heard this slogan a lot when I first moved here seven years ago. My understanding was vague, unrealized, and I didn’t think much about it until this winter. I began to approach strangers, walk across the street to the spa in a robe, or leave my pajama top under my sweater because I like the texture of it.
I’ve given up the diving board of scrutiny and plunge into the dreamy, stony, outdated, simplistic extravagance, and unrealistic vibe of Santa Fe.

I keep dreaming, and preparing, with a face blotched red by cold, that THE LIGHTS, SHADOWS, MOON AND CHARACTERS ARE MY BROADWAY FOR NOW. NOT FOREVER. EVERYTHING CAN BE TEMPORARY IF WE TAKE ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS.

ANAIS NIN ON PARIS

November 21, 2015November 22, 2015 ~ LouLou ~ 3 Comments

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

www.famousauthors.org

THE DIARY OF ANAIS NIN VOLUME SIX 1955-1966

“All of Paris is caressable, La ville caresse, la ville caressante, with its outer life all grace and wit, at heart a mystic lover, a philosopher, a man of taste. In its ancient decor, it is always youthful because its source of life is inner, and always renewed. The past is so vivid that it fills the streets. It is full. the magic of its unity and harmony of colors and textures and styles. When there were contrasts, they were contrasts between medieval somberness and modern gaiety. “

PARIS WILL NOT PERISH

November 15, 2015November 15, 2015 ~ LouLou ~ 5 Comments

I watched coverage today in Paris from an online British station. It is important to me. More important than writing or dressing or going out. The journalists were sympathetic, the interviews soulful, the images–silencing. I don’t believe prayers are enough. President Hollande declared war.

Last night I watched a French film, Lola, before I heard the news. This was a film of Paris as golden and grainy as autumn. I thought I must go to Paris. Today I still must go to Paris.