Month: June 2018

Lit from Within

Posted in Akoya Pearls, Collecting, Empress Dowager Cixi, Jewelry, Memoir, Pearls, Tahitian Pearls, Uncategorized1 Comment

It was our wedding anniversary. We were dining at a restaurant on the Brooklyn waterfront, the kind of place where everyone dresses well. A river view at sunset, beautiful flowers everywhere, a pianist playing inoffensively somewhere in back. The food was disappointing, but the evening was redeemed by a woman at a nearby table. She… Continue reading Lit from Within

Singing the Blues

Posted in Art Deco Jewelry, Collecting, Jewelry, Lapis Lazuli, Memoir, Uncategorized, Zuni fetishes6 Comments

In the 1970s, when I was in my twenties, I belonged to a spiritual community that, on balance, did me a lot of good. My boss was convinced it was a cult, and when 900 members of the Peoples Temple drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in Jonestown, Guyana, he begged me to leave my community before something… Continue reading Singing the Blues