Preparations for a Booksigning Party

It all started with Sam painting the painting for the cover of my book, a painting which we titled: "Teach Only Love" with a quote from the Course. Sam is a Brooklyn resident, and a native of Haiti. A French ACIM (UCEM) study group we had for a few years, started in his basement/studio. I live in the Bronx myself. Somewhere along the line Isma, another Brooklyn resident offered to help organize a booksigning, not to mention Bernice (also from Brooklyn) who is also helping with the same.

Then I was on the phone with Sam and he told me that he has an artshow coming up with his work and some Haitian artists to raise money for Haiti in the aftermath of the storms--four hurricanes in a row. What organization to donate to? Enter my friend Peter (see www.tr-ac.net.com), who knows his way around in these things, and we selected Fonkoze. The artshow opens on 9/25/08, and from memory I thought that was the official publication date of my book, which however seems to actually be September 26th, but who cares. We're having the book signing party at the opening of the art show, organized as a fundraiser for Fonkoze. The event is at Artisan Gallery, owned by Mery, who is a native of Senegal. Mery and Sam were brought together by one Percy Thomas, who is quietly orchestrating various parts of the program.

So we are having a suitably international event, typical New York, the city where at last count some 120 languages are spoken. And the coming together of this event in a very serendipetous and spontaneous manner is one of those experiences which sometimes makes people say: "Only in New York!", though we should not forget that spontaneous living is really our birthright, regardless of where we live-even in New York-if we only get our egos out of the way. The pictures above are of Mery and Sam discussing the planning for the event on September 16th.