REAL POLITICS
Matter of Life or Death: American Bar Association (2013)
PENTALOGIES
On this early summer day in Marblehead, small wavelets splashed the freshly-painted hull as a light breeze navigated through the harbor. The ocean remained chilled while the moist tropical fog curved around the point. It was Marblehead 1966. Winter's memories of pungent, wafting wisps of Beqaa hashish recalled sheltering from the cold amid the dream-like chaos of mattresses, quilts, sleeping bags and warm bodies, in Plainfield. Along the Winooski, the valley fog lingered as the sun illuminated the bald head of the camel, its northern shoulders still rapped in white.
Ernest Rabinowicz quietly emerge behind us, stealthily watching Herb Lin encode imaginery resonances, feed in the yellow punch tape, and with awe and anticipation awaiting its clattering return on the teletype. On the still new couch hidden on this top floor oasis in the middle of MIT, was an open New York Times reading "BEIRUT, Lebanon—Tourists innocently visiting the magnificent Roman ruins at Baalbek, beautifully situated among the abundant crops of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, have been disconcerted to find themselves in the midst of the flourishing and nominally illegal hashish business. Drug peddlers offer their wares more or less openly among the columns of the ruined Roman temples—and then collect a fee for informing the police that the blond American with the blue ruck sack should be searched on departure from Beirut." It was January 15, 1971.
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Fifty plus years later, from curved driveway of a modest beachfront home on Lake Champlain, the solar panels on the roof the iron gray Mercedes Sprinter caravan would open, magically unveiling an endless, rising tapestry of doves, ten thousand in all, and ...,
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, . .
The The story will probably end here ninety years later ... but not before terrorists drones flatten the 1st Circuit Courthouse in Boston Harbor, and diverge to close the circle through Montreal, Manchester, and the Hamptons.
Prologue – “The Seventh Floor”
Two women lie on thin mats in Gaza, hostages of Hamas.
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One has been raped by senior commanders and marked for execution.
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The other, pregnant, enslaved by the family that guards them.
They speak quietly, gazing at the clouds, imagining gardens, music, and escape. They recall stories told by their great-uncles of Herzl in Paris at the Dreyfus trial, Weizmann’s mission to Jerusalem, and Einstein’s first journey to Harvard. One dreams of the stories her great uncle told, of his youthful days in Plainfied, Vermont - a student at Goddard College.
Their voices become the narration of the cycle. Their testimony frames the plays: the story of how drugs, money, music, and terror intertwined across decades.
Play I – “Chez Henri” (1960s–1970s)
Setting: a Vermont ski-town nightclub.
The women remember how countercultural havens like Chez Henri gave cover to early drug channels. Musicians played while smugglers whispered at back tables. Newton and Gilbert began their journey from bohemian smoke-filled rooms to global routes of Pakistani hashish.
Hostage narration: “They dreamed of freedom in song, but wove chains in secret. The laughter of skiers was cover for cargo meant for darker ports.”
Play II – “Atlantis Seized” (1980s–1990s)
Setting: Sag Harbor, Wall Street, Atlantis Weathergear offices.
Malloy, McManus, and Mordecai orchestrate corporate takeovers, laundering the Newton cartel’s profits into respectability. Luxury brands, yacht clubs, and music venues in the Hamptons provide new façades.
Hostage narration: “Money washed itself clean in boardrooms. Men who never held a gun signed papers sharper than knives. And yet, beneath the regatta music, we hear the same drums of power.”
Play III – “Bataclan” (1990s–2015)
Setting: Parisian concert hall.
Nightlife as freedom, joy, and escape — until terror strikes. The Bataclan massacre reveals how music venues, once havens of art, become theaters of blood.
Hostage narration: “We too once danced. We too once believed music was sanctuary. But they found us in the crowd, as they find all who dare to sing.”
Play IV – “Nova” (2000s–2023)
Setting: Negev desert, Israel.
The desert rave culture inherits the spirit of Chez Henri and Bataclan. The Nova Festival becomes the next chapter: music as freedom, destroyed by sudden terror. Survivors scatter through the dust as militants descend.
Hostage narration: “The desert was meant for stars and music. Instead, the sky burned. We heard their screams in our dreams before we lived our own captivity.”
Play V – “Ashes of Atlantis” (Post-2023)
Setting: hybrid courtroom, boardroom, and memoryscape.
Federal indictments, seized mansions, and shattered festivals echo through time. Survivors speak. Ghosts of Newton, Malloy, McManus, and Mordecai linger at the margins. The women hostages return in the final act, their stories unresolved, their lives hanging in the balance.
Hostage narration (final):
“We tell this not to be saved, but to be remembered. The empire of drugs and money, the theaters of music and murder, the names of Herzl, Weizmann, Einstein — all of them threads in a tapestry of longing. If we vanish, let the story not vanish. Let the clouds carry it farther than ships, farther even than bullets.” |
- Woodstock & Suzy Creamcheese
- Janis Joplin at Harvard Stadium
- Marblehead, the America's Cup, and Windsurfing
- Emma Lis, Maggie Trudeau and Dr. Gerald Bull
- Atlantis Weathergear, Davis, Mordecai, Salken, McManus
- MBL & Werner Erhard
- Malloy Air, The CARS and the Studio, the Lake Ontario cocaine trade
- CB Sports, Wayne Wetzel (HBS) and Werner Erhard
- Stephen Breyer, Underwood, Mordecai, McManus and Malloy
- Stuart Newton, Tom Gilbert, Malloy and Rhode Island,
- Samatha Smith & David Owens
- William Hill & the Implosion of the Vermont Supreme Court
- Marblehead, Mordecai, McManus, Romney, Sununu, Landmark & Medicine
- Stephen Breyer and the 1st Circuit Cover-Up
- First we kill all the lawyers - citizen Richard the brilliant
- Old Man Collapses
- Brilliant is the Day - Teledyne, Miller, CK, PXMB, and Wolf
- The Olympics - China and McManus
- The California Corrupt & Evil
- SARS-CoV2, Novavax, McManus & Wuhan
- Mossad in Marblehead
- Executing Kapos
- The Knights of Malta
- Jesuits Wars (Confessions & Redemptions from the Edict of 1593)
- Disaster at Hayam (The Physicians' Suicide)
- Histories Foretold
- Foreseeable Tragedies
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