Occasional Tangents
An Inordinate Fondness for Fast Cars
Posing with a 1939 Buick Special in Long Beach.
Around sunset today, I took the scenic road back from a
favorite cliffside locale and gasped. There with a serene ocean backdrop where
I had only a short time earlier spotted a whale and several dolphins and that
featured the graceful lines of Catalina Island rising out of its depths to
touch a neon pink-streaked sky, was an object that captured my full attention.
Nestled in a niche marked as a scenic turnout was a 1967 Chevelle SS worthy of an
over-rotated neck kink. Yup, I’m part of the muscle car-loving collective and, in fact feature one in Cage Raiders. I’m
not sure which weighs most heavily in my affection for these fast metal
machines. It might be the roar of teams of horses snorting and kicking from under
the hood, promising a wild ride. Maybe it’s the lines and design, the sneering grills and dart-tipped tail fins that drip confidence and set them apart from a homogenous sea of silver and black blobs that have
overtaken car design. It’s probably all of the above, but there it was: the sunset paled
beside that awesome car. I guess it’s always been that way. Check out my history with cars that was featured in the Daily Breeze on December 28, 2011, in the My
Turn column: South Bay Auto Adventures Not Always a Smooth Ride. http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_19626635?IADID=Search-www.dailybreeze.com-www.dailybreeze.com.
What's in a Name?
Jesse Duel Nena with my husband and son in 1998
A question that I often get is how I settled on the pseudonym, J.D. Pearl.
It’s based on my husband’s grandmother’s name, which was totally kick-ass-Annie-Oakley, if I’ve ever heard one. My hubby’s grandma was Arkansas through and through and always paid a compliment to everyone she met. It was as if Southern graciousness had been planted in her and flourished like a third-year Wisteria; stunning, strong and heady in its genuineness. She was a truly beautiful lady who had been given a seriously spectacular, yet somewhat formidable name: Jesse Duel. J.D. is a tribute to this wonderful lady. After fiddling around with last names, I came up with "Pearl," with the help of my friend, Mariana. "It's got bounce," she said and it's also got a feminine-tough quality.
If you don't have a cool namesake in your family or you need to come up with your superhero name pronto, this site may come in handy: http://online-generator.com/name-generator/fake-name-generator.php
It’s based on my husband’s grandmother’s name, which was totally kick-ass-Annie-Oakley, if I’ve ever heard one. My hubby’s grandma was Arkansas through and through and always paid a compliment to everyone she met. It was as if Southern graciousness had been planted in her and flourished like a third-year Wisteria; stunning, strong and heady in its genuineness. She was a truly beautiful lady who had been given a seriously spectacular, yet somewhat formidable name: Jesse Duel. J.D. is a tribute to this wonderful lady. After fiddling around with last names, I came up with "Pearl," with the help of my friend, Mariana. "It's got bounce," she said and it's also got a feminine-tough quality.
If you don't have a cool namesake in your family or you need to come up with your superhero name pronto, this site may come in handy: http://online-generator.com/name-generator/fake-name-generator.php
Cameron and me at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Army pvt. Elvis Presley reported for duty here in 1953. During the Wild West days, it was home of the infamous, Hell on the Border jail, where "Hanging" Judge Parker (1886) presided, & Jesse James & his gang, Wyatt Earp, & other outlaws were occasionally "housed." ~*~
All photography and art work by Silvia Nena, unless otherwise noted: ~*~
