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Review in Centrifugal Eye, Eve Hanninen, Editor: Double Wow

Posted on December 26, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Review of  This Mobius Strip of Ifs in the Autumn 2012 issue of  “The Centrifugal Eye” online literary magazine, pages 81-83 reprinted below: 

Reflections on Rummaging

by D. J. Bryant

Mathias B. Freese first appeared in The Centrifugal Eye’s web pages in the form of an anomalous review of short stories from his collection, Down to a Sunless Sea (2007), by TCE staff writer Ocalive Olaopa Mwenda. (Visit TCE’s archives to read Mwenda’s Absence of Light: Quirks of Dark.*) While Matt Freese is not a poet, his stories and essays are often poetic in tone, and this now-retired teacher and psychotherapist has written often on the subject of writing — a theme always welcome in our journal.

The essays in This Möbius Strip of Ifs were written over four decades, according to Freese, and many were previously published. The first in this collection, “To Ms. Foley, with Gratitude,” even won the Society of Southwestern Authors Award for personal essay/memoir. To whet your appetites, I’ll reveal that “Ms. Foley” was none other than Martha Foley, editor of The Best American Short Stories series (1941-1977).

Recently, This Möbius Strip of Ifs won 2012’s National Indie Excellence Award in the category of non-fiction, and was a finalist for Dan Poynter’s 2012 Global eBooks Awards (Autobiography/Memoirs) .

Award-winning or not, what I enjoyed most about Freese’s essay collection, without question, was his storytelling. Even though the essays within are non-fiction, many are descriptive, concrete narratives. They read, sound, feel like stories. From the classroom to the therapist’s couch to the family-shadowed corners of childhood. Freese accredits this “richness” to having “lain down ‘pilings,’ details on which the story’s scaffolding rests.”

At almost 200 pages of prose, I’m not about to give you a rundown on all the pieces in Möbius Strip, but if I rummage around a bit and pull out some choice scraps from Freese’s memory bag, you’ll get the drift. Right away, I come up with “Teachers Have No Chance to Give Their Best” (pg. 14). While the essay is meant to be a rant, it’s also an honest telling (and yes, a story) about the state of urban high-school ignorance — concerning English, reading, writing, and especially culture, where many students “are sorely confused about their own ethnicity so as to be misinformed of the heritage of others.” Especially sorry case in point: “No one in the advanced tenth grade English class has the
foggiest notion who King Kong is.”

Matt Freese admits a leaning towards Freud (like so many of us), and he’s well-enough read on him to engage us with witty, analytical anecdotes (unlike so many of us who misunderstand or misquote because we haven’t read enough). Freese explores this idea in “Freud’s Cheerful Pessimism”(pg. 27). Other psychologists and psychotherapists will likely agree with Freese when he says “there is much to be said for the analytic approach. All of life is an expression, our expression, to put things into words or to act upon the world. Choose your flavor; I became a writer, others harpoon whales. We all need to make the unconscious conscious, a working definition of psychotherapy that has Freudian salt in it, like a good lox.”

And how about Gulliver’s Travels? Think it’s a kid’s story? Freese will have you grinning like a reaper’s scythe as he links Yahoos to bloggers in another rant he refers to as a “howl.” (Personal Posturings: Yahoos as Bloggers, pg. 42.) It is particularly enlightening to discover how literary reviewers, such as myself, are compared to review bloggers — are we so different? Freese thinks we are, if we’re honest and don’t go about “shoving chicken fat” up authors’ asses.

Speaking of authors, many of you can relate to the careful crafting decisions we must often make, whether these include selecting a point-of-view, or carving unrelated details or sloppy repetitions from an overripe manuscript. Freese’s essay, “In First-Person” (pg. 51), takes a self-critical and accepting look at his own emblematic choices when it comes to writing and editing his stories. A
self-proclaimed tinkerer, he’s learned to wait for his stories’ ends to come to him. Or not.

The essays I liked most in Möbius Strip have something in common; they include nostalgic and multicolored portraits of family members: Matt Freese’s parents, uncle, grandmother. These remembrances also conjure scenes thick with longing, frustration, and oppressed anger. Freese refers to his upbringing as one of “benign neglect,” not from a lack of wants or needs, but “a lack of mothering and fathering.” Still, his parents influence heavily the texture of his writing here.

“Trains = Holocaust and Other Observations, Railfans” (pg. 63) explains Freese’s obsession today with trains and scale models — and how this interconnects with a decision his father made over 50 years ago.

In “Grandma Fanny” (pg. 150), we get to meet his maternal grandmother who was a wayfarer and hoarder, never content to stay for long in any one place, but full of unexpected charms when it suited her. And there are other characters among these essays. Wives, daughters, a son. Freese opens up, maybe sometimes telling more than you want to hear, other times just enough to flood you with empathy.

What was least appealing to me in Möbius Strip was a consistent, mud-dark bitterness that flowed unceasingly from Freese after some of his “howls” hit their crescendos. I can understand degrees of animosity and frustration, especially in light of negative life experiences, but sometimes it overwhelmed my appreciation for the “stories.” I’m not a shallow reader, by any means, and I don’t shy from confessional writing. Yet, I wasn’t a fan of what sounded like potential grudges and unresolved anger that might be skewing Freese’s point of view.

Isn’t this a matter of personal tastes, though? Rightly so. Matt Freese echoes what many of us writers and poets think, feel, and hope to express in our writing as we continue to head, irreversibly, into our twilight years. Sure, yeah, some of us are frustrated, angry, even disgusted with the state of the world. And it’s going to show some of the time.

If you enjoy essays on cultural icons, books, and movies, you’ll like the section called “Metaphorical Noodles,” which noodles about a number of theater and screen actors; and “Babbling Brooks and Motion Pictures” (pg. 112) is essentially a biographical essay of books and stories that impacted Freese’s thinking. He’s got some informative things to say that might lead you to your next good read. Or write.

Freese ends this collection with an essay on something I’m prone to do every time I move house or clean out my files: “rummaging.” You know, it’s where you start sorting papers from folders or boxes that are at least 4-25 years old with the intent to “clean out.” You get through a few pages of a typed document, and then you come across a couple of torn, handwritten notesheets of quotes or quickly-jotted lines of poetry, an old letter you saved for some sentimental reason— and you go sit down and start to read them all instead of tossing them. For you writers, it is often more important to find and re-examine those keepsake scraps than it is to actually “clean out” your office or desk. Freese’s “Reflections on Rummaging” surely bears this out, although my wife would probably be more impressed by a neater office.

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Poet, Editor, Alyce Wilson of Wild Violet Magazine, Reviews My Book

Posted on December 8, 2012 by | 1 comment

Review: “This Mobius Strip of Ifs”

December 5, 2012 at 2:40 pm , by Alyce Wilson

This Mobius Strip of IfsThis Mobius Strip of Ifs by Mathias B. Freese

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wild Violet Magazine.

How does one summarize an entire life of more than 60 years? When faced with this ominous task, too many self-published writers produce rambling, episodic narratives that fail to capture the true drama and beauty of their lives. Fortunately for author Mathias B. Freese, he is a gifted essayist who has been writing essays for decades. By collecting his favorite pieces, he gives readers insights into both his personal life (which is, sadly, full of tragedy) and his views on such topics as education, psychotherapy, blogging, and, of course, writing. The book, as a result, is one part personal memoir and one part intellectual analysis.

This combination elevates the book, but it also means it is a book best read slowly. Readers are likely to find themselves pausing to contemplate the message behind each essay. Freese is direct and opinionated, and he often takes an opinion counter to popular thinking. Take, for example, the essay “Teachers Have No Chance to Give Their Best,” where he begins by railing against students for their “puerile minds” and “vacuity.” But while these words are harsh, he lays the blame squarely on teachers. As a former teacher himself, he strongly suggests that schools need to do more to encourage creativity and self-reliance.

Just when it seems he has given up, labeling the educational system as “a great Arctic mammoth wandering aimlessly,” he offers up a glimmer of hope: “Take any five decent, well-intended, creative and committed teachers and administrators, people who care, people in passion, free men and women, and one could wreak a reformation in weeks.”

Such is the power of these essays: he sets up problems in stark language, but he also points to the possible positives that we, as a society, could reach for. Whether writing about the challenges of the current publishing scene or the historical record of the Holocaust, he shows readers both the ugliness and the beauty of each topic. He shares valuable insights from his time as a psychotherapist, and he waxes eloquent on some of his favorite movies and classic film actors.

The personal essays in the back of the book provide a look at his family’s trials and grief. From the tragic loss of both his first wife and his daughter, to coping with memories of a neglected childhood, he writes powerfully when he is at his most personal. In many ways, these essays might have been a better way to begin this collection, since it would have helped to provide a real sense of the writer, in a personal way, before the denser, academic pieces.

This is a book that will stay with the reader, that will occasionally pop up as an undercurrent to conversations. While it doesn’t quite reach the heights of his fiction masterpiece, The i Tetralogy, it is a thoughtful, compelling read.

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by Mathias B. Freese

On December 6, 2012 at 11:55 am

Thank you for capturing my stance: “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” — Kazantzakis (epitaph).

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Posted in Articles and Reviews, This Mobius Strip of Ifs

Interview: Mathias B. Freese by Vibha Sharma

Posted on November 28, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Interview : Mathias B. Freese

fiction

by | on April 30th, 2012 | 1 comment

Mathias B. Freese is a multifaceted personality who is a teacher, a psychotherapist and an author. I got a chance to read and review(here) one of his books – ’This Mobius Strip of Ifs’ and was quite impressed by his writing style and the sincere way in which he has shared his life with his readers.
It was a pleasure to conduct an e-interview with him for our readers here.
1. When did you start writing your experiences in the book form ? How has been the writing experience so far?
I have been writing since 1968, although at age eighteen my high school yearbook published a poem by me which was so misunderstood and so savagely edited that I didn’t recognize it when it was in print. An English teacher got carried away and omitted the underlying theme of depression which I was experiencing when I wrote it. Unknowingly she compounded my resentment. It was the repressed Fifties, so what else is new? The next effort was ten years later in a short piece for an education journal which revealed or uncorked my disenchantment with teaching content in the classroom. After that my full-blown neurosis composed of despair, depression and rage revealed itself in 1974 when I had “Herbie” published, my first major short story. (See my first short story collection, Down to a Sunless See.) As you know the first essay in This Mobius Strip of Ifs , explores my serendipitous and synchronous adventure with that particular story. In any case after being listed with Mailer, Oates, Singer and other greats, I felt very encouraged and continued to write.
Rejections cooled my ardor but I never quit. Indeed, I promised myself that I would set out to write the best stories I could and at a later date have them published. This self-promise took thirty or so years. Characterologically this effort says so much more about me than as a writer. So as Spencer Tracy once said about Kathryn Hepburn in one of their collaborations, what there is of her is “cherce.” Consequently I don’t quit. I persevere. The only audience I write for is me and if you like what I have written, so be it.
My writing experience can be extracted in a sense from Kazantzakis’s epitaph: “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”
2. What has this literary journey taught you and enriched you with?
Vibha, this question is the equivalent, as I think about it, of assessing my very life which by the way is what I have done on a regular basis over the years and decades, in short, pungent, I hope, open and feeling essays. We are all born to be done away with. Again I go to an epitaph to help reflect, this time Epicurus: “I was not; I have been; I am not; I do not mind.” Much wisdom and therapy in that remark, for Epicurus, rightly so, believed that philosophy should be a kind of therapy.
But readers of this interview want something else, don’t they, Vibha? (Happy talk?) An aspect of myself is not to please others but that while I write I share my experience with you, with me first. I have enriched my literary journey, not the other way around. I give to my writing and I learn in that way to write better. Krishnamurti famously said in one of his dialogues, “The word is not the thing itself.” So all my writing is just an approximation of what turmoil, tumult and insight I have about my human condition. As we all should know, to cite Christopher Hitchens, we are only partially rational, animal, and often savage at that, and our human genome controls the robot that we are.
3. Which has been your most satisfying writing experience so far?
The i Tetralogy, my extensive take on the Holocaust, represented much of who I am as a Jew and human being, of my growing up Jewish in America. In that novel I put all the skills, imagination and heartfelt renderings I could about man. I have gone beyond Wiesel’s affirmation that indifference is not tolerable any longer. I have arrived at a different assessment based on my reading, psychotherapeutic experience, my atheism – free of religious conditioning, the bane of civilization, and I have gone into the unexplored country. Man is out of control, always has been, genetically so! In a few years we all will be reading about evolutionary psychology, the additional scientific work based on Darwin’s theories which have emerged in the 90s. Dawkins, Dennett, Ridley, Wright will become well-known names, and what they have to report based on immense scientific studies can be summed up in Richard Dawkins words: “We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecule known as genes. This is a truth that still fills me with astonishment.” The Selfish Gene Consequently writing about the Holocaust allowed me to examine the nature of man so genetically far beyond Hobbes’s “short, nasty and brutish” assessment.
This Mobius Strip of Ifs, I believe, has given me the most pleasure because I was freewheeling in my approach and many essays were written over four decades and reflected the thinking I had at different stages of my adult life. Upon reflection, the book is about the emergence of a self. It was an assessment of myself and now at 71 I see where I had trod and what lay before me. Ironically it was you or someone else who wrote that the book was a profound self help one which, I feel, is an oxymoron.
Nevertheless, this made me think and if it is so, that I have made others go back to my book, chew and digest it, that is a delightful gift to this writer’s life. My working hypothesis is that this book is from an inner directed person, and that is uncommon. Recently the American Psychiatric Association deleted Narcissism from its manual of disorders, DSM IV or V. That is, most Americans are now narcissistic and what was formerly a disorder is now the norm. All those learned interventions I had acquired for dealing with this disorder goes out the window. So when an American goes overseas and wants a house and insists that it have an American bathroom, that kitchentop counters be made of granite, that all appliances be stainless steel only testifies to our lunacy, not our so-called normalcy. By the way, the essential trait of a narcissist is his or her emptiness, the rest is all bluff.
4. Are all the essays in ‘Mobius Strip of Ifs’ taken truthfully from your own life or do they have some fictional elements
too? How comfortable do you feel opening your feelings in front of the world?
Easy to answer. My life is non-fiction. I will not play shrink here, but I gather individuals are uncomfortable with my openness. An English Academic, who I have 50 years on, cited this difference between English and American writers. Americans are into Whitman, Thoreau, Ginsburg and British writers, except for Hitchens and a few others, are constipated, to be blunt. Brits, unlike Ginsburg, cannot howl. I can’t think of an English equivalent to Hart Crane. To make my point, this academic was displeased with my plumage. Oh I couldn’t care less because she cannot see through her own conditioning.
Having spent years in treatment and working on myself by reading Krishnamurti, I have no qualms about expressing my feelings openly, not disguised as in novels and short stories. The personal essay fits my personality and I use it as best I
can. Think about this: the real task of a good shrink is to make the unconscious conscious and human beings have a terrible time arriving at revealing themselves. We really do not communicate well as a species. We are gelatinous vats of suppressed and repressed feelings and awarenesses. When you can break through, you are free.
I struggle to be psychologically free. I can say that all my writing is about my need to be psychologically free, of myself, especially you, and of the world which conditions 24/7. And the worst felon in all this is the monolithic and mammoth conditioning of religion which is the dragon at the gate. Freud argued (The Future of an Illusion) that to become free of this conditioning brings you into full adult maturity as a human being. Religion is man -made. (Pause.) Consequently it is corruptive.
5. What do you intend to write next? When is it expected to be published?
The next book is already finished and I am thinking of how to go about getting it published. I have submitted it to several online magazine contests, but most likely I will have to self-publish it myself.I will not engage agents on this because it is so time intensive to acquire one I’d rather go the other alternative routes. After all, I do not have a vast readership nor do I devote many hours to promoting the book. I try to do what I can but I refuse to be sucked into rampaging capitalism which is all the rage across the internet, the hustling, self-promoting, the slobber at some writers’ mouths as they urge you to read this or that.
So here is a synopsis of my next book. No one who encounters the Holocaust seriously is ever done with it.
I Truly Lament, is a varied collection of stories, inmates in death camps, survivors of these camps, disenchanted Golems complaining about their tasks, Holocaust deniers and their ravings, and collectors of Hitler curiosa (only recently a few linens from Hitler’s bedroom suite went up for sale!) as well as an imagined interview with Eva Braun during her last days in the bunker. The intent is to perceive the Holocaust from several points of view.
An astute historian of the Holocaust has observed that it is much like a train wreck, survivors wandering about in a daze, sense and understanding, for the moment, absent. No comprehensive rational order in sight.
In my award-winning Holocaust novel, The i Tetralogy, considered by some an important contribution to Holocaust literature as well as a work of “undying artistic integrity” (Arizona Daily Sun) I could not imagine it all, and this book of
stories completes my personal struggle. Within the past year 10 stories have been published online and in print from this collection, the most recent “Slave” published in Del Sol Review in December 2011.
I will promote my present book and by year’s end publish the new one.
6. What were your thoughts when you started writing iTetralogy ? What unique thing did you want to convey on the Holocaust that has not been done before?
Allow me to depart a little from the question and express my thoughts in this fashion To have survived the Holocaust is to have been gutted as a human being. The inner self is ravished. Whether or not one recovers from that is beyond comprehension.
All literary depictions of the Holocaust end as failures, perhaps revealing shards of understanding. And is understanding ever enough? Writing about the Holocaust is a ghastly grandiosity.The enduring mystery of the Holocaust is that memory must metabolize it endlessly and so we must try to describe it, for it goes beyond all imaginable boundaries. One soon realizes the fundamental understanding that the species is wildly damaged, for only a damaged species could have committed the Holocaust.
No great piece of art, no technological achievement or other historical creation of mankind can ever expunge the Holocaust.
Human beings are so much less than we give them credit for. If we begin here perhaps books can be written about the Holocaust – without blinders or eyelids, although by definition they will fail. Every artist who struggles with the Holocaust must begin with an acceptance of failure and that must be worked through before art begins.
I have come up short here. I must say what I have to say as a man, as a Jew, and be done with it. I feel deeply the flaw within as part of this species. I am ashamed.
By name and nomenclature, the Holocaust is but an approximation of what happened. The species cannot grasp its nature. The artist will only succeed marginally if he or she manages to drive that home.
The eternal perseveration of the species has become the Holocaust. We will never be done with it. We will never work it through.
7. You are a teacher and a psychotherapist – which of these two vocations excite you more or is more satisfying, other than writing. While working in the capacity of a psychotherapist, which do you think are the most common human frailties and strengths?
As a psychotherapist I can engage human beings, at times, at very profound levels, not in the classroom. Most schools condition human beings, that is their real task – to indoctrinate, to be an American or to be French. By working with my fellow human beings I began to grow as well, and as you know, Vibha, in This Mobius Strip of ifs I write about the telling
consequences of being a client and a practitioner. For me treatment helped this soul to become much more free, more open, more expressive, although I still work on those potholes we all have.
I am not an expert on human happiness, frailties and strengths. No one is an expert. As I age I realize I know shit. Perhaps other than techniques, therapists should keep that in mind, all “professionals.” Look at the world about – it is in chaos, those in charge are not in charge themselves, think of Clinton’s errant penis, Cheney’s need to devour human beings by sending them off to war, Sarah Palin who did not know that there was a North Korea and a South Korea.
I’d pose your question another way. What can I do to become aware, and what can I do to decondition myself so that I can see clearly”? In that is hope.
8. Could you please give suggestions to budding authors on how to make their writing more effective and meaningful?
Advice sucks. Whatever advice I have received I had to process through my own machinery. So if you want to lick at the waters of advice-givers, make sure that your machinery is working real well and that you can discern good from bad.
Let me specify. It is an old cliché to writers that they should write between 500 to 1000 words a day over years. And what if you cannot?
Well, I had to work and feed the family. I wrote in study halls while I taught; I wrote late into the night when I could. I fought off despair all those years through sheer grit and bullheadedness. I just wanted to write to exorcise my dybbuks. I never thought of myself as a writer. I was an auto-didact. What I have concluded is that you do your best, learn what you can, use what seems useful and forget all the bullshit – you know, 10 ways to have your book reviewed, how to write a query letter to a blogger, how to get an editor, and how to promote you work before you even write it (book as package). I don’t know about you but I am fatigued. We do all this fussing as each day we move closer to our end. Ecce Homo.

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By Fran Lewis, Reviewer, on Amazon

Posted on October 4, 2012 by | Leave a comment
5.0 out of 5 stars Self Awareness,October 3, 2012
This review is from: This Möbius Strip of Ifs (Paperback)

This Mobius Strip of Ifs
Author: Mathias Freese

What if everyone lived within the inside of a box so thick that they could not see what was behind the corners or upper lid and never realizing what lies behind the confines of this box? What if you world was so fragile and breakable that all you see is what is right in front of you and not what is around you? What if you lived inside the shell an uncooked egg and each time you moved around just a little bit of the shell came apart and what you begin to see is not what others want you to see but what is really there? For the first time you view the world, slowly at first and then when the entire shell cracks and is no longer protecting you within its shell you begin to see, question, listen and explore the amazing world that has been hidden from you for so long? What if students were encouraged to asked questions and received more than just the expected or canned answers written in the teacher’s edition of a textbook? What if students were actually taught not spoon-fed and required to seek what is deeper than what appears on the printed page of a textbook that is outdated as soon as it is printed. New information is recorded daily on the net, new research is done everyday and textbooks are only current until a new one is written and more information added which outdates the first but soon that one too.

Personal awareness just how much value do we place on it. Just how do we deal with disappointment? This Mobius Strip of Ifs refers to an essay the author wrote titled “Herbie,” chosen to appear in an anthology in a magazine. But, sometimes misprints and mistakes are made and are corrected. Other times some go unnoticed or just left the way they are because fate you might say steps in a plays its own hand. The editor of Graffiti informed the author that his short story titled “Herbie,” published in that magazine was listed in Martha Foley’s The Best American Short Stories of 1975. It was placed in the section “Distinctive Short Stories of 1974.” Thinking about which authors whose company he would be in the author then realized something else upon closer look. Excited and living in his own world of personal blind ambition and like some self-absorbed he states he soon realizes that the name the article listed as the author was not his but that of H.T. Kirby Smith. Writing the Martha Foley he received a reply. She was the founder of the magazine and apologized for her error, penned a formal note but passed away before rectifying the error. Regardless of the error in authorship it does not negate the fact that he wrote it and it was acknowledged for its excellence. The author instead of dwelling on this decided to continue writing, learned from it and used it as a valuable validation of his writing ability. What if they never made the mistake? Would he have come to the same revelations he reveals in this book? “A Mobius Strip is essentially a ribbon with a twist,” as, stated in the foreword of this book. Life does not provide us with a clear path without its on snags, twists and turns and the definition certainly fits the many situations and experiences the author shares with the reader. Imagine if we explored life and allowed ourselves to find out more about the “possibilities outside of our perception.”

What if teachers were allowed to teach without the constraints of curriculum guides, paperwork and text? What if students were encouraged to become more aware of whom they are and what they want to be rather than what is expected of them? What if students were not consumed with grades, getting ahead, money and become their own person without being victims of the world created for them by their parents and friends. What if teachers like our author did not become frustrated by having to tell his students rather than have them inquire? What if he could actually engage them and not watch them take notes or hang on his every word? What if educators actually challenged their students and allowed them to master things on their own? Teachers as he relates seen confined, distrusted and are not empowered.

Aging has taken its toll in the author as it does with most people. Defining and observing the changes within his physical appearance, his attitude and perspective is shared with the reader in Chapter 2. No one asks to age or get older. You hope to but the changes we see are not always what we want to accept but we have no choice. Two books published is definitely a great accomplishment. Making something of his life he certainly did. Sharing with the reader that he overcame obstacles, adversity and life’s difficulties might encourage more to take on his way of thinking and understand the meaning of his What ifs. Chapter 3 he shares his view on how he lives his life untidy and a great email from a student. The Unheard Scream is a letter that he addresses to all of his students trying to explain what they should be looking of in life, searching for their own answers, not taking just what we give them as gospel and learning to think about ” what they will do here on earth?” Have you ever asked a young person what or where they see themselves in ten years? You might be surprised of not so surprised at the answers you will get.

An artist creates a picture or painting defining his work through his art. A therapist the author states should be well read in art, music and literature. The many definitions and references to his vocation are interesting as he sates as a therapist he is an outsider. I often get the feeling as I read each essay that the author places a different part of him within the framework or structure of the theme presented. Throughout this chapter he allows the reader to share his profession, explain his role and how the therapist uses himself as an instrument. As the layers unfold you begin to feel that each part is a separate scene in a movie or special documentary dealing with each aspect of this thinking, vocation and perspective on life. As he tells the reader about the impact a client has on him and how the client is the best facilitator of information helping the therapist understand not only the needs of the client but the therapist too. The Ten Canons explained on pages 36-38 are almost ten ways to deal with pain, remorse, lies and self-esteem.

Mr. Freese includes some well written, straightforward essays that express his viewpoints and thoughts on many topics. I don’t think he is trying to sway the reader into thinking his way or convincing you that you have to agree with his point of view. Frustrated with the teaching profession he airs his views and explains in many chapters that students were primarily concerned with grades, when and if they will graduate and what monetary value can they attribute to the careers that their parents might have chosen or someone at the school might have suggested. He included essays on Buster Keaton, Peter Lorre, Orson Welles and Kazantzakis. For lovers of movies and books you might want to read “Babbling Books and Motion Pictures.” What if what you were taught as a child was wrong and has no bearing on what you need to help you in life as an adult? Simply stated in one sentence: The task of each one of us is to be free of the other and ultimately free of one’s own inner constraints.” Self-awareness and thinking for yourself without being programmed by the schools, parents and your friends would be quite compelling and interesting to see how students would handle being able to think more critically and intuitively on their own.

Essays about his family discusses his early life, his childhood, his middle years and an aging grandparent, a daughter with Chronic Fatigue and Immune Syndrome and essays that reflect the many stages of his life. Uncle Seymour who had a powerful impact on him and who allowed him to finally learn to accept and express his own thoughts and emotions guiding him to become a therapist. Added in we learn about his divorce, his thoughts about Freud, experienced as a therapist and how he came to find and learn his own personal truths.

The second half of the book Metaphorical Noodles includes the work of many actors and filmmakers who strived for the same things students should in school artistic or educational freedom. In the movie business directors and producers strive to create movies as they see it or the writer sees and often the actor’s thoughts and creative input are pushed aside. Within the third section we learn more about his daughter Caryn her struggle with Chronic Fatigue Immune Syndrome and taking her own life. Losing his wife in 1999 in a car accident and his Grandmother Fanny whose story you need to read and his Uncle Seymour whose many actions described will definitely surprise the reader. In I Had A Daughter Once the author shares his raw and inner emotions about losing his daughter. “Cameras as Remembrances of Things Past,” allows the reader to understand the power of the lens and how taking pictures can recreate moments in your life, family history and allow you to relive them everyday you look at them. To me it keeps the person alive in your heart and mind giving you your history. What if the cameras and reels of film that you have in your home could speak for you and create their own movie of your life? This final section called Seawall allows the reader to hear the author’s thoughts and share his feelings about his children, losing his wife and his own personal losses allowing the reader to reflect on their own.

But, there are positives in his life and his son Jordan brings the light out in the author’s eyes as he is watching him write a screenplay, decide on who is and is watching him find his way as an artist. The final chapter I would like to reflect on is I Really Don’t Know Me and I Really Don’t Know You as the author in this chapter reflects on his life, his downward spiral toward extinction as she says and realizing that he and is son are blind toward each other. Relating how he walked with his Uncle Seymour to the Jewish bakery to get a rye bread reminded me of sharing a rye bread as a child with my grandfather. What happens to the rye that his uncle bought was traumatic for the author and the total incident will explain why when you read it. He was also the cause of destroying his sense of trust when he tried to teach him how to swim and what happens will surprise you as he thought he was going to have swim lessons but instead he almost drown. Reflections on Rummaging rounds out the book and is the final essay is a final accounting of everything he reflects on in this book while sitting in his garage facing many boxes filled with his life’s history. But, this book allows you to rummage through the mind of this therapist, father, complex man and try and understand your own Mobius Strip If’s? What if we all thought the same way? What do you think would happen?

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Posted in Articles and Reviews, Books, This Mobius Strip of Ifs