Good Morning Gloucester

Sunrise at Squam Rock….

Photo: Paul Horovitz

ANTHONY WELLER OBITUARY

The American musician and writer, Anthony Weller passed away on June 3, 2021, at age 63, as a result of complications from primary progressive MS, which he had battled since 2006. A longtime resident of Gloucester, MA, Weller also lived on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus and in coastal Italy.

Born on September 18, 1957 in Macon, Georgia, Weller was the son of Gladys Lasky, a British ballet scholar and George Weller, an American war correspondent and novelist. Anthony Weller was a jazz and classical guitarist, he first studied the guitar at Phillips Exeter (class of ’75) with Walter Spalding and began playing professionally at 18. He took a degree in music at Yale, then moved to New York, where he was active in both genres. Weller also trained extensively as a composer with Julián Orbón, and wrote works for piano, orchestra, voice, and chamber ensembles, as well as for solo guitar. He left NYC to live in Amsterdam and Paris, before settling in the Boston area.

On classical guitar Weller was a longtime disciple of the virtuoso Rey de la Torre, one of the great guitarists of the 20th century and the most eminent disciple of Miguel Llobet. He performed and taught the world over and premiered the work of composers Julián Orbón, David Erlanger, Steven Kinigstein, and Robert J. Bradshaw. He also performed with the Boston Artists Ensemble, and with flamenco guitarists Valdemar Phoenix and Peter Regis in Guitarramania. He contributed a master class and a concert to both the 2004 and 2006 Newport Guitar Festivals.

Weller’s main jazz studies were with Allen Hanlon and Ike Isaacs; he also studied with Pat Martino and Tuck Andress. A greater influence were his friendships with London guitarist John Etheridge, with whom he gave concerts in the USA and the Middle East, and with legendary solo guitarist Tommy Crook of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He regularly collaborated with Turkish Cypriot pianist Arman Ratip, playing a hybrid of jazz and Turkish folk music.

While often performing solo, Weller was also part of four prominent groups. As a member of the Jon Jarvis Trio, he recorded with violinist Stéphane Grappelli and appeared in New York’s JVC Jazz Festival and at Birdland. He was a co-founder of Chamber Jazz, with trombonist Philip Swanson and reedman Michael Rossi. Starting in 1995, he was the guitarist with the trio of eminent trumpeter Herb Pomeroy. More recently he joined forces with vocalist Maggie Galloway and bassist Bob Nieske. He also performed frequently with clarinetist Billy Novick and bassist Thomas Hebb. In all, Weller released fifteen CDs, both classical and jazz.

While in New York he began to work as a journalist, traveling extensively throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, the South Pacific, Central America, and the Caribbean. Over the years he wrote more than one hundred and fifty articles for National Geographic Traveler, The Paris Review, Forbes, GEO, The New York Times Magazine, Gourmet, and many other periodicals. He received a Lowell Thomas Award for foreign reporting in 1993.

In 1996 Marlowe & Co. published Weller’s novel, The Garden of the Peacocks; the next year they released a travel memoir of India and Pakistan, Days and Nights on the Grand Trunk Road: Calcutta to Khyber; and in 1998 another novel, The Polish Lover. A third novel, The Siege of Salt Cove, was published by W. W. Norton in 2004. His last published novel, The Land of Later On, appeared in 2011.

Weller edited and wrote a long essay for First into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War (Crown, 2006, introduction by Walter Cronkite). This was the reporting by his father, George Weller, which had been blocked by censors at the time [September 1945] and thought lost to history until Anthony found copies among his late father’s papers. Acclaimed by historians, it was named by Kirkus one of the best books of the year. In 2009 Weller edited an enormous follow-up compilation for Crown of his father’s finest 1941-45 reporting, Weller’s War: A Legendary Correspondent’s Saga of World War II on Five Continents.

In 2021, Weller’s first book of poetry appeared, a set of forty sonnets to his wife, Sonnets of Death and Love, with images by artist Mary Heebner.

Weller is survived by Kylée Smith, his beloved wife of 24 years, and by a large community of friends and fans for whom his absence leaves a gap that will never be filled. The grace, determination, and courage with which he endured his cruel disease was an inspiration to all who knew him. A memorial service will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, please contribute in Anthony’s name to the charity of your choice.

Which one of these is not like the others?

Flag day.

Got the blues.

Home, at last.

Good afternoon CLASS OF 2021
Congratulations
I want to say thank you to all of your parents, care givers, relatives
and mentors who helped you through you Gloucester public school life.
Most of all, to all of your teachers, I offer my thanks to you for
helping this class reach their milestone in life — Graduation.
In addition to the recent pandemic, your class has also witnessed a
year of historic social change all across America and the world.
People are working to promote equality and justice for ALL people.
Over the last several years we have seen our society polarized by an
atmosphere of unfounded fear and lack of respect and understanding of
people’s differences.
Here at Gloucester High School, the administration, teachers and
school committee members have always created an atmosphere of growth,
trust and understanding.
This School understands that every individual is different and is
focused on respecting those differences while creating young adults to
lead — in Diversity, equity and inclusion. This was not forced on
students, you yourselves took the reins and showed the rest through
peaceful demonstrations, marches and commitment to make change against
bias, institutional racism and gender equality.
As you enter this next part of your life, with its higher learning,
working or just taking a break to travel and explore, you’ve got to
find what you love. Your work is going to fill a large part of your
life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe
is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you
do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with
all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
This is your time and it feels normal to you but really there is no
normal. There’s only change, and resistance to it and then more
change.
“You have to go through life with more than just a plan, you need
passion for change; you need a strategy, and then a plan. I want you
to have passion because trust me, passion gives us the drive.
“You and you alone are the only person now… who can live the life,
write the plan for you. Your education in the Gloucester Schools gave
you the guidance and the beginning of your future, now it’s up to you
to go forward and make it happen.
Learn from every mistake because every experience, encounter, and
particularly your mistakes are there to teach you and help you to
define who you are.
I was completely unprepared, when I became the Interim Mayor but my
own ignorance to my own limitations looked like confidence and got me
into the Mayor’s chair. Once there, I had to figure it all out, and my
belief that I could handle these things, contrary to all evidence of
my ability to do so, was half the battle. The other half was very hard
work, especially always coming to the unknowing like this pandemic,
the people in this community and the support of a team made this
experience the deepest and most meaningful one of my career.”
“Be the hero of your life, not the victim.” Help this country by
helping others not be victims of injustice.
Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen.”
Here I took a few minutes to talk about my friend Representative Ann
Margaret Ferrante
As we know she would love to be here unfortunately she dealing with
the C word, no one wants the call you have cancer( she’s doing great
and thanks everyone for all the prayers.) She’s a daughter of a
fisherman, Sicilian family, inner city kid.. She wanted you to know
never give up.
Words from Mother Teresa
​People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish,
ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful
friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be
honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy
overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give
your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and yourself. It
was never between you and them anyway.
Class of 2021 Dream Big, live Life, never give up.
Congratulations !!!

It’s Flag Day. Fly ’em if you got ’em. It’s Flag Day everywhere and this display in Ipswich is pretty impressive. The Rotary honors military heroes with this flag display that rivals our own boulevard flags. Kudos Ipswich!

The Gloucester Elks will be holding their annual Flag Day celebration today Monday June 14 starting at 6 PM at the club on Atlantic Road. Among other presenters and dignitaries, our own GMG Jim will be playing taps. The public is invited and encouraged to attend.

Use My Referral Code to get $15 On Your First Reservation on Dockwa, you’ll get $15 and I’ll get $10 in Dockwa Dollars. Use Referral Code: J4ME4 On your first reservation after you download the app

You download the app, and then search for your destination and it gives you all the options as well as user submitted reviews to help you decide which place to stay. It’s really brilliant.

Expert negotiators, marketers, researchers and hand-holders, we both will cheerfully and resourcefully usher you to closing. Our vibrant personalities make us the most welcome guides as we will do anything within our power to assure that the process of purchasing or selling a home is a joyful one. We have both grown up and raised families on the North Shore. You couldn’t be in better hands than those of ours as you make choices for you and your family.

McCarthy Ciaramitaro Group

Global Real Estate Advisors

Engel & Völkers By the Sea

120 Main Street

Gloucester , MA 01930

978-729-1239

mccarthyciaramitarogroup@evrealestate.com 

mccarthyciaramitarogroup.evrealestate.com

Dear friends,
Our telephone rings every day with friends and patrons asking when Duckworth’s will reopen. As a small, 36 seat restaurant without space for an outdoor dining option, we were not able to take advantage of the partial openings that bigger restaurants have enjoyed. Over the past 15 months, we have so missed seeing you and all of our friends from Cape Ann and beyond.

Everyone in our extended Duckworth family, “ cast and crew”, is looking forward to seeing you again . . . celebrating with you again . . . and feeding you again! We know there is a great deal of pent up interest in private celebrations that have been deferred for a year or more.

Daisy patch….

Photo: Paul Horovitz