The $55,000 voting system installed in the Senate chambers on St. Thomas late last year has yet to be put to the test.
The electronic voting system was put in place by former Senate President Vargrave Richards at the end of the 23rd Legislature. But delays kept the system from being used during the marathon sessions in December that marked the end of the Legislature's term. Nor was the system used during the 24th Legislature’s first session in early January under the presidency of Sen. Almando "Rocky" Liburd.
And that has prompted another senator to question whether $55,000 in taxpayers’ money has been squandered.
"I urge you to not allow the people’s money to be spent in vain," Sen. Adlah Donastorg wrote to Liburd on Wednesday. "I am personally willing to begin using this new system as soon as is possible…"
Liburd, who is part of the new Senate majority bloc, said the new Legislature is still in transition, so he hasn’t had time to look into the issue. Liburd also said he was informed Friday that the system may not have been fully paid for.
He said the matter was essentially dropped into his lap and if he had had his choice, the system wouldn’t have been installed.
Liburd noted that Donastorg, as a member of the 23rd Legislature’s majority, probably knows more about the system than he does.
"Donastorg was part of the group that bought it. I wasn’t," he said. "We’ll look at it and the financial stuff. To the best of my knowledge, it hasn’t been paid for. My business office is looking into that now."
Former Senate President Richards couldn’t be reached for comment Friday to say whether the system was paid for.
While Donastorg said the reason for installing the system was to increase harmony and productivity during legislative sessions, Liburd said problems will still arise because of the rules of order used on the Senate floor.
The voting system not only records votes, it will record a senator's request to speak during debate. Rather than raising his or her hand or calling out to the chairperson, a senator will push a button on his desk.
Normally, Robert's Rules of Order and Mason's Rules dictate that the chairperson of a meeting or session has final say on recognizing a senator. Under those rules, certain requests, such as a motion or a point of order, take priority, something an electronic system cannot differentiate, Liburd said.
"The system is flawed," he said. "That’s one of the areas I’d like to see corrected."
Even in December, former majority Sens. Lorraine Berry and Roosevelt David had questioned whether the new majority would implement the system.
Donastorg said the system "eliminates a degree of subjectivity and helps level the playing field."
And even though the past Senate president didn’t use the system, Liburd said he now has to deal with it.
"Basically, it will be left up to me to find out how to use it," he said.

The V.I. Water and Power Authority has scheduled a water interruption from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday between Grand Hotel and the Braithwaite Insurance Building, to repair a water leak.
No further information was available Friday.

Dear Source:
While scanning the St. Thomas Source, I read a letter in the Open Forum section titled, "She Has Yet to See Tim Touting Tourism on TV". It appears that the Boston author has not seen the tourism ads, and questions if they are even airing in the Northeast. I'd like to provide the facts to clear up any misunderstanding:
During December 61 spots aired in Boston. These spots aired either Monday-Friday early morning or Sunday early evening/night-time. The buy was loaded with news programming as well as many perennial weekly favorites including "Good Morning America," "The Travel Channel," "Sports Extra, " and "The X-Files." The stations included: WBZ, WCVB, WFXT, WHDH, WLVI, NEW, TTC and ATT.
During January – March, 117 spots will air in Boston. These spots will follow the above format with these additional television programs: "ER, " "Simpsons, " "The Today Show" and "Friends. " The stations will include: WBZ, WCVB, WFXT, WHDH and WLVI.
A similar, albeit slightly lighter schedule aired in the New York City area.
The schedule was divided among four spots: The Tim Duncan Snorkeling spot on sports related programming, and the equal rotation of the three island-specific ads on all other programs.
We realize the importance of marketing our islands to the offshore community. We have a television and/or radio schedule airing in 17 markets and a national trade and consumer print plan throughout the year. This marketing plan has resulted in double-digit increases of tourists to our islands over the past six months!
Monique Sibilly-Hodge
Acting Commissioner of Tourism

Although it’s unclear whether Gov. Charles Turnbull will sign a proposal to create a tourism authority in the territory, his nominee to head the Department of Tourism is opposed to the idea.
Acting Tourism Commissioner Pamela Richards said Thursday that the bill aimed at creating a semi-autonomous, public-private sector tourism authority, which is now awaiting Turnbull’s signature, could take tourism policy decisions away from the government. Turnbull officially nominated Richards for the Tourism job on Tuesday.
Richards also said she hasn’t found any other jurisdiction in the Caribbean that has adopted such an authority.
As an example of potential conflicts under a tourism authority, Richards said the department has focused on cultural and heritage tourism, particularly on St. Croix. Many in the private sector, she said, want more of a focus on the Danish colonial period.
"How are we gong to market ourselves?" Richards asked. "Is it going to be a reflection of the community or of a committee? I think with the government there is more control."
The tourism authority proposal would create a semi-autonomous government agency similar to the V.I. Port Authority and the West Indian Co. Ltd. As proposed, the authority would be made up of nine members — three from government and six from the private sector. All nominees would have to be approved by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature.
The board would have the authority to issue bonds and would have an executive director responsible for managing day-to-day affairs and the $11-million-a-year generated by the territory’s 8 percent hotel occupancy tax.
That tax has also been an issue for those in the tourism industry. Many individuals believe that the money generated by the occupancy tax isn’t being used to market the territory, contrary to the law. Not true, Richards said.
She noted that the Tourism Department doesn’t get a lump sum of millions of dollars to use for advertising. Rather, she said small amounts are given by the Department of Finance throughout a year, giving the impression that Tourism isn’t receiving the full amount generated by the tax.
"The money is going to advertising," Richards said. "The question is whether or not there is enough money, not if it goes there."
Richards also noted that the Finance Department would continue to control the flow of occupancy tax funds under the tourism authority.
A proposal to raise the occupancy tax to 10 percent, which is also awaiting Turnbull’s signature, is opposed by the tourism industry and Richards.
Turnbull has until Feb. 13 to act on the proposed legislation.

Scar Vegas and Other Stories
by Tom Paine
Short stories, Harcourt, 215 pp, $22.00
Rating: 5 stars
It seems as if just about everybody on St. John is reading the "Scar Vegas" stories. That one of them – "The Mayor of St. John" – is set on this island has a lot to do with it. As does the fact that it bares a startling island secret known to all. As does the further fact that the author formerly lived on St. John.
Of greater import, however: These are among the best short stories written in the last several decades. Sinjins have a taste for the best.
A good short story is written by the reader; the writer merely provides the plan, the plot, the outline, the map, the cast of characters, the … Well, actually, the author has to provide a lot – but must provide it in a light-weight kit that will go with readers for the rest of their lives. A good short story is not simply a memorable tune popping out of a toaster; like a broadcasting tower, it carries a lot more power than its light-weight framework would suggest. (More about these images in a moment.)
Like all good short stories, Paine's are stripped of all unnecessaries. Occasionally the bare framework will appear – but only when it's artistically as well as technically useful. There is no gratuitous row of bricks dangling suspensefully overhead, no peek-a-boo curtains behind glaring glass, no million-dollar billboard campaign promising a $1.98 cure.
Paine's stories are not post-modernist découpage, with "traditional motifs" preposterously pasted about for decoration. The works are both timely and timeless. He does not tease; there's no suspense. When the ton of bricks falls, it's because it's designed to surprise – not to kill.
As architect and engineer of the short story, Paine (who preceded Tom Oat as editor of the Tradewinds newspaper on St. John) is a pro; as landscape architect, he is at once subtle and astonishing. His traditional techniques (exposition, counterpoint, finale) are impeccable.
In his short stories, Paine draws marvelous characters with a few strokes. A master adapter, he introduces a personage in patois, slang or jargon and – ever-so-slowly – moves him into unjarring English. He turns caricatures into characters, reminding me of Michelangelo's caryatid "cartoons," carried away in the mind to be detailed in retrospect. In a metaphor of yore, these short stories are seeds of mutable ideas which will germinate with each reader differently. We're not obliged to follow every agonizing misstep in the lab with experimental designs that didn't work.
Sinjins have simple, elegant tastes. All that ugliness, stupidity and pretension comes from someplace else.
Each of the 10 stories in "Scar Vegas" is embedded in some architectural irony. Melanie Applebee, MBA (Stanford) down on her luck, frying Mr. Chicken, and about to be rescued, kidnapped, or something. An American yachtsman rescued by Haitian boat people.
"Unapproved Minutes of the Carthage, Vermont, Zoning Board of Adjustment as Recorded by Town Secretary Betty Bradley" is as much about St. John (and the zoning it ought to have) as it is about a town meeting (which is St. John's political destiny).
"Unapproved Minutes" is ostensibly about a communications tower that Maryann Gingus thinks ought to be "blown the heck up" versus the Communications Act of 1934 in which Congress gave America's radio waves away to the Federal Communications Commission (oh, and the bigwigs who have the FCC in their pockets, of course). The radio tower suddenly erected in Carthage is being blamed for musical toasters and drowning out other stations – so like that raw nerve on St. John. It's a tale of insensitive technocrats versus oversensitive technophobes, with a handful of Luddite walk-ons for comedic counterpoint.
At another level, though, the story is about how the simplest people with the worst problems can still govern themselves. It is unpleasantly pertinent to St. John's plight as the Virgin Cinderella trying to cope with a distant Palace of indifference, two wicked stepsisters and the frustrated quest for municipal independence. We Virgins do not take self-government seriously the way Vermonters do.
Paine's stories presented here have appeared in The New Yorker, Story, Harper's, The New England Review, Playboy and other high-test sites. In addition to "Unapproved Minutes," they are:
"Will You Say Something, Monsieur Eliot?" – the bittersweet story about the American rescued by Haitians;
"General Markman's Last Stand" – which opens with Gen. Trevor V. Markman, USMC, annoyed that his red panties are too tight, throwing his new bra across his Camp Lejeune office;
"Scar Vegas" – the eponymous story of a hopeful "internal immigrant" to Las Vegas;
"The Spoon Children" – about a rebel who goes to an Anarchist Convention and discovers, well, not anarchy but convention;
"The Hotel on Monkey Forest Road" – about some international engineers "pouring concrete over the [Third] world" (with second reference to Tortola, regarding warblers);
"Ceausescu's Cat" – a study of petty political paranoia (with a lover named Liana suggesting some strangling reference to V.I. politics);
"The Mayor of St. John" – about donkeys, if one will (the mayor's passion is named Eustacia), with a subcurrent similar to that of "Unapproved Minutes";
"A Predictable Nightmare on the Eve of the Stock Market First Breaking 6,000" – which may or may not be a sister twister in the sardonic manner of Saki (HH Monro), arguably the finest short-story craftsman of the ever-more-remote last century; and
"The Battle of Khafji" – an insight into Desert Storm which asks at one point, "Is it still a war if nobody dies on one side?"
What Paine does, he does so well that only later does one come to ask: What's missing? Romance? Women? "Scar Vegas" has women, but they are almost all walk-ons and pick-ups or – as in "A Predictable Nightmare" – seem to bear an indecipherable alert to some nice lady I can't place at the moment but who really ought to be warned.
Like Arthur Miller's writing – even more like Norman Mailer's, perhaps – these stories, while not cold-blooded, are chilling. Even when a man "makes good" or makes "the right move" (as in "Spoon Children") or "takes heart" ("Scar Vegas" himself), the choice is somehow inappropriate. Even those that end in inevitable "compromise" ("Unapproved Minutes") leave one satisfied artistically and intellectually – but come back to haunt, like some midnight indigestion after the least bit of overindulgence at le Chateau. The price of perfection is that all else is thence measured thereby.
The stories are of men in men's landscapes toured by a responsible man, an organized man, a tactician. There's no unpaid bill, no gush, no misstep or misfire. Paine is analytic and calculating, eagle-eyed, civil to a fault, unapologetic, and tactically detached enough to tell the truth. He's a mapmaker, not a scribe wanderering aimlessly about in metaphysical falderol.
It's refreshing these days to find a male writer who isn't feeling sorry about his feelings. Payne might agree with me that feelings are unthoughts. Having thought out all the details, he has no unresolved feelings about them. It's litérateur laissez faire. We haven't seen that kind of American writer or writing for years, and it's a welcome return. I find it refreshing, rejuvenating and vindicating.
Paine has survived deconstructionism intact and has the good sense to put
the building blocks of writing and living back as the structural units upon which our civilization is built. Somewhere under the rubble of literary criticism, one might find the women missing here (and there and everywhere – and don't ask Joyce Carol Oates where they are).
Paine's internal relationship of the artist-craftsman to his art and craft reflects the skill and wisdom of the good parent, not the possessive parent. So often in "romance," characters are either the slaves of the writer (left unredeemed) or at the mercy of inexplicabe forces (as if the work they appear in is premature). Paine knows that his job is to explicate, expedite and let go.
These are not short stories "of promise" but "adult" works prepared to face the rigors of marketplace competition and literary criticism – ready to go with the readers who can now write them, individually. "Adult" does not mean "salacious." It is not sexual tension which holds these stories together, nor anything like romance; it is imminent reality, and Paine employs it masterfully.
A Princeton man with an MFA from Columbia, Paine is a masterly fine artist. Perhaps it's his teaching career at Middlebury College, where he lives in the pragmatism of Vermont, that gives his prose an enriching economy. He is as entertaining and as skilled in his own American way as John Mortimer (in his "Rumpole" series, for example). Indeed, by the end of these stories, one will want a "character" series from Paine.
As for the bared secret in "The Mayor of St. John," well, for those who don't already know, some things have to be left for the short story reader to write.
And now, is St. John basking in its sudden literary stardom? Phoo! St. John is as utterly insouciant as ever. We've been too busy reading to pay any mind to the hoopla. St. John doesn't have tourists, you know; we have guests. Paine was a great guest. We ought to have him down again.
* Richard Dey rates the books he reviews for the Source on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. He defines the ratings thus:
5 stars – Beyond serious criticism
4 stars – A fine read
3 stars – Good, fascinating, with caveats
2 stars – Interesting or shows promise
1 star – Cautionary tale

Scar Vegas and Other Stories
by Tom Paine
Short stories, Harcourt, 215 pp, $22.00
Rating: 5 stars
It seems as if just about everybody on St. John is reading the "Scar Vegas" stories. That one of them – "The Mayor of St. John" – is set on this island has a lot to do with it. As does the fact that it bares a startling island secret known to all. As does the further fact that the author formerly lived on St. John.
Of greater import, however: These are among the best short stories written in the last several decades. Sinjins have a taste for the best.
A good short story is written by the reader; the writer merely provides the plan, the plot, the outline, the map, the cast of characters, the … Well, actually, the author has to provide a lot – but must provide it in a light-weight kit that will go with readers for the rest of their lives. A good short story is not simply a memorable tune popping out of a toaster; like a broadcasting tower, it carries a lot more power than its light-weight framework would suggest. (More about these images in a moment.)
Like all good short stories, Paine's are stripped of all unnecessaries. Occasionally the bare framework will appear – but only when it's artistically as well as technically useful. There is no gratuitous row of bricks dangling suspensefully overhead, no peek-a-boo curtains behind glaring glass, no million-dollar billboard campaign promising a $1.98 cure.
Paine's stories are not post-modernist découpage, with "traditional motifs" preposterously pasted about for decoration. The works are both timely and timeless. He does not tease; there's no suspense. When the ton of bricks falls, it's because it's designed to surprise – not to kill.
As architect and engineer of the short story, Paine (who preceded Tom Oat as editor of the Tradewinds newspaper) is a pro; as landscape architect, he is at once subtle and astonishing. His traditional techniques (exposition, counterpoint, finale) are impeccable.
In his short stories, Paine draws marvelous characters with a few strokes. A master adapter, he introduces a personage in patois, slang or jargon and – ever-so-slowly – moves him into unjarring English. He turns caricatures into characters, reminding me of Michelangelo's caryatid "cartoons," carried away in the mind to be detailed in retrospect. In a metaphor of yore, these short stories are seeds of mutable ideas which will germinate with each reader differently. We're not obliged to follow every agonizing misstep in the lab with experimental designs that didn't work.
Sinjins have simple, elegant tastes. All that ugliness, stupidity and pretension comes from someplace else.
Each of the 10 stories in "Scar Vegas" is embedded in some architectural irony. Melanie Applebee, MBA (Stanford) down on her luck, frying Mr. Chicken, and about to be rescued, kidnapped, or something. An American yachtsman rescued by Haitian boat people.
"Unapproved Minutes of the Carthage, Vermont, Zoning Board of Adjustment as Recorded by Town Secretary Betty Bradley" is as much about St. John (and the zoning it ought to have) as it is about a town meeting (which is St. John's political destiny).
"Unapproved Minutes" is ostensibly about a communications tower that Maryann Gingus thinks ought to be "blown the heck up" versus the Communications Act of 1934 in which Congress gave America's radio waves away to the Federal Communications Commission (oh, and the bigwigs who have the FCC in their pockets, of course). The radio tower suddenly erected in Carthage is being blamed for musical toasters and drowning out other stations – so like that raw nerve on St. John. It's a tale of insensitive technocrats versus oversensitive technophobes, with a handful of Luddite walk-ons for comedic counterpoint.
At another level, though, the story is about how the simplest people with the worst problems can still govern themselves. It is unpleasantly pertinent to St. John's plight as the Virgin Cinderella trying to cope with a distant Palace of indifference, two wicked stepsisters and the frustrated quest for municipal independence. We Virgins do not take self-government seriously the way Vermonters do.
Paine's stories presented here have appeared in The New Yorker, Story, Harper's, The New England Review, Playboy and other high-test sites. In addition to "Unapproved Minutes," they are:
"Will You Say Something, Monsieur Eliot?" – the bittersweet story about the American rescued by Haitians;
"General Markman's Last Stand" – which opens with Gen. Trevor V. Markman, USMC, annoyed that his red panties are too tight, throwing his new bra across his Camp Lejeune office;
"Scar Vegas" – the eponymous story of a hopeful "internal immigrant" to Las Vegas;
"The Spoon Children" – about a rebel who goes to an Anarchist Convention and discovers, well, not anarchy but convention;
"The Hotel on Monkey Forest Road" – about some international engineers "pouring concrete over the [Third] world" (with second reference to Tortola, regarding warblers);
"Ceausescu's Cat" – a study of petty political paranoia (with a lover named Liana suggesting some strangling reference to V.I. politics);
"The Mayor of St. John" – about donkeys, if one will (the mayor's passion is named Eustacia), with a subcurrent similar to that of "Unapproved Minutes";
"A Predictable Nightmare on the Eve of the Stock Market First Breaking 6,000" – which may or may not be a sister twister in the sardonic manner of Saki (HH Monro), arguably the finest short-story craftsman of the ever-more-remote last century; and
"The Battle of Khafji" – an insight into Desert Storm which asks at one point, "Is it still a war if nobody dies on one side?"
What Paine does, he does so well that only later does one come to ask: What's missing? Romance? Women? "Scar Vegas" has women, but they are almost all walk-ons and pick-ups or – as in "A Predictable Nightmare" – seem to bear an indecipherable alert to some nice lady I can't place at the moment but who really ought to be warned.
Like Arthur Miller's writing – even more like Norman Mailer's, perhaps – these stories, while not cold-blooded, are chilling. Even when a man "makes good" or makes "the right move" (as in "Spoon Children") or "takes heart" ("Scar Vegas" himself), the choice is somehow inappropriate. Even those that end in inevitable "compromise" ("Unapproved Minutes") leave one satisfied artistically and intellectually – but come back to haunt, like some midnight indigestion after the least bit of overindulgence at le Chateau. The price of perfection is that all else is thence measured thereby.
The stories are of men in men's landscapes toured by a responsible man, an organized man, a tactician. There's no unpaid bill, no gush, no misstep or misfire. Paine is analytic and calculating, eagle-eyed, civil to a fault, unapologetic, and tactically detached enough to tell the truth. He's a mapmaker, not a scribe wanderering aimlessly about in metaphysical falderol.
It's refreshing these days to find a male writer who isn't feeling sorry about his feelings. Payne might agree with me that feelings are unthoughts. Having thought out all the details, he has no unresolved feelings about them. It's litérateur laissez faire. We haven't seen that kind of American writer or writing for years, and it's a welcome return. I find it refreshing, rejuvenating and vindicating.
Paine has survived deconstructionism intact and has the good sense to put the buildin
g blocks of writing and living back as the structural units upon which our civilization is built. Somewhere under the rubble of literary criticism, one might find the women missing here (and there and everywhere – and don't ask Joyce Carol Oates where they are).
Paine's internal relationship of the artist-craftsman to his art and craft reflects the skill and wisdom of the good parent, not the possessive parent. So often in "romance," characters are either the slaves of the writer (left unredeemed) or at the mercy of inexplicabe forces (as if the work they appear in is premature). Paine knows that his job is to explicate, expedite and let go.
These are not short stories "of promise" but "adult" works prepared to face the rigors of marketplace competition and literary criticism – ready to go with the readers who can now write them, individually. "Adult" does not mean "salacious." It is not sexual tension which holds these stories together, nor anything like romance; it is imminent reality, and Paine employs it masterfully.
A Princeton man with an MFA from Columbia, Paine is a masterly fine artist. Perhaps it's his teaching career at Middlebury College, where he lives in the pragmatism of Vermont, that gives his prose an enriching economy. He is as entertaining and as skilled in his own American way as John Mortimer (in his "Rumpole" series, for example). Indeed, by the end of these stories, one will want a "character" series from Paine.
As for the bared secret in "The Mayor of St. John," well, for those who don't already know, some things have to be left for the short story reader to write.
And now, is St. John basking in its sudden literary stardom? Phoo! St. John is as utterly insouciant as ever. We've been too busy reading to pay any mind to the hoopla. St. John doesn't have tourists, you know; we have guests. Paine was a great guest. We ought to have him down again.
* Richard Dey rates the books he reviews for the Source on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. He defines the ratings thus:
5 stars – Beyond serious criticism
4 stars – A fine read
3 stars – Good, fascinating, with caveats
2 stars – Interesting or shows promise
1 star – Cautionary tale

Scar Vegas and Other Stories
by Tom Paine
Short stories, Harcourt, 215 pp, $22.00
Rating: 5 stars
It seems as if just about everybody on St. John is reading the "Scar Vegas" stories. That one of them – "The Mayor of St. John" – is set on this island has a lot to do with it. As does the fact that it bares a startling island secret known to all. As does the further fact that the author formerly lived on St. John.
Of greater import, however: These are among the best short stories written in the last several decades. Sinjins have a taste for the best.
A good short story is written by the reader; the writer merely provides the plan, the plot, the outline, the map, the cast of characters, the … Well, actually, the author has to provide a lot – but must provide it in a light-weight kit that will go with readers for the rest of their lives. A good short story is not simply a memorable tune popping out of a toaster; like a broadcasting tower, it carries a lot more power than its light-weight framework would suggest. (More about these images in a moment.)
Like all good short stories, Paine's are stripped of all unnecessaries. Occasionally the bare framework will appear – but only when it's artistically as well as technically useful. There is no gratuitous row of bricks dangling suspensefully overhead, no peek-a-boo curtains behind glaring glass, no million-dollar billboard campaign promising a $1.98 cure.
Paine's stories are not post-modernist découpage, with "traditional motifs" preposterously pasted about for decoration. The works are both timely and timeless. He does not tease; there's no suspense. When the ton of bricks falls, it's because it's designed to surprise – not to kill.
As architect and engineer of the short story, Paine (who preceded Tom Oat as editor of the Tradewinds newspaper on St. John) is a pro; as landscape architect, he is at once subtle and astonishing. His traditional techniques (exposition, counterpoint, finale) are impeccable.
In his short stories, Paine draws marvelous characters with a few strokes. A master adapter, he introduces a personage in patois, slang or jargon and – ever-so-slowly – moves him into unjarring English. He turns caricatures into characters, reminding me of Michelangelo's caryatid "cartoons," carried away in the mind to be detailed in retrospect. In a metaphor of yore, these short stories are seeds of mutable ideas which will germinate with each reader differently. We're not obliged to follow every agonizing misstep in the lab with experimental designs that didn't work.
Sinjins have simple, elegant tastes. All that ugliness, stupidity and pretension comes from someplace else.
Each of the 10 stories in "Scar Vegas" is embedded in some architectural irony. Melanie Applebee, MBA (Stanford) down on her luck, frying Mr. Chicken, and about to be rescued, kidnapped, or something. An American yachtsman rescued by Haitian boat people.
"Unapproved Minutes of the Carthage, Vermont, Zoning Board of Adjustment as Recorded by Town Secretary Betty Bradley" is as much about St. John (and the zoning it ought to have) as it is about a town meeting (which is St. John's political destiny).
"Unapproved Minutes" is ostensibly about a communications tower that Maryann Gingus thinks ought to be "blown the heck up" versus the Communications Act of 1934 in which Congress gave America's radio waves away to the Federal Communications Commission (oh, and the bigwigs who have the FCC in their pockets, of course). The radio tower suddenly erected in Carthage is being blamed for musical toasters and drowning out other stations – so like that raw nerve on St. John. It's a tale of insensitive technocrats versus oversensitive technophobes, with a handful of Luddite walk-ons for comedic counterpoint.
At another level, though, the story is about how the simplest people with the worst problems can still govern themselves. It is unpleasantly pertinent to St. John's plight as the Virgin Cinderella trying to cope with a distant Palace of indifference, two wicked stepsisters and the frustrated quest for municipal independence. We Virgins do not take self-government seriously the way Vermonters do.
Paine's stories presented here have appeared in The New Yorker, Story, Harper's, The New England Review, Playboy and other high-test sites. In addition to "Unapproved Minutes," they are:
"Will You Say Something, Monsieur Eliot?" – the bittersweet story about the American rescued by Haitians;
"General Markman's Last Stand" – which opens with Gen. Trevor V. Markman, USMC, annoyed that his red panties are too tight, throwing his new bra across his Camp Lejeune office;
"Scar Vegas" – the eponymous story of a hopeful "internal immigrant" to Las Vegas;
"The Spoon Children" – about a rebel who goes to an Anarchist Convention and discovers, well, not anarchy but convention;
"The Hotel on Monkey Forest Road" – about some international engineers "pouring concrete over the [Third] world" (with second reference to Tortola, regarding warblers);
"Ceausescu's Cat" – a study of petty political paranoia (with a lover named Liana suggesting some strangling reference to V.I. politics);
"The Mayor of St. John" – about donkeys, if one will (the mayor's passion is named Eustacia), with a subcurrent similar to that of "Unapproved Minutes";
"A Predictable Nightmare on the Eve of the Stock Market First Breaking 6,000" – which may or may not be a sister twister in the sardonic manner of Saki (HH Monro), arguably the finest short-story craftsman of the ever-more-remote last century; and
"The Battle of Khafji" – an insight into Desert Storm which asks at one point, "Is it still a war if nobody dies on one side?"
What Paine does, he does so well that only later does one come to ask: What's missing? Romance? Women? "Scar Vegas" has women, but they are almost all walk-ons and pick-ups or – as in "A Predictable Nightmare" – seem to bear an indecipherable alert to some nice lady I can't place at the moment but who really ought to be warned.
Like Arthur Miller's writing – even more like Norman Mailer's, perhaps – these stories, while not cold-blooded, are chilling. Even when a man "makes good" or makes "the right move" (as in "Spoon Children") or "takes heart" ("Scar Vegas" himself), the choice is somehow inappropriate. Even those that end in inevitable "compromise" ("Unapproved Minutes") leave one satisfied artistically and intellectually – but come back to haunt, like some midnight indigestion after the least bit of overindulgence at le Chateau. The price of perfection is that all else is thence measured thereby.
The stories are of men in men's landscapes toured by a responsible man, an organized man, a tactician. There's no unpaid bill, no gush, no misstep or misfire. Paine is analytic and calculating, eagle-eyed, civil to a fault, unapologetic, and tactically detached enough to tell the truth. He's a mapmaker, not a scribe wanderering aimlessly about in metaphysical falderol.
It's refreshing these days to find a male writer who isn't feeling sorry about his feelings. Payne might agree with me that feelings are unthoughts. Having thought out all the details, he has no unresolved feelings about them. It's litérateur laissez faire. We haven't seen that kind of American writer or writing for years, and it's a welcome return. I find it refreshing, rejuvenating and vindicating.
Paine has survived deconstructionism intact and has the good sense to put
the building blocks of writing and living back as the structural units upon which our civilization is built. Somewhere under the rubble of literary criticism, one might find the women missing here (and there and everywhere – and don't ask Joyce Carol Oates where they are).
Paine's internal relationship of the artist-craftsman to his art and craft reflects the skill and wisdom of the good parent, not the possessive parent. So often in "romance," characters are either the slaves of the writer (left unredeemed) or at the mercy of inexplicabe forces (as if the work they appear in is premature). Paine knows that his job is to explicate, expedite and let go.
These are not short stories "of promise" but "adult" works prepared to face the rigors of marketplace competition and literary criticism – ready to go with the readers who can now write them, individually. "Adult" does not mean "salacious." It is not sexual tension which holds these stories together, nor anything like romance; it is imminent reality, and Paine employs it masterfully.
A Princeton man with an MFA from Columbia, Paine is a masterly fine artist. Perhaps it's his teaching career at Middlebury College, where he lives in the pragmatism of Vermont, that gives his prose an enriching economy. He is as entertaining and as skilled in his own American way as John Mortimer (in his "Rumpole" series, for example). Indeed, by the end of these stories, one will want a "character" series from Paine.
As for the bared secret in "The Mayor of St. John," well, for those who don't already know, some things have to be left for the short story reader to write.
And now, is St. John basking in its sudden literary stardom? Phoo! St. John is as utterly insouciant as ever. We've been too busy reading to pay any mind to the hoopla. St. John doesn't have tourists, you know; we have guests. Paine was a great guest. We ought to have him down again.
* Richard Dey rates the books he reviews for the Source on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. He defines the ratings thus:
5 stars – Beyond serious criticism
4 stars – A fine read
3 stars – Good, fascinating, with caveats
2 stars – Interesting or shows promise
1 star – Cautionary tale

Local artist, Luca Gasperi, recently returned from a two-month art residency in Bermuda.
Every year, the Masterworks Foundation selects two artists to visit the British island and paint at the Dockyard Terrace Gallery and Studio. In return for the opportunity, Gasperi taught five watercolor classes and donated one painting to the foundation.
Gasperi spent much of his free time traveling throughout Bermuda on foot, ferry or bus with his sketchbook in hand. His memory and sketches were the only references for his paintings, a departure from the photographs he typically uses for reference in his artwork.
Gasperi also spent a few days exploring Bermudan farms, even pitching in one day to help Tom Watson, a local crop farmer. He also received a tour of the many farms and fields from Ministry of Agriculture employee Tommy Sinclair.
Gasperi is not only an artist on St. Croix but also an organic farmer, so he was immediately drawn to the local agriculture. The island became famous for its exported Bermuda onions and Easter lilies. Impressed by the beautiful fields and strong farming tradition, Gasperi was easily inspired by the imagery and people of Bermuda.
A reporter with The Royal Gazette, Nancy Acton, described the artist's work , ". . . whether it is in nearby Somerset, where he walks, or traveling in a bus, Mr. Gasperi usually has but moments to sketch what takes his fancy – be it someone walking down the street, plowing a field, whitewashing a roof, or gardening. The big details he carries in his mind – the colour of the water or building, the movement of trees, geographical details, the play of light, and body language, for example – until he gets back to his brushes."
By working in such a manner, Gasperi said he is able to “record the sense and image as you are painting. You are building colour and atmosphere. It is a wonderful way to paint."
Brimming at day's end with memorized details and momentary sketches, Gasperi painted at Dockyard, an old British naval complex situated on the West End of Bermuda. While on Bermuda, Gasperi presented two art shows at the Masterworks Front Street Gallery in Hamilton. The first show, held in early December, included original artwork from the Bermuda Atlas and Gazetteer by G. Daniel Blagg, a book Gasperi designed and illustrated in 1997, and watercolors of St. Croix from the artist's personal collection.
The second show opened in mid January and features 15 watercolors painted during his two-month residency.
Gasperi is currently working on a Crucian collection in the same sketchbook-technique. For more information, please call Luca Gasperi at (340) 773-2386.

Maria Henle presents her latest work with an opening reception in her studio Friday, Feb. 2, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The new oils on canvas, as the show title suggests, are inspired by St. Croix’s north shore and west end. Lush luminous color, dynamic compositions, and keen attention to detail enliven these paintings. Executed in the artist’s trademark multiple image style, they capture the evanescent beauty of our dramatic Caribbean skies.
The show continues through February, at Maria Henle Studio, 55 Company St., Christiansted.

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