September 2011
23 posts
September 30, 2011
THOUGHTS ON EDITING LIFE
I don’t remember which painter was guilty. I think it was Toulouse Lautrec who used to visit the Louvre with his box of paints to dab at his canvas’ imperfections. It happened so often, the museum had to instruct their guards to escort him off the premises whenever he appeared. George Lucas of “Star Wars” fame suffers from the same need for excellence. He continues to...
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September 29, 2011
WHEN HOPE BECOMES ENTRAPMENT
The first in a disturbing series of films by writer / director Nincenzo Natali came out during the late 1990’s. In “The Cube” Natali creates a Kafkaesque world where people find themselves trapped inside a giant receptacle. They have no idea how they got there and know even less about how to escape. The cube is constructed from a seemingly endless number of smaller...
September 28, 2011
THE MISCHIEF IN ME
Alan Sillitoe wrote touchingly about a boy sent to a British reform school in “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.” The director of the reformatory discovers this borstal boy is a talented runner and makes his charge an offer. If the boy wins an upcoming race against a prestigious public school, he’d also win early release. The boy agrees and outdistances his nearest...
September 27, 2011
LIFE AS A PUZZLEMENT
There are good reasons why libraries carry magazines as well as books. Many showcase some of the nation’s best writers and thinking; they provide a montage of issues important to the culture. They also present cutting-edge ideas before anyone has decided to write a book on the topic.
The September 2 edition of “This Week” offers some esoteric tidbits for writers. One of...
September 26, 2011
A BASIC EDUCATION – FEMININE STYLE
The September issue of “Vogue” features a profile of Christine Lagarde, the new head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She is the first women to hold the position. The article recounts the usual vital statistics: married twice and divorced twice, currently living with a mystery man and is the mother of two grown sons. As...
September 23, 2011
WOMEN WITHOUT DIMENSION
“The Help” must have been a difficult novel to write because though its story is told by a woman about women, black and white, the temptation to create stock figures must have been great: the bitch, the idealist, the follower, the rebel, the timid…
No doubt the history of the period gives the book heft but the author provides subtlety to her characters....
September 22, 2011
THE SACRED MATRIX
Every day science reveals more about the workings of the human brain. We now accept the idea that the mind functions like a computer. But while machines work from a series of 1s and 0s, the mind’s inputs read “well-being” and “ill-being.” (“The Political Mind” by George Lakoff, pg. 94) The permanent imprint of either event is created, Lakoff writes, when “two...
September 21, 2011
THE SINS OF OUR FATHERS
E. M. Forster’s “A Passage to India” explores the racial tensions and prejudices that existed during the 1920’s between the indigenous people of that country and the British colonists. The novel documents the misunderstandings that existed and although the book ends ambiguously, it raises real questions about whether the two cultures could ever...
September 20, 2011
WHEN GENDER ISN’T GENDER BUT A WORLD VISION
An article in the September “Vogue Magazine” covers the contributions women made in the Libyan uprising. In fact, if journalist Janine de Giovanni is correct, the rebellion was actually begun by women. They organized the hospital where the wounded were treated. Women managed communication systems that allowed messages to be disseminated...
September 19, 2011
THE HEROES AMONG US
One of those Nick Adams stories by Ernest Hemingway begins with an image of starving wolves. They’re so hungry they devour their own entrails. In a strange way, it might have been an image of Hemingway’s life, a man who pushed himself to satisfy his passions even to the brink of death. Certainly his desire to live on the edge pervades his writing. In...
September 16, 2011
LAUGHTER THAT KILLS
In 1729 Jonathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal” in which he suggested the Irish poor might ease their penury by selling their children as food to satisfy the refined tastes of wealthy Lords and Ladies. His purpose was to satirize the heartless attitude the rich showed toward the lower classes. In particular, he took aim at their claim that they had no...
September 15, 2011
VULNERABILITY THAT BECAME LEGEND
Marilyn Monroe still compels 49 years after her death. She even wrote two of the many books about her life and career. Not even Elizabeth Taylor, equally beautiful and living a life that often made headlines, seems to have captured the public’s imagination like the woman we shall always picture standing over a street vent with her dress floating high above her...
September 14, 2011
MORE CHAPTERS FOUND
A while back I wrote that one of the frustrations with being a teacher is to watch students graduate and never hear from them again. Recently, however, I was allowed to read a few more chapters from their lives when I attended the 45-year reunion of the high school class of 1966. Many of them I’d been privileged to teach from their sophomore to their senior year.
Most of...
September 13, 2011
JUST ASKING
I picked up a book at the dollar store the other day by George Lakoff, “The Political Mind.” In it I found a succinct description of the difference between the public and private sector:
Protection and empowerment are part of the moral mission of government. That is why government budgets are moral documents. Government is fundamentally different from business. Lakoff says the first...
September 12, 2011
TREES ARE NEITHER RIGHT NOR WRONG
I’ve mentioned Joyce Kilmer’s poem, “Trees” before. It begins:
“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree…”
But as I walked through the park this morning, it occurred to me to ask, “Which tree is lovelier than a poem?” And is a deciduous tree lovelier in the spring or fall? Or is an evergreen, tall and...
September 9, 2011
SOMETIMES WORDS REALLY DO MATTER (in memory of 9/11)
In their book, “Listen Up, Mr. President” coauthors Helen Tomas and Craig Crawford offer examples of speeches made by presidents in a time of crisis, words that helped to hold the nation together. Few question the importance of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address as he rallied the country to the cause of freedom in the midst of a long and bloody Civil...
September 8, 2011
TWO ENDS OF THE SAME STRING
After watching the growing divisions in Congress and within the two political Parties, I got to thinking the other day about the film “One Million BC,” a knock off of Conan Doyle’s novel, “Lost Worlds.” The film was first produced in 1940 by Hal Roach and starred Carol Landis and Victor Mature. I never saw the 1966 remake which starred Raquel...
September 7, 2011
REBELLIOUS THOUGHTS AS MIDNIGHT NEARS
The hour was late for me — almost 12 p.m. — when, nearing the end of Haruki Murakami’s book “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,” I read the following lines:
“…the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is...
September 6, 2011
NOW I AM 75
Today, I am 75. As I’ve said many times, while I would love to look like a 21 year-old, I wouldn’t give up what I’ve learned about life for a few less wrinkles. It’s not a bad trade off, youth for experience. Imagine how you would answer if a fairy godmother were to appear and say. “I can take away your creaky joints but if I do, I must also take away your memories and your...
September 5, 2011
LABOR – A BRAVE NEW WORLD
A friend recently sent me an article about job cuts at the “LA Times.” The newspaper laid off all its freelance book reviewers and shifted some of its regular staffers — one who’d been with the LA Times for 23 years — and made them freelancers. Not only is their income drastically cut but they lose their health benefits, as well. If these...
September 2, 2011
LISTENING TO THE HEART BEAT
Every time I get a subscription renewal request from one of my ladies magazines, I feel like a middle age woman going through menopause — I should be so young — and think: I’ve got to renew myself, not these publications.
(courtesy: Photobucket)
What am I doing with so many of them, anyway? I don’t cook. My wardrobe consists of sweat suits and I don’t...
