Strongly Worded Letter

The Wings (And More) Of The Dove

Last night we watched  the movie adaptation of Henry James' The Wings Of A Dove on DVD thanks to Netflix. It stars one of Donna's favorite actors, Linus Roache, and one of her least favorite, Helena Bonham Carter, who got an Oscar nomination for the role.

I had never seen it before but if you like those other movies from the 1990s about the love lives and money obsession of upper-class British folks - like Sense And Sensibilty and Howard's End - then you'll enjoy it fine.  

In an unusual coincidence,  yesterday I also read the USA Today story about the new book called Superdove by Courtney Humphries. It's a book all about, no kidding, pigeons. From the article:

"The book's title refers to the fact that the words 'pigeon' and dove' were once used interchangeably....

Dove, she notes, is equated with peace and used as a name for chocolate bars and soap. Pigeon has no marketing appeal. Woody Allen dismissed them as 'rats with wings' in his 1980 movie Stardust Memories.

By way of defending pigeons, Humphries says, "rats are really smart and fascinating animals. These judgments we make about 'pests' are all about context. Pigeons annoy people because they're not easily controlled, and we love to be able to control our environment. It doesn't mean they're inherently bad or unworthy of appreciation."

Let me add an Amen to that, sister!  So many of the feelings humans have about animals, from pigs to spiders to chickens and beyond, are rooted in our own ignorance or customs and often have very little to do with the creature itself.

Superdove is a book I won't read but I enjoyed seeing some of the facts about pigeons in the newspaper piece. Here are three:

"Most feral pigeons live only a year or two. Domestic pigeons can live into their teens."

"Pigeons won't fly at night; their night vision is worse than that of humans."

"At its peak during World War II, the U.S. Pigeon Corps had 3,000 enlisted men, 150 officers, and 54,000 pigeons."        

If you do happen to read it, let me know where the term pigeonhole came from, won't you?

Only 20 To Go!!!

I don't know who Marc and Angel are but their blog got my attention this week with their list of 30 Books Everyone Should Read Before their 30th Birthday.

They don't say why 30 books or why it matters that they be read by age 30 but here's what they do say:

"The Web is grand.  With its fame for hosting informative, easy-to-skim textual snippets and collaborative written works, people are spending more and more time reading online.  Nevertheless, the Web cannot replace the authoritative transmissions from certain classic books that have delivered (or will deliver) profound ideas around the globe for generations. The 30 books listed here are of unparalleled prose, packed with wisdom capable of igniting a new understanding of the world."

Since the accident I can barely remember where I've lived much less what books I've read but here are the ones on their list that I am certain I finished once upon a time.

1984 by George Orwell. I keep expecting the part about the Ministry Of Truth and the Thought Police to be announced for real any day now.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The book was great, the movie even better.

War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy. But I can't remember who won.

One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. I don't remember why I read it. It's not usually my sort of thing. God, I hope it wasn't because Oprah suggested it.

The Origin Of The Species by Charles Darwin. Yet all I remember is that the ship was called The HMS Beagle. And that 'survival of the fittest' thing.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Read it the same month I read his other classic Blink. They are both so illuminating about how people think.

The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. I was never as screwed up as that kid.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Made me want to live outside, if I recall.

The Republic by Plato. Old-school smart guy.

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck. So sad yet so uplifting. And the movie? One of my ten favorites ever maybe.

Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Maybe the best book I remember. This one I read several times over the years.

Link to complete list here. What's the essential book you think they missed?

Shop Around

I've never met most of my regular blog readers, am email pals with a few, but appreciate all of you. Nicole is one who has often tipped me off to fascinating topics that she thinks might be worth sharing.

So, welcome to GroceryLists.org. Here's Bill Keaggy:

"In 1997, I picked up a discarded grocery list at a St. Louis supermarket. I found it to be a fascinating glimpse into a stranger's life and decided to pick them up whenever I found one. In 2000, I posted my collection of about 40 lists to the web. By 2004, when the New York Times Magazine profiled me and this collection, I had about 500. In early 2006 I started working on a book about these lost lists and by the time it was published in May 2007, there were 1,600 lists on the site (with thousands more yet to be scanned and posted).

The book, 'Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found', features about 200 of the best: The funniest, the weirdest, the saddest, the strangest, the unhealthiest and more. Simply put, it is a strange, fascinating and hilarious look at other peoples' discarded grocery lists. Published by HOW Books, it's hardcover, 240 pages, full-color — a beautiful compilation of shopping habits, spelling quirks and good fun. Learn more about the book at www.milkeggsvodka.com."

"List #1261: Hmmm. Considering this is New Year's Eve, I'd say this person has a pretty damn awesome night lined up, even if they are going solo and doing a little math on the side."

"List #1648: Nice. Self-directed sarcasm, bad dogs. Keeping it real. And very alone."




"List 1114: All I need to tell you is that this list was found in West Virginia. It's like the joke writes itself!"

Click here for hundreds more of other people's shopping lists! And thanks, Nicole!

Hail Hail Rock And Roll!!!

"If you tried to give Rock and Roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry."

So said  John Lennon and he was spot on.  I'd place Chuck in the Top 5 most influential musicians of the 20th century alongside giants like Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Jimmy Rodgers, and the obvious #1  K.C. & The Sunshine Band.    

A few nights ago I had a dream that Chuck Berry had died. He didn't: he's alive and still rocking at age 81.  But in my dream I was sad that it didn't seem like many people cared or acknowledged him as the true Founding Father of Rock and Roll. Johnny B. Goode, Roll Over Beethoven, Maybellene, Sweet Little Sixteen, and many many more hits are his legacy that should be remembered forever.   

Well, after my troubling dream, I pulled out my Chuck Berry on Chess Records boxed set and moved it into my car where I have been listening and re-listening to little else for the past week. I picked up a cheap used copy of Chuck's 1987 autobiography too and eagerly packed it in my backpack where I devoured it, half each way on the airplane, during my recent business trip to California.

Did I enjoy the read? Yes. Do I wish Chuck had more to say about his legendary songbook and how those songs were written instead of story after story about all the white women he nailed on the road? I do.

For instance, we got just two lines in the book about his song Rock And Roll Music, one of the definitive classics of the genre, and a cover hit for both the Beatles and the Beach Boys too.   

Instead, from page 305 of the autobiography, here are Chuck's food likes and dislikes.

     "First of all, I do not like liver. It dries my throat and feels and tastes like a mixture of cardboard and sour-pickle patties. I don't get near okra or gumbo because it's just the opposite, slimy and gooey; I can't even hold it in my mouth, let alone swallow it. At a point of starving I'd eat celery, carrots, cooked onions, eggplant, grapefruit or salami, but only as survival nutrition. I'd rather my taste buds suffer than my heartbeat flutter.

     I especially have a taste for pork though I'm not too fond of hog jowls or chitlins; I enjoy beef as in T-bone steak or stew, but absolutely no brains, tongue, and all that. I like fillet of catfish and salmon best of all freshwater fish, sweet and pungent shrimps of sea foods.

     Peaches are my favorite of all fruits; home fries and/or candied yams of vegetables, soupy chili of all bowl portions; date or apple-filled oatmeal cookies of the cookie kingdom; 'pea' in the nut field; raspberry in preserves (never jelly) and grape in soda pop. The only sandwiches I care for are egg and bacon on lightly toasted bread or apple butter thickly spread on lightly toasted white bread.

      I like Butternut or Snickers in candy bars; pineapple in fruit juices; and I drink orange juice all the time, anytime. White sliced French bread, soft vanilla pound cakes, and Dutch apple pie are especially good for treats at any hour of the day. For hot cereals it's oatmeal and for cold cereals it's corn flakes with a very ripe banana. I prefer fried (fresh) rabbit over chicken, duck, or turkey.

     To finish things off, I like assorted mints, Colgate toothpaste, and well water. Darn, I'm getting hungry." 

       

Thanks, Chuck. That is so much more interesting than one word in your book about Back In The U.S.A., Little Queenie, Come On, Run Rudolph Run or dozens of other songs you wrote but didn't mention at all.

 

"Their Lives In Just Six Words"

From USA Today, on Thursday.

"Could you sum up your life in just six words? Writers took the pithy challenge in Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure from Smith Magazine...

...This online publication's request for quick memoirs garnered 15,000 submissions; 800 made the book. Here are what some of the more famous contributors wrote:

'Well, I thought it was funny.'   Stephen Colbert

'Me see world! Me write stories!'    Elizabeth Gilbert

'Secret of life: Marry an Italian.'   Nora Ephron

'Fearlessness is the mother of reinvention.'   Arianna Huffington

'Revenge is living well without you.'     Joyce Carol Oates

'Fifteen years since last professional haircut.'    David Eggers

'Mushrooms. Clowns. Wands. Five. Wig. Thatched.'    Amy Sedaris"


Me again. Okay, first of all, I need to come up with one of these dumb ideas that everyone else seems to have that enables one with no actual writing ability to get other people to do all the hard work and then be able to put out a book.

Secondly, there is no question what my six word memoir would be. It has been my motto for years, the one thing I have learned that is my life's lesson. I am willing to share it with you and invite you to post your own six word memoirs below. Here's my gift to you:

Next time: More sheep, Fewer goats.

Doctor Doctor, Give Me the News

Donna bought me a copy of this book because she is convinced there is something are many things wrong with me and we may find some answers within.

Perhaps I have the Syndrome Of Subjective Doubles?  That's  "the belief that you have a doppelganger - a person that looks just like you. Once it occurs to you that this person exists, it becomes impossible to convince you otherwise."   

Or maybe I am a victim of Micropsia, also known as Alice In Wonderland Syndrome.  That's "wild distortions in perception and reality. Objects seem to lose their God-given size and texture and begin shrinking and growing at random." You might imagine "your hands are a different size this morning than they were last night," "your linoleum floor is made of oatmeal," or ask yourself, "which is bigger, your goldfish or your car?"

Cotard's Syndrome? it's "the belief that you are dead, or that you don't exist, or that your body has dissipated into the universe and is no longer sentient. Or possibly, that you never existed in the first place."  I might have that, but how would I know if I passed before I found out?

Here it is! Windigo Psychosis! "The Windigo, according to Anishinaabe Native American folklore, is a demon spirit with a cadaverous form and a penchant for eating people." It happens when you get hungry, and then starving, and then ravenous and then, "you'll begin to see your friends and family as edible, a shift in perception followed by full psychosis and utter chaos....."   

I am a little peckish right now, come to think of it.....   

Those That Can't Do, Teach.

James Lipton, that bearded blowhard  from Bravo TV's  Inside the Actor's Studio   has just published his autobiography, called Inside Inside. If you haven't seen the hit cable show, now in its thirteenth year, Lipton sits for an hour or more with an actor as his guest and he asks him to tell stories about the movies and television shows he has appeared in.

At the end of the interview he pulls out the list of questions he says are inspired by French television host Bernard Pivot. Here are those questions, along with my answers:


What is your favorite word?    Dogloo

What is your least favorite word?  Nuclear, when it is pronounced Nookyuler 

What turns you on, creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?   A  beautiful photograph inspires me to try to take one as well.

What turns you off?   I get discouraged when I realize I do not have enough time to pursue most of my creative interests. 
 
What is your favorite curse word?   Heavens to Mergatroid!

What sound or noise do you love?   My Tater Tot makes 100 different sounds that I love.

What sound or noise do you hate?  Like everyone else, the alarm clock. It's not really the clock's fault as much as how early it is set to go off.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?  Easy, I want to be a runway model farmer.

What profession would you not like to do?  Assembly line work. Toll taker. Anything boring and repetitive.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly Gates?  There's been some mistake with the paperwork. We'll send you back down to live another 100 years. And say hi to the models for me.

P.S. To my fellow blogger friends, this list would be an excellent meme, no?

Oh, Good Grief!

Someone once said that we buy books because we like to imagine we will one day have the time to read them. That's me to a tee. Every time I go into my Barnes & Noble I see 20  books I'd love to read but know I likely never will.  I spend so much time reading magazines and newspapers and the internet that I really only allow myself to read books on plane rides. 

So, in two hour bursts, I am currently working my way through Volume Two of Simon Callow's massive three- part biography of Orson Welles, called Hello Americans. It is dense but worth it, much like Scarlett Johansson.  I knew quite a bit about Welles' early triumphs with the Mercury Radio Theater and, of course, Citizen Kane, but was really interested in finding out how that brilliant career was derailed so soon after his film debut and reading about the decades of meandering and often unfinished projects afterward. It is a fascinating read about a talented man who was his own worst enemy.

When I am done with Orson I am really looking forward to the new biography of cartoonist Charles Schulz, just out. Authorized by Chucks' estate, some of whom are now complaining that their patriarch is portrayed as too melancholy and not the fun man they knew, it's called Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis.

From Publisher's Weekly: "For all the joy Charlie Brown and the gang gave readers over half a century, their creator, Charles Schulz, was a profoundly unhappy man. It's widely known that he hated the name Peanuts, which was foisted on the strip by his syndicate. But Michaelis, given access to family, friends and personal papers, reveals the full extent of Schulz's depression, tracing its origins in his Minnesota childhood, with parents reluctant to encourage his artistic dreams and yearbook editors who scrapped his illustrations without explanation. Nearly 250 Peanuts strips are woven into the biography, demonstrating just how much of his life story Schulz poured into the cartoon. In one sequence, Snoopy's crush on a girl dog is revealed as a barely disguised retelling of the artist's extramarital affair. Michaelis is especially strong in recounting Schulz's artistic development, teasing out the influences on his unique characterization of children. And Michaelis makes plain the full impact of Peanuts' first decades and how much it puzzled and unnerved other cartoonists. This is a fascinating account of an artist who devoted his life to his work in the painful belief that it was all he had."

Happy reading!