A little mid-week inspiration
by chuckofish
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28
dual personalities
Tag: quotes
July 19, 2012
July 18, 2012
Bit of a headache, you know
by chuckofish
“Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.”
From Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (Chapter six)
Oh, I laughed out loud as I typed this!
Lucky Jim, published in 1954, was Kingsley Amis’s first novel, and won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction. Set sometime around 1950, the book follows the exploits of the eponymous Jim Dixon, a reluctant medieval history lecturer at an unnamed provincial English university. Christopher Hitchens described it as the funniest book of the second half of the 20th century. The New Yorker said in their review that it was a “highly unusual first novel by a young English writer who is endowed with, and in control of, more than his share of talent, humor, and human sympathy.” Well. It is very funny.
July 17, 2012
If you really want to hear about it
by chuckofish
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was published on July 16 in 1951. It has been translated into almost all of the world’s major languages. Around 250,000 copies are sold each year, with total sales of more than 65 million books. I am one of its biggest fans and have been since I first read it in the 10th grade. I was one of those teenagers that identified with Holden Caulfield and forty years later I still do. I love him and his creator as much as any fictional character and author out there.
“The part that got me was, there was a lady sitting next to me that cried all through the goddam picture. The phonier it got, the more she cried. You’d have thought she did it because she was kindhearted as hell, but I was sitting right next to her, and she wasn’t. She had this little kid with her that was bored as hell and had to go to the bathroom, but she wouldn’t take him. She kept telling him to sit still and behave himself. She was about as kindhearted as a goddam wolf. You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they’re mean bastards at heart. I’m not kidding. ” (Chapter 18)
How right is that?
July 11, 2012
Macomb County, born and bred
by chuckofish
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee was first published on this day in 1960.
It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature. It’s a shame Harper Lee never wrote another novel, but I admire her for not giving in to the pressure her publisher must have put on her. She said what she had to say. It was enough. It must have taken everything she had.
I love the scene in Infamous where Sandra Bullock, playing Harper Lee, tries to explain what it takes out of a writer to write. She says, “America is not a country where the small gesture goes noticed…We want everything you have, and we want it as fast as you can turn it out.”
Of course, they made a terrific movie based on the novel in 1962. It is one of the few instances where the movie stacks up to the novel. It is also one of those movies that I and my dual personality were too young to go see at the theater. We only got to hear about it from our older brother who came home with our mother and raved about it. They both loved it. We had to wait until it came on television many years later to see it. As I recall, it was a dark and stormy night when we watched it, home alone this time. It was pretty scary! But we loved it too, and every time I see it I love it anew.
And, of course, it has the scene where if you were to stop me on the happiest day of my life and say, stop, watch this, I would be unable to stem the flow of ensuing tears. You know, it’s the Boo Radley behind the door scene. And that music. Absolute perfection.
I always loved Scout. I was not at all like her as a child (too timid), but I always thought I looked like the actress who played her and that was cool (not to mention unusual).
You have to admit, the resemblance is amazing.
So all hail Harper Lee.
President George W. Bush awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to author Harper Lee during a ceremony Monday, Nov. 5, 2007, in the East Room. “To Kill a Mockingbird has influenced the character of our country for the better. It’s been a gift to the entire world. As a model of good writing and humane sensibility, this book will be read and studied forever,” said the President about Harper Lee’s work. (White House photo by Eric Draper)
AMEN.
July 6, 2012
Bottom line
by chuckofish
Bottom line is, even if you see them coming, you’re not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So, what are we, helpless? Puppets? Nah. The big moments are gonna come, you can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are.
(Whistler, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 2)
July 5, 2012
Good news!
by chuckofish
July is Leslie Howard month on TCM.com! Here is the line-up for the Star of the Month.
So set your DVR for Tuesdays in July when they’ll be showing some well-known Leslie Howard movies like Pygmalion, Of Human Bondage and The Scarlet Pimpernel and some not-so-often seen ones like Berkeley Square and The Animal Kingdom. What a treasure trove!
You can see my favorite Leslie Howard movie The Petrified Forest (1936) next Tuesday–so mark your calendar! This movie was based on the play by Robert Emmet Sherwood, which Leslie Howard had starred in on Broadway. He insisted that Humphrey Bogart reprise his role as Duke Mantee, “the world-famous killer” in the movie. He did and the rest, as you know, is history. Bogart was duly grateful and even named his daughter after Leslie years later.
Bogart has lots of good lines which he makes the most of:
“Since I’ve been a grown up, I’ve spent most of my life in prison… I’ll probably spend the rest of it dead.”
and
“You can talk sitting down; I seen ya’ doing it.”
But Howard, as the dreamy Alan Squier, gets plenty of his own:
“So that was once a tree? Hmmm. Petrified forest, eh? Suitable haven for me. Well, perhaps that’s what I’m destined to become, an interesting fossil for future study.”
and
Gramp Maple: “But let me tell you one thing, Mr. Squier. The woman don’t live or ever did live that’s worth five thousand dollars!”
Alan Squier: “Well, let me tell you something. You’re a forgetful old fool. Any woman’s worth everything that any man has to give: anguish, ecstasy, faith, jealousy, love, hatred, life or death. Don’t you see that’s the whole excuse for our existence? It’s what makes the whole thing possible and tolerable.”
I even included an Alan Squeir quote on my senior page: “I had a vague idea I’d like to see the Pacific Ocean and perhaps drown in it. But that depends.” My mother raised an eyebrow at my teenage angst, but no one else ever commented!
Above all else, Leslie Howard was a great British patriot, who used his Hollywood fame to further the cause of England in WWII, by making several propaganda films like Pimpernel Smith and The First of the Few.
He died at the age of 50 in 1943 when the plane he was in was shot down by the Nazis. They thought he was a spy and they were correct. According to Sir William Samuel Stephenson, the senior representative of British Intelligence for the western hemisphere during the Second World War, the Germans knew about Howard’s mission and ordered the aircraft shot down. Stephenson further claimed that Churchill knew in advance of the German intention to shoot down the aircraft, but decided to allow it to proceed to protect the fact that the British had broken the German Enigma code.
I’m surprised no one has ever thought to make a movie about Leslie Howard. Wouldn’t he be an interesting subject?
June 27, 2012
It’s good to be curious
by chuckofish
I hope you enjoy this “remixed” Mr. Rogers as much as I did!
Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003) was an American educator, Presbyterian minister, songwriter, author, and television host. He was most famous for creating and hosting Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (1968–2001).
In 2002 he gave the commencement address at Dartmouth College (which he had attended many years before). It was a good speech. Here’s a snippet:
I’d like to give you all an invisible gift. A gift of a silent minute to think about those who have helped you become who you are today. Some of them may be here right now. Some may be far away. Some, like my astronomy professor, may even be in Heaven. But wherever they are, if they’ve loved you and encouraged you and wanted what was best in life for you, they’re right inside yourself. And I feel that you deserve quiet time on this special occasion to devote some thought to them. So let’s just take a minute in honor of those who have cared about us all along the way. One silent minute.
Whomever you’ve been thinking about, imagine how grateful they must be that during your silent times you remember how important they are to you. It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our lives from which we make our choices is very good stuff.
Good stuff, indeed!
P.S. I found this YouTube treasure on the wonderful SouleMama blog. Check it out here.
June 21, 2012
That’s My King
by chuckofish
Shadrach Meshach Lockridge (1913—2000) was the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, a prominent African-American congregation located in San Diego, California, from 1953 to 1993. He was known for his preaching across the United States and around the world.
I never hear anything like this in my church. I wish I did.
Do you know Him?
June 18, 2012
Why I love Raymond Chandler
by chuckofish
“On the right the great fat solid Pacific trudging into shore like a scrubwoman going home. No moon, no fuss, hardly a sound of the surf. No smell. None of the harsh wild smell of the sea. A California ocean. California, the department-store state. The most of everything and the best of nothing. Here we go again. You’re not human tonight, Marlowe.
—The Little Sister
It’s been awhile since we’ve heard from ol’ Raymond Chandler. Such a way with words. Don’t we all feel better now?
June 14, 2012
When all the sky is clear and blue
by chuckofish
“In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?”– Robert Louis Stevenson, Bed in Summer
I remember this so well–going to bed when it was still light outside! The days are long in June in this flyover state!
dual personalities 