writers | dual personalities

September 24, 2013

Happy birthday, F. Scott Fitzerald

by chuckofish

(September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940)

I always felt kind of sorry for Fitzgerald. He had talent, but he also had a serious drinking problem and he married the wrong woman. That can be a deadly combination.

According to Wikipedia, Fitzgerald died at age 44 and was originally buried in Rockville Union Cemetery, an Anglican cemetery and the oldest burying ground in Rockville, Maryland. His daughter Scottie Smith worked to overturn the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s ruling that Fitzgerald had died a non-practicing Catholic, so that he could be buried at the Roman Catholic Saint Mary’s Cemetery where his father’s family was interred; this involved “re-Catholicizing” Fitzgerald after his death. His remains (and those of his Episcopalian wife Zelda) were moved to the family plot in Saint Mary’s Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland, in 1975.

Seriously?

“Oh, the poor son-of-a-bitch.”*

But I got a little side-tracked there. Here’s a quote:

“He did not understand all he had heard, but from his clandestine glimpse into the privacy of these two, with all the world that his short experience could conceive of at their feet, he had gathered that life for everybody was a struggle, sometimes magnificent from a distance, but always difficult and surprisingly simple and a little sad.”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babylon Revisited and Other Stories

*The Great Gatsby

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September 10, 2013

Worthy of consideration

by chuckofish

“Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again. That is why every man’s story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.”

–Hermann Hesse

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September 4, 2013

Everything will be all right

by chuckofish

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day, I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

Søren-Kierkegaard-Statue im Garten der Königlichen Bibliothek in Kopenhagen.

I have been a big fan of Kierkegaard since I was in college and read:

“I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth’s orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself.”

(Journal, 1836)

His writings about the authentic individual and his criticism of modern Christendom appealed to me.

Yes, he was an existentialist and a Christian. I could relate.

“It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are. Human understanding has vulgarly occupied itself with nothing but understanding, but if it would only take the trouble to understand itself at the same time it would simply have to posit the paradox.”

(Journal, 1847)

I think I’ll take a walk now. How about you?

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August 29, 2013

The Enigma of August

by chuckofish

“The summer ended. Day by day, and taking its time, the summer ended. The noises in the street began to change, diminish, voices became fewer, the music sparse. Daily, blocks and blocks of children were spirited away. Grownups retreated from the streets, into the houses. Adolescents moved from the sidewalk to the stoop to the hallway to the stairs, and rooftops were abandoned. Such trees as there were allowed their leaves to fall – they fell unnoticed – seeming to promise, not without bitterness, to endure another year. At night, from a distance, the parks and playgrounds seemed inhabited by fireflies, and the night came sooner, inched in closer, fell with a greater weight. The sound of the alarm clock conquered the sound of the tambourine, the houses put on their winter faces. The houses stared down a bitter landscape, seeming, not without bitterness, to have resolved to endure another year.”

–James Baldwin

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August 27, 2013

R.I.P. Elmore Leonard

by chuckofish

Elmore Leonard (October 11, 1925 – August 20, 2013) died last week at the age of 87. He was an American novelist and screenwriter. His earliest novels, published in the 1950s, were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into popular films.

None of these literary genres is a particular favorite of mine, but I have always appreciated Leonard as a better writer than most in his chosen field. And, of course, he wrote the novel Hombre in 1961 on which the 1967 movie was based. It is one of my favorite westerns.

In this film Paul Newman plays John Russell, a white man brought up as an Apache. It is a classic tale of strangers on a stagecoach, journeying through hostile territory. The ‘bad guys’ are led by the scary Richard Boone. Unfortunately, the ‘good guys’ aren’t much better. As Boone says to Frederick March (who has billed the government for food for the Indians and then kept the money while the Indians starve to death), “Looks like you did good and we did better…You know, the thing is; [you] ought to be over here with us instead of standin’ over there.” That, indeed, is the crux of the story. Russell/Hombre wants no part of the others on the stage, but they look to him to get them out of their predicament. And as much as he doesn’t want to, he is forced by circumstances (and Diane Cilento) to do “the right thing”.

Hombre is also my favorite Paul Newman movie, along with Cool Hand Luke, which amazingly was made the same year. He is just over 40 and at the peak of his powers. Awesome.

It would be a worthy tribute to watch Hombre in memory of Elmore Leonard. It is an underrated film–I don’t know why–and classic Leonard before he became famous.

You could also watch an episode or two of Justified, an FX show which is based on Elmore Leonard’s novels Pronto and Riding the Rap and his short story “Fire in the Hole.” An evening with U.S. Marshall Raylen Givens would not be a bad idea either.

I’m just sayin’.

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August 22, 2013

“The world was hers for the reading.”*

by chuckofish

One of the great things about traveling is discovering new used book stores. We went to four used book stores–one in Denver, two in Laramie and one in Boulder. And, of course, I bought some books!

They usually look like this one in Laramie. One of the small pleasures of life.

Another small pleasure? College/University bookstores!

Don’t you love used books?

*Betty Smith wrote that in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

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August 1, 2013

A new month and a few things to keep in mind

by chuckofish

A new month, a new calendar page and the end of summer in sight. For those of us in this flyover state it has not been a bad summer weather-wise. Indeed, we have had lovely long stretches of Michigan-esque weather. By this time, usually, we are counting the days ’til fall, but not this year. I am in no hurry for school to be back in session full throttle. I plan to enjoy the dog days that are left of summer 2013.

The August TCM star of the month is old Humphrey Bogart, film idol and Episcopalian.

As I’ve mentioned before, my mother had a preference for Warner Brothers stars, such as Bogart and Errol Flynn, because she went to see all those movies at the Lewis J. Warner ’28 Memorial Theater at Worcester Academy (which I blogged about here). Like my mother, I feel that same thrill when the Warner Brothers logo appears and their rousing theme is played at the beginning of all their movies. TCM is not showing anything that I haven’t seen a million times and my favorite Bogart film, The Petrified Forest, is not on the line-up, but oh well. They are all still better than anything you’ll see on network television–reruns and commercials!

Tonight, however, they are showing my second-favorite Bogart film Key Largo, which is also one of my all-time favorite movies. I just saw it again recently and it really is fabulous. John Huston and Bogart were a good team and the star is at his best, ably supported by Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor and Lauren Bacall. So be sure to tune in or (at the very least) set your DVR.

August 1 is also the birthday of Herman Melville (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891), American writer and author, of course, of Moby-Dick.

This would be a great month to read the great book! You know you’ve been meaning to. Here’s a little something to get you in the mood.

“There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:– through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’s doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.”

August 1 is the birthday as well of Jerome Moross (August 1, 1913 – July 25, 1983) who composed works for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, soloists, musical theatre, and movies. He also orchestrated motion picture scores for other composers. His best known film score is that for the 1958 movie The Big Country, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Original Music Score.

The winner that year in that category was The Old Man and the Sea, scored by Dimitri Tiomkin. Hold the phone! Are you kidding me? Jerome Moross was robbed! But why am I never surprised? Anyway, you might want to watch that movie–it’s a good one. It misses being a great western because of the annoying plot and the super annoying character played by Carol Baker. Nevertheless, it has some great people in it: Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Jean Simmons, and Burl Ives (who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor). And the score is probably the best ever.

So here’s to a good August filled with great movies and great books! Let’s all have a good one.

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July 31, 2013

No instructions

by chuckofish

This is how I felt yesterday trying to think of something to blog about.

Thomas Eakins’ “The Artist’s Wife and His Setter”

I tried to get excited about Thomas Eakins, the artist who painted this picture,

but I couldn’t.

Even the babies in his paintings were thoughtful and looked depressed.

So I will just offer you this thought for the day from Anne Lamott:

“You will go through your life thinking there was a day in second grade that you must have missed, when the grown-ups came in and explained everything important to other kids. They said, ‘Look, you’re human, you’re going to feel isolated and afraid a lot of the time, and have bad self-esteem, and feel uniquely ruined, but here is the magic phrase that will take this feeling away. It will be like a feather that will lift you out of that fear and self-consciousness every single time, all through your life.’ And then they told the children who were there that day the magic phrase that everyone else in the world knows about and uses when feeling blue, which only you don’t know, because you were home sick the day the grown-ups told the children the way the whole world works.

But there was not such a day in school. No one got the instructions. That is the secret of life. Everyone is flailing around, winging it most of the time, trying to find the way out, or through, or up, without a map. This lack of instruction manual is how most people develop compassion, and how they figure out to show up, care, help and serve, as the only way of filling up and being free. Otherwise you grow up to be someone who needs to dominate and shame others so no one will know that you weren’t there the day the instructions were passed out.”

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July 26, 2013

“I was surrounded by phonies…They were coming in the goddam window.”

by chuckofish

Some time back I wrote a post about those historical figures with whom it would be awesome to share a meal. You may recall that daughter #2 brought up fictional characters and I said that that was a whole ‘nother post.

Well, it being mid-summer and Friday, I thought I’d get the ball rolling on that post. Here is a list of fictional (literary) characters I would invite to dinner. (Note: this list does not include any film or television characters and definitely no phonies.)

1. Holden Caulfield, The Catcher In the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
Any members of the Glass family would be welcome to stand in for Holden if he was AWOL and couldn’t make it.

2. Philip Marlowe, numerous books and stories by Raymond Chandler
He really is my perfect man and no one, even Bogart, has done him justice on film.

3. Mr. Knightley, Emma (Jane Austen)
Sigh. Understanding, sensitive, handsome, humble, and rich.

4. James Burke, Lord Jim (Joseph Conrad)
In addition to Jim, I would invite his friends Stein and Marlow. One of the quotes on my senior page was from this book.

5. Shane, Shane (Jack Schaefer)
The archetype.

6 and 7. Captain Call and Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry)
Some people might only invite Gus, but I love Captain Call just as much.

8. Starbuck, Moby-Dick (Herman Melville)
Ahab’s Quaker first mate, who, alone among the crew, has his doubts about the captain’s motives. He just wants to make it home.

9. The Fool, King Lear (W. Shakespeare)
The great secret of the successful fool – that he is no fool at all.

10. Judah Ben Hur, Ben Hur (Lew Wallace)
He was devoted to his mother and his sister–in addition to being awesome.

11. Francis Crawford of Lymond,The Game of Kings et al (Dorothy Dunnett)
Living by his wits and his sword-arm in 16th-century Scotland…

12. Dick Summers, The Big Sky (A.B. Guthrie)
Mountain man and gentleman. Such a great character–the author had to bring him back in The Way West.

13. Father Tim, At Home in Mitford et al (Jan Karon)
I’ll admit he’s a bit of a goodie-goodie and it’s true that he and his wife can be a bit much, but I do love this series of books and what would they be without Father Tim Kavanaugh at the center of them? Also he would probably agree to bring the main dish to the dinner and would offer the blessing.

14. Owen Meany, A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
A REALLY GREAT GUY!

If we wanted to spice things up a bit, maybe I would invite Raskolnikov, the young, stressed-out ex-student of law in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but I’m not sure if that would be a good idea.

I did not intend for this list to be all male, but that’s the way it ended up. In order to give equal time (not quite) to the ladies, I’ll add:

13 and 14. Lady Dona St. Columb (Frenchman’s Creek)

and Mary Yellan (Jamaica Inn) by Daphne DuMaurier

15. Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

16. Precious Ramotswe, The #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (Alexander McCall Smith)

and from the animal kingdom: Miss Bianca, The Rescuers (Margery Sharp)

and Charlotte, Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)

All these ladies are smart, resourceful, brave, and do the right thing. Charlotte was also “a true friend and a good writer.”

As you can see, it is really easy to get carried away with an exercise such as this! I could go on and on. Who have I left out? Atticus Finch? TinTin? Richard Hannay? David Copperfield? Pippi Longstocking? Who would you invite?

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July 18, 2013

This is how my brain works

by chuckofish

“[Adamsberg] had recently seen a photograph that had struck him as a clear illustration of his own idea of his brain. It showed the contents of a fishing net unloaded on the deck of a large vessel, a pile taller than the fishermen themselves, a heap of all kinds of things, defying identification, in which the silvery colours of the fish mingles with the dark brown of seaweed, the grey of the crustaceans…the blue of lobsters, the white of seashells, making it hard to distinguish the different elements. That was what he was always fighting, the confused, multiform and shifting mass, always ready to change or vanish, and float off again into the sea. The sailors were sorting out the pile, throwing back creatures that were too small, lumps of seaweed or detritus, and saving the familar useful species. Adamsberg, it seemed to him, did the opposite, throwing out all the sensible items and then looking at the irrelevant fragments of his personal collection.”

–Fred Vargas, The Ghost Riders of Ordebec

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