ONE NATION UNDER SEX
How The Private Lives of Presidents, First Ladies, and Their Lovers Changed the Course of American History.
By Larry Flynt and David Eisenbach C2011
Palgrave-Macmillan Publishers
page 7
"Ben Franklin was not the first American newsman to realize that sex sells, he he was a pioneer in pushing the envelope of what was acceptable in print. When he entered the newspaper business in 1729, he attacked Philadelphia's only other newspaper for printing an article on abortion. Under the penname "Martha Careful," the 23 year old Franklin condemned his rival publisher in the voice of an outraged woman. "If he proceeds farther to expose the secrets of our sex in that audacious manner we will run hazard of taking him by the beard in the next place we meet him." Thus Franklin manufactured the first recorded abortion debate in America. He did not really care about the issue; he just wanted to sell newspapers and undermine the competition. A few year later, Franklin eliminated the rival newspaper and took control of the news business in America's largest city."
"Franklin started America's first gossip column, which he called Busy-Body, in 1729. Although he admitted to his readers that Busy-Body's content was "nobody's business," he vowed that "If any are offended at my publicly exposing their private vices, I promise they shall have the satisfaction in a very little time, of seeing their good friends and neighbors in the same circumstances." Franklin reported in 1731 how one unfortunate husband discovered his wife in bed with a man named Stonecutter... '
Page 8
"One of Franklin's most famous stories featured Polly Baker, who was on trial for having her fifth illegitimate child...The judges were so moved by her speech (while on trial) that one of them married her the next day. Franklin later admitted to Thomas Jefferson that he made up Polly's story and many others: "When I was a printer and editor of a newspaper, we were sometimes slack of news, and to amuse our customers I used to fill up our vacant columns with anecdotes and fables, and fancies of my own." More than any other founding Father, Franklin had a great appreciation for strong, sexually liberated, sassy women like the fictitious Polly Baker."
page 8-9
"He also invented America's first sexual and moral advice column. In 1731 he published an anonymous letter (which he wrote) asking, "Suppose a person discovered that his wife was having an affair with a neighbor, and suppose he had reason to believe that if he revealed this to his neighbor's wife she would agree to have sex with him, is he justifiable in doing it?" In the voice of the editor, Franklin self- righteously replied to his own letter,"Return not evil for evil, but repay evil with good."
Page 9
By attracting readers with salacious stories and an open discussion of sex, Franklin became the first American printer to make a profit from his newspaper. Other printers used their newspapers to advertise their other businesses - job printing and often a general store. Franklin puished ad sales and advised businessmen on the best ways to market their products in print. While other colonial newspaper crammed their ads onto the back page, he sprinkled his ads throughout his paper, making them harder to skip over. He plowed his fortune into funding other printers in cities up and down the seaboard and in return got a share of their profits and their big scoops. By age 42, Ben Frankin was America's first media mogul, with his own news network, and so rich that he could retire in 1747 to concentrate on the passions that would make him famous: inventions, science experiments, politics, and women."
12/3/11
11/28/11
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN : AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE. AN ELECTRIC MIND: CHRISTINE TRZYNA FILM REVIEW
LOVED this video about one of my favorite historical characters. Yes, if I had the opportunity to travel back in time it would be to Philadelphia, where I would, pre-American revolution, have some long coffee house discussions with Ben. This one showed how a person born to a candle maker, who had aspirations past his station in life, made that happen. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was one of the FIRST NETWORKERS! Since he did not have associations due to station, he created clubs, joined clubs, and by working hard and clever, became a wealthy man, able to retire the publishing/ news business by 42 so he could be a gentleman of leisure and up to what he'd been interested in all along - science and invention. Ben also surpassed his religious upbringing mightily. This video/DVD came out in 2002 and was produced by PBS. Don't we just thrill to the PBS intro music, braced for yet another wonderful educational time?
11/26/11
11/25/11
GOT A QUESTION FOR YOU WRITERS OUT THERE!
Do we really have BETTER MEMORIES than most people?
I've long heard of the "long writer's memory" and I believe I am one of those people who has a very good memory. This doesn't mean I never forget anything or that I don't write things down. I often make lists of things I have to do, to try and stay on track with the ambitions of my day.
I've long heard of the "long writer's memory" and I believe I am one of those people who has a very good memory. This doesn't mean I never forget anything or that I don't write things down. I often make lists of things I have to do, to try and stay on track with the ambitions of my day.
11/23/11
MARK TWAIN HOUSE : WOMAN JAILED FOR STEALING A MILLION
Breaking News from Yahoo. "Twain, born Samuel Clemens in Florida, Missouri, had money troubles himself while living in the home from 1874 to 1891 -- a period in which he wrote such American classics as "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn."Twain ultimately had to leave the Victorian Gothic home for lecture tours of Europe because of financial troubles."
11/3/11
SOUTH AFRICAN CAVE HOLDS ANCIENT ART SUPPLIES
Lead researcher Christopher Henshilwood of the University of Bergen, Norway, said the find represents an important benchmark in the evolution of complex human mental processes.
The ochre could have been used for painting, decoration and skin protection, according to the researchers.
The discovery shows that even at that time "humans had the conceptual ability to source, combine and store substances that were then possibly used to enhance their social practices."
Linking to the Associated Press article!
The ochre could have been used for painting, decoration and skin protection, according to the researchers.
The discovery shows that even at that time "humans had the conceptual ability to source, combine and store substances that were then possibly used to enhance their social practices."
Linking to the Associated Press article!
10/31/11
JOHN KEATS : THIS LIVING HAND NOW WARM AND CAPABLE
THIS LIVING HAND NOW WARM AND CAPABLE
by John Keats 1795–1821
This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm’d–see here it is–
I hold it towards you.
by John Keats 1795–1821
This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm’d–see here it is–
I hold it towards you.
10/30/11
YE GHOST
Do you like to be afraid?
Mystics say that this time of the year is the best time for contacting those who've passed to the other side. And for them to contact us.
So maybe this why there is Halloween, Hallowmas, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and the Day of the Dead celebrated in various cultures in late October and early November.
I'm not at all into horror and gore or the outrageous party scene that has emerged in recent years as a celebration for Halloween. I'd rather stay at home with a candle and a book.
Mystics say that this time of the year is the best time for contacting those who've passed to the other side. And for them to contact us.
So maybe this why there is Halloween, Hallowmas, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and the Day of the Dead celebrated in various cultures in late October and early November.
I'm not at all into horror and gore or the outrageous party scene that has emerged in recent years as a celebration for Halloween. I'd rather stay at home with a candle and a book.
10/28/11
CROWDSOURCING:
"Your educated guess may be just as good as an expert's opinion. Statistics have long shown that large crowds of average people frequently make better predictions about unknown events, when their disparate guesses are averaged out, than any individual scholar — a phenomenon known as the wisdom of crowds."
Linking to the article : Are we all a little psychic?
Linking to the article : Are we all a little psychic?
10/24/11
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, CORNELL, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, and INDIANA UNIVERSITY SUED BY AUTHORS GUILD
THIS IS ABOUT DIGITAL COPIES OF BOOKS THAT ARE STILL COPYRIGHTED BY AUTHORS. IT'S A SERIOUS MATTER AND A TEST OF OUR LAWS.
"Authors and authors' groups in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom sued the University of Michigan and four other universities Monday, seeking to stop the creation of online libraries made up of as many as 7 million copyright-protected books they say were scanned without authorization.
The Authors Guild, the Australian Society of Authors and the Union Des Ecrivaines et des Ecrivains Quebecois, or UNEQ, joined eight individual authors to file the copyright infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan against Michigan, the University of California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Cornell University."
READ THE FULL ARTICLE as published in FORBES Magazine, by AP journalist Larry Neumeister, now!
"Authors and authors' groups in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom sued the University of Michigan and four other universities Monday, seeking to stop the creation of online libraries made up of as many as 7 million copyright-protected books they say were scanned without authorization.
The Authors Guild, the Australian Society of Authors and the Union Des Ecrivaines et des Ecrivains Quebecois, or UNEQ, joined eight individual authors to file the copyright infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan against Michigan, the University of California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Cornell University."
READ THE FULL ARTICLE as published in FORBES Magazine, by AP journalist Larry Neumeister, now!
10/21/11
MICHAEL CRICHTON : NEXT : BOOK REVIEW BY CHRISTINE TRZYNA
"This novel is fiction except for the parts that aren't"
So is the disclaimer statement on MICHAEL CRICHTON's book circa 2006 "NEXT" which I enjoyed thoroughly maybe especially because I read science fact around DNA and the Human Genome Project.
In this story human genes are being put into parrots to make them talk in full sentences and into primates to make them half human as well as other human beings to heal them. Crichton plays with the mad rush of Universities and Science Labs and Medical Companies who want to copyright human gene's that they have taken from people who submitted to clinical trials or experimental treatments: We have no right to what is taken from our bodies.
The book is damn serious but fun too; Neanderthals were the First Blondes - Stronger, Bigger Brained, Smarter than us puny Cro-Magnons.
It's not just the physical though, it's also the psychological that's being gene tweaked. Think tanks throw ideas about how to market a gene - THE COMFORT GENE - or something that cures drug addiction but has the side effect of rapidly aging a person.
Are biotech companies quietly killing off people with their experimentation, that information held from the hard news? Are American executives going to foreign countries to get the gene therapy they want and can afford because it isn't offered here? Are scientists already growing missing ears in labs?
331) "You know how gene therapy kills people? All sorts of ways. They don't know what's going to happen. They insert genes into people, and it turns on cancer genes, and the people die of cancer. Or they have huge allergic reactions and die. These goofballs don't know what they hell they are doing. They're reckless and they don't follow the rules. And we," he said, "are going to smack their asses down."
C 2006 Michael Crichton
HarperCollinsPublishers
So is the disclaimer statement on MICHAEL CRICHTON's book circa 2006 "NEXT" which I enjoyed thoroughly maybe especially because I read science fact around DNA and the Human Genome Project.
In this story human genes are being put into parrots to make them talk in full sentences and into primates to make them half human as well as other human beings to heal them. Crichton plays with the mad rush of Universities and Science Labs and Medical Companies who want to copyright human gene's that they have taken from people who submitted to clinical trials or experimental treatments: We have no right to what is taken from our bodies.
The book is damn serious but fun too; Neanderthals were the First Blondes - Stronger, Bigger Brained, Smarter than us puny Cro-Magnons.
It's not just the physical though, it's also the psychological that's being gene tweaked. Think tanks throw ideas about how to market a gene - THE COMFORT GENE - or something that cures drug addiction but has the side effect of rapidly aging a person.
Are biotech companies quietly killing off people with their experimentation, that information held from the hard news? Are American executives going to foreign countries to get the gene therapy they want and can afford because it isn't offered here? Are scientists already growing missing ears in labs?
331) "You know how gene therapy kills people? All sorts of ways. They don't know what's going to happen. They insert genes into people, and it turns on cancer genes, and the people die of cancer. Or they have huge allergic reactions and die. These goofballs don't know what they hell they are doing. They're reckless and they don't follow the rules. And we," he said, "are going to smack their asses down."
C 2006 Michael Crichton
HarperCollinsPublishers
10/18/11
LAUREN MYRACLE DID THE ETHICAL THING
"This year’s National Book Awards have become a story of embarrassment a month before the winners are to be announced.
Within just a few days, children’s author Lauren Myracle has been a nominee, a non-nominee, a nominee again and, finally, a non-nominee, asked to withdraw over mistakes not her own.
Myracle’s “Shine’’ was on the original list of five finalists announced last Wednesday for the young people’s literature category. But the National Book Foundation, which sponsors the prizes, cited a “miscommunication’’ with the judges and quickly said that her book had been confused with Franny Billingsley’s “Chime.’’ (To avoid advanced word leaking on the Internet, judges inform the foundation by telephone of their choices)."
Linking to this article by Hillel Italie - AP National Writer, one of many articles and reports (I first heard of this on the radio.) Some reports suggested that the American Book Awards people had not suggested she withdrawl, but because it was their mistake, had proposed both books and authors.
Lauren Myracle did the right thing in withdrawling without a fuss.
10/11/11
9/29/11
WINSTON CHURCHILL QUOTE
"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public."
- Winston Churchill
- Winston Churchill
9/14/11
THE BAG LADY PAPERS : ALEXANDRA PENNEY CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW
The Bag Lady Papers
the priceless experience of losing it all
a true story
by Alexandra Penney C 2010 (Just now on my library's New Book Shelf!)
Voice Hyperion Publishers
Alexandra Penny lost it "all" except she didn't. She remains living in a house and simply has had to budget down to where most of us would feel lucky to be, subbing ordered in pizza (along with good liquor) for a dinner party, for instance, having to stay at less than exclusive but still very good motels, putting a small investment house in Florida on the market for sale.
Bernie Madoff lost "nearly everything" she had invested with him (though it was in an IRA and in the end we don't know if that category and her old age was saved or not.) So this was not money she was trying to live on in the present.
PENNEY NEVER ACTUALLY BECAME A BAG LADY, she just feared becoming so, perhaps foolishly. The Greeks did think that tragedy only happened to those in high places because of the long fall. The shocks of life for the common person were merely to be expected and endured. So perhaps this is about Penney's sudden inability to live stylishly.
Because it's understood that Bernie did a whole lot of people in with his Ponzi Scheme gone wrong, IT WAS NOT HER FAULT. So she gets sympathy, not criticism, and help from a long list of friends who seem to also have been as well to do as she was and is. Not that Penney isn't intelligent, educated, or willing to work. She's published other books and been involved in magazine production and editing, is formerly of SELF Magazine. She is now also an artist with gallery representation.
How many people have a friend pay them to blog and even provide them some help to do just that for starters shortly after they admit they must again work for a living?
Yes, she experienced a crisis, but with respect to the real BAG LADIES of this world, she has never experienced anything close to homelessness. Probably there are more rich ladies reading books these days than homeless ones.
C Christine Trzyna 2011 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
the priceless experience of losing it all
a true story
by Alexandra Penney C 2010 (Just now on my library's New Book Shelf!)
Voice Hyperion Publishers
Alexandra Penny lost it "all" except she didn't. She remains living in a house and simply has had to budget down to where most of us would feel lucky to be, subbing ordered in pizza (along with good liquor) for a dinner party, for instance, having to stay at less than exclusive but still very good motels, putting a small investment house in Florida on the market for sale.
Bernie Madoff lost "nearly everything" she had invested with him (though it was in an IRA and in the end we don't know if that category and her old age was saved or not.) So this was not money she was trying to live on in the present.
PENNEY NEVER ACTUALLY BECAME A BAG LADY, she just feared becoming so, perhaps foolishly. The Greeks did think that tragedy only happened to those in high places because of the long fall. The shocks of life for the common person were merely to be expected and endured. So perhaps this is about Penney's sudden inability to live stylishly.
Because it's understood that Bernie did a whole lot of people in with his Ponzi Scheme gone wrong, IT WAS NOT HER FAULT. So she gets sympathy, not criticism, and help from a long list of friends who seem to also have been as well to do as she was and is. Not that Penney isn't intelligent, educated, or willing to work. She's published other books and been involved in magazine production and editing, is formerly of SELF Magazine. She is now also an artist with gallery representation.
How many people have a friend pay them to blog and even provide them some help to do just that for starters shortly after they admit they must again work for a living?
Yes, she experienced a crisis, but with respect to the real BAG LADIES of this world, she has never experienced anything close to homelessness. Probably there are more rich ladies reading books these days than homeless ones.
C Christine Trzyna 2011 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
9/5/11
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON Quote
"Talent does what it can but genius does what it must." - Edward Bulwer Lytton.
8/29/11
ATLANTIC MAGAZINE BRINGS BACK THE SHORT STORY
Atlantic Magazine has brought back the short story. A few years ago the magazine quit their tradition. But now readers are full of opinions. Should short stories stay or go again?
I AM SO HAPPY THAT ATLANTIC IS MAKING SPACE FOR SHORT STORES! I wish more magazines would do so!
It was in magazines that I was first exposed to short fiction, a genre a studied and wrote quite a bit for a time. Pre-Internet, I believed that people would read short fiction, collections of it, because they still wanted to read and did not have the time for reading full length books. I anticipated that this form would intrigue more readers.
Now the Internet has everyone reading blurbs and abbreviations. We quickly assess a site and decide if it will provide the information we're seeking. It's difficult to imagine life without at least an hour a day on the computer. So it's not THE TIME TO READ after all, but a significant change in our attention span that's changed, which SHOULD MAKE SHORT FICTION HOT AGAIN!
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
I AM SO HAPPY THAT ATLANTIC IS MAKING SPACE FOR SHORT STORES! I wish more magazines would do so!
It was in magazines that I was first exposed to short fiction, a genre a studied and wrote quite a bit for a time. Pre-Internet, I believed that people would read short fiction, collections of it, because they still wanted to read and did not have the time for reading full length books. I anticipated that this form would intrigue more readers.
Now the Internet has everyone reading blurbs and abbreviations. We quickly assess a site and decide if it will provide the information we're seeking. It's difficult to imagine life without at least an hour a day on the computer. So it's not THE TIME TO READ after all, but a significant change in our attention span that's changed, which SHOULD MAKE SHORT FICTION HOT AGAIN!
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
8/25/11
ANGELINA by ANDREW MORTON : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW
ANGELINA (Unauthorized biography of Angelina Jolie)
by Andrew Morton C 2010
St Martin's Press
This review isn't so much about the CONTENT of Andrew Morton's biography of the famous actress and world traveler, who along with life partner Brad Pitt, has become the mother of 6 children, three who've been adopted from Africa and Asia, and who is now also an official Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, and perhaps one of the most powerful people in the world, the pair being philanthropists.
No, this review is of Andrew Morton as an outstanding writer in his genre, which is the celebrity focused biography. Morton has, through research and interviews of those surrounding the life story of a celebrity, made a great story of it, which meant making choices about what information mattered to make a book of it.
Morton's book held my interest, not because I'm a special fan of Angelina Jolie, since I'm merely curious about her. Morton's book held my interest because he presented a character so fascinating, that the story held even if she had not achieved the fame or infamy that she has. What's fascinating is the conflict within Angelina and in her life, which she seems to have succeeded because of or in spite of.
First, because motherhood has become her claim to fame if acting isn't, Morton begins with a scene of her infanthood, baby Angelina in an all white on white room, being tended to by an array of babysitters because her own mother is too depressed to deal with her.
Then he shows us, Angelina,as a young adult. She hardly seems to have overcome any psychological problems she might have developed because of this early deprivation, or growing up with divorced parents who never did agin become real friends, and a mother who never forgave a father for his cheating.
Morton shows Angelina as she was; a drug addicted person who used this that and heroin, bisexual and a dabbler in bondage, a wild child, so to speak, who without apology or a lot of explanation makes good anyway. She's unconventional and she seems to be doing a fine job of raising children with her life partner, Brad Pitt, so is it despite or because of her own childhood?
How does someone who collected knives from a young age and took to cutting herself (and then got all those tattoos - ouch!) become stable enough to raise happy children while globe trotting, granted there is "help?" Morton mentions the opinions of a couple psychologists, and mentions neither have ever met her, but their theories don't actually seem to make a lot of sense when life as lived now is evidence. She's a Method Actor, and she becomes her roles, but seems to relish the mom role that she made up on her own the best.
Angelina's father John Voight, the actor, attempted many interventions, and got not much gratitude for the bother. Angelina has a habit of freezing out those who she no longer likes. That means that she froze out two ex husbands, but went back and befriended one of them a while, at least until Brad. So I am left with this question: Is Brad Pitt actually the stability that made it all possible?
C 2011 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
by Andrew Morton C 2010
St Martin's Press
This review isn't so much about the CONTENT of Andrew Morton's biography of the famous actress and world traveler, who along with life partner Brad Pitt, has become the mother of 6 children, three who've been adopted from Africa and Asia, and who is now also an official Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, and perhaps one of the most powerful people in the world, the pair being philanthropists.
No, this review is of Andrew Morton as an outstanding writer in his genre, which is the celebrity focused biography. Morton has, through research and interviews of those surrounding the life story of a celebrity, made a great story of it, which meant making choices about what information mattered to make a book of it.
Morton's book held my interest, not because I'm a special fan of Angelina Jolie, since I'm merely curious about her. Morton's book held my interest because he presented a character so fascinating, that the story held even if she had not achieved the fame or infamy that she has. What's fascinating is the conflict within Angelina and in her life, which she seems to have succeeded because of or in spite of.
First, because motherhood has become her claim to fame if acting isn't, Morton begins with a scene of her infanthood, baby Angelina in an all white on white room, being tended to by an array of babysitters because her own mother is too depressed to deal with her.
Then he shows us, Angelina,as a young adult. She hardly seems to have overcome any psychological problems she might have developed because of this early deprivation, or growing up with divorced parents who never did agin become real friends, and a mother who never forgave a father for his cheating.
Morton shows Angelina as she was; a drug addicted person who used this that and heroin, bisexual and a dabbler in bondage, a wild child, so to speak, who without apology or a lot of explanation makes good anyway. She's unconventional and she seems to be doing a fine job of raising children with her life partner, Brad Pitt, so is it despite or because of her own childhood?
How does someone who collected knives from a young age and took to cutting herself (and then got all those tattoos - ouch!) become stable enough to raise happy children while globe trotting, granted there is "help?" Morton mentions the opinions of a couple psychologists, and mentions neither have ever met her, but their theories don't actually seem to make a lot of sense when life as lived now is evidence. She's a Method Actor, and she becomes her roles, but seems to relish the mom role that she made up on her own the best.
Angelina's father John Voight, the actor, attempted many interventions, and got not much gratitude for the bother. Angelina has a habit of freezing out those who she no longer likes. That means that she froze out two ex husbands, but went back and befriended one of them a while, at least until Brad. So I am left with this question: Is Brad Pitt actually the stability that made it all possible?
C 2011 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
8/18/11
EXCERPT : AND THE SHOW WENT ON : CULTURAL LIFE IN NAZI-OCCUPIED PARIS BY ALAN RIDING
Pages 239-241
"...the Nazi had...long since "cleansed" the publishers' back lists...some 20,000 books were seized.
"...After the Otto List, a far wider sweep followed, with German military police raiding seventy publishing houses, closing eleven of them, and confiscating over 700,000 books. But the Nazis were not yet satisfied. In July 1942, Propaganda Staffel issued an updated Otto List of 1,070 titles; some books on the first list were removed as mistakes, and others were added. Then in May 1943, a third list was issued, naming 1554 authors, including 739 "Jewish writers in the French language.'
... "In his memoir Heller said that a total of 2, 242 tons of books were burned. He noted, "I was able to visit the place where these books were stocked before their destruction. it was a vast garage on the avenue de la Grande-Armee. In the sad light coming through dusty windows, I saw piled up, torn dirty books, which for me were the objects of a veritable cult. A mountain of horror, a dreadful sight which reminded me of the autos-da-fe in front of Berlin University in May 1933.'
C 2010 Alan Riding
Borzoi Book
Alfred A. Knopf Publisher
"...the Nazi had...long since "cleansed" the publishers' back lists...some 20,000 books were seized.
"...After the Otto List, a far wider sweep followed, with German military police raiding seventy publishing houses, closing eleven of them, and confiscating over 700,000 books. But the Nazis were not yet satisfied. In July 1942, Propaganda Staffel issued an updated Otto List of 1,070 titles; some books on the first list were removed as mistakes, and others were added. Then in May 1943, a third list was issued, naming 1554 authors, including 739 "Jewish writers in the French language.'
... "In his memoir Heller said that a total of 2, 242 tons of books were burned. He noted, "I was able to visit the place where these books were stocked before their destruction. it was a vast garage on the avenue de la Grande-Armee. In the sad light coming through dusty windows, I saw piled up, torn dirty books, which for me were the objects of a veritable cult. A mountain of horror, a dreadful sight which reminded me of the autos-da-fe in front of Berlin University in May 1933.'
C 2010 Alan Riding
Borzoi Book
Alfred A. Knopf Publisher
8/6/11
MY HOLLYWOOD by MONA SIMPSON : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW
MY HOLLYWOOD
C 2010 Mona Simpson
Borzoi Book Alfred A Knopf Publisher
Filipina nanny "Lola", the dominant voice and sensibility in this wonderfully rendered portrait of new century life in Santa Monica, California, comes to Los Angeles to work and send money home to her own Hallmark card artist husband and four good children. She, over several years, works long hours and seven days a week to send the family about half a million in USA dollars so that they can go to college and become professionals, raising their status and class in Manila. In the meantime, focused on her own real work of mothering the children of strangers, she slowly loosens her own marriage and roots in the Philippines.
To succeed at sending money home, Lola raises the infant children of two career couples and single mothers attached to television writing and the Hollywood business until they are pre-schoolers and then some. She falls in love with her charges, first Williamo, and then Laura, and becomes an important player in the local nanny network, helping to rescue one woman who is held as a slave, brokering marriages, and providing mentorship and referrals. She is there when the parents are too busy to have had (in my opinion) children in the first place. She is self sacrificing and these children of parents who are self-involved, but besides meeting her goals, where is the thanks?
IS THERE EVER THANKS IN MOTHERHOOD?
As dedicated as she is to raising Williamo, the only son of a mother who cannot handle raising a child and compose music at the same time named Claire, and a father who spends the vast majority of his life at the office where he writes situation comedy but is not even in his marriage, the boy will, a few years later, not even remember her.
The important woman's work of raising children - with help - has not been fully left behind by the birth mothers in this book, it's just that they have to hold onto their marriages at the same time, and childbirth and marriage turn out to be not so romantic after all.
The individual language and mentalities of Claire and Lola balance the overall view point of this book, which is to expose their individual and collective delimma as they raise and lower their class through hiring help or getting divorced. Upper class women, many accomplished and educated, slowly move their lives to leaving careers behind and dependence on husbands, and sometimes husbands have affairs to keep their marriages, but what is most important for them all is supposed to be the children, but that's not it either. They have left their goals behind for taking it one day at a time, making playdates, worrying if their child seems behind his peers or unpopular. Knit in a community like this, having your children get along with the children of your husband's work peers or boss is essential.
Laura, born slow but able to catch up with the ongoing attention Lola provides as a devoted babysitter rather than a professional special ed teacher, has a single mother who is mostly absent and self indulgent, and we get to know her so little we are, like Lola, not so sure where she goes or what she does. Despite Lola being in the traditional role of stay at home mother to the working woman who brings the income like a man in a traditional role, another relationship with a man who would be father, displaces Lola once again.
This then is the short short of the novel.
The clash of cultures and the mutual ambivalence about marriage and raising children that is cross-cultural, along with the broken English talk of Lola, which is more revealing than if she spoke English well, provides the nuances as well as a series of small informing shocks. This is no doubt a feminist novel, one that reveals intricacies between women who seem both striving and misguided, and who have things in common even when they are from different cultures and are kept from closeness by the employer - employee role they play out. It's one for my permanent bookshelf.
I've linked to Mona Simpson's site!
C Christine Trzyna 2011 All Rights including Internet and International Rights Reserved
C 2010 Mona Simpson
Borzoi Book Alfred A Knopf Publisher
Filipina nanny "Lola", the dominant voice and sensibility in this wonderfully rendered portrait of new century life in Santa Monica, California, comes to Los Angeles to work and send money home to her own Hallmark card artist husband and four good children. She, over several years, works long hours and seven days a week to send the family about half a million in USA dollars so that they can go to college and become professionals, raising their status and class in Manila. In the meantime, focused on her own real work of mothering the children of strangers, she slowly loosens her own marriage and roots in the Philippines.
To succeed at sending money home, Lola raises the infant children of two career couples and single mothers attached to television writing and the Hollywood business until they are pre-schoolers and then some. She falls in love with her charges, first Williamo, and then Laura, and becomes an important player in the local nanny network, helping to rescue one woman who is held as a slave, brokering marriages, and providing mentorship and referrals. She is there when the parents are too busy to have had (in my opinion) children in the first place. She is self sacrificing and these children of parents who are self-involved, but besides meeting her goals, where is the thanks?
IS THERE EVER THANKS IN MOTHERHOOD?
As dedicated as she is to raising Williamo, the only son of a mother who cannot handle raising a child and compose music at the same time named Claire, and a father who spends the vast majority of his life at the office where he writes situation comedy but is not even in his marriage, the boy will, a few years later, not even remember her.
The important woman's work of raising children - with help - has not been fully left behind by the birth mothers in this book, it's just that they have to hold onto their marriages at the same time, and childbirth and marriage turn out to be not so romantic after all.
The individual language and mentalities of Claire and Lola balance the overall view point of this book, which is to expose their individual and collective delimma as they raise and lower their class through hiring help or getting divorced. Upper class women, many accomplished and educated, slowly move their lives to leaving careers behind and dependence on husbands, and sometimes husbands have affairs to keep their marriages, but what is most important for them all is supposed to be the children, but that's not it either. They have left their goals behind for taking it one day at a time, making playdates, worrying if their child seems behind his peers or unpopular. Knit in a community like this, having your children get along with the children of your husband's work peers or boss is essential.
Laura, born slow but able to catch up with the ongoing attention Lola provides as a devoted babysitter rather than a professional special ed teacher, has a single mother who is mostly absent and self indulgent, and we get to know her so little we are, like Lola, not so sure where she goes or what she does. Despite Lola being in the traditional role of stay at home mother to the working woman who brings the income like a man in a traditional role, another relationship with a man who would be father, displaces Lola once again.
This then is the short short of the novel.
The clash of cultures and the mutual ambivalence about marriage and raising children that is cross-cultural, along with the broken English talk of Lola, which is more revealing than if she spoke English well, provides the nuances as well as a series of small informing shocks. This is no doubt a feminist novel, one that reveals intricacies between women who seem both striving and misguided, and who have things in common even when they are from different cultures and are kept from closeness by the employer - employee role they play out. It's one for my permanent bookshelf.
I've linked to Mona Simpson's site!
C Christine Trzyna 2011 All Rights including Internet and International Rights Reserved
8/1/11
7/29/11
TAISHA ABELAR NEW BOOK COMING OUT : UPDATE
Guess what? If you go to April 1 2023 and see the post TAISHA ABELAR'S LOST BOOK - STALKING WITH THE DOUBLE (RESTORED VERSION) you will be able to read a manuscript copy of the book.
*******************
According to http://www.nagualist.com/new-taisha-abelar-book it is due out July 30th 2011, published by Penguin.
You can use the search feature of this blog to read past posts on Taisha Abelar.
UPDATE JANUARY 5, 2011 I'M STILL WAITING....
7/25/11
AMY WINEHOUSE DEAD FROM LIFE and WHY USING ILLEGAL DRUGS is STUPID STUPID STUPID
The surprising but not shocking death of AMY WINEHOUSE, the Jewish-British singer, whose music I've posted on this blog because I like it, who took a hell of a lot of International Razzing over her drug and alcohol addictions, and who appeared to be too fragile to deal with fame and the pressure of having to outdo herself on her next try, has me thinking about drug use and abuse : addiction.
Reading one story about Amy's life, I was reminded that she wasn't always sick.
I was thinking about a Psychology 101 class I took years ago in which the professor, explained to us why we should never bother to take that first opportunity to use cocaine. She said a small percentage of us have cocaine receptors in our brain and will become addicted that first try. The chance of ruining your life was a chance not worth taking.
It's a chance I never took not only because the professor said so, but being out of control of one's life never sounded like fun to me. Also I wanted to feel what I was feeling. I consider emotions to be important, a form of intelligence.
Since when did "recreational" use mean - not a little buzz - but out of control? For some people the first drink is the slippery slide down to the street, or in this case, Amy's, coffin.
I also thought about how I was often shunned by "druggies" and "boozers" in my own life, shunned for not being cool enough, or whatever.
To this day my reputation proceeds me. No one has ever offered to sell me any illegal drug.
Cool seems to have been the most important thing for a lot of talented people, most of them probably posers, since the most naturally cool people are actually sociopaths, they with their unblinking reaction to things that make most of us quite emotional.
When someone says "You cool with that?" What are they really asking us to not mind?
Reading one story about Amy's life, I was reminded that she wasn't always sick.
I was thinking about a Psychology 101 class I took years ago in which the professor, explained to us why we should never bother to take that first opportunity to use cocaine. She said a small percentage of us have cocaine receptors in our brain and will become addicted that first try. The chance of ruining your life was a chance not worth taking.
It's a chance I never took not only because the professor said so, but being out of control of one's life never sounded like fun to me. Also I wanted to feel what I was feeling. I consider emotions to be important, a form of intelligence.
Since when did "recreational" use mean - not a little buzz - but out of control? For some people the first drink is the slippery slide down to the street, or in this case, Amy's, coffin.
I also thought about how I was often shunned by "druggies" and "boozers" in my own life, shunned for not being cool enough, or whatever.
To this day my reputation proceeds me. No one has ever offered to sell me any illegal drug.
Cool seems to have been the most important thing for a lot of talented people, most of them probably posers, since the most naturally cool people are actually sociopaths, they with their unblinking reaction to things that make most of us quite emotional.
When someone says "You cool with that?" What are they really asking us to not mind?
Should I suppose that "CREATIVE" people are more prone to use illegal drugs? (And by illegal I also mean the misuse of prescriptions since you are not using it as prescribed.) Are creative people all actually psycho, in need of psych meds, and self treating?
Back to Psychology 101, I believe that basic needs pyramid - food, shelter, clothing - and creature comforts, along with a lot of equipment such as a lap top computer, are essential for allowing us to create. The struggle with drugs, with survival, does not support creativity.
The list of the talented musically, dead at 27, goes like this: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse. Is this the perfect age to move out of this life and leave behind a collection of music that is classic enough to create estates; wealth not enjoyed while living? Maybe its all about a hard "Saturn Return" astrologically, in other words fate, or simply the fast burn of a not so eternal flame.
C 2011 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet Rights and International Rights : Contact author to reuse.
7/17/11
HAVANA NOCTURENE by T.J. ENGLISH : BOOK EXCERPT
Page 110
"The casinos were in fine fettle and the Havana Mob was beginning to assert itself in the early months of 1953, but all was not right in the land of Christopher Columbus. Batista's golpe had created a mood of unrest that would not go away. A tradition of rebellion had been reawakened, though it was difficult to gauge the actual level of resistance. Censorship was rigorously enforced on the island. The regime enacted the Law Of Public Order, which had a subset of Legislative Decree 977, a law that made it a criminal act to release any statement or information against the dictatorship. Through SIM, the government maintained a network of spies and paid informants who passed along information regarding "subversive activities." Newspapers were a common target, their offices trashed and editors threatened or imprisoned if they published anything even remotely contrary to the wishes of the government. In fact, anyone who disseminated anything perceived to be anti-Batista - pamphleteers, political activists, or rabble-rousers of any kind - was met with harassment, imprisonment, or death.
C 2007, 2008 T.J. English
Published by William Morrow an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
"The casinos were in fine fettle and the Havana Mob was beginning to assert itself in the early months of 1953, but all was not right in the land of Christopher Columbus. Batista's golpe had created a mood of unrest that would not go away. A tradition of rebellion had been reawakened, though it was difficult to gauge the actual level of resistance. Censorship was rigorously enforced on the island. The regime enacted the Law Of Public Order, which had a subset of Legislative Decree 977, a law that made it a criminal act to release any statement or information against the dictatorship. Through SIM, the government maintained a network of spies and paid informants who passed along information regarding "subversive activities." Newspapers were a common target, their offices trashed and editors threatened or imprisoned if they published anything even remotely contrary to the wishes of the government. In fact, anyone who disseminated anything perceived to be anti-Batista - pamphleteers, political activists, or rabble-rousers of any kind - was met with harassment, imprisonment, or death.
C 2007, 2008 T.J. English
Published by William Morrow an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
7/6/11
MURDOCK AND BROOKSIE HAVE GONE TOO FAR HACKING INTO PRIVATE VOICE MAIL ACCOUNTS : A BRITISH JOURNALISM SCANDLE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA OPINION
Scandal of the New Century ? YES! CERTAINLY! (If you haven't heard about this one yet, click on the title above to get to the Christian Science Monitor article, one of thousands of news reports about reporters !)
Do Reporters have the Right to Break a Story just because they can?
It seems that in an effort to have the news (and sell copy), there has been a severe and unforgiveable amount of privacy invasion. In this case someone who was found murdered, it is implied, may have just had a chance because, to cover their actions, journalists may have erased communications between the victim and those phoning her.
(( I think : As we know voice mail is time and date stamped. These attempts at communication are now tampered with. When, during the 6 months from missing to found dead, did these journalists pick up her voice mails and erase? Was she alive but her cell phone turned off? Had she been using it?))
THE ACTIONS OF THE JOURNALISTS, THIS EDITOR, THIS PUBLICATION and ITS OWNER are challenging existing notions and laws about privacy for the vast majority of us who are not celebrities, but in this case, even if this mudered one were a celebrity, it would still be unforgiveable: this is not the same as reporting a "baby bump" when your informant is a sales clerk on Rodeo who waits on the rich and famous.
TO THE POINT : There is need for a new and clear understanding of JOURNALISTIC BOUNDARIES these days and that means REVIEWING THE JOB DESCRIPTIONS.
Journalists should never misrepresent themselves or their intent in writing an article and SHOULD NOT BE, for instance, SNEAKS, LIARS, or LAW BREAKERS in order to get a story!
Sometimes it seems that, in search of a story and accuracy, Investigative Journalists (which includes gossip columnists) seem to be doing the job of Police Investigators, Private Eyes, Spys. The competition to get the story first is fierce, but journalists should be judged too on their professionalism and that means holding to standards! Do you have informants who remain unnamed? Of course!
INTERFERING in the work of Police Investigators, Private Eyes, and Spys, of law enforcement and the criminal justice system however, is WAY TOO FAR OVER BOUNDARIES.
I do hold the editor more responsible than those working under her. I hold editors responsible for their decision to hand out assignments and to choose to print articles as they were written and to challenge reporters to greatness.
C 2011 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internation and Internet Rights
Do Reporters have the Right to Break a Story just because they can?
It seems that in an effort to have the news (and sell copy), there has been a severe and unforgiveable amount of privacy invasion. In this case someone who was found murdered, it is implied, may have just had a chance because, to cover their actions, journalists may have erased communications between the victim and those phoning her.
(( I think : As we know voice mail is time and date stamped. These attempts at communication are now tampered with. When, during the 6 months from missing to found dead, did these journalists pick up her voice mails and erase? Was she alive but her cell phone turned off? Had she been using it?))
THE ACTIONS OF THE JOURNALISTS, THIS EDITOR, THIS PUBLICATION and ITS OWNER are challenging existing notions and laws about privacy for the vast majority of us who are not celebrities, but in this case, even if this mudered one were a celebrity, it would still be unforgiveable: this is not the same as reporting a "baby bump" when your informant is a sales clerk on Rodeo who waits on the rich and famous.
TO THE POINT : There is need for a new and clear understanding of JOURNALISTIC BOUNDARIES these days and that means REVIEWING THE JOB DESCRIPTIONS.
Journalists should never misrepresent themselves or their intent in writing an article and SHOULD NOT BE, for instance, SNEAKS, LIARS, or LAW BREAKERS in order to get a story!
Sometimes it seems that, in search of a story and accuracy, Investigative Journalists (which includes gossip columnists) seem to be doing the job of Police Investigators, Private Eyes, Spys. The competition to get the story first is fierce, but journalists should be judged too on their professionalism and that means holding to standards! Do you have informants who remain unnamed? Of course!
INTERFERING in the work of Police Investigators, Private Eyes, and Spys, of law enforcement and the criminal justice system however, is WAY TOO FAR OVER BOUNDARIES.
I do hold the editor more responsible than those working under her. I hold editors responsible for their decision to hand out assignments and to choose to print articles as they were written and to challenge reporters to greatness.
C 2011 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internation and Internet Rights
7/5/11
KATHARINE HEPBURN Quote
"If you always do what interests you at least one person is pleased."
- Katharine Hepburn
- Katharine Hepburn
6/27/11
SENIOR CITIZENS READING ELECTRONIC BOOKS
I've been noticing some senior citizens - my guess in their late sixties through eighties - reading from electronic book readers. This is a sign that even seniors (who statistically tend not to use the internet, e-mail, or cell phones, or social networking sites) are taking to the light weight and less-expensive-than-a-paper-copy download. At the library electronic books are also downloadable at no charge. There is no renewal. When the book is due it goes poof! So no chance of a library fine.
HOW DOES A WRITER GET PAID for books that go poof?
HOW DOES A WRITER GET PAID for books that go poof?
6/20/11
6/19/11
6/18/11
DAVID FERRY : POETRY FOUNDATION 2011 LILLY POETRY AWARD
The Poetry Foundation announces this years Lilly Lifetime Achievement Prize for poetry to poet David Ferry - link above.
And the New York Times article to go with :
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/david-ferry-wins-the-worlds-biggest-poetry-prize/
And the New York Times article to go with :
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/david-ferry-wins-the-worlds-biggest-poetry-prize/
6/15/11
RUTH LILLY THE GREAT PHILANTHROPIST OF POETRY
Ruth Lilly, the only living heir of the Eli Lilly fortune pledged $100 million (have heard $200,000 million also) in 2002 to the Poetry Foundation to publish Poetry Magazine and more. She also provided that every year one poet receive the Lilly award which is $100,000! Linking to the New York Times article from 2007 which reveals the lack of appreciation some have shown for this amazing bequest.
(I can't think of any other philanthropist who gives/gave a rats ass for poets or poetry. It's difficult to get a free space to run a nonprofit writing group as is.)
(IS THIS ATTITUDE ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF THE NOTORIOUS POETS' DEVOTION TO BELOVED POVERTY? Aren't some of us a bit tired of the notion that poverty is always honorable or the natural state of poets and poetry? I used to know people who posed that they were poor to be accepted in certain Los Angeles poetry circles!)
I'll be linking to more about LILLY scholarships, awards, and so on...)
(I can't think of any other philanthropist who gives/gave a rats ass for poets or poetry. It's difficult to get a free space to run a nonprofit writing group as is.)
(IS THIS ATTITUDE ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF THE NOTORIOUS POETS' DEVOTION TO BELOVED POVERTY? Aren't some of us a bit tired of the notion that poverty is always honorable or the natural state of poets and poetry? I used to know people who posed that they were poor to be accepted in certain Los Angeles poetry circles!)
I'll be linking to more about LILLY scholarships, awards, and so on...)
6/10/11
BRUCE FEIRSTEIN quotation
"Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower." - Bruce Fierstein
6/7/11
ANCIENT SEMETIC LANGUAGE - AKKADIAN - THE CHICAGO ASSYRIAN DICTIONARY PUBLISHED AFTER 90 YEARS OF TEAM RESEARCH
Love this story... Akkadian is a Semetic language (last written 1900 years ago) and ancient form of Assyrian and after 90 years (and many academics) working on the project have finally published a dictionary. the dictionary gives us some idea of what people spoke in Mesopotamia!
Oh how I admire linguists, since I have absolutely no talent with languages...
Like anthropologists, they looked at tomb stones, and other evidence of this cuneiform written language.
Oh how I admire linguists, since I have absolutely no talent with languages...
Like anthropologists, they looked at tomb stones, and other evidence of this cuneiform written language.
6/4/11
HARRY BERNSTEIN FIRST PUBLISHED AT 96 AFTER WRITING 40 BOOKS! OBIT
Connect now to the obit for this author, who late in life, received acclaim for his writing about a childhood effected by anti-semitism. He's compaired to one of my favorites, Isaac Bashevis Singer, as well as Frank McCourt, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to work on this last (and only) published book!
5/21/11
CONSUMERIST CHRISTINE TRZYNA TWEAKED : THE ANTIDOTE TO MARKETING SELF VIA PRODUCTS
Having fun thinking about what products (chewing gum, nail polish, hair conditioner) I would endorse aside, lately the CONSUMERIST me has been tweaked by too many bad experiences with products and services which translates on the sales floor level to clerks who are jerks and on the corporate level to making hay while the sun continues to set.
At a time when we all need to be stimulating our ever failing economy (We all know those unemployment rates do not reflect those who ran out of unemployment and are now loosing everything they ever earned), the effort of dealing with these businesses (including one increasingly shitty "non-profit" gym) is to the point where it hardly seems worth the time and energy to complain to them (as if someone who earns their living there would care) or even the Consumer Bureau, which also has unpaid volunteers answering the phones these days, taking a guess at what you oughta do.
Instead, since the personal is political, what I have to say about these experiences to anyone who will listen (including strangers I encounter here, there, and everywhere) has become my high art of putting them out of business (or at least making informed and wary customers of the next sucker who goes in to buy.) Yes, my frustration and anger has become that of the bitter complainer so BUYER BEWARE.
I haven't purchased a thing besides underwear from an indoor shopping mall for a few years now! The last time I went to an indoor shopping mall I felt henpecked by fake phony clerks who kept asking me store after store "How are you today?" Never had more people staged a concern over my well being and as a gambit to sell me something.
I felt for all these people desperate to make a living and keep their jobs while on commission, but I left remembering why I mail order.
I also remembered being a clerk myself (back when it was an art in itself) and one never pretended to be overly familiar with a stranger or forgot they there to serve!
After you buy (and spend all that time and money on transportation) to get there, the product falls apart. Surprise! Made in China! So you call the store and someone of the phone says "Can you come in with your receipt?" I did that recently, spending over an hour to get back to the place, and the manager of the store stared at me and denied anyone ever said they would fix the problem, as if it were out of his pocket! It's almost as if they count on you NOT bringing back products because it's too much effort. That means manufacturers are not being held to excellence. Instead they figure how much shabby they can get away with!
Oh, but they want you to take that SURVEY on your receipt so corporate can find out if you were happy with your last visit.
Speaking of shabby, service in the stores seems over unless it's a very expensive store indeed. I think I can speak for you too! Aren't we sick of walking miles of isles trying to find products or someone to ask for help or direction, rude employees at the gym (who aren't even pretending they see the correlation between your membership and their job (Are they talking down to me because I'm not fit?) and products that fall apart (Wore those tennis shoes twice before the insides came unsewn and rubbed blisters into my feet) or that you cannot try on in a store (No dressing rooms? Guess at what bra size you wear?) and are not returnable (Didn't you see the sign?), is at an all time high as our economy continues to fall apart.
Writing this has made me feel (just slightly) better!
C Christine Trzyna 2011 All Rights Reserved including Internet Rights and International Rights
At a time when we all need to be stimulating our ever failing economy (We all know those unemployment rates do not reflect those who ran out of unemployment and are now loosing everything they ever earned), the effort of dealing with these businesses (including one increasingly shitty "non-profit" gym) is to the point where it hardly seems worth the time and energy to complain to them (as if someone who earns their living there would care) or even the Consumer Bureau, which also has unpaid volunteers answering the phones these days, taking a guess at what you oughta do.
Instead, since the personal is political, what I have to say about these experiences to anyone who will listen (including strangers I encounter here, there, and everywhere) has become my high art of putting them out of business (or at least making informed and wary customers of the next sucker who goes in to buy.) Yes, my frustration and anger has become that of the bitter complainer so BUYER BEWARE.
I haven't purchased a thing besides underwear from an indoor shopping mall for a few years now! The last time I went to an indoor shopping mall I felt henpecked by fake phony clerks who kept asking me store after store "How are you today?" Never had more people staged a concern over my well being and as a gambit to sell me something.
I felt for all these people desperate to make a living and keep their jobs while on commission, but I left remembering why I mail order.
I also remembered being a clerk myself (back when it was an art in itself) and one never pretended to be overly familiar with a stranger or forgot they there to serve!
After you buy (and spend all that time and money on transportation) to get there, the product falls apart. Surprise! Made in China! So you call the store and someone of the phone says "Can you come in with your receipt?" I did that recently, spending over an hour to get back to the place, and the manager of the store stared at me and denied anyone ever said they would fix the problem, as if it were out of his pocket! It's almost as if they count on you NOT bringing back products because it's too much effort. That means manufacturers are not being held to excellence. Instead they figure how much shabby they can get away with!
Oh, but they want you to take that SURVEY on your receipt so corporate can find out if you were happy with your last visit.
Speaking of shabby, service in the stores seems over unless it's a very expensive store indeed. I think I can speak for you too! Aren't we sick of walking miles of isles trying to find products or someone to ask for help or direction, rude employees at the gym (who aren't even pretending they see the correlation between your membership and their job (Are they talking down to me because I'm not fit?) and products that fall apart (Wore those tennis shoes twice before the insides came unsewn and rubbed blisters into my feet) or that you cannot try on in a store (No dressing rooms? Guess at what bra size you wear?) and are not returnable (Didn't you see the sign?), is at an all time high as our economy continues to fall apart.
Writing this has made me feel (just slightly) better!
C Christine Trzyna 2011 All Rights Reserved including Internet Rights and International Rights
5/20/11
WHAT WOULD JACKIE DO? by SHELLY BRANCH and SUE CALLAWAY
An Inspired Guide to Distinctive Living.
This book was interesting to me because of Jackie's life as a literary editor, but also First Lady, and icon. Like Andy Warhol, I suspect Jackie was, from an early age, extremely aware of herself as a product and of marketing.
Page 18 Scoring Big with Courtly Correspondence.
"A woman with an erudite aura writes a main. She knows that words that flicker on a screen may land her a job interview, even a few good dates. But she also gets that words flowing directly from a pen are apt to deliver more - if less immediately tangible - riches.
"Jackie was a model correspondent. She used her trademark stationary (light blue sheets with embossed white lettering) and loopy script to curry favors, charm lovers, maneuver out of tight spots, and evoke her famous wrath - unusually in effusive fashion.
"Most people reserve a good handwriting job for more formal affairs these days. That is a mistake. An ambidextrous Jackie would dash off an eight-page letter of sympathy ... then shift to more intellectual prose with lofty-minded dear hearts such as former Deputy of Defense Secretary Roswell Gilpatric."
Page 19
"To mix it up and save money in the process Jackie used postcards from museums, as well as letterhead from high end hotels (Japan's Half Moon Hotel was once a favorite source of sheets). These helped to project a "you-are-there" in-the-moment tone - the perfect vibe for earnest scribes."
This book was interesting to me because of Jackie's life as a literary editor, but also First Lady, and icon. Like Andy Warhol, I suspect Jackie was, from an early age, extremely aware of herself as a product and of marketing.
Page 18 Scoring Big with Courtly Correspondence.
"A woman with an erudite aura writes a main. She knows that words that flicker on a screen may land her a job interview, even a few good dates. But she also gets that words flowing directly from a pen are apt to deliver more - if less immediately tangible - riches.
"Jackie was a model correspondent. She used her trademark stationary (light blue sheets with embossed white lettering) and loopy script to curry favors, charm lovers, maneuver out of tight spots, and evoke her famous wrath - unusually in effusive fashion.
"Most people reserve a good handwriting job for more formal affairs these days. That is a mistake. An ambidextrous Jackie would dash off an eight-page letter of sympathy ... then shift to more intellectual prose with lofty-minded dear hearts such as former Deputy of Defense Secretary Roswell Gilpatric."
Page 19
"To mix it up and save money in the process Jackie used postcards from museums, as well as letterhead from high end hotels (Japan's Half Moon Hotel was once a favorite source of sheets). These helped to project a "you-are-there" in-the-moment tone - the perfect vibe for earnest scribes."
5/19/11
ISAAC ASIMOV quotation
"If the doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I'd type a little faster." - Isaac Asimov
5/7/11
DEBORAH TANNEN Quotation
"Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations."
- Deborah Tannen
- Deborah Tannen
5/2/11
LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK FAIR AT USC : CHANGE HARD TO TAKE REVIEW BY CHRISTINE TRZYNA
After 15 years at UCLA, the LA TIMES BOOK FAIR, moved to University of Southern California (USC) campus this past weekend, and as I waited in line to attend Panel Discussions by book authors (memoirists) and Publishing Industry Professionals (The Book as a form is not dead but new innovative Reader forms may be the future), I talked with other attendees who told me the Bloggers were posting scathing reviews. My review is scathing ... before I heap praise.
LOGISTICS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT
The LA TIMES itself seems to have kept a mystery as to why the fair was moved to the USC campus from UCLA. I imagined the it was budgetary as so many decisions in this terrible economy seem to be.
Speculation in line was that USC is all flat ie easy walking. However, THE FAIR WAS TOO SPREAD OUT TO WALK, made more difficult by getting lost and wasting time going through the Children's area and Cooking, which was the area where the SHUTTLES PROVIDED BY TARGET dropped you off. I got tired quickly. I'd gone to Union Station and from there took the shuttle, but coming and going the trip seemed to be tedious and too long. The shuttles had only one drop off and pick up point, so that made me cross the campus again in order to go.
THE MAPS PRINTED BY THE PAPER WERE LOUSY; Buildings were unnamed if there was no panel discussion held there which did not help, and buildings were not even colored the same on all maps, so you could not orient easily with two people looking at the maps at the same time! There seemed to be few volunteers identifiable to ask for directions, and I got confusing directions from some of the Festival-T shirted employees that I saw. I walked around talking to myself, hoping someone would pick up on my confusion and direct me with ease.
So attending Panel Discussions became fraught with anxiety because I didn't have the confidence that I could make it from one point to the next. I even wondered if the festival was spread out to make it difficult to attend one panel discussion after another. Was it intended to make me waste time or entrap me to buy food? I NEVER DID FIND THE GREEN/ECO EXHIBITORS which I wanted very much to see.
That I got there at Sunday after 10 and there were still tickets - Telling!
I attended two panel discussions and THEY WERE TERRIFIC. The audiences (mostly writers I swear!) were also terrific. I don't know when last I experiences such an exhibit of intelligence in both authors and publishers and audience members and moderators. The questions were insightful and interesting and so were the responses!
Other things I noticed: Many radio stations broadcasting, Ben and Jerry's ice cream did the most extravagant, energetic, and generous marketing, with the cutest young men and women with the biggest smiles handing out little containers of new flavors of ice cream. Cliff Bars gave out too - but so oriented to children that I felt sneaky taking one, sans children.
Also noticed, the USC stage, which featured genuine USC students performing, singing unaccompanied, playing the Stand Up Base. A home grown touch, which fairly advertised the most expensive and prestigious university in Los Angeles County.
C Christine Trzyna 2011 All Rights Including Internet and International Rights Reserved
LOGISTICS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT
The LA TIMES itself seems to have kept a mystery as to why the fair was moved to the USC campus from UCLA. I imagined the it was budgetary as so many decisions in this terrible economy seem to be.
Speculation in line was that USC is all flat ie easy walking. However, THE FAIR WAS TOO SPREAD OUT TO WALK, made more difficult by getting lost and wasting time going through the Children's area and Cooking, which was the area where the SHUTTLES PROVIDED BY TARGET dropped you off. I got tired quickly. I'd gone to Union Station and from there took the shuttle, but coming and going the trip seemed to be tedious and too long. The shuttles had only one drop off and pick up point, so that made me cross the campus again in order to go.
THE MAPS PRINTED BY THE PAPER WERE LOUSY; Buildings were unnamed if there was no panel discussion held there which did not help, and buildings were not even colored the same on all maps, so you could not orient easily with two people looking at the maps at the same time! There seemed to be few volunteers identifiable to ask for directions, and I got confusing directions from some of the Festival-T shirted employees that I saw. I walked around talking to myself, hoping someone would pick up on my confusion and direct me with ease.
So attending Panel Discussions became fraught with anxiety because I didn't have the confidence that I could make it from one point to the next. I even wondered if the festival was spread out to make it difficult to attend one panel discussion after another. Was it intended to make me waste time or entrap me to buy food? I NEVER DID FIND THE GREEN/ECO EXHIBITORS which I wanted very much to see.
That I got there at Sunday after 10 and there were still tickets - Telling!
I attended two panel discussions and THEY WERE TERRIFIC. The audiences (mostly writers I swear!) were also terrific. I don't know when last I experiences such an exhibit of intelligence in both authors and publishers and audience members and moderators. The questions were insightful and interesting and so were the responses!
Other things I noticed: Many radio stations broadcasting, Ben and Jerry's ice cream did the most extravagant, energetic, and generous marketing, with the cutest young men and women with the biggest smiles handing out little containers of new flavors of ice cream. Cliff Bars gave out too - but so oriented to children that I felt sneaky taking one, sans children.
Also noticed, the USC stage, which featured genuine USC students performing, singing unaccompanied, playing the Stand Up Base. A home grown touch, which fairly advertised the most expensive and prestigious university in Los Angeles County.
C Christine Trzyna 2011 All Rights Including Internet and International Rights Reserved
4/25/11
PARTIAL 500 YEAR OLD NUREMBERG CHRONICAL FOUND IN UTAH I ADVISE CAUTION
Link to the article by Brian Skoloff by clicking the title above.
The book, found in Utah, is said to have been printed in 1493 and is a world history from biblical times and one of the "most lavishly illustrated books of the 15th century." However, I advise caution here for two reasons.
First, I remember that a number of faked documents showed up in Utah and were bought by the Latter Day Saints some years ago. It was a scandal when they were discovered to have been forged. This involved the forger using paper and ink that was of the time period for the original documents but these were faked and forged anyway.
Secondly, perhaps it's the photographs but for books 500 years old and stored in an attic, the paper appears too new. Is it time to get this book over to the Getty (which has had its share of forged and faked sculpture?) for examination Has this book been carbon dated?
The book, found in Utah, is said to have been printed in 1493 and is a world history from biblical times and one of the "most lavishly illustrated books of the 15th century." However, I advise caution here for two reasons.
First, I remember that a number of faked documents showed up in Utah and were bought by the Latter Day Saints some years ago. It was a scandal when they were discovered to have been forged. This involved the forger using paper and ink that was of the time period for the original documents but these were faked and forged anyway.
Secondly, perhaps it's the photographs but for books 500 years old and stored in an attic, the paper appears too new. Is it time to get this book over to the Getty (which has had its share of forged and faked sculpture?) for examination Has this book been carbon dated?
4/20/11
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH : ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS LINK HERE!
Link here to information on the National Academy of American Poets and APRIL which is National Poetry Month...
Go ahead and write a poem! (And turn off those censors in your head!)
Go ahead and write a poem! (And turn off those censors in your head!)
4/17/11
HELP ME ID WHO SAID SOMETHING LIKE "THE NEGATIVE VOICE"
is not more intelligent?"
Who was it that said that we should not be swayed by the authoritative negative voice as more intelligent or knowledgeable than a positive one?
This is not an advertisement for positive thinking by the way.
Who was it that said that we should not be swayed by the authoritative negative voice as more intelligent or knowledgeable than a positive one?
This is not an advertisement for positive thinking by the way.
4/10/11
COMMENTARY ON THE LOVIN SPOONFUL: DARLING BE HOME SOON
I had a total kid crush on John Sebastian. (Much Older Men!?) These days I seem to be too pragmatic to really get crushes. This song though is about what we all really need in our lives - one person who is our touchstone. Totally trustworthy and dependable when there's a crisis. Some people who have no partners tell me they would go without sex if they could marry such a person.
June 2022 Decided to repost without the expired video...
June 2022 Decided to repost without the expired video...
4/7/11
WHITE OLEANDER by JANET FITCH THE SECOND READ AROUND HAS ME THINKING ABOUT THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA POETRY SCENE A WHILE BACK
Recently bought a copy of "White Oleander" by Janet Fitch at a library book sale, and immediately (again) became transfixed by the story of the poetess who poisons the poetry groupie who seduces and humiliates her and, most of all, the story of her daughter, who goes through a number of abusive homes in the LA County Foster Care System, while trying on various identities as part of her formative development.
This is a second time around for me reading Fitch's book, which I hear was turned into a movie a while back.
At the time the book first came out I heard Fitch was a local author, and this book is sweet with references to the towns, topography, and weather of Tujunga, Sun Valley, Van Nuys, Hollywood...
"White Oleander" brings me back to a place I was several years ago when I heard a lot of poetry being read and spoken word around town. I remember people/characters who were so like this poetess in their way, esteemed for publishing a few books maybe but also not operating in full sanity.
I recall the revenge poetry that was often staged to get back at a ex lover or to reveal an affair to a dummy husband.
That tragedy was an inspiration for creativity is, well, not surprising.
I recall that there was competitiveness among poets for mentions in poetry magazines and covers on literary publications (that probably wasn't much different than Supermodels doing what they "had to" to get an assignment) and so much talk of who was "Real" or "Serious."
I recall there was a lot of jealousy and sabotage going on.
So the other day, I spent some time on the net looking to see what Web presence, if any, certain poets and poetesses (old fashioned word choice I know) had on YouTube, if anyone was publishing books, or even remained in poetry.
I realize that not everyone is interested in Web presence and the absence of people/characters is not necessarily telling. After all, some poets like their privacy.
It was sort of interesting to see what's up with people/characters, rather than surprising, the way it's interesting when you hear about someone you used to know in high school but whose life no longer touches yours.
Thus: The man who was a high school drop out and openly ridiculed me (lots of laughter around) for taking my reentry into college seriously (all that studying late at night in coffee houses) turns up with a MFA and as an esteemed teacher. HA HA HA! His ex-girlfriend who was the one with the true educational ambitions may have earned a PHD and a new name somewhere along the line. Where is she? (Maybe a married housewife poet like Sylvia?)
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights
C 1999 White Oleander is by Janet Fitch and published by Little, Brown, and Company
This is a second time around for me reading Fitch's book, which I hear was turned into a movie a while back.
At the time the book first came out I heard Fitch was a local author, and this book is sweet with references to the towns, topography, and weather of Tujunga, Sun Valley, Van Nuys, Hollywood...
"White Oleander" brings me back to a place I was several years ago when I heard a lot of poetry being read and spoken word around town. I remember people/characters who were so like this poetess in their way, esteemed for publishing a few books maybe but also not operating in full sanity.
I recall the revenge poetry that was often staged to get back at a ex lover or to reveal an affair to a dummy husband.
That tragedy was an inspiration for creativity is, well, not surprising.
I recall that there was competitiveness among poets for mentions in poetry magazines and covers on literary publications (that probably wasn't much different than Supermodels doing what they "had to" to get an assignment) and so much talk of who was "Real" or "Serious."
I recall there was a lot of jealousy and sabotage going on.
So the other day, I spent some time on the net looking to see what Web presence, if any, certain poets and poetesses (old fashioned word choice I know) had on YouTube, if anyone was publishing books, or even remained in poetry.
I realize that not everyone is interested in Web presence and the absence of people/characters is not necessarily telling. After all, some poets like their privacy.
It was sort of interesting to see what's up with people/characters, rather than surprising, the way it's interesting when you hear about someone you used to know in high school but whose life no longer touches yours.
Thus: The man who was a high school drop out and openly ridiculed me (lots of laughter around) for taking my reentry into college seriously (all that studying late at night in coffee houses) turns up with a MFA and as an esteemed teacher. HA HA HA! His ex-girlfriend who was the one with the true educational ambitions may have earned a PHD and a new name somewhere along the line. Where is she? (Maybe a married housewife poet like Sylvia?)
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights
C 1999 White Oleander is by Janet Fitch and published by Little, Brown, and Company
4/3/11
RUSSIAN LETTER IN A BOTTLE
This blog loves message in a bottle stories and here is another... "It said: "My name is Frank, and I'm five years old. My dad and I are traveling on a ship to Denmark. If you find this letter, please write back to me, and I will write back to you." "The letter, dated 1987, included an address in the town of Coesfeld. The boy in the letter, Frank Uesbeck, is now 29. His parents still live at the letter's address. "At first I didn't believe it," Uesbeck told the AP about getting the response from Korotkikh. In fact, he barely remembered the trip at all; his father actually wrote the letter. The Russian boy and the German man met each other earlier this month via an Internet video link."
3/30/11
WILL TAISHA ABELAR'S NEW BOOK COME OUT TODAY - MARCH 30 2011 - AS PROMISED? A PUBLISHING MYSTERY STORY BY CHRISTINE TRZYNA
Guess what? If you go to April 1 2023 and see the post TAISHA ABELAR'S LOST BOOK - STALKING WITH THE DOUBLE (RESTORED VERSION) you will be able to read a manuscript copy of the book.
************
NOTE JUNE 2022 I think Taisha Abelar is in life eternal but physically not in the body she came in with during her life that entangled with Castaneda.
Taisha Abelar, if you don't know, was one of the close devotees of the writer Carlos Castanada, one of his, if you will, "Witches," though perhaps what she was really was more of a "Sorcerer," or, if you will, simply a Yogini with a different cultural and religious sensibility than Hinduism, a sensibility that was about Ancient Mexico.
Today, March 30, 2011, is supposed to be the release date of a book she was writing when she, and the other "Witches," disappeared after Carlos Castaneda's death. This book has had at least one other false start that I've heard about. It has been "at a publishers" for years and the left behind employees of Castaneda's who give workshops have been very, shall we say, studied, in the way they use language to indicate that maybe Taisha is "traveling."
Years ago an employee of a coffee house I frequented turned me on to her first and only book, and it's a book that I've read more than once, several years apart; I like to see how the material sits with me and my own emerging sensibilities.
This book has more than the disappearance of Taisha and a few other cohorts - possibly in a suicide in a mine shaft in the Arizona desert but the bodies were never found - as a mystery.
It is also a publishing mystery. You see, the ISBN, which are printed on the back of most books published so that they can be identified by a code that allows them to be purchased by book stores with ease, are purchased by the publishing house in a block. This sequel will be sold with an ISBN code in that original block. Some interpret this standard practice as indicative that the book was actually written at about the same time, in the works anyway, and suspect that what has actually happened is that Taisha's estate took some notes and turned them over to a ghost writer - or two - or a dozen by now - to turn it into a book akin to the original. So did Taisha actually write this book and will it be anything at all like the original which was written, though she is called a "Stalker," while "in Dreaming?"
In order to turn out a book that is truly Taisha's, if the manuscript (or not) that she left behind was indeed in need of major reworking, the ghost writer(s) would really have to get into her head, maybe even live her kind of life, in which there was NO TIME for anything much besides the search for eternal life of a not Christian kind. And will this ghost writer(s), like all ghost writer(s), who never get credited, remain silent and be possibly the biggest publishing business secret since the supposed secret of who actually wrote Castaneda's books?
I've been fascinated with this story from the beginning when, after the disappearance, it was Taisha's estranged family who wanted her declared dead, some said, so they could benefit in some way from her estate, which was an inheritance from Carlos. Maybe those left-behind didn't want a planned group suicide to dirty up the Castaneda inheritance of magic or maybe, for all we know, it will be Taisha returned to this world, who will do the book signings?
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved Including International and Internet Rights
3/27/11
SHAKE RUSSEL DEEP IN THE WEST
Heard this song and "You Got A Lover" in the late 1970's at a club called Steamboat Springs in Houston Texas. The songs stuck with me. So many years later I was in a coffee house on Ventura Blvd in Los Angeles and I overheard some people talking about ordering Shake Russel tapes or CD's I went over to talk to them. Still going like all singer-songwriters do. Beautiful song. "Are you listening to me when I'm talking to you? - Together we're one and divided we're through."
3/21/11
BEADWORK MAGAZINE'S CHALLENGE CREATIVE INSPIRATION
Having designed some jewelry in my time, recently I started reading BEADWORK magazine, and I love the feature they call "The Challenge." A few designers receive the same assortment of beads and stones and metal elements and then do what they will with the package.
They don't have to use all the beads provided and it seems to be OK if they use some of their own supply as well. Besides seeing how different artists manifest art in the form of the functional art of jewelry, I've seen some of the most gorgeous jewelry I have ever seen in this magazine.
To bead takes great patience and manual dexterity. I am truly impressed. And for those who want to follow along there are often patterns and instructions.
They don't have to use all the beads provided and it seems to be OK if they use some of their own supply as well. Besides seeing how different artists manifest art in the form of the functional art of jewelry, I've seen some of the most gorgeous jewelry I have ever seen in this magazine.
To bead takes great patience and manual dexterity. I am truly impressed. And for those who want to follow along there are often patterns and instructions.
3/14/11
3/10/11
OTHER PEOPLE'S REJECTION LETTERS Edited by BILL SHAPIRO : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW
OTHER PEOPLE'S REJECTION LETTERS
"Relationship Enders, Career Killers, and 150 Other Letters You'll Be Glad You Didn't Receive"
edited by Bill Shapiro
Published by Clarkson Potter Publishers (Random House/Bertelsmann)
OK, with a SUBTITLE LIKE THAT, WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO GIVE A LOOK-SEE? I like this kind of collection, scrapbook-like with it's reproductions of the actual letters including, it would seem, some real addresses on the letterheads, like the letters recieved by persons dumped from the LDS church. I'm a sucker for books that are scrap-book like!
But rather than horrified, I thought it was all FUN! Perverse Fun maybe but still fun because we know that those who contributed their misfortune to this book must have gotten over it already in order to reveal it to the world! And if they didn't get over it, then they GOT EVEN by showing just how cold and without compassion some letter senders can be!
Will this book stop YOU from forgetting to be kind when you ought to be? Will you tear up that Dear John letter and figure out a better way to say goodbye? If only this book didn't have so many REJECTIONS FROM PUBLISHERS in it!
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
"Relationship Enders, Career Killers, and 150 Other Letters You'll Be Glad You Didn't Receive"
edited by Bill Shapiro
Published by Clarkson Potter Publishers (Random House/Bertelsmann)
OK, with a SUBTITLE LIKE THAT, WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO GIVE A LOOK-SEE? I like this kind of collection, scrapbook-like with it's reproductions of the actual letters including, it would seem, some real addresses on the letterheads, like the letters recieved by persons dumped from the LDS church. I'm a sucker for books that are scrap-book like!
But rather than horrified, I thought it was all FUN! Perverse Fun maybe but still fun because we know that those who contributed their misfortune to this book must have gotten over it already in order to reveal it to the world! And if they didn't get over it, then they GOT EVEN by showing just how cold and without compassion some letter senders can be!
Will this book stop YOU from forgetting to be kind when you ought to be? Will you tear up that Dear John letter and figure out a better way to say goodbye? If only this book didn't have so many REJECTIONS FROM PUBLISHERS in it!
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
3/7/11
STRAND BOOKSTORE NEW YORK SELLS INTERIOR DESIGNERS BOOKS BY THE FOOT
According to Lisa Birnbach and Chip Kidd, authors of TRUE PREP, an Alfred A Knopf Borzoi Book published in recent months, the STRAND BOOK STORE IN NEW YORK has 18 miles of books. Preppies and their designers are DECORATING WITH BOOKS, often purchased (remaining unread?) by the foot, but with the assistance of 3 employees who know the kind of titles a person might want to have on display on their shelves. Nancy Bass Wyden is the store owner who says that Ralph Lauren stores and J. Crew Stores use the store as a resource for books in the categories of glamour, aspirational, on the Vanderbilts and Astors, and Slim Aarons photos of WASPS.
2/28/11
CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW : THE GIRL IN ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S SHOWER by ROBERT GRAYSMITH
The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower
by Robert Graysmith
C2010 Berkeley Publishing - a Penguin Group
Marli Renfro, a nudist, and early Playboy Playmate, was the BODY DOUBLE not the STAND IN for Janet Leigh in Hitchcock's Psycho. The murder scene, filmed for days in a shower set, and then cut cut cut to build fear in the audience and get past the censors. Despite the black and white film - or perhaps because of it - the innovative flashes of pictures went so quick it was almost subliminal and the audiences' tension in watching the film exploded. Hitchcock's attention to detail was unprecedented and the scene was part of movie making history.
The author, true crime author Robert Graysmith, has long had a thing for this model, Marli Renfro, that spurred him on to detail a life gone bitterly ironic when she was murdered, but it turns out that the press had reported erroneously, because the reporters didn't know the difference between a Body Double and the Stand In. Turns out Marli never was murdered and has lived an OK life defined by outdoorsy activities.
Within this book Graysmith not only takes us on the behind the scenes making of a Hitchcock movie, but also the history of Playboy magazine and Clubs and the players in the early hours of the sexual revolution in the early 1960's.
Is it awful to reveal that I felt kind of wrongly lead on that Marli Renfro had not been murdered? I wish only that Graysmith had, at the point of revealing this to us readers, gone on to tell the story of the woman who had been, the Stand In!
All and all a fascinating tale and one that made me think of the days I worked as a movie extra.
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.
by Robert Graysmith
C2010 Berkeley Publishing - a Penguin Group
Marli Renfro, a nudist, and early Playboy Playmate, was the BODY DOUBLE not the STAND IN for Janet Leigh in Hitchcock's Psycho. The murder scene, filmed for days in a shower set, and then cut cut cut to build fear in the audience and get past the censors. Despite the black and white film - or perhaps because of it - the innovative flashes of pictures went so quick it was almost subliminal and the audiences' tension in watching the film exploded. Hitchcock's attention to detail was unprecedented and the scene was part of movie making history.
The author, true crime author Robert Graysmith, has long had a thing for this model, Marli Renfro, that spurred him on to detail a life gone bitterly ironic when she was murdered, but it turns out that the press had reported erroneously, because the reporters didn't know the difference between a Body Double and the Stand In. Turns out Marli never was murdered and has lived an OK life defined by outdoorsy activities.
Within this book Graysmith not only takes us on the behind the scenes making of a Hitchcock movie, but also the history of Playboy magazine and Clubs and the players in the early hours of the sexual revolution in the early 1960's.
Is it awful to reveal that I felt kind of wrongly lead on that Marli Renfro had not been murdered? I wish only that Graysmith had, at the point of revealing this to us readers, gone on to tell the story of the woman who had been, the Stand In!
All and all a fascinating tale and one that made me think of the days I worked as a movie extra.
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.
2/22/11
THOMAS JEFFERSON's BOOKS FOUND AT WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN SAINT LOUIS
"Dozens of Thomas Jefferson's books, some including handwritten notes from the nation's third president, have been found in the rare books collection at Washington University in St. Louis...
"The books were among about 3,000 that were donated to the school in 1880 after the death of Jefferson's granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge, and her husband, Joseph Coolidge.
There was no indication at the time that any of them had belonged to Jefferson. But it turns out that 2 1/2 years after Jefferson's 1826 death, his library of 1,600 books was sold to settle debts...
LINK TO THE FULL YAHOO NEWS STORY ABOVE!
"The books were among about 3,000 that were donated to the school in 1880 after the death of Jefferson's granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge, and her husband, Joseph Coolidge.
There was no indication at the time that any of them had belonged to Jefferson. But it turns out that 2 1/2 years after Jefferson's 1826 death, his library of 1,600 books was sold to settle debts...
LINK TO THE FULL YAHOO NEWS STORY ABOVE!
2/20/11
MARGARET ATWOOD Quote
"All writers are double, for the simple reason that you can never actually meet the author of the book you have just read. Too much time has elapsed between composition and publication and the person who wrote the book is now a different person."
- Margaret Atwood
2/17/11
POSTING FROM SKIRBALL CULTURAL CENTER : THE 1000 JOURNAL PROJECT ONE MORE WEEK!
"The Journals have traveled by air, sea, and land throughout forty countries and all fifty states. They've been the subject of treasure hunts, hidden in remote caves, abandoned at airports, left in the lost and found, and stolen at gunpoint. If you're local you have one more week to go in and add some art, poetry, or other writing to a journal page... I did today... LINK TO THE FULL STORY - 1000 JOURNALS TRAVELI(NG! - and Skirball Information.
2/7/11
BABY NAME BOOKS ARE INSPIRATIONAL FOR CHARACTERS
I love BABY NAME BOOKS! I like to browse through them - collect them ! That's because I'm inspired by names to develop characters.
Get this: In college I wrote a long story in which I made up a name for a character. It was an unusual name but felt right to me. In fact, it was as if this character, who I came to know well, was telling me what their name was, the way you hear some babies, before birth, whisper their name to their mothers or commuicate it silently as newborns. So I went with this character name. But in critique sessions in my writing workshop the professor and a couple students told me that the name was too unusual, that they got stuck on it while reading. Not good!
I tried, I really did, to find another name for this character. I questioned my motivations for naming this character something unusual. But then again, she was hardly an ordinary person. I was grateful that I could find and replace, using the computer, when the time came to change the name, but simply I never did find another name for the character and the manuscript remains in storage at this time.
Then recently I was looking through a baby name book and there it was - for the first time I had ever seen it in print - this unusual name I had used for the character!
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights
Get this: In college I wrote a long story in which I made up a name for a character. It was an unusual name but felt right to me. In fact, it was as if this character, who I came to know well, was telling me what their name was, the way you hear some babies, before birth, whisper their name to their mothers or commuicate it silently as newborns. So I went with this character name. But in critique sessions in my writing workshop the professor and a couple students told me that the name was too unusual, that they got stuck on it while reading. Not good!
I tried, I really did, to find another name for this character. I questioned my motivations for naming this character something unusual. But then again, she was hardly an ordinary person. I was grateful that I could find and replace, using the computer, when the time came to change the name, but simply I never did find another name for the character and the manuscript remains in storage at this time.
Then recently I was looking through a baby name book and there it was - for the first time I had ever seen it in print - this unusual name I had used for the character!
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights
2/1/11
JOAN SLOAN Quotation
"Though a living cannot be made at art, art makes life worth living. It makes starving, living. It makes worry, it makes trouble, it makes a life that would be barren of everything - living. It brings life to life." - Joan Sloan
1/21/11
COMMENTARY ON ERSEL HICKEY YOU THREW A DART
Wes Bryan tells me that Johnny Rivers said, in more recent times, that 1950's early Rock and Roller and singer-songwriter, Ersel Hickey was "Really The First Punk rocker." This song proves it to me. I've been listening to it - and other early rock and roll tunes all day as we upgrade WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC. We're having a good time!
New Video Summer 2016
New Video Summer 2016
1/18/11
BOOK EXCERPT : SHOPTISM BY LEE EISENBERG
From SHOPTISM by Lee Eisenberg
regarding RUSSELL BELK
page 297
..."Belk makes a compelling case about the inter-dependence of having and being. In fact, he even proposes four stages of human development based on the connection between having and being;
1) as infants we seek to distinguish ourselves from our environment.
2) as children we seek to distinguish ourselves from others .
3) as adolescents and adults, we use our possessions to help "manage" our identities and
4) as old folks we rely on certain possessions to maintain a sense of continuity and prepare for the end. Nearing that end, we cherish not only letters and photographs but also things we purchased over the years, thoughtfully or impulsively: jewelry, china, mementos of various kinds, even, perhaps, an old dressing gown.
"Our accumulation of possessions," says Belk, thus "provides a sense of past and tells us who we are, where we have come from, and perhaps where we are going."
Something to think about the next time you lose a possession that had come to mean something important to you. A break-in, a house fire, your own carelessness, it doesn't matter how it occurred. The response is the same; a part of you has gone missing.
C author Lee Eisenberg published by Freepress
regarding RUSSELL BELK
page 297
..."Belk makes a compelling case about the inter-dependence of having and being. In fact, he even proposes four stages of human development based on the connection between having and being;
1) as infants we seek to distinguish ourselves from our environment.
2) as children we seek to distinguish ourselves from others .
3) as adolescents and adults, we use our possessions to help "manage" our identities and
4) as old folks we rely on certain possessions to maintain a sense of continuity and prepare for the end. Nearing that end, we cherish not only letters and photographs but also things we purchased over the years, thoughtfully or impulsively: jewelry, china, mementos of various kinds, even, perhaps, an old dressing gown.
"Our accumulation of possessions," says Belk, thus "provides a sense of past and tells us who we are, where we have come from, and perhaps where we are going."
Something to think about the next time you lose a possession that had come to mean something important to you. A break-in, a house fire, your own carelessness, it doesn't matter how it occurred. The response is the same; a part of you has gone missing.
C author Lee Eisenberg published by Freepress
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