Act One
Nora Lynn Manning was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on 6 December 1941. Her parents, Arlene and Jay, were high school sweethearts who realized too late that they did not like each other all that much. Still, they chose to marry before Arlene began to show. Like so many hideously bad ideas, it was considered the “right thing” to do.
Continue reading “Nora in Five Acts by Leila Allison”
Inside Information Inspiration
At the start of his career Hunter S. Thompson typed copies of famous novels in effort to gain a “muscle memory” of greatness–Gatsby for instance; the whole thing, seeking the inspiration; how it felt to write the powerful words. I have never gone that far, but I do surround myself with what I think are great words and images. These are pasted to my walls along with what I consider fine art. Visually, I have (among many others) Van Gough, Picasso, Dali and Giger prints as well as a large Shakespeare poster (whose accusatory eyes tend to follow me for some reason) on my walls. But it is not all highbrow, because I also have stuff like Elliott the Pigeon (of this wrap’s header), “Dogs Playing Poker” and a poster for Ed Wood’s Bride of the Monster on the same walls
Continue reading “Week 508:Inspiring Words From the Past; New Inspiring Words and Remembering a Friend”
Wildlife
I have either finished turning invisible or the local wildlife considers me as threatening as Jane Jetson. The wild things are taking advantage of our slipping sense of surrounding and are slowly, yet steadily organizing. I present three instances for your examination. (And although some of you will not detect acts of duplicity in these seemingly random events, I say that is what they want us to believe.)
Continue reading “Week 503: Further Adventures in Wildlife; Six Pack of Encouraging Words; and “Like, Boo, Dude”–PDQ Peety’s List of 80’s Halloween Horror Films”
The Wheel Grinds Patiently
In 1968, at the age of nine, I allowed a classmate we will call “Louise Haas” (not her real name, but close) to get a lecture for something I did. The offense was cussing. It was recess and I had told someone to “eat shit” or something of that third-gradely nature, unaware that the playground monitor was in earshot.
Continue reading “Week 498: Not So Instant Karma; Two Special Announcements and the Week That Is”
Walter Orthmann died at age one-hundred-two this month. He holds the known world record for most years working for one employer. Mr. Orthmann labored at a Brazilian textile plant from 1938 to 2022; from age sixteen to an even hundred. Eighty four years.
Continue reading “Week 496: End of Days Jobs”
Mendacity and RBH
Ostriches do not stick their heads in the sand to avoid the Awful Truth. That mendacity has been around since Roman times and should be purged from the metaphor store. Only people behave that way, and when an animal does the same, you can rest assured that she/he is only mocking you.
Continue reading “Week 494: Mendacity; Come Home Rutherford B. Hayes; Cool Stories to Beat the Heat; Health Tonics”
Red Hook Brooklyn 10am. I wake up and look out my 11th floor window.
Oh my God. The sky. I’m blasted. I’m overwhelmed. By blue. But not just any blue. Royal Blue. Stunning Royal Blue from horizon to horizon. It’s usually a dirty, featureless gray
Continue reading “A Nice Day by Gene Bray”
Parental Guidance
There’s one bit of advice that my late father gave me when I was too young to scrutinize advice, yet it remains something I’ve neither forgotten nor defied: “Don’t eat canned stewed tomatoes.”
Continue reading “Week 492: Parental Wisdom; August Reading; Food and Fodder”
Bernie loved this day and age.
Before, he was always cold.
He never had enough to eat.
And he hated to admit it, his weakness, his curse, his companion, his reason to stay alive was the sauce. These days he had as much booze as he wanted…Well…
Continue reading “Sign Of The Times Too (The Mile-Stone Inspector)”
But First a Special Announcement
The Special Announcement:
Our Sunday features continue to thrive, especially the long standing rerun and the relatively new interview segment. And what we call the Auld Author has done well, but we feel that restricting it to the fairly obscure and/or nearly forgotten is unfair to well known works, which need to be kept alive lest they fall into obscurity.
So we proudly announce that articles about famous authors and books will now be welcomed. For example, you may either extol something like Stephen King’s unabridged The Stand or even let fly against it because you feel that the short version is better. (That is an actual opinion held by yours truly.)
We believe that highlighting works that more than one person is familiar with will stimulate conversation to an even higher degree.
Still, if you do have an obscure or lost subject, we are still happy to see it come in.
One bit of caution: back in the old days, in New York City, there was a practice called “log rolling” (called that for a reason that appears lost to time), in which author friends who did reviews at different publications gave each other rave notices to plump up sales. I would never suggest that any of our esteemed contributors or readers would use this feature to tout a pal’s book if I didn’t believe that some of you are capable of it!
We hope to see your articles flood the inbox. And if there are any questions, we will be happy to answer them.
We Now Return to Regular Programming
The worst thing that can happen to an author is to become the object of assigned reading in high school. Somehow William Shakespeare continues to survive that curse, but it has been the kiss of death for historical authors who do not always deserve the “boring” label. Boring is in the yawn of the beholder and should not be an automatic reaction to something your fifth period Lit teacher has dumped into your life.
Continue reading “Week 488: The Classics and “Hey, the teacher smells like beer.””
literally stories 