Almanac of Story Tellers: John Marshall Harlan

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of June 1st

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    It is the 152nd day of the year, leaving 213 days remaining in 2022.

 

    On this date in 1833, the Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan was born in Danville, Ky.

    He told stories through the legal writings -- mostly his dissents -- that he penned during his 34 years on the U.S. Supreme Court. He wrote so many dissents, several of which later became an argument for overturning the original decision, that he became known as The Great Dissenter.

     In perhaps his most famous dissent, he was the only justice to reject the notion  that segregation in the United States was Constitutional. The Court ruled 8-to-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson, which accepted the doctrine of "separate but equal."

    Harlan objected and dissented. He wrote that "our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." He said the country and the court would rue the day it approved the separate-but-equal fiction, predicting it would "prove to be as pernicious" as the Dred Scott Decision.

    Some 58 years later, he was proven right. In 1954, the court overturned the decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

    The irony is that Harlan, born into a wealthy, slave-owning family, became an advocate for civil rights on the court. He also wrote with considerable sympathy for the impoverished, and accepted that the post-Civil War Constitutional Amendments radically changed the nature of federal-state relations.

    Thus, he also dissented in cases that struck down state minimum-wage laws, and that limited the power of the federal government to enforce anti-trust laws and regulation of businesses. He was the first justice to argue for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights, writing that the 14th Amendment meant they also applied to the states. That notion is now part of our legal tradition.

    Harlan died in 1911 in Washington.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Walt Whitman

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 31st

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    It is the 151st day of the year, leaving 214 days remaining in 2022.

 

   On this date in 1819, the poet Walt Whitman was born on Long Island, in New York.

    Whitman told his stories -- of love, of war, of  death -- in verse. He was one of the earliest, if not the greatest of, American poets.

    He showed the English language a new style of poetry, called free verse. Without rhyme or a distinct meter, free verse often spoke in the rhythms of ordinary languages, with the grace and style of the spoken tongue. 

    He also wrote more traditional poetry, with a typical rhyming scheme and verse. His most famous poem in that genre is O Captain! My Captain! which he wrote about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and published in The Saturday Press. It was one of four poems he wrote about Lincoln.

    His first book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, was self-published in 1855, and contained selected poems Whitman had wrote over the years. The first volume contained no author's name, not titles on the poems. Whitman continually updated and revised the book and what it included.

    As it gained popularity, it became controversial. It contained verses showing delight in sensual pleasures, and it contained explicit sexual images. It hinted at Whitman's homosexuality. One poem, I Sing the Body Electric, speaks of the beauty of both the male and female body.

     It was condemned as obscene; Whitman himself was fired from his clerical job in the Department of the Interior because the secretary deemed the volume indecent.

    Two later collections, Drum Taps, and Sequel to Drum Taps, show Whitman had varying views on the nature of war. He saw it as necessary to do away with evil, such as slavery, or to promote a more perfect union. But he also recognized the horrors of war, and, in Beat! Beat! Drums! show how it overwhelms all other feelings.

                                                                                                                           

               Beat! beat! drums! -- blow! bugles! blow! 

              Make no parley -- stop for no expostulation, 

              Mind not the timid -- mind not the weeper or prayer,

              Mind not the old man beseeching the young man, 

              Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties, 

              Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses, 

              So strong you thump O terrible drums -- so loud you bugles blow.

    

Almanac of Story Tellers: Mel Blanc

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 30th

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    It is the 150th day of the year, leaving 215 days remaining in 2022.

 

    On this date in 1908, the voice actor Mel Blanc was born in San Francisco.

    Blanc told stories in voice -- he was, according to one writer, "The Man of 1,000 Voices." That may be a slight exaggeration, but Blanc was known to have created more than 400 separate voices for animated characters during his lifetime.

     Among them: Barney Rubble, the best friend and sidekick on The Flintstones (also Dino and Captain Caveman); Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, and Yosemite Sam; the drunken bull in the 1937 short, Picador Porky (his first cartoon creation); and Krazy Kat, Woody Woodpecker, Tom and Jerry, Wile E. Coyote, Tweety Bird, and Foghorn Leghorn, a large, bombastic rooster based on a fictional Southern politician.

    That list does not include the numerous characters (and other sounds) he voiced or created during his days on radio, working on the Jack Benny Program, The Abbott and Costello Show, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, and The Life of Riley.

    Indeed, he was the first voice actor to receive an on-screen credit for his work. 

    He started his work during the early days of radio in the late 1920s to early 1930s. In the mid 1930s, he switched to Hollywood, and worked at Warner Brothers Studios, doing voices for Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon shorts.

    When television became the place for animated features, he moved there, along with his characters. 

    One of his final appearances was in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in which he voiced many of his old Looney Tunes characters.

    Blanc died in 1989 in Los Angeles.

Book Review: Breakfast with Buddha

•  Author: Roland Merullo

• Where I bought this book: after words, Chicago

• Why I bought this book: The title intrigued me.

*******

    I felt trepidation when I set out to read this book. Yes, I bought it because I liked the title, and the description of a road trip with Buddha seemed inspiring.

 

  But when I started turning the pages, I discovered that among the author's previous works were Lunch with Buddha and Dinner with Buddha. Uh-oh. Was this part of a series? If so, it sounded un-original (and backwards).

    When I got into the first chapter, my discontent increased. It seemed it was going to be about a guy going through a mid-life crisis. A middle-aged, upper middle-class suburban white guy, with the requisite wife and two teen-agers (a boy and a girl, natch), and a nice, middle-class job.

    I was prepared to quit. But I forged on. I'm glad I did.

    I was right about its premise. But you know what? It was interesting. The characters were fun. The writing was clear and easy, if a bit rambling at times.

    The narrations, like the road trip it described, was linear -- going from place-to-place, point-to-point, with a few stop-offs but little of the meandering in time and setting. And while the guy, one Otto Ringling, was a bit of a condescending jerk, he knew it and acknowledged it. His attempted justifications for his behavior did not quite justify it, and he knew that too.

    His travelling companion, name of Volya Rinpoche, wasn't exactly Buddha, but he was everything you'd want in one. Kind, thoughtful, vaguely Tibetan in a robe and sandals,  understanding, innocent, sorta chunky, and mysterious.

    Quick synopsis: Otto's parents die in a car crash back home in his native North Dakota. Otto, now a successful book editor in New York, plans to return home to settle their affairs. His sister, Cecilia, new-agey, pleasant, if a but hippy-dippy, if afraid to fly, so they must drive. But when Otto arrives at her New Jersey home, she said plans have changed -- Rinpoche is going on the trip, but she is not.

    The resulting tale is a fun read. The drive across the country includes getting stuck in traffic, stopping bowling in South Bend, Ind., and detouring to take in a Cubs game in Chicago. It's all about the experience: Otto tries to teach Rinpoche about America, and Rinpoche tries to teach Otto about life.

    The dialogue is witty. The scenes can be cliched, but realistic. We get inside Otto's head, and we can appreciate, if only vaguely understand, Rinpoche.

    Road trips can be magical, spiritual  experiences. Even those you take virtually.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Maeve Binchy

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 28th

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    It is the 148th day of the year, leaving 217 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1940, the Irish author Maeve Binchy was born.

    Binchy told her stories with the grace, humor, and kindness she was known for in life.

    Starting out as a journalist in her native Dublin, and later in London, Binchy wrote with wit and candor, much like she spoke. Covering the royal wedding of Princess Anne, in 1972, she wrote, "The bride looked as edgy as it is were the Badminton Horse Trials, and she was waiting for the bell to gallop off."

    Binchy wrote short stories on the side, tales of the lives of contemporary women living and working in Ireland.

    Ten years later, she published her first novel, Light a Penny Candle. Like most of her oeuvre, it focused on the women's lives, giving them equal if not better play, and telling stories from their perspectives.

    In her novels, she wrote about rural life in Ireland, life in its small towns, and in its cities. She wrote about those in poverty, and those living solid, middle-class lives. She told the tales of the changes in Irish lifestyles, and in its people -- both old and young -- particularly since the end of World War II. She wrote with sympathy for her characters, with humor, and with understanding.

    Her most famous novel, perhaps, was Circle of Friends, which followed the lives of a group of university students in Dublin. In 1995, it was adapted into a movie of the same name, starring Chris O'Donnell and Minnie Driver.

    She wrote 16 novels in her career, several published after her death. Some of her characters appeared in multiple novels. Among her more popular works were Tara Road, Scarlett Feathers, and Minding Frankie.

    Binchy died in 2012 in her home outside of Dublin.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Dashiell Hammett

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 27th

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    It is the 147th day of the year, leaving 218 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1894, the author Dashiell Hammett was born.

 

   Hammett told his hard-boiled stories featuring private eyes and dashing dames on the mean streets, with but a nickel to their name and a penchant for trouble.

    Pulp detective fiction was its name, and while Hammett didn't invent the game, he sure as heck popularized it. With terse writing, rough-and-tumble action, realistic if dark settings, and plots filled with tough private dicks and dashing, duplicitous dames, Hammett quickly gained a reputation as a man who wrote what he knew.

    And he did. A one-time detective with the infamous Pinkerton Agency, Hammett wrote of a world of cynical detectives, ruthless criminals, and corruption all around. 

    He wrote dozens of serialized stories before The Red Harvest, his first novel, was published in 1929l. It drew on his time out west in the mines feuding with union leaders for the Agency, but it also showed Hammett's Marxist critiques of the system, along with his leftist leanings.

    His third novel, The Maltese Falcon, became Hammett's best work. It introduced Sam Spade, the prototype of the hard-boiled  detective. Written sparsely in the third-person, the writing follows the characters' actions and words. Their thoughts, feelings, or reasonings are left undescribed.

    The book regularly makes it on the lists of the top detective or crime-fiction novels, and has been adapted several times for films. The 1931 movie, starring Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Mary Astor, is considered a film noir classic.

    In later life, Hammett's politics led him to be investigated by Congress and the House on Un-American Activities Committee. While he testified, he refused to name names, and was subsequently blacklisted.

    Hammett died in 1961 in New York.

Almanac of Story Tellers: W.P. Kinsella

 Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 25th

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    It is the 145th day of the year, leaving 220 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1935, the Canadian author W.P. Kinsella was born in Edmonton.

 

    Kinsella wrote his stories for the baseball fan who saw the game as he did -- as more than it was, with a touch of magic and grace that helped it rise above an ordinary game.

    He also wrote stories of the First Nations People of Canada, although his use of their native voice caused controversy amongst those who accused him of cultural appropriation. Kinsella shrugged them off, saying he wrote in the voice of the oppressed, mocking their oppressors, and he had the right to do so,

    But it was his baseball stories that made him the marvelous writer he came to be.

    He is best known for his novel, Shoeless Joe, an homage to Joe Jackson, who has the third highest average in the history of the game, and who played for the Chicago White Sox until being thrown out of the game after the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. The book was adapted into the classis movie, Field of Dreams, where the magically created baseball field that returned Hall of Famers to play catch is now used for an annual summer Major League game.

    In a touch of irony, the movie makers declined to use the book's title, fearing people would think the movie was about homeless people. Instead, they unknowingly almost used Kinsella's working title, Dream Field.

    Kinsella also wrote numerous short stories about baseball, again combining the game with his brand of magical realism. Among his best is Searching for January, in which a man strolling along a beach in 1987 comes across Roberto Clemente coming ashore. Clemente, killed in a 1972 New Year's Eve plane crash while delivering relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua, thinks it's a few days after the crash.

    The discussion about baseball and the oddities of life between the two men is captivating.

    Kinsella died in 2016 in Hope, British Columbia, by assisted suicide.

Almanac of Story Tellers: George Nakashima

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 24th

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    It is the 144th day of the year, leaving 221 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1905, the Japanese-American woodworker George Nakashima was born.

    He told his stories in wood. Or rather, he told the wood's stories by painstakingly cutting and carving the boards into what nature wanted them to be.

    Nakashima designed and cut pieces of wood into furniture -- tables and chairs, benches and cabinets, beds and desks --  but it was the wood that created the pieces; Nakashima said he only followed through on the destinies of the cut trees.

    Originally educated as an architect, Nakashima toured the world, where he learned and embraced Japanese woodworking techniques. He first worked with scrap wood, developing a style that one writer said "celebrated nature's imperfections." He embraced knotholes, wormholes, and other perceived flaws.

    His best work involved plank tables, which he would join with butterfly joints. The edges would be left free and unfinished. The result was what the wood was meant to be. He gives his philosophy on the website for his woodworking firm, built, like his studio, in New Hope, Penn.

Each board, each plank, can have only one ideal use. The woodworker, applying a thousand skills, must find that ideal use and then shape the wood to realize its true potential.

     Nakashima died in 1990.

    Among his legacies is the Nakashima Foundation for Peace, in the Minguren Museum, also in New Hope. It was started when he found an immense walnut log, and determined it was meant to become an altar for peace.

     He created several such altars from the log, giving them to sanctuaries, including the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Others are in Russia, India, and South Africa.  

  

Almanac of Story Tellers: Margaret Wise Brown

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 23rd

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     It is the 143rd day of the year, leaving 222 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1910, the children's book author Margaret Wise Brown was born.

   

    Brown told stories to young children, using simple words and a simple style, with colorful, description illustrations. She called her style the "here and now."

    She is credited with writing and publishing the first children's "board book," which is for  toddlers and printed on heavy stock cardboard. When the Wind Blew, published in 1937, tells the story of an old woman who lived by the sea with 17 cats. The woman found joy in all of them, but particularly with a small, grey kitten.

     She is best known for two other books that she wrote and Clement Hurd illustrated: The Runaway Bunny, and the classic Goodnight Moon.

    In The Runaway Bunny, a tiny bunny tells its mother it wants to run away. The mother responds that wherever the bunny goes, she will follow.

    Goodnight Moon, still popular with parents today, has a mother and child saying goodnight to all the objects in the child's room.

     Wise wrote more than 100 books, many which Hurd illustrated. In 1938, she was hired as the first editor at W.R. Scott, a children's book publisher.

    Wise died in 1952.    

Almanac of Story Tellers: Arthur Conan Doyle

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 22nd

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     It is the 142nd day of the year, leaving 223 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1859, Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.

    He told his stories through the character Sherlock Holmes, a creation that has outlived him. Holmes was a fictional detective who deduced the crime and the perpetrator through science, intrinsic and specialized knowledge, and a stunning intelligence that let him into the hearts and minds of wrong-doers.

    His tales were told through 56 stories and four novels, with Holmes' sidekick, Dr. Watson, the narrator and certifier of his genius. Watson was likewise intelligent and shrewd, but always deferred to Holmes when it came to solving whatever crime or incident they were called to investigate.

    As his creation became the master detective, Doyle became the father of crime fiction. 

    Doyle partly based Holmes' character on a real doctor, a professor from Doyle's days in medical school. Dr. Joseph Bell was a master of medical deduction, studying all the information from a patient's file before making the correct diagnosis. Holmes first appeared in the novel, A Study in Scarlet, in 1887

    He continued to write about Holmes until 1921. But he always felt Holmes overshadowed his other stories and novels, some of which showed Doyle's belief in paranormal phenomena. He also wrote various adventure stories, some military history, and a novel about 14th Century chivalry,  The White Company.

    Doyle died in 1930 in Crowborough, England.

  

Almanac of Story Tellers: The Notorious B.I.G.

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 21st

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     It is the 141st day of the year, leaving 224 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1972, the rapper The Notorious B.I.G. was born in Brooklyn.

    Also known as Biggie Smalls, or more simply Biggie, he was born as Christopher George Wallace. 

    His told his stories in rap, and he was one of the premier and most popular rappers of his time.

     His influence continues to this day. He is often credited with saving East Coast rap at a time its significance was seen as being outdone by rappers on the West Coast.

    Biggie created or used various styles in his music, including gangsta rap, and themes that told about dealing and using drugs, and growing up amidst street crime and poverty. He also wrote about love and romance, with Rolling Stone saying he was one of the few males of his era who was able to write credible love songs.

    His first album, Ready to Die, was released in 1994 to acclaim and rave reviews. He was praised for telling the story of his youth in language that connected with other young Black men and fans of hip-hop. One critic said his rap had a "loose, easy flow," and he had a talent for piling multiple rhymes on top of each other in quick succession.

    His rapping was distinctive and often laid-back, in contrast to the otherwise powerful yet  sometimes dark content of his lyrics.

    All of Biggie's other albums were released after his death, which came in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles in 1997. The shooting has never been solved.

    His second album, Live After Death, was released shortly after he was killed. Two more albums since have been released. Indeed, on May 20, a new track, titled G.O.A.T., was released. In addition to Biggie's music, it features Ty Dolla $ign and Nigerian singer Bella Alubo.  

    In addition to numerous Grammy, MTV, and Hip-Hop awards, Biggie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Lorraine Hansberry

 Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 19th

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     It is the 139th day of the year, leaving 226 days remaining in 2022.

     On this date in 1930, the African-American playwright, Lorraine Hansberry, was born.

 

    Hansberry told her stories of African-American life from the stage. Her best known play, A Raisin in the Sun, was the first play written and produced by an African-American woman to open on Broadway.

    With that 1959 play, Hansberry also became to first Black woman and the youngest woman to win the Best Play award from the New York Drama Critics' Circle.

    The play also debuted shortly afterward in London's West End, and was adapted into a movie in 1961.

    The play, which concerns struggles of an urban Black family, remains in the American canon and is considered a major work about Black life in 1950s America.

    Hansberry was the granddaughter of an enslaved person, and grew up in Chicago. When her family moved to a white neighborhood, they were violently attacked, and a court ordered them to move, resulting in a U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the legality of segregated neighborhoods.

    She eventually moved to New York and worked for Freedom, a black newspaper run by Paul Robeson. She also wrote for the magazine The Ladder, which covered feminism and lesbian issues. 

    Hansberry's other major play was The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, which was set in Greenwich Village, Hansberry's neighborhood in New York City. The play concerned what it meant to make a personal commitment to an ideal. 

   Her career was cut short when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which she died from in 1965.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Mathew Brady

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 18th

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    It is the 138th day of the year, leaving 227 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date (perhaps) in either 1822, 1823, or 1824, the famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady was born.

    Actually, when -- and even where -- he was born is disputed. May 18 is often given as the date, but the year is generally given as 1822 or 1824. Sometimes, 1823 is cited. Even the place of his birth is questioned -- Warren County, in upstate New York, claims him as native son. But on several U.S. Census forms, Brady himself said he was born in Ireland. He later changed that to New York.

    Regardless, we know this: During his life, Brady told his stories through the artistry of photography. He is credited as one of the first photographers, and acclaimed for his portraits of presidents and generals, as well as his photography of the U.S. Civil War. He is often called the father of photojournalism.

    After working under famed portrait artist William Page and inventor Samuel Morse, Brady opened his own studios in New York and Washington starting in 1844. There, he used the new technology of daguerreotype to take and exhibit photographs.

    He was good at it, and set himself apart and expanded his offerings by selling small photographs known as "visit cards." One day in early 1860, a fellow by the name of Abraham Lincoln stopped by Brady's studio to have his portrait taken.

    Brady did not always take the photos credited to him, sometimes assigning the task to someone under his direction. But he took the Lincoln portrait.

    A year later, as the Civil War began, Brady followed, taking photographs of generals and common soldiers, and helping to develop the photos on the battlefield that he or one of his assistants would shoot. 

    When his Washington gallery manager Alexander Gardner took photos of dead soldiers lying on the battlefield at Antietam, Brady exhibited them at his New York studios.

    The pictures were among the first war photographs taken, and they managed to convey the horror and depravity of war to many who had never seen it. His photographs are used to this day to accompany stories and lives lost during the Civil War.

    Brady died in 1896 in New York.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Dorothy Richardson

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 17th

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    It is the 137th day of the year, leaving 228 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1873, the English author Dorothy Richardson was born.

    Richardson was one of the first writers to routinely use the stream-of-consciousness technique in writing her novels -- although she always insisted her many published works were one novel, and the separate publishings were merely chapters. She used the technique to give her female character a distinctive voice.

    Her novel was Pilgrimage -- a lengthy work, published in 11 separate occasion comprising 13 chapters between 1915 and 1938. It is often seen as a semi-autobiographical interpretation of Richardson's life.

    Her style and voice and been compared to that of contemporaries James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James. 

    The protagonist and narrator of Pilgrimage is Miriam Henderson, the third of four sisters from a family who wanted boys. Henderson, often called and treated as a boy, is "ambivalent toward her role as a women," according to Sidney Janet Kaplan, a professor of English, writing about Richardson in 1975.

    (Richardson was the last of four girls, and her parents often treated as as the son they wanted. She shared Henderson's ambivalence toward her gender, Kaplan wrote.)

    Throughout the novel, Richardson's and Henderson's lives mirror each other. Richardson used stream of consciousness, along with free and indirect speech -- a mingling of first- and third-person voices -- in her narrative to represent how woman think. Much of the novel's chapters are about Henderson's thoughts on philosophy, questions on the nature of reality, and the intense wonder of travel.

    She died in 1957 in England.   

Almanac of Story Tellers: Studs Terkel

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 16th

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    It is the 136th day of the year, leaving 229 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1912, the author, historian, and Chicago radio announcer Studs Terkel was born In New York.

    With his insightful, recorded interviews,  Terkel let other people tell their stories. He helped define the concept of an oral history, allowing the famous, the infamous, and the ordinary to talk about their lives, their memories, and their drudgery.

    In addition to his many books of oral history and interviews, Terkel hosted a daily radio show in Chicago for several decades. Between the late 1940s and early 1950s, he starred in the television show, Studs' Place, in which real-life Chicagoans told their stories from the set of a greasy-spoon diner.

    His radio program lasted longer, running on WFMT under various names, from 1952 to 1998. 

    It was during the radio program that Terkel gathered material for his first book, Division Street: America, when he walked around Chicago with his ever-present tape recorder and  interviewed random people that he stopped on the street. He said the tape recorder was an equalizer, which could be used to capture the thoughts of the average person

. . . on the steps of a public housing project, in a frame bungalow, in a furnished apartment, in a parked car. And those . . . become persons, each one unique. I am constantly astonished.

     Terkel used the same technique for several more books, including Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, and Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. What he found was that many people hate their jobs and find their lives lost and demoralizing.

     He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for his oral history of World War II, The Good War.

    He had a long relationship with the Chicago History Museum, where he served as a distinguished scholar in residence. He later donated many of his recordings and papers to the museum.

    Because of his close connection to Chicago, Terkel was cast in the movie Eight Men Out about the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. He played the role of the reporter, Hugh Fullerton, who first tried to pin down the story. (He also lived long enough to congratulate the 2005 White Sox, who won their first World Series that year since the scandal.) 

    And despite being neither Black nor gay, at the insistence of their members, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Black Writers, and the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.

    Terkel died in 2008 in Chicago.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Katherine Anne Porter

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 15th

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    It is the 135th day of the year, leaving 230 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1890, the author Katherine Anne Porter was born.    

   

    As Porter told her stories, she became the master of the short story, populating her pages with complex characters usually found only in the best of novels. She was a perfectionist with her prose, usually publishing in small magazines as a way to keep control of her artistry.

    After moving to New York in her early years, she worked as a journalist and ghost writer. She soon became caught up in the Mexican left, traveling back and forth to the country several times. This led to her first published short story, Maria Concepcion -- regarding a Mexican woman who kills a young girl who threatened her marriage. That put the woman's world back together, even as she changed from passive, hard-working teen-ager to a dominant, hard-bitten woman.

    The simultaneous existence of good and evil was among Porter's major themes. Others included the political and the personal, along with betrayal, justice, and the unforgiving nature of humans.

    Those themes came together in her first and only novel, Ship of Fools, published in 1962. It dealt with the ocean voyage of a group of Germans returning to Germany from Mexico in 1931, as Hitler rose to power. It was made into a movie in 1965.

    That was the same year she won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Collected Stories. 

    Porter died in 1980 in Silver Spring, Md.

Almanac of Story Tellers: George Lucas

 Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 14th

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    It is the 134th day of the year, leaving 231 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1944, the director and screenwriter George Lucas was born.

 

    In his story telling, Lucas created some of the most iconic characters and tales of the 20th Century. 

    He used ancient myths and legends and set them to take place "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," with Star Wars. He created adventure tales for the fictional archeologist and treasure hunter Indiana Jones, who found fame and fortune in the mid-20th Century.

    Lucas wrote his first film while a student at the University of Southern California. Titled Electronic Labyrinth TXH 1138 4EB, it was a futuristic parable, later expanded into a full-length feature film that got decent reviews, but is largely forgotten given his future works.

    His second movie, American Graffiti, in 1973, set off waves of 1950s and early '60s nostalgia. But Lucas was just getting started. 

    In 1977, he wrote and released Star Wars, a space epic, soap opera, and adventure story set in another time and place. Indeed, Lucas created an entire universe of mostly beloved characters that has become an American classic. In addition to the movie franchise, spin-offs have included books, television animations, comic books, Halloween costumes, and even an international holiday (May 4).

    In between Star Wars films, Lucas kept busy creating his own empire, which included Lucasfilm, to produce additional movies.

    But he also kept his hand on the creative side, which included another sensational movie franchise about Indiana Jones. Within some six movies and television shows, the archeologist defeated Nazis, saved children, and sought to find the Holy Grail.

    It began with the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, staring Harrison Ford and directed by Steven Spielberg in 1981.

Book Review: The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

• Author: Heidi W. Durrow
• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books, Covington, Ky.

• Why I bought this book: The title caught my eye; the story description caught my fancy

******

    The thing about the title is it should be taken literally.

    We first meet our heroine and protagonist, Rachel, through the eyes of Brick -- then known as Jamie -- as she falls the nine floors from the roof of her Chicago tenament to the courtyard below. Jamie thinks she's a bird.

    Maybe she is. She survived the fall.

    How she came to fall -- was she pushed? did she jump? did she slip? was she thrown off? -- is the riddle of the tale. How she survives defines the story.

    Rachel is a young, mixed race girl, the daughter of a Danish mother and a Black, military father. She is light skinned, with her mother's blue eyes and her father's features. She doesn't define herself as Black or white. She allows others to do that for her.

    Who she is changes over time. Raised by her Danish mother, with a more-or-less absent father, Rachel looks, acts, and is treated white. She doesn't seem too concerned with that.

    But once her flight from the roof takes place, which kills her mother and siblings, Rachel is shuffled off to a new city and a new family. She is put in the care of her Black grandmother and aunt. In school, she is treated as an oddity, neither Black nor white, or perhaps both.

    The Black kids treated her as an interloper. The white kids see her as exotic.

    She sees herself as full of grief for her lost mother, and what may have been. She loves and admires her strict grandmother, but bristles against some of the changes in her life.

    Durrow is a compelling story teller and writer, but much like her character, Rachel, the tale doesn't reach any conclusion. The assumption is Rachel still has a long road ahead of her.

Almanac of Story Tellers: George Carlin

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of May 12th

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    It is the 132th day of the year, leaving 233 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1937, the comedian George Carlin was born.

 

   When Carlin told his stories, people laughed. They still do.

     First known as as the Hippy Dippy Weatherman, Carlin caught the eye of the public -- and the police and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court -- for his story, The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. He was arrested in Milwaukee in 1972 after doing the routine live; WBAI in New York aired the monologue, and in 1978, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision saying the Federal Communications Commission had the right to regulate "indecent materials" on the public airwaves.

    As his career went on, Carlin grew from being a stand-up comic to a stand-up philosopher, using artful language, honing his stories with rhythm, and developing a cadence like the best speakers, 

    Carlin explained his use of the language and his thought process during a 2007 interview.

   The seven words routine, besides being robustly funny, particularly in Carlin's delivery, highlights Carlin's strengths. It was originally on his album, Class Clown. He revised it slightly for another album, Occupation: Foole. This time, he called the routine Filthy Words, and when radio Station WBAI in New York played that version, lawyers came a callin'.

    Video copies of his shows, many from a series of HBO specials in the 1980s, remain available on YouTube and continue to be popular as he skewers culture, politics, religion, and above all, hypocrisy. His routines remain fresh and pointed today, as new audiences appreciate his wit and honesty. 

     Carlin died in 2008 in Santa Monica.