Almanac of Story Tellers: George Sand

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

Today is the story of July 1st

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 182nd day of the year, leaving 183 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1804, the novelist George Sand was born in Paris.

    Despite defying conventions during her life, she told her stories in classical, rustic style. Her themes included the stories of how love triumphs -- over class, over social mores, over poverty. 

    She was among the most popular writers during her day -- and after her death. Sand's works not only influenced French literature, but writers from England, Cuba, the United States, and Russia.

    The English poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, wrote two poems in her honor. The American poet Walt Whitman cited her as an inspiration. The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky so loved her work he translated some of it into Russian.

   

    Although named at birth Amantine Lucillle Aurore Dupin, and known as Aurore by her close friends, she adopted pen names for her writings.

     As a journalist, she co-wrote stories with Jules Sandeau. Together, they used the name Jules Sand for their articles. That was also the name their first novel, Le Figaro, was credited to.

    But when she started writing alone, she chose the name George Sand. During much of her life, she also chose to wear men's clothing -- for comfort, she said, and for the ability to more freely travel.

   Her first novel, Indiana, also defied conventions -- it strongly questioned why women were forever tied to the first man they married. It told the tale of a woman who left her husband and married her true love. It was popular and critically praised.

    Other novels showed that love can cross over boundaries of social and economic class. She often based her characters on her many lovers.

    Later in life, she wrote of the countryside in Berry -- in central France, about 150 miles from Paris -- where her grandmother lived and whose estate she inherited. Her characters were often peasants or working class.

    Sand died in 1876 in Berry.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Baba Nagarjun

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

Today is the story of June 30th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 181st day of the year, leaving 184 days remaining in 2022.

 

  On this date in 1911, the Indian novelist and poet, Baba Nagarjun, was born in Bihar, India.

    He told his stories in multiple languages, at first in his native Maithili, and later in the Hindi tongue spoken in much of northern and central India. In his poems, he spoke of his travels and activism in the country, and he was integral in the modernization of Maithili.

    He has been called the "forgotten people's poet" of India, He and his poems had classical attributes, and covered themes such as awareness and contemporary problems. His political philosophy centered on opposition to the British colonial rulers, and combined Marxist and Buddhist beliefs.

    His poem, Mantra Kavita, is regarded as reflecting the cultural zeitgeist of its time. Written in 1969, it called for a resistance to a status quo that was oppressive and parochial. Indian musicians picked up the theme, and continue to refer to and use it in their tunes.

    British authorities who ruled India before its independence arrested Nagarjum multiple times. He never forget, and years later wrote Āō Rānī Hum Ḍhōēṅgē Pālāki, a poem that called out the prime minister after he gave an elaborate welcome to Queen Elizabeth II in 1959, well after independence. 

    But not all of his writings were political. He wrote a series of poems on the jackfruit. He also wrote poems based on other works of art, including theater.

    He died in 1998 in his hometown, where he lived for much of his life

Almanac of Story Tellers: Antoine de.Saint-Exupéry

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

Today is the story of June 29th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 180th day of the year, leaving 185 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1900, the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon, France.

If you please, draw me a sheep.

    He told stories of his first love. flying, with his second love, writing. His tales were poetic, captivating, and philosophical. As an aviator, he flew to explore the world in the hope it could bring people together. 

Only the children know what they are looking for.

    As a writer, he told about his personal experiences in the air, as in one of his earlier books, Wind, Sand and Stars. He also related the stories of other aviators, as in his second novel, Night Flight, and urged people to accept pleasure in the simple things in life.

I must endure the presence of caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.

    His best known work is the classic fable, Le Petit Prince, known in English as The Little Prince (All the quotations on this page come from that book.) It tells the fanciful tale of a pilot who crashes his plane far from civilization, and meets the prince, a young boy who has come to earth to explore because he is the only person, and thus the caretaker of, a tiny planet far away.

Only the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart.

    The multi-layered tale weaves philosophy, myth, and magic into a textured tale of the faults and virtues of humankind. It praises imagination and a child's view of life and pleasure, while questioning why adults lose their joy as they age.

Grownups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

    The Little Prince has been translated into dozens of languages, and every generation seems to find it anew.

    Saint-Exupéry was presumed dead in July 1944, when his plane vanished during a war mission he was flying for the French resistance during World War II.   

Almanac of Story Tellers: Paul Laurence Dunbar

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

Today is the story of June 27th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 178th day of the year, leaving 187 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1873, the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar was born.

    He wrote his stories, in verse and in prose, in a variety of styles, from Black dialect to traditional romantic sonnets. 

    He is considered one of the first and finest Black poets in the United States, although his writings are criticized for his sometimes stereotypical portrayals of the lives of Black people in antebellum times.

    Both his parents had been enslaved people who moved north after the Civil War, and Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio. When he was 16, he was publishing poems in The (Dayton) Herald. He soon was writing for and editing The Tattler, a short-lived Dayton newspaper.

    By the time he was 20, he had published his first book of poetry, Oak and Ivy, and was selling it at his job as an elevator operator. His next two volumes, Majors and Minors and Lyrics of Lowly Life, were supported by a mentor, William Dean Howells, an established and influential critic.

    Howells particularly encouraged Dunbar to write more poems and stories in Black dialect, although Dunbar preferred more traditional styles of writing.

    In his novels, Dunbar often told stories of white people, to middling success. But he remained popular, and his poetry readings were well attended. 

    Only in a few stories and in his last novel did Dunbar address racism or disquiet in the Black community. His first book of short stories, Folks From Dixie, was described as a "harsh examination of racial prejudice. His last novel, The Sport of the Gods, described the life of a Black family who moved from the rural South to the urban North.

    Dunbar, who suffered health problems throughout his life, died in 1906 from tuberculosis.  

Book Review: Beasts of a Little Land

•  Author: Juhea Kim

• Where I bought this book: Busboys and Poets, 14th and V Sts., Washington

• Why I bought this book: Such a wonderful vegetarian-friendly restaurant/bookstore. Beyond the great food, I had to support it, and this book called out to me.

  

  *********

    I knew nothing about Korea. Seriously, I was a bit ashamed about my unfamiliarity  regarding one of the world's major cultures and countries.

    Now, I am a little less ignorant. Not an expert by any means. But I now know that Koreans fought for centuries for their independence against their aggressive neighbors.

    Beasts tells the tale of commitment from a variety of Koreans. Kim weaves their stories into a traditional jagakbo from the silk, hemp, and muslin of her characters. Family, community, and tradition combine to bring fortitude and determination amidst wisdom, betrayal, poverty, and wealth.

    She uses vivid descriptions and extraordinary writing to depict her character's lives and how they change over time. They encompass many aspects of Korean society -- street kids, shop owners and soldiers; businessmen and courtesans; artists, actors, and activists.

    For a debut novel, this is quite a start. I look forward to her next work.

    Beasts begins in 1917 in a snowy forest in Korea, with a hunter seeking food for his starving family. He nearly dies in the cold, but when he somehow stops a tiger from attacking a Japanese military officer, he also is saved from a frigid death.

    The story follows their intertwined lives for the next 50-plus years, bringing in others who are memorable, masterfully drawn, and recognizable. There is Jade, a young girl sold to apprentice as a courtesan, but who winds up as so much more. JungHo is a boy who grows into a man as his life intersects with Jade's. HanChol starts as a rickshaw runner and moves ahead. General Yamada, a Japanese soldier, is personally changed after a lifetime of war. MyungBo grows from his beginnings as a socialist and peace activist to a major political actor.

    The story is Korea-specific, but tracks timeless themes: of a revolution in politics and relationships, between longing for the past but adapting to the future. It's about the connections between ruler and ruled, between men and women, and between family and duty and honor.

    The lives of the characters merge, bond, fall apart, and move on. Every character, even the tiger, has a purpose. The writing is exceptional, even poetic at times. The phrasing, the descriptions, and the linear narrative combine to make this novel a joy to read.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Pearl S. Buck

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

Today is the story of June 26th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 177th day of the year, leaving 188 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1892, the Pulitzer- and Nobel-prize winning author Pearl S. Buck was born in Hillsboro, W.V.

    She told her stories, mostly about China and the Chinese people, with poignancy and a desire to bring Asian tales to the West.

    Although born in the United States, she was mostly reared and educated in various parts of China by her missionary parents. However, she returned to the United States to graduate from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Virginia, and Cornell University in New York.

    As an adult, she returned to China to teach, write, and live as a missionary. She moved to Pennsylvania in 1930. After the Communist Revolution in 1949, she was refused entry into China and never again visited, which, she said, left her heartbroken.

    In 1922, she was teaching and writing stories from her home in Nanjing about  life in China for various publications in the United States. She wrote her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, aboard a U.S.-bound ship in 1930.

    The next year, she wrote The Good Earth, about a Chinese peasant and his slave-wife, who were struggling to survive and improve their lives. It was critically praised, widely translated, and a best seller, and its adaptation for the stage and screen brought Buck more acclaim. It also won her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

    Two follow-up books. Sons and A House Divided, constituted a trilogy. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, with the committee saying she helped "pave the way to a human sympathy passing over widely separated racial boundaries."

    She wrote more books, including non fiction, and most of the remainder of her life was taken up with various humanitarian causes, including the rights of woman, opposition to racism, and the plight of Asian war orphans.

    She died in 1973.

Almanac of Story Tellers: George Orwell

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

Today is the story of June 25th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 176th day of the year, leaving 189 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1903, the writer George Orwell was born in Motihari, India

    He told his stories of major political systems of the day, including socialism, totalitarianism, and imperialism, from the perspective of the individual, with precise language and distinctive opinions.

    Although born in India, he was educated in England before leaving for Burma, where he worked as a policeman. As he worked, he gained a sympathy for the Burmese people, whom he realized were diminished by and opposed to their British rulers. This provided grist for some of his early writings -- the novel Burmese Days, and two works of expository prose, A Hanging, and Shooting an Elephant.

    After returning to England, he worked as a journalist as he struggled to become a writer. At one point he lived and worked among the poor in East London and the slums of Paris. The result was his first book, Down and Out is Paris and London -- part essay, part novel, and part memoir.

    His fame came from two of his later books. In 1945, he published Animal Farm, a fable about animals overthrowing their masters and living a socialized life on their homestead. It's seen as an attack on communism and the Russian Revolution, because the pigs, as leaders of the revolution, eventually start to become more humanlike until they are more oppressive than their prior masters. 

    Two years later, he published Nineteen Eighty-Four. The dystopian novel is set in the near future and presents a society that takes oppression and totalitarianism to the extreme. Big Brother watches everything, including ritualized book bannings, constant wars against an unseen enemy, re-writing of history, torture to enforce conformity, and the control of thoughts through the control of language.

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

    Orwell finished writing Nineteen Eighty-Four as he was dying of tuberculosis. It has become a classis of literature, used across the world as a warning against the growing threat of totalitarian leaders and societies. It was published in 1949. 

    He died in January1950 in London.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Ambrose Bierce

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

Today is the story of June 24th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 175th day of the year, leaving 190 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1842, the early American writer Ambrose Bierce was born.

    Bierce told many of his stories with his sardonic wit and in a satirical voice, which lead him to become knowns as "Bitter Bierce." But his stories also exemplified the genre of realism. 

    He began writing as a newspaper columnist after the Civil War, when he moved from Indiana to San Francisco. He wrote for several newspapers, sometimes as a reporter on crime, other times writing about corruption in politics, religion, and literature.

    But on the side, he wrote books, short stories, and tales of horror. Among his better known works is The Devil's Dictionary, which began as part of his newspaper work and later was published as The Cynic's Word Book. That earlier title describes its content. For instance, here is one entry:

 Conservative: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

    His short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, is one of the most read of its genre, as it often appears in literature anthologies, particularly those meant for college or high school students. The story, its themes, and its numerous plot devices have been explored in dozens of other works. None other than Kurt Vonnegut called it "a flawless example of American genius." 

    Spoiler alert for the few who haven't read it: It tells the tale of a man being hanged over a river for treason during the Civil War. Except the rope breaks; he escapes by swimming away and walking some 30 miles back to his plantation and his wife. Except when he reaches out to her, he feels a sharp pain in the back of his neck. The last scene is his swinging by a rope under the Owl Creek Bridge.

    In 1913, Bierce disappeared while travelling in Mexico for information on its ongoing revolution. His death remains a mystery.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Bob Fosse

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

Today is the story of June 23rd

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 174th day of the year, leaving 191 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1927, choreographer Bob Fosse was born.

    He told his stories through dance, inventing and popularizing moves, using props, and mixing styles to explore various forms and nuances on the stage. His signature moves included sideways shuffling, turned-in knees, and "jazz hands," in which the dancers extend their hands toward the audience with fingers splayed. 

    Unlike previous musicals and movies that featured dance, Fosse often brought darker, more personal plots into his work.

     He was widely popular and successful, winning numerous awards as an actor, choreographer, writer, and director. He is the only person to win a Tony, Oscar, and Emmy in the same calendar year.

    In his early shows, he performed in the chorus, and as a dancer and an actor. In 1953, he sang and danced in three movie musicals: The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, Kiss Me Kate, and Give a Girl a Break.

    The first stage musical he choreographed was The Pajama Game in 1954. Fosse was acclaimed for his fresh, exaggerated staging, and he won his first Tony for choreography.  He won his second Tony the next year for Damn Yankees. He helped bring both productions to the movie screen in 1957 and 1958, respectively.

    His Broadway directorial debut was Sweet Charity in 1966. In the 1970s, he was becoming a legend, directing and choreographing Pippin, Liza, Chicago, and Dancin' on the Broadway stage, and Cabaret and All That Jazz on the big screen.

    In all, he won one Oscar, nine Tonys, and three Emmys.

    Fosse died in 1987.  

Almanac of Story Tellers: Erich Maria Remarque

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

Today is the story of June 22nd

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 173rd day of the year, leaving 192 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1898, the German writer Erich Maria Remarque was born.

    He told stories of war, and of the experiences of men at war. He was among the first authors to write fictional memoirs of the soldiers who fought in wars, creating a new genre.

    He wrote in a sparse, laconic style, in stark contrast to the chaos and trauma of war.

    The novel he is best known for, All Quiet on the Western Front, is a tale of the everyday life of German soldiers in World War I. It was published in Germany as Im Western nichts Neues in 1928, and comes partly from Remarque's experiences as a draftee who was injured during his service.

This book . . . will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.                                                                                   -- All Quiet on the Western Front

    It was a critical success and an international best seller. A sequel, The Road Back, dealing with post-war Germany, is less known. His next novels, mostly dealing with victims of the upheavals in Europe after World War II, met with modest success.

    But as the Nazis came to power, Remarque fell out of favor. The Nazis mocked him for changing his name from the German spelling to the French (he did so to honor his French ancestors, as his father had changed it to the German spelling.) 

    The Nazis said he was a Jew. His novels were decried as being unpatriotic and were banned in Germany. He was accused of lying about his service in World War I. His sister was abducted and beheaded. The Nazis then sent a bill to another family member for the cost of her imprisonment and prosecution.

    Remarque fled to Switzerland, and as World War II began in Europe, he settled in and became a citizen of the United States. After the war, he returned to Switzerland to live. He wrote some novels and plays, which gained some popularity Austria and Germany.

    He died in 1970 in Locarno, Switzerland..

Book Review: The Young Wan

•  Author: Brendan O'Carroll

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books, Newport, Ky.

• Why I bought this book: It's not easy finding contemporary Irish fiction. When I do, I buy it.

*********

    There's a wee bit of magic here on the streets of Dublin, circa 1940. Think Derry Girls, but further south and earlier in time.

    This is a quintessential Irish book: About family and church and schooling and sex, it's laugh-out-loud hysterical, and melancholy. 

    Those familiar with growing up in an Irish Catholic home any time within the past 100 years or so will find themselves recognizing the mothers and fathers and priests and nuns. You'll smile, break into wide grins, or laugh as you read and the tears stream down your cheeks.

    The story about the preparation for one's First Confession, delivered by Sister Concepta Pius of the Blessed Heart Girls National School and punctuated by Marion Delany's questions -- she always has questions -- is worth the price of admission. So is the description of the school's sex education lecture, which served its purpose by leaving the girls "half informed and completely terrified."

    The book explores the childhood and teenage years of Agnes Reddin, who later became Agnes Brown. In other books by O'Carroll, she is a wife, a mammy and a granny, but this it the story of her days before she became all that.

    Agnes and Marion are best of friends, trying to survive in the working-class ghetto of the Jarro when church and state in Ireland were, like a twin Jesus, always watching and judging. It tells about Agnes' family -- her father Basco, a factory worker and trade union man inspired by the real-life James Larkin, her mother Connie, daughter of the factory owner who was disowned and disinherited after marrying a working man, and younger sister Dolly, who lives to break the rules.

    But the heart and of the story is whether Agnes will wear a white dress at her wedding, against all the rules, when everyone in Dublin knows she cannot because she's not a virgin.  

    The writing here is wonderful and like the novel: Short, simple, direct, and funny.  It's tenderhearted and kind. 

    It's well worth your time.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Charles Chesnutt

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

Today is the story of June 20th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 171st day of the year, leaving 194 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1858, the Black American writer Charles Chesnutt was born in Cleveland.

    Although born in the North as a freeman, he was reared in the South, and he told stories of Southern plantation life from the perspectives of the enslaved. 

    He was one of the first Black writers and novelists to be published in the United States. He was of mixed race, and his stories and novels often featured similar protagonists. He wrote about racial identities, Blacks passing as white, color prejudice amongst Black people, and the social character of race.

    He once estimated his own racial heritage as 15/16ths white and 1/16th Black. He could pass as white, but he was a proud African-American who identified as Black. He was active in the NAACP, and he wrote articles supporting education for Black people and for ending legal discrimination and segregation.

    He never denied his heritage in his writings, nor did he advertise it.

    He was the first Black writer to have an article published in the Atlantic Monthly magazine. The Goophered Grapevine was a subtle, ironic version of the plantation lifestyle pushed by white Southern writers. The story later became part of Chesnutt's first collection, The Conjure Woman..

    His stories featured enslaved people who spoke and told their own stories in African-American Vernacular English. It was a deliberate attempt to subvert to then-popular image of happy, submissive, loyal slaves. Chesnutt acknowledged such people exist, but said, "I can't write about those people, or rather I won't write about them." 

    His books were popular, if sometimes controversial, in his day. One of his novels, The Marrow of Tradition, published in 1901, partly dealt with the Wilmington Riots of 1898, when a white mob violently overthrew the elected, biracial government of the North Carolina city.

    He has since been more generally recognized as one of the best American writers of the period.

    Chesnutt died in 1932. 

Almanac of Story Tellers: Moe Howard

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

Today is the story of June 19th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 170th day of the year, leaving 195 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1897, the comedian Moe Howard was born.

    Howard, the leader of the comedy troupe the Three Stooges, told his stories through slapstick routines. Bullying, pulling hair, twisting noses, poking eyes, and a thousand other physical insults were all part of his schtick with the revolving group of actors, including two of his brothers.

    From 1930 to 1957, Howard starred in some 190 short movies and feature films with the Three Stooges, which at various times were Larry Fine, Shemp Howard, Curly Howard, Joe Besser, and Curly Joe DeRita.

    Through it all, Moe was the mainstay of the act, the team leader, and the main character of the Stooges. He was also a shrewd businessman who negotiated residuals for himself and other actors in his troupe. He also persuaded the studios to pay royalties for Stooges' merchandise.

    In the 1950s, the movies and shorts were sold and played on television, introducing the Stooges to a new audience.

    Before his movie career, Howard in the 1920s became part of a vaudeville act with Ted Healy. That started after he dropped out of Erasmus High School in his native Brooklyn to start acting. 

    He got bit parts here and there. His break came while he was doing a show and saw his brother, Shemp in the audience. The two started harassing and heckling each other, much to the amusement of the audience. Healy responded by hiring Shemp and creating Ted Healy and his Stooges.

    When Healy left the act, Moe took it over.

    He died in 1975 in Los Angeles.

Book Review: This Is How You Lose the Time War

 

•  Authors: Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

• Where I bought this book: after words, Chicago

• Why I bought this book: It has birds on the cover

***

  A short novel that nevertheless feels neverending.

    Perhaps that's an inherent problem when you set your story in everlasting time and every place. It goes on and on, and nothing really matters, because characters can go back and change everything.

     It's the quantum form of the Butterfly Effect.

        

    That said, I could find several reasons to like this book. It has an interesting concept: Two sentient beings who can travel through time and space as they represent different factions become pen-pals -- or whatever the quantum equivalent is.

    And it's well written. Some of the writing is poetic, soaring with metaphors and philosophy. Literary concepts come hard and fast -- at times, the characters are literally writing onto the tea leaves, and drinking the tea means reading it while consuming the thoughts on those leaves.

    Yet, the authors get carried away, leaving the notion that if anything is possible, reality cannot exist.

    A striking, disturbing theme carries the novel: that war, competition among life forms, is the point of it all. Winning, and being on the winning side, is the reason for existence.

    That's how the novel begins, with the two authors competing to see which side thrives in the end. Either Red, who comes from Agency, a "post-singularity technotopia" (???) or Blue, from Garden, "a consciousness embedded in all organic matter." 

    Yet, as the pair continues their correspondence, they show signs they know they are merely pawns in the game. Blue expresses this thought:

Let me tell you a secret: I loathe Atlantis. Every last single Atlantis across all strands. It's a putrid thread. Everything you've likely been taught about Garden and my Shift should lead you to believe we treasure it as a bastion of good works, the original Platonic ideal for how a civilisation ought to be: How many bright-eyed adolescents have poured the fervour of their souls into lives imagined there? ... The work we do to maintain these notions is more subtle than you might think, given the publishing peccadilloes of a dozen twentieth centuries. 

    Indeed, cultural and literary figures abound across all times and dimensions. Historical figures pop in and out, but because of the omnipresence, the novel is ultimately ahistorical. 

    Red and Blue's letters go from hate and distrust to love and desire before doubling back. It's a frustrating novel. It wants to cover all the passions of a relationship. It wants time to double back and repeat, so anything and everything can happen in the worlds.   

Almanac of Story Tellers: Henry Lawson

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

Today is the story of June 17th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 168th day of the year, leaving 197 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1867, the Australian writer Henry Lawson was born in the Grenfell gold fields of New South Wales.

    Lawson told his stories during the early days of colonial Australia, writing realistic if pessimistic tales he found while wondering the outback of his country. He also wrote poetry and ballads, and is considered one of Australia's best early writers.

    He began his career as a newspaperman for The Bulletin, a now-defunct paper published in Sydney that was popular and influential in the country's early years. Lawson was 20 when his first work was published, and he wrote mostly poetry for the nationalist, republican daily. (Nationalist, in this case, means in favor of forming a pro-Australian culture, and republican means anti-monarchist.) His first verse was called A Song of the Republic.

    Lawson's writing was often interrupted by heavy bouts of drinking. 

    His work has sometimes been compared to Hemingway -- sparse, if vivid writing, with lonely, independent characters who have a mix of humanism and pathos. His descriptions of the outback, such as in the short story The Drover's Wife, are realistic: bleak, solitary, and desolate.

    He also favored what he called a sketch story -- a description of a place or people that is short, to the point, and often without a plot.

    Lawson has been honored with a statue in Sydney, as well as having his depiction on postage stamps and on the Australian 10-dollar bill.

    He died in 1922 in Sydney.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Tupac Shakur

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

Today is the story of June 16th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 167th day of the year, leaving 198 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1971, the legendary rapper Tupac Shakur was born in New York.

    He was an instrumental figure in the evolution of rap music during the 1990s. A fellow rapper, 50 Cent, said while he was growing up in the '90s, he idolized Tupac. Everybody did, 50 Cent said, because "he didn't sound like anyone who came before him." 

    Tupac's writing was extraordinary. His lyrics were revolutionary and very much in your face. He lifted rap from a cultural outliar to an art form.

    But he was also a walking contradiction. He served time in prison after being convicted of sexual abuse, but was released as he appealed. He was shot twice during the 1990s, including in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas that resulted in his death. The shooting may or may not have been linked to the East Coast-West Coast rap feud.

    Still, he was a rap superstar. His debut album, 2Paclypse Now, was released in 1991. The lyrics focused on social justice issues such as racism, police brutality, crime, and teenage pregnancy. He followed up in 1993 with Strictly for My N.I.G.G.A.Z... His lyrics again focused on social and racial justice issues from the perspective of a young Black man.

    He released two other albums during his life, and more than a half-dozen after his death. One, the double-disc Greatest Hits, was nominated for a Grammy in 1999.

    He also appeared in several films, including 1993's Poetic Justice, with Janet Jackson.

    He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Ice Cube

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

Today is the story of June 15th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 166th day of the year, leaving 199 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1969, the rapper and actor Ice Cube (né O'Shea Jackson) was born in Los Angeles.

    He told his stories through music and film. He wrote and performed some of the most acclaimed -- if controversial -- rap songs in the late '80s and '90s. He is credited with introducing the world to gangsta rap, which spoke of life in street gangs and fighting the police.

    He was a proponent of West Coast rap, helping it to develop an identity apart from East Coast rap. He later went on to star in movies, write scripts, and work in television.

    His music came out with a bang. Along with Dr. Dre and Easy-E, he formed N.W.A., and he wrote many of the songs on its first album, Straight Outa Compton, released in 1988. The music and raps were popular, telling about growing up with violence all around. Its top song, Fuck Tha Police, got little airplay, a concerned letter from the FBI, and was widely popular.

    Ice Cube's solo career included the album, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, also in the gangsta rap genre. It also was a defining rap album, and critical and commercial success.

    He continued his singing career, and began working in movies, including Three Kings and Boyz N the Hood, named after one of his songs. He also starred in television shows, developed documentaries, and wrote several movie and television screenplays.

    Ice Cube and N.W.A. were inducted into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame in 2016.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Jerzy Kosinski

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

Today is the story of June 14th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 165th day of the year, leaving 200 days remaining in 2022.

 

   On this date in 1933, the author Jerzy Kosinski was born in Łódź, Poland. He emigrated to the United States in 1957.

    He told stories of people, sometimes in controlling societies, who somehow did remarkable things. Or of people whom others thought did remarkable things.

    Such a description may fit Kosinski himself. His novels were praised while Kosinski was accused of plagiarizing the works. The accusations were that Kosinski lifted several of his stories from old, largely unknown books published in Poland. Kosinski denied this, and it was never proven.

    For instance, his first novel, The Painted Bird, tells of a young Jewish boy abandoned during World War II, and forced to roam and survive alone on the streets of wartime Eastern Europe. It is seen as autobiographical, as Kosinski often told similar stories of his own childhood.

    His best known novel, Being There, is the story of an isolated, introverted gardener who gets his knowledge of the outside world through television. Through a series of chance circumstances, he becomes an aide to a wealthy businessman, an adviser to a U.S. president, and a sought-after pundit on television. Those things happen not because he's a genius, but he speaks in platitudes that people find meaningful because they really do not understand him.

    The book was made into a movie in 1979, starring Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, and Melvyn Douglas.

    Kosinski won a National Book Award for Fiction his novel Steps, a series of loosely connected stories.

    He died in 1991 in New York.

Book Review: Summerland

 

•  Author: Michael Chabon

• Where I bought found this book: Kenton County Public Library giveaway at the Pride Festival, Covington, Ky.

• Why I bought collected this book: Magic. Baseball. A perfect double-play. And it was free.

******

    A motley crew of young children, faeries, giants, and assorted folkloric creatures inhabit our four worlds, but a combination of ecological destruction, meanness, and a bored creator who wants to end it all threaten its very existence.

    Enter baseball, a game with a mythology all its own, which could either make things right or cause further destruction.

    Indeed, baseball is already at least partly responsible for the latter. Author Chabon -- obviously a fan of the traditional game --  posits that the introduction of the designated hitter tore a hole in the fabric of the universe, leading to its current downward path. 

    This is a fun, if sometimes unwieldy undertaking. At 500 pages -- precisely the number of lifetime home runs that once ensured enshrinement in Cooperstown -- it's sometimes overwhelming. And its characters -- including a girl who loves the game and plays it well, and a boy who is uncertain about it all, but accedes to his widowed father's wishes that he play -- tends to be, shall we say, tropes of the trade.

    They include a mournful Sasquatch -- don't call her bigfoot! -- a mean giant, a changeling boy who feels lost in our world, and a ferisher scout who may not be immortal but has Seen It All. Also, a Major League star -- a ringer!! -- who defected from Cuba, a car that can fly and runs on moonshine, and a magical bat taken from the tree that feeds the worlds.

    They come together to save the universe in a novel that is themed, inspired, and timed by baseball. It's enjoyable -- the writing is (for the most part) crisp, the characters are wonderful (if a bit predictable), and the story is a magic fable tied together by a love for baseball.

Almanac of Story Tellers: William Butler Yeats

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

Today is the story of June 13th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 164th day of the year, leaving 201 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1865, the Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats was born.

   

    Yeats is regarded as one of Ireland's foremost poets, and one of its greatest writers. His work has mystified and glorified Ireland for generations. 

    Although a member of the Protestant aristocracy in heavily Roman Catholic Ireland, as a young man he rejected both traditions is favor of a third: early Celtic mythology with a smattering of mysticism and romanticism. 

    His first writings were works and collections of old legends. He was also influenced by the poet William Blake and the Platonic traditions.

    His later poems and plays tended more toward realism, and he flirted with Irish Nationalism during the days of the Easter Rising and the ensuing Civil War. In the early 1920s, he served in the new Senead Éireann, or the Irish Senate. His poems -- including Easter 1916 --  reflected his new interests.

                I write it out in a verse --

                MacDonagh and MacBride

                And Connolly and Pearse

                Now and in time to be,

                Wherever green is worn,

                Are changed, changed utterly;

                A terrible beauty is born

    Throughout his life, Yeats was interested in literature as a cause. One of his earliest poems, The Wanderings of Oisin, reaches back into Irish mythology for his theme: Whether a life of contemplation is to superior to a life of action.

    While living and studying in London, he helped found the Rhymer's Club. Back in Ireland, he founded the Dublin Hermetic Order, which combined his love of mysticism and literature. He was one of the founders of the Irish Literary Theater, now the Abbey Theater, to promote Irish plays and dramatists. 

    He wrote his best poetry late in life. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, and in 1928 published The Tower, a collection of his poems. It included Leda and the Swan, Among School Children, and Sailing to Byzantium, a metaphor for an old man's spiritual journey.

            An aged man is but a paltry thing,

            A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

            Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

            For every tatter in its mortal dress