Almanac of Story Tellers: Herman Melville

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 Aug. 1st

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

 

    On this date in 1819, the author Herman Melville was born.

    He told stories, often exaggerated, based upon his experiences sailing the oceans. But his most long-lasting tales were much simpler: one about a man chasing and killing a whale (the novel, Moby-Dick) the second about a man sentenced to hang for a murder aboard a ship (Billy Budd, Sailor, an unfinished novella found years after Melville's death), and the third, a short story about a man who hates his job (Bartleby the Scrivener).

    Melville came to being a writer in a roundabout way. He was born into a family of privilege, wealth, and prestige -- both his grandfathers were Revolutionary War heroes -- but when his father died, the family fell into poverty and had several fallings out. Melville  attended various schools and worked at several jobs, wandering around the United States.

    He eventually took a position on a sailing ship to the South Seas, ending up in what is now Polynesia. The tale Melville told, somewhat embellished, is that he and a companion spend months on a island with a group of cannibals. It became his first novel, Typee. His second novel, Omoo, was a sequel. 

    He continued a life of writing, wandering, and working odd jobs. By the 1850s, he became friendly with the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, and inspired and enamored by the older writer's work, starting writing Moby-Dick. 

    The novel received positive reviews in Britain and the United States, but never reached the wide acclaim it now has until after Melville's death. It is considered one of the country's great novels.

    Melville died in 1891.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Emily Bronte

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 30th

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    It is the 211th day of the year, leaving 154 days remaining in 2022.

Anne, Emily and Charlotte Brontë,
 in a portrait by their brother, Branwell

    On this date in 1818, the author Emily Brontë was born.

    She told her stories in poetry, and her only novel was a soaring work of love and hate in the moorlands. It was not well received when it was published in 1847, a year before she died, but since has become a classic of English literature.

    That novel, Wuthering Heights, is intense and imaginative for its time. And unlike other mid-19th Century works, it has an unusual structure and presentation, the narration coming from the retrospective view of a third party. 

    Brontë's writing is tighter and more straightforward than her sisters or authors of her time. But the novel can be violent and brutal, and its characters, including the protagonist, Heathcliff, savage and selfish. 

    Before publishing the novel, Brontë and her two sisters, Charlotte and Anne, published a volume of poetry under the pseudonyms Currier, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Scholars say the 21 poems by Emily are the superior works.

    She died in 1848 of tuberculosis.

Book Review: Seven Steeples

 

•  Author: Sara Baume

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

• Why I bought this book: I am always eagerly awaiting the next Sara Baume book 

********

  This is a comforting book, a calming book. It's a very Irish book.

    Reading it makes you comfortable, wanting to sit back, take in a cuppa tea, and enjoy the view.

     And what a view it is. The writing is among the best you could find. Baume is a master of the art; her descriptions are moving, even lyrical. Her story-telling is poetic. And the story itself is grand -- a tale of a couple who move to a house on the coast of Ireland and live a life of recluse, austerity, and forbearance.

    The tale is not so much about what Sigh and Bell do, but what they don't do, and how they live: Within their means, within the land, within the sea. They are part of nature -- taking what they need, giving what they are able. They nourish the garden, but not very well. It also takes and gives what it can.

    The couple move in the house to be together. Both are introverts, borderline misanthropic. But they love each other and they bring along their dogs, Pip and Voss, to keep them company. Their life is simple and routine -- daily walks, trips to the store to buy supplies, visits to the sea for food and comfort.

    Their life carries on through the seven years of the story. Unhurried. Measured. 

    Time passes. 

    What is time? they ask, and they answer: It is to stop everything from happening at once. 

  

    Bell and Sigh accept nature and time, ignoring the daily meaningless concerns. As time passes, the house and the grounds erode as nature, the trees and animals and insects, take over. But the sea never changes. The nearby mountain never changes. Sigh and Bell become part of the scene, moving only with time.

The nights grew longer and they longed 

for a means of sleeping outside without the hassle of moving their second hand bed or inventing a new bed, of having to dismantle everything again as soon as it rained. In the end they only opened the window.

    Through it all, it is always Sigh and Bell, Bell and Sigh. Always together, preparing food, walking the dog, sitting in their garden. This is a story of love, and their love is neither showy nor demanding, but easy and true. They are inseparable. 

Almanac of Story Tellers: Ken Burns

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 29th

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    It is the 210th day of the year, leaving 155 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1953, the documentarian Ken Burns was born.

    He tells his epic-length, well-researched stories in theaters or over several nights on the small screen, presenting historical tales across a wide range of topics. Baseball. The U.S Civil War. Jazz. Structures. He tells the stories with photos, music, historians, and historical context.

    His documentary style is to use hundreds of still pictures, pan them on screen, and zoom in to show details, with voice-over narration. He successfully used this technique in The Civil War, often using black-and-white pictures by photographer Matthew Brady. 

    With his award-winning programs, narrated by distinctive and well-loved voices, and jazz-inspired theme music, he may be the best known documentarian ever. He works with the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, where the viewership spikes whenever he has a show on.

    His first production was Brooklyn Bridge, which told the story of the building of the historic structure.  It was inspired by David McCullough's book, The Great Bridge, and it won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1981.   

    Burns followed with a string of successful tales, including Baseball, a nine-part (innings, they were called) series that gave a loving look at the national pastime. It won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1995 for outstanding informational series. In 2010, he updated the show with The Tenth Inning.  

    Other documentaries he produced include a 10-part series on the Vietnam War, a six-part series on the U.S. national parks, a seven-part series on World War II, and biographies on Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, and Jackie Robinson.  

Almanac of Story Tellers: Beatrix Potter

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 28th

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    It is the 209th day of the year, leaving 156 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1866, the author and illustrator Beatrix Potter was born in London.

    She told her fanciful tales of animal adventures in a deceptively simple voice for her young readers. She illustrated those books with watercolor drawings of the rabbits, hedgehogs, and wildlife that were anthropomorphic yet distinctively animals.

    She was a naturalist who studied botany and mycology, creating realistic depictions of fungi and microscopic fungi spores.

    But it was the tales she wrote and drew for children that have given her lasting acclaim. Her first effort in 1901, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was written for the sick child of her former governess. It was so well received that a  year later it was published in Britain to great success. 

    The story of Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-Tail and Peter is an adventurous yet cautionary tale of a mischievous rabbit who strays from his mother's orders and enters a neighbor's garden. Peter manages to escape the farmer's wrath but learns his lesson. 

    Like other tales from Potter, it is wryly and simply told, with humor and a moral at the end. The accompanying drawings move the narrative along. The books were small enough so even the youngest hand could grasp and hold them.

    Over the next decade, Potter published a tale or two every year, including The Tale of Miss Tiggy-Winkle, The Tale of Miss Moppet, and The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck. In all, she wrote 23 tales, along with various other writings, some that were recently discovered and published.

    Potter died in 1943 on her farm in Cumbria, England. Her vast landholdings were donated to the National Trust, which created the Lake District National Park.

    Her stories remain available and widely read today. 

Almanac of Story Tellers: Norman Lear

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 27th

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    It is the 208th day of the year, leaving 157 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1922, the television writer, producer, and director Norman Lear was born.

Lear with the cast of All in the Family

    He told his stories on the small screen, often developing characters seldom seen on television. He also brought innovative discussions to television, focusing on issues that had long been ignored or considered too controversial -- race, sexuality, bigotry, and other political and social issues of the 1960s and 1970s.

    His groundbreaking series, without doubt, was All in the Family, which premiered on CBS in January 1971. It portrayed a blue-collar family living in the New York City borough of Queens. It was headed by an openly bigoted father and husband, his submissive wife, his feminist if childish daughter, and his liberal hippie son-in-law, who was equally opinionated and willing to argue his views.

    All in the Family is regarded as one of the top situation comedies of all time, bringing serious, albeit humorous, conversations about racism, antisemitism, sexism, and homosexuality. It brought the main character, Archie Bunker, face-to-face with Black families to confront his racism, deal with his wife's battle with breast cancer, and argue the Vietnam War and presidency of Richard Nixon with his liberal and logical son-in-law.

    The show, while controversial, usually was No. 1 in prime time for its first five years.

    But that wasn't Lear's only TV accomplishment. A spin-off, Maude, brought a strong and intelligent feminist to prime time, with her views on women's rights, sexism, and her desire to end an unwanted pregnancy. One Day at a Time showed a single woman raising two teenage daughters.

    Sanford & Son showed two Black men trying to make a living as junk dealers. Good Times featured a working-class Black family living in a public housing project in Chicago.

    In addition to his television work, Lear also wrote movie screenplays -- he was nominated for an Oscar for Divorce American Style in 1967 -- and was an activist who helped found the liberal public-interest group, People for the American Way. He is in the Television Academy Hall of Fame, awarded with the National Medal of Arts in 1999, and has won five Emmys and two Peabody Awards.

    As he celebrates his 100th birthday, he is still working -- in 2019 he was a co-producer on Live in Front of a Studio Audience. He is currently the executive producer of the animated reboot of Good Times.  

Almanac of Story Tellers: Aldous Huxley

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 26th

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    It is the 207th day of the year, leaving 158 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1894, the author Aldous Huxley was born in Surrey, England.

    He told his stories in a satirical voice, harshly questioning the literary pretentions of the days. Before he was 40, he had written one of the great dystopian novels in the English language, Brave New World, still considered among the best of its genre.

    Huxley was born in England but moved to the United States in 1937, where he lived for  the remainder of his life. He was a prolific writer of novels and non-fiction, a poet, a philosopher, a mystic, and considered one of the great intellectual theories of his time.

    Through it all, though, he is best known for Brave New World. Published in 1932, it climaxed Huxley's early writing period, in which he used satire to question the direction of political, social, and scientific changes. It was a prescient novel, foretelling methods that could be used to control people and their actions.

    It presented a future world in which humans were bred for certain intellectual levels, and thus should be remarkably content with their lot in life. Objections by those who wanted a different future were quashed with entertainment, sex, and drugs -- a satiating gas dubbed soma was sprayed into the air at demonstrations or other outbreaks, ending discontent.

    Even today, the novel is compared to various dictatorships and governments throughout the world, who use similar methods to distract people who criticize or object to their methods.

    His next novel, Eyeless in Gaza, went in a different direction, showcasing Huxley's growing interest in mysticism and Eastern philosophy.

    He died in 1963 in Los Angeles.

Book Review: Alternative Ulster Noir

 

•  Authors: Colin Bateman, Stuart Neville, Sharon Dempsey, Gerard Brennan, Kelly Creighton, James Murphy, and Simon Maltman

• Where I bought this book: bookshop.org (Check it out; it's like a local bookstore online.)

• Why I bought this book: It had a story by Colin Bateman, one of my favorite NI writers 

*******

    One of the difficulties of reading a short story collection by different writers is trying to get into their individual heads and attune yourself to their separate styles.

    This is particularly true when you're unfamiliar with most of the writers, and while the settings have a vague familiarity, it's not like they are outside your front door. But the idea of stories inspired by or based on songs is quite original, so you're willing to give it a shot.

    Which is a good choice.

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Hot tip: Listen to the songs first -- they are all online. It'll get you in the mood.

 Hot tip #2: Listen again after you've read the stories. It'll give a new perspective.

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    With that said, let me tell you: This tiny little volume (120 pages) full of short (10-15 pages each) stories is well worth your time. It's unique, contains lots of weird stuff, and is chock-a-block full of original writing and dark interpretations from a merry band of writers from Northern Ireland.

    The stories are set in Northern Ireland, and tell of crimes and other dastardly deeds, some in or around Belfast, and they may or may not have secular connotations. They are also based, some more and some less, on songs by Northern Ireland-based artists.

    For instance, James Murphy's contribution takes the title of the song How to Be Dead by the band Snow Patrol and turns into a chilling suggestion of the nature of a witness protection program. 

    My favorite story, Black Dog Sin, by Gerard Brennan, starts with a man in the throes of a grief-and-alcohol-fueled binge, and ends with a strange, dark and cynical twist. It closely follows the song by Joshua Burnside, but then takes a warped turn.

    And the penultimate story, by Simon Maltman, who also edited the collection, tells a darkly humorous tale about a serial killer who tags along on a tour -- of which Maltman is the illustrious guide -- of Northern Ireland's noir haunts in Belfast. Based on Trigger Inside, by the punk band Therapy?, it literally takes a line from the song to give insight into the killer's mind. 

Almanac of Story Tellers: Pat Oliphant

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 24th

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    It is the 205th day of the year, leaving 160 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1935, the editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant was born outside of Adelaide, Australia.

    He told his stories in the top right corner of newspapers, first at The Denver Post, then the Washington Star, and through syndication. In the later half of the 20th Century, he was perhaps the most influential cartoonist on the editorial pages, winning a Pulitzer Prize three years after he moved to the United States.

    He started his career in his native country, working first for The News and then The Advertiser, both newspapers in Adelaide. But feeling constrained by conservative slant of the editorial pages there, he applied for and accepted a job in Denver in 1964.

    It's not that he was liberal; he just did not want to be held to a view that was not his own. Later in his career, after the Washington Star ceased publication in 1981, he no longer worked for any specific newspaper, but instead put his work out solely through the Universal Press Syndicate.

    His style is easily recognizable. He was known for his caricatures, particularly of U.S. presidents. He showed Richard Nixon as furtive, dark, and brooding, often making a V for Victory gesture, with his arms thrust out overhead. Barack Obama was a statue on Easter Island, responding to questions with the tone of a bewildering oracle.

    Gerald Ford was portrayed with a bandage on his forehead. Bill Clinton had a bulbous nose. George H.W. Bush clutched his handbag. 

    Oliphant was a skilled drafter and artist. In addition to his editorial cartoons, he drew hundreds of paintings, drawings, and illustrations. He also created several dozen bronze statues, from a collection of seven U.S. presidents, all less than a foot tall, to a larger-than-life statue of Angelina Eberly in Austin, Texas.

    He continued and embodied the tradition of using secondary figures in his cartoons to made asides. His was a penguin he dubbed Punk, who almost always appeared somewhere in his drawings.

    Oliphant retired in 2015 and lives in New Mexico.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Emma Lazarus

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 22nd

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    It is the 203rd day of the year, leaving 162 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1849, the poet and activist Emma Lazarus was born.

    She wrote her stories about American ideals, immigration, and her Jewish identity. Her poems urged sensitivity and argued for the dignity of all. 

    The last lines of her seminal poem, The New Colossus, sit on a bronze plate on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, giving a voice to Lady Liberty that resonates to this day.  

                        "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

                        With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

                        Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

                        The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

                        Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

                        I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

    Lazarus stared writing at a young age, and she published her first collections of essays and poems in 1867, when she was 18. Her works, including poems inspired by the U.S. Civil War, were praised and published in magazines of the day. She continued writing, including poems inspired by the U.S. Civil War.

    But she found her true calling while supporting Jewish immigration to the United States, and calling for a homeland for persecuted Jews. In 1982, she published Songs of a Semite. Five years later, she published what many consider her strongest work, By the Waters of Babylon. It's a collection of prose-poems around the theme of the sorrows of Jewish exile.

    She died that same year, in 1887.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Ernest Hemingway

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 21st

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    It is the 202nd day of the year, leaving 163 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1899, the novelist Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Ill.

    He told his stories of machismo and love amidst war in language that begat a style in 20th Century literature: Short, declarative sentences, eschewing modifiers, preferring action over description.

    His life was full of the same exploits he wrote about -- foreign adventures,  traditional manly pursuits such as hard drinking, deep-sea fishing, and bullfighting. He wrote about the courage and glory of men at war, but also about the losses suffered through those actions.

    Hemingway worked as a journalist and war correspondent, although he often participated in the wars he covered as much as he returned dispatches about them.

    He began his career as a reporter in Kansas City, then enlisted in World War I, then moved to France, where he was a war correspondent and writer of  short stories. His debut collection,  In Our Time, was published in Paris before hitting New York.

     His first novel, The Sun Also Rises, is based on his own experiences and begins one of his recurring themes: American and British expats travelling to Spain to watch bullfights. It was not well received at the time, but now is considered one of his finest works.

    He wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls based on his experiences covering the Spanish Civil War. A Farewell to Arms is based on his experiences in World War I. 

    After critics panned his book Across the River and Into the Trees in 1950, Hemingway wrote what may be his greatest novel, The Old Man and the Sea. It was a best seller and won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for literature. Two years later, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, with the committee recognizing the strength of The Old Man and the Sea, and "his mastery of the art of the narrative . . . and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style."

    He died in 1961 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.

Almanac of Story Teller: Cormac McCarthy

 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 20th

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

    On this date in 1933, the novelist Cormac McCarthy was born.

    He tells his stories in a sparse, simple, yet powerful language. The tales, usually bleak and violent and set in the south or southwestern United States, tell about dystopian futures, social outcasts, and oppressive authority.

    He is known for typing his novels on an old mechanical typewriter, an Olivetti Lettera 32 model, then editing them by hand. When his first typewriter gave out in 2009, he auctioned it off for a quarter million dollars and accepted another one for $11.

    His first book, The Orchard Keeper, was published in 1966. It concerns a murder and a hidden corpse, and the impact on a small group in the rural backwoods of Tennessee. It won the William Faulkner Foundation award for first novel.

    Over the next 15 years, McCarthy wrote several novels and screenplays. He won the MacArthur Foundation grant, and used the money to research and write Blood Meridian, which explores the nature of good versus evil in a violent, macabre tale about scalp hunters in the old southwest. Eventually, critics determined it to be one of McCarthy's finest works.

    All the Pretty Horses in 1992 brought him popular fame and the National Book Award, and No Country for Old Men (2005), and The Road (2006) brought him more fame and critical acclaim, with the latter winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. All three books were adapted for the movie screen.

    McCarthy continues to write novels and screenplays at his home in the American southwest. He is publishing two novels this year, The Passenger and Stella Maris.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Alice Dunbar Nelson

 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 19th

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

  

    On this date in 1876, the poet, author and teacher Alice Dunbar Nelson was born in New Orleans.

    She told stories of gender, ethnicity, and racial heritage from a personal perspective. She wrote about women in education and in the anti-lynching movement. 

    In verse, in essays, and in short story forms, she wrote in newspapers, in letters, and in her diaries. Indeed, she was one of the few Black women diarists in the early 20th Century.

    She was the daughter of a former enslaved woman and a white, Creole seaman. Her first collection, Violets and Other Tales, was published in 1895. She moved to Massachusetts and then New York, where she met and married the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. The couple had a stormy four-year marriage.

    She moved to Delaware, where she taught high school. 

    Another collection she wrote, The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories, helped establish her as a writer of Creole culture.

    In 1916, she married for a third time, to the poet and journalist Robert J. Nelson. She followed him into greater activism, with her campaigning for women's suffrage, racial peace, the NAACP, and anti-lynching laws.

    She continued to edit and write for various publications, including the A.M.E. Review, The Wilmington Advocate, The Crisis, The Journal of Negro History, The Washington Eagle, and The Pittsburgh Courier. 

    She died in 1935 in Philadelphia.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Hunter S. Thompson

 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 18th

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

 

  On this date in 1937, the journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson was born in Louisville, Ky.

    As a journalist he told his stories during the 1960s and onward in a new and unique way -- shunning the aura of objectivity to report with a personal involvement and a distinctive perspective. He called it gonzo journalism, and it was often done under the influence of alcohol and other drugs.

    His involvement sometimes was physical. After writing an article in The Nation about the Hell's Angels motorcycle club, he continued to ride with them while he gathered information for a book. The Angels thought Thompson was taking advantage of them for his own benefit, and the dispute turned into a brawl, and a stomping, with Thompson being the loser.

    That tale became a major part of his book, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. It helped cement Thompson's reputation as a fearless, if  hedonistic and self-indulgent idol of some parts of the growing counter-culture.

    He continued to write for magazines, and his work included The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, which focused more on the partying and drinking surrounding the annual event than the actual horse race. His coverage of a motorcycle race for Sports Illustrated turned into another book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, in which he was a central character.

    It loosely described a frenetic, drug induced trip to Las Vegas to seek fame and fortune, while telling of the failings of the 1960s hippie movement. It introduced Thompson's alter-ego Raoul Duke -- later satirized in Doonesbury -- and companion Dr. Gonzo. A blend of fact and fiction, part novel and part journalism, it was pure Thompson.

    He followed the style in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, in which he covered the 1972 presidential campaign between Richard Nixon and George McGovern. His reports in Rolling Stone and the ensuing book were unlike anything previously seen in American political reporting.

    Thompson died in 2005 at his home from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Erle Stanley Gardner

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 17th

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

   

    On this date in 1889, the attorney and author Erle Stanley Gardner was born.

    Gardner told his fictional legal stories with the attorney as the hero, mostly defending the innocent. But despite being best known for his iconic character, defense attorney extraordinaire Perry Mason, Gardner also wrote about crusading and courageous prosecutors. He also wrote detective fiction.

    Above all, he was a prolific, popular writer, with hundreds of stories and novels to his name -- as well as hundreds more written under several pseudonyms. A lawyer by trade, with extensive courtroom experience, he also wrote books that included western novels, and non-fiction accounts of his travels. 

    But lawyer-detective short stories and novels were his bread-and-butter. He started writing for pulp magazines, especially for Black Mask and Detective Fiction Weekly. During the 1920s and 1930s, he dominated the genre, often having several stories out each month, multiple stories in single issues, and serials in successive issues.

    In the 1930s, he added novels to his writings, publishing his first Perry Mason story, The Case of  the Velvet Claws. Gardner's writing style was not to worry about the personal lives of his characters, but to tell a hardnosed, just-the-fact-ma'am-style story. His details -- and there were many -- went to the story, not to the characters.

     In the early books, Mason was a hardboiled, pull-no-punches private detective. Eventually, he was fleshed out through 80-odd novels, radio shows, movies, and a popular 1950s television show. Gardner was there through it all.

    He died in 1970.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Ida B. Wells

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 16th

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

 

  On this date in 1862, the investigative reporter Ida B. Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Miss.

    Soon to be a freewoman because of the Emancipation Proclamation, she told her stories of the horrors of lynching in newspapers across the country. She also wrote about society's deep prejudice and animosity against Black people because of their color and the fear they would successfully compete about whites.

    As an young adult, Wells and several relatives moved to Memphis, Tenn. She became a teacher, but after becoming involved in a legal case in which she refused to move to the "colored car" while riding a train, she began to write for local newspapers. She then became a co-owner and writer for the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. She covered racial segregation and other acts of inequality.

    One incident solidified her career: Three Black men who owned a grocery store in Memphis were arrested after a fight. Instead of being tried in a courtroom, the sheriff had them removed from jail, taken to a railyard, and shot to death.

    Wells wrote about it, and told Black people to leave Memphis. She said the city doesn't protect them, but "murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons." After her  newspaper office was ransacked by a white mob, she fled the city and wound up in New York City. There she started investigating and writing about lynching for the New York Age.

    She compiled some of her reports in a book, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases. A few years later, after marrying and moving to Chicago, she published her second book, The Red Record.

    It told stories of lynching and how common it was. She reported how white people concocted tales of Black men raping white women to justify their terrorism. But in reality, she showed, white supremacists had always used violence to control Black people and enforce slavery.

    Instead, she showed, the lynching cases were the result of efforts by white mobs to suppress political and business activities by Black people after the Civil War.

    Wells continued to write and speak about lynching and other method to impose white supremacy. She went on speaking tours across the country and in Britain. She became a civil rights and women's rights activist. 

    Well died in 1931 in Chicago.    

Almanac of Story Tellers: Woody Guthrie

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 14th

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

 

    On this date in 1912, the legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma.

    He told his stories through song, with his plain spoken words and a six-string guitar with the notation, "this machine kills fascists." 

    He wrote about the "Okies," the working men and women who rambled through the American West during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. He wrote about workers and their unions, hoboes and their railcars, and people just trying to get by.

    He associated with communists, socialists, and anti-fascists. He hung out with Native Americans, Black people, and others considered undesirables. He wrote about poverty, the downtrodden and depressed, and those who just couldn't catch a break. He sung about bankers, bank robbers, and other criminals, always on the side of the oppressed.

    Perhaps his most famous work is This Land is Your Land, a song that has become an quintessential American folk song. Its origins are a classic tale: Guthrie grew tired of the constant repetitive playing of God Bless America, which he thought put the country on level above its citizens and immigrants. He said the country belonged to all people, not just the elite. Indeed, his first writings and recordings of the song show the title and refrain were "Did God bless America for me?" 

    Some of the verses have been restored.

                        In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,

                        By the relief office I seen my people:

                        As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking

                        Is this land made for you and me?

    His songs fill dozens of songbooks, and have been recorded -- and are still being recorded and transformed for a modern age -- by some of the greatest musicians of our time. He was mostly responsible for inspiring the folk era of the 1950s and 1960s, mentoring some of the legends of the time -- Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, Bob Dylan, Leadbelly, and so many more.

    The songs are still learned and sung today -- around campfires, in churches, over a round of drinks. 

    Guthrie, who suffered from Huntington's disease, died in 1967 in New York.

Book Review: Big Girl Small Town

 

•  Author: Michelle Gallen

• Where I bought this book: Half Price Books, Florence, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: It was a novel about Northern Ireland that seemed intriguing 

****

    Majella O'Neill exists in an out-of-the-way border town in Northern Ireland. She works in a chip shop, and took up smoking so she had excuses to take breaks.

 

   Otherwise, she's a loner, an introvert, and an observer of people.

    She doesn't like her job -- it's a greasy dead end, but it's the best she can do on the Catholic side of Aghybogey. She doesn't really like people, her town, her customers, fashion, makeup -- oh, heck, she doesn't like a lot of things. So many, in fact, that she maintains a detailed, numerical list of such things.

    She does enjoy a few things: the TV show Dallas, which she watches on video every night. Her greasy free nightly meal from the chip shop. Sex. And drinking in the pub.

    The novel is mostly about Majella's observations of her town, its people, and her interactions with the customers. Gallen is exhaustive in reviewing her conversations, even when they are identical every night. She make this clear -- she has similar discussions with the same people every night, and not only does she reiterate them, she reminds you these are the same discussions she always has with the same people.

    Such is the flaw of an otherwise methodical novel that tries to give you the sense of  a small town in Northern Ireland after The Troubles. It does a middling job on the tedious daily life, but larger details -- such as Majella's relationship with her grandmother, Maggie, whose violent death is portrayed more as sort of a minor point -- are glossed over.

    Nonetheless, it's an interesting and surprisingly quick read.  

Almanac of Story Tellers: Wole Soyinka

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 13th

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

   

    On this date in 1934, the Nigerian novelist, poet, and playwright Wole Soyinka was born.

    He tells his stories of African culture, and his plays contain elements of traditional African dance and music. His novels interpret African experiences, drawing on African myths along with Greek and Roman mythology.

    Some of his plays contain light humor or satire to critique the clashes of traditional African culture with the Western influences on modern African leadership. He mocks pompous teachers and preachers who came from Western nations in an attempt to colonize African intellectuals and native peoples.

    In 1986, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first person from sub-Saharan Africa to be named. The board said he uses "wide cultural perspective and . . . poetic overtones (to)  fashion the drama of existence."

    His works are studied in Nigeria; his poems appear in major anthologies, and his plays are produced around the world.

    Born in Nigeria of the Yoruba tribe, he was educated in Nigeria and England, graduating from the University of Leeds in 1958, and later earning a doctorate in 1973. His first work in theater was as a dramaturgist at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

    He returned to Nigeria to study African drama. He founded several theater groups, in which he wrote plays and often acted in them. One of his early plays, The Lion and The Jewel, in which he satirized the rapid modernization of Africa and the rapid evangelization of its people, caught the attentions of London theaters.

     Soyinka is also an activist and a proponent of democracy in his homeland. During the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s, he spent almost two years in prison for speaking out against the war and urging peace talks. In the late 1980s, he was forced into exile.

    His latest novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, continues his activism and shows his distaste for corrupt dictators. The satirical novel takes on religious leaders, politicians, media owners, and others as they scheme their way through his version of his country. He calls it "my gift to Nigeria."