Almanac of Story Tellers: Eldridge Cleaver

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. 31st

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    It is the 243rd day of the year, leaving 122 days remaining in 2022. 

   

    On this date in 1935, the writer and social activist Eldridge Cleaver was born.

    He told his stories about the life of Black people in the United States in personal, often angry, and sometimes violent terms. His essays were about Black alienation, Black liberation, and the impact on Black masculinity. 

    Those essays, written while he was in prison and published by the magazine Ramparts, later were collected in the best-selling book, Soul on Ice. The essays had a strong impact on Black revolutionaries at the time and on the Black Power Movement.

    He later wrote Soul on Fire, part memoir and part political exploration. Later, his wife of 20 years, Kathleen Cleaver, edited a collection of his writings, published as Target Zero: A Life in Writing.

    After being released from prison in 1966, Cleaver, along with Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, was instrumental in helping to promote the Black Panthers. He became the minister of information and party spokesman, and his ideas were a large part of the party's platform.

    But during the protests that occurred after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Cleaver and fellow Panther Bobby Hutton were involved in a shootout with police in Oakland, Calif., leaving Hutton dead, and Cleaver and two police officers wounded. After being arrested and released on bail, Cleaver fled the country.

    He later returned to the United States and received five years of probation. He broke with the Panthers. Late in his life, he proclaimed himself a Republican and born-again Christian, before being baptized in the Mormon faith.

    He died in 1998.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Mary Shelley

 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. 30th

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    It is the 242st day of the year, leaving 123 days remaining in 2022. 

   

    On this date in 1797, the British author Mary Shelley was born.

    She told her stories in the Gothic and Godwinian styles, employing elements of  autobiography and self-examination to explore people's roles in society. She also wrote with a clear knowledge of Walter Scott's contemporary creation of the historic  fiction genre, and some credit her with being among the first science fiction novelists.

    Indeed, her best known  work, Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, is sometimes considered to be the first science fiction novel. It explores the concept of artificially creating a life.

    Some scholars have seen evidence of autobiography and feminism in the novel, noting that Shelley had a miscarriage in the year before writing the book, and may have been pondering ways to replace the child.

    One of Shelley's last novels also is considered to be the creation of yet another genre -- the dystopian novel The Last Man envisioned a future in which a plague sweeps the world and almost wipes out mankind. She set that novel in the year 2070.

    Other works include the novels Lodore, The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, and Valperga; a travel book, History of a Six Weeks' Tour; along with more than two dozen short stories, several children's books, and five volumes of biographies published in 1835-1839. 

    Shelley gained some attention during her lifetime for her fiction. But after her death, her works were largely forgotten -- even Frankenstein was not so much read as known, and seen in cinematic adaptations.

    Instead, much of the effort -- of Shelley, during her life, and the rest of the literary world, in the years since -- was spent promoting the works of her husband. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley died at 29, six years after he married the then-19-year-old Mary Godwin.

    But the in latter part of the 20th Century, more scholars have turned an eye on Shelley, and her reputation has improved. 

    She died in 1851.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Charlie Parker

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. 29th

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    It is the 241st day of the year, leaving 124 days remaining in 2022.

 

    On this date in 1920, the jazz musician Charlie Parker was born.

    He told his stories on his saxophone, creating new ways to play music on the instrument, using fast tempos and distinctive harmonies. He was known for his clean and sweet tones.

    During his years playing, he was nicknamed Yardbird, and later, Bird. He personified the jazz musician as an artist rather than an entertainer.

    He is credited with originating and perfecting bebop, a form of jazz known for its quick tempos, improvisation, individuality, and complex harmonies and chord progressions.

  

    Parker learned many of his stylistic breakthroughs during impromptu jam sessions in the late 1930s in New York, often influenced by the swing music popular at the time. He also worked with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, who influenced his creation of bebop. The pair formed what is called the first bebop ensemble in 1944.

    Parker later played with Miles Davis, and performed at Carnegie Hall in New York and Massey Hall in Toronto. Many of his recordings are in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

    Among Parker's more famous recordings are Embraceable You, Night in Tunisia, Ornithology (connected with his nickname), and Charlie Parker With Strings.

    Parker died in 1955.    

Almanac of Story Tellers: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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. 28th

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    It is the 240th day of the year, leaving 125 days remaining in 2022.

 

    On this date in 1749, the German writer  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in Frankfurt, then a part of the Holy Roman Empire.

    He is considered one of the premier writers and thinkers of his period, and helped usher in the Romantic period in European literature. He remains the foremost representative of that style, which emphasized the individual, subjectivity, and emotionalism. In the German tongue, it was called Sturm und Drang, and Goethe was its foremost practitioner.

    In addition to writing plays, poems, and novels, Goethe also was a scholar of the science and the arts, writing on botany, anatomy, and color theory.

    To the modern world, he is perhaps best known for his lyrical poem, Faust, also a play in two parts, which he wrote between 1772 and 1831 (the second part was published after his death). It is considered one of the greatest works of German literature, and edited versions have been performed innumerable times since, in multiple languages. Both parts are rarely performed at once.

    In brief, the play begins with god debating whether Mephistopheles, an agent of the devil, can led astray the Lord's favorite scholar. The ensuing drama, with an array of lyric, epic, operatic, and balletic elements, builds on that premise. 

    One of Goethe's early novels is considered the first of the Sturm und Drang novels, and one of his better works. The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774, is about a young man's response to unrequited love. It was widely popular in Europe, sometimes described as the first best-seller.

    But Goethe revised the novel a dozen years later, and after a while, he disowned it, regretting the attention it brought to him and others as it was somewhat autobiographical.

    Goethe died in 1832 in Weimar, then a part of the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. 

Almanac of Story Tellers: Theodore Dreiser

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. 27th

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    It is the 239th day of the year, leaving 126 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1871, the writer Theodore Dreiser was born in Terra Haute, Ind.

    Dreiser told his stories about those who lived and acted in an amoral manner with an unflinching gaze. He explored social problems, including poverty amid industrialization. He was instrumental in leading novelists away from a Victorian leisure style to one that showed a more realistic portrayal of life in cities and towns.

    He began his writing career as a journalist, first in the Midwest and later in New York. He often was underpaid, and struggled to survive, living in flophouses in the city. But he soon was getting work on some of the major magazines of the day.

    His first novel, Sister Carrie, was somewhat based on the early life of one of his sisters. It told the story of a young woman who moves to the city. She is first used by men, but soon turns the tables and begins to use them to advance her fortunes and her acting career.

    Critics originally panned the book because Carrie's actions went unpunished, and publishers were reluctant to be associated with it. Indeed, for 80 years, the novel sold was a different version than what Dreiser wrote. In 1981, one of his original copies was found and published. 

    It is now considered one of the "greatest of all American urban novels."

    In 1925, Dreiser finished An American Tragedy, loosely based on celebrated murder case in upstate New York. The novel, about a man who drifts through life avoiding consequences for a string of questionable acts and behaviors, is eventually convicted of charges that he killed his fiancée. But in addition to showing the immorality of protagonist Clyde Griffiths, Dreiser also shows the criminal justice system may have ethical problems of its own.

    Dreiser died in 1945 in Hollywood, Calif.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Katherine Johnson

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. 26th

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    It is the 238th day of the year, leaving 127 days remaining in 2022. 

 

Katherine Johnson receives the
 Presidential Medal of Freedom from
President Obama in 2015.

    On this date in 1918, the mathematician Katherine Johnson was born in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

    She told her stories through numbers she calculated by hand. Her computations helped put Americans in space and helped land a man on the moon. They assured that the Apollo 13 crew could return safely to Earth even after its oxygen tank failed.

    In 1960, while working at NASA, Johnson wrote a scientific paper on the calculations for putting a spacecraft into orbit. It was the first time a woman -- and a Black woman at that -- received credit for such a report.

    Johnson's work went far beyond writing or co-writing 26 reports in her 33-year career at NASA. 

    She was responsible for calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, the U.S.A.'s first attempts to put people into outer space. She continued such work on Apollo missions, which included calculating rendezvous paths for the command module and the lunar-landing module on flights to the moon.

    She worked with groups of women who were called computers -- because in those days, the complex calculations had to be done by hand, with pencil and paper. They needed to take into account the gravitational effect of other celestial bodies, along with the location of Earth, other planets, and the stars. 

     Even when electronic computers were used in the early days, astronauts wanted assurances that Johnson had checked the results. John Glenn, the first American to fly in orbit around the Earth, insisted that Johnson personally verify his flight path.

    Later in her career, she worked on Space Shuttle missions, and on planned spaceflights to Mars.

    The public knew little about her until early in the 21st Century. In 2016, the movie Hidden Figures told the story of her life and of the women who worked alongside her.

    Johnson died in 2020 in Newport News, Va. She was 101

Almanac of Story Tellers: Brian Moore

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. 25th

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    It is the 237th day of the year, leaving 128 days remaining in 2022. 

   

    On this date in 1921, the Northern Irish writer Brian Moore was born in Belfast.

    Moore wrote his stories from various perspectives, but in distinctive voices that ranged from an elderly woman growing lonely as she sinks into alcoholism, to a middle-aged man trying to charm his way out of a mostly unsuccessful life. 

    Although he left Ireland as a young man, Moore also wrote about the sectarian conflicts in the country before and after World War II. A lapsed Catholic, he could write scathingly and sympathetically about the Catholic faith and people, and its overwhelming impact on Ireland.

    After graduating from college, he moved to England to work, and he served in the Ministry of War Transport. He then moved to Canada, where he lived for several years and became a citizen, before eventually settling in the United States.

    His first writings were thrillers written under a pseudonym. What Moore considers his first novel is The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearn, published in 1955. It tells the story of an aging, unmarried woman who tries to hold on to pretentions of her own refined social class as her problem drinking escalates.

    Moore wrote about Ireland's sectarian Troubles in The Emperor of Ice Cream, about a young Catholic man in World War II Belfast who joins a Protestant air-raid precautions group and finds friendships. The Feast of Lupercal is a story about a middle-aged Catholic teacher, single and sexually inexperienced, who falls in love with one of his teenage, female, Protestant students.  

    He took on colonialism in Canada in Black Robe; he writes in the voice of a young, beautiful, and successful woman having a series of flashbacks about her insecurities in I Am Mary Dunne, and he tells the tale of a middle-aged Irishman living in California who is haunted by the literal ghost of his father arising from a dream in Fergus.

    Three of his books were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He twice won the Governor General's Award for Fiction, considered a top literary prize in Canada.

    Moore died in 1999 at his home in Malibu, Calif.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Paulo Coehlo

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. 24th

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    It is the 236th day of the year, leaving 129 days remaining in 2022. 

   

    On this date in 1947, the Brazilian writer Paulo Coehlo was born in Rio de Janeiro.

    He told his stories with rich symbolism. Inspired by his own 500-mile pilgrimage along the legendary route of Santiago de Compostela, he often sent his characters on the own spiritual journeys. 

    Indeed, his first novel, O Diário de um Mago, told his own story, and how it renewed some of his Catholic faith. It was later published in English as The Diary of Magus and reissued as The Pilgrimage in 1995.

    And Coehlo's best known work, The Alchemist, tells of a shepherd on a quest to the Egyptian pyramids after dreaming of finding a treasure there. Published in 1988, it struggled to find an audience. but after several publishers gave it a try, it was an international best-seller. 

    A theatrical adaptation was produced in London in 2002, and an adaptation as a graphic novel was published in 2010.

    He has published more than 20 books since then, many autobiographical novels. Some of them are novels about journeys, and others are collections of essays or shorts writings. They have been translated into some 80 languages.

    He currently lives in Geneva, Switzerland.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Ray Bradbury

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. 22nd

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    It is the 234th day of the year, leaving 131 days remaining in 2022. 

 

  On this date in 1920, the author Ray Bradbury was born.

    Often described as a science fiction writer, Bradbury the story-teller was a lot more. He wrote fantasy and horror. He wrote what today would be called speculative fiction. He also wrote realistic fictional memoirs and coming-of-age stories that drew on his own childhood. 

    But regardless of the genre, Bradbury's writing often touched on modern culture and its failures to fully accept the consequences of its actions. In what is often regarded as his best book, Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury described how our actions today -- our alienation from society because of modern forms of media, and our desire to control what people say and write -- could lead to extreme forms of censorship. Only then will we realize just how important literature and reading is to us.

    One of his earlier works, The Martian Chronicles, had a similar lesson. In a series of stories, Bradbury told how humans colonized Mars and destroyed its idyllic civilization. Only later, when humans made Earth unlivable because of a nuclear war, the few survivors return to Mars and try to make it their home.

    Bradbury's career began in a similar way to other writers of his time, by churning out genre-specific stories for the many pulp magazines of the days. His specialties contained elements of science fiction, horror, and dark fantasy, and his work stood out. He said his career was successful because he wrote every single day of his life.

    While he continued to write for pulps and fanzines -- including on one he created -- major magazines soon published Bradbury's works and he found he was in great demand. Book publishers came calling.

    Many of his works have been adapted for other media, including movies and television. An asteroid and sites on the Moon and Mars have been named in his honor. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2004, and the Pulitzer Board gave him a special career citation in 2007.

    Bradbury died in 2012.

Book Review: The Farm

 

•  Author: Joanne Ramos

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: It's been on my TBR list for a while, so when I saw it, I grabbed it

*******

    There are a lot of evil people in this novel.

    And I don't mean Lex Luther-type evil. Oh wait, I do. That's exactly who I mean. The evil folks in this book are either superduper rich -- like multiple-billions rich -- or wanna-be superduper rich and don't care who they have to step on or over to get there.

   

Gabrielle, the book, and a potted plant

  I would relate some of the utter evilness of their actions, but that would give away some jaw-dropping spoilers. Suffice to say the main storyline is their intention to pay young woman, many immigrants or people of color, to bear children for the superduper wealthy who just can't be bothered to do it for themselves.

     Admittedly, it's a lot of money -- life-changing, they grandly proclaim -- but no figure is ever proposed or given. (And it's only paid after the child is successfully delivered.) As they say when dealing with the superduper wealthy, the devil is in the details. Or perhaps, the devil is in the super-duper-wealthy themselves.

    Anyway, this is a damn good book. Your should go out and buy it, and then read it. 

    The "farm" is an estate in upstate New York where the pregnant women go to live for the time they are pregnant. After being implanted with a fertilized sperm and egg, their lives are no longer their own. They are constantly monitored -- for their own good, of course, and for the good of the babies -- not to mention the super-rich mommies and daddies.

    The women undergo strict testing, but most of them tend to be poor immigrants, usually Filipina, because the author is an emigrant from the Philippines, and it's what she knows best.

    The novel is told in a linear style, with chapters narrated by various characters. There is Jane, the protagonist Filipina who is trying to make a better life for herself and her daughter. Mae is the antagonist who created and runs the farm because she wants to be superduper rich, and caters to those who are because she sees it as a way in.

     Ate is sort of a secondary antagonist -- Jane's aunt and a mother figure to a group of Filipina immigrants in New York City -- whose role changes over the time of the novel. Reagan helps move the action along; she is a young white woman from an upper-middle class family unsure of what she wants out of life.

    Their tales move the story along, and with references to others in Jane and Ate's world, along with several other women at The Farm, who help us understand the rationale of being a surrogate.

Almanac of Story Tellers: George Herriman

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. 20th

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    It is the 232nd day of the year, leaving 133 days remaining in 2022. 

   

    On this date in 1880, the cartoonist George Herriman was born.

    He told his stories, most famously about a Krazy Kat, in cartoons that were humorous, creative, and sometimes subversive. 

    Through most of his career, he had the support of his publisher, William Randolph Hearst, and was well-regarded by art critics and the arts intelligentsia. His support among the general public was mediocre, although newspapers ran his strips for more than 30 years.

    The strip Krazy Kat started as a sight gag in other cartoons Herriman drew -- and Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse were soon starring in their own. That strip took advantage of the space early cartoonists were given, and Herriman's drawings were full of fantasy to the point of surrealism, and his dialogue was poetic and absurdist.

    In plot, it was simple enough, Krazy Kat loved Ignatz Mouse, who would return the feeling by throwing bricks at Kat. Police Officer Offissa Pupp would step in to try to protect Kat, whose gender was fluid, with references to Kat as both him and her. But in telling their tales, Herriman would meander across the page in his words and drawings, developing new concepts and creating unique designs.

    The strip's influence has been wide: Underground artists such as R. Crump, and established mainstream creators such as Charles Shultz, have cited Herriman as an influence. Walt Kelly would sneak in tributes in his Pogo strip. Dr. Seuss expressed his admiration, and critic have seen Harriman's impact on his work.

    Herriman died in 1944.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Frank McCourt

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. 19th

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

   

    On this date in 1930, the teacher and writer Frank McCourt was born.

    He told his stories of growing up in Ireland with humor and humility, describing a childhood full of poverty and misery. 

    He came to being an author rather late in life, publishing his memoir, Angela's Ashes, in 1996 after a career of teaching high school. But it was a auspicious debut -- a bestseller that won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

    It told the story of his young life: After being born in Brooklyn of Irish immigrant parents, the family returned to Ireland, eventually settling in his mother's hometown of Limerick, Ireland, in 1935. McCourt writes of his father's alcoholism, his family's destitute poverty, and his mother's struggles to feed five young children.

    Soon after arrival in Ireland, his mother, Anglea, has a miscarriage. Within a year, two of the children die. McCourt tells of the family's despair, Angela's depression. and the inability of his father, Malachy, to hold onto a job. When he does land one, he winds up spending his pay in the pubs and is soon fired. 

    McCourt writes about being always hungry, living in slum houses with no heat or plumbing, and nearly dying of typhoid fever and spending months in the hospital when he was 10.

    He eventually returned to New York, served in the Korean War, graduated from college and taught English in public schools for 27 years, most of them at Stuyvesant High School.

    After the publication of Angela's Ashes -- which was adapted as a movie in 1999 -- he wrote two sequels, 'Tis and Teacher Man.

    McCourt died in 2009.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Marko Marulic

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. 18th

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

   

    On this date in 1450, the national poet of Croatia, Marko Marulić, was born in Split, then in the Republic of Venice and now the second largest city in Croatia.

    He wrote his epic poetry of theological heroes and heroines in the Croatian vernacular, instead of the typical scholarly Latin. Such works, the first printed in Croatian, have led historians to credit him with creating a distinctive Croatian literature.

    As a theologian, he stressed practical Christianity and stoic thought. As a writer, he wrote epic poems celebrating those who defended Christianity, as a lesson to people to keep the faith and defend it from infidels. 

      His poetry apparently was read throughout Europe, and recently, was quoted by Pope John Paul II, showing Marulić's significance in the fields of theology and literature.

    His first work, known today as Judita, was written in 1501. It was published several times during his life, showing it had appeal beyond his home town of Split, which at the time had few literate souls. It told the story of a Hebrew woman, Judith, who heroically saved her city by seducing and killing the Assyrian general Holofernes.  

    A second poem, Susanna, told of how the Babylonia Jewish woman, falsely accused of adultery, proved her innocence with the intervention of the prophet Daniel.

    Marulić also wrote poems in Latin and Italian. In Latin, he wrote A Book in Praise of Hercules, in which the followers of Hercules do battle with the followers of Jesus Christ. Unsurprisingly, the followers of Christ win.

    Marulić died in Split in 1524.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Herta Muller

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. 17th

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

   

    On this date in 1953, the German poet and novelist Herta Müller was born in Nitchidorf, Romania.

    She told her stories about the harsh and bitter life many were suffering through during the totalitarian regime in Romania under Nicolae Ceauşescu. Her writings included the violence and torture, the disdain for human rights and dignity, and the oppressive censorship and pervasive surveillance under his regime.

    She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009, with the committee saying she depicted "the landscape of the dispossessed (with) the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose." Her work has been described as "lively, poetic, corrosive," Another critic said her "distinctive prose and world view are shaped by the silence and suppression that taught her to write." 

    Müller could write about those times because she lived through them. Before she was born, her parents were sent to forced labor camps in Romania, and when released, became part of the German-speaking minority. Two collections of short stories, Niederungen (Nadirs, in English) and Drückender Tango (Oppressive Tango, in English) she published there as a young adult were censored, and she was forbidden to publish anything in Romania.  She eventually fled the country in 1987 and settled in Berlin.

    There, her books already had a following, and her first novel, Der Mensch ist ein grosser Fasan auf der Welt (The Passport, in English) had been published there the previous year.

    The year she won the Nobel Prize is the same year she published perhaps her best book, Atemschaukel (The Hunger Angel, in English), a searing account of a young man's journey to a gulag in the Soviet Union. It was based on the experiences of the poet, Oskar Pastior, and her mother.

    Müller lives and write in Berlin.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Sports Illustrated

 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. 16th

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

   

The cover of the first issue

  On this date in 1954, the first issue of the magazine Sports Illustrated hit the newsstands.

    It was the first weekly magazine dedicated to sports coverage. Its stories were written by some of the best in the business, and its articles illustrated by some of the best sports photography ever shot.

    At a time when sports coverage was limited to daily newspapers and radio reports, the magazine started several new conventions: The extensive use of photos, many in color; instituting previews of major sporting events, such as the World Series and college Bowl Games; and hiring and helping to establish some of the top sports photographers and writers in the business.  

    Some of the writers who graced its pages were Rick Reilly, Sally Jenkins, Robert Creamer, George Plimpton, Frank Deford, Pat Forde, Roy Blount Jr., Peter Gammons, and Joe Posnanski. 

    Its pages have included the artistry of photographers Walter Iooss Jr., Lynn Johnson, James Drake, and Neil Leifer, who took the famous photo of Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston in 1965 after knocking him out. (He was the only cameraman using color that night.) Leifer also shot the picture from the rafters above the ring, published in Sports Illustrated, when Ali laid out Cleveland Williams in the 1966 heavyweight title bout.

    Success did not come immediately, but by the 1960s, Sports Illustrated was the dominant sports magazine, and it continued to set trends. It named a Sportsperson of the Year, generating stories (and coverage for itself); in 1999 it named Ali as Sportsperson of the Century; and it has compiled lists of the greatest athletes and teams in various sports.

    The magazine continues to be popular, along with its web site, SI.com. It also created Sports Illustrated Kids, and separate editions in various countries.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Walter Scott

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. 15th

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

    

    On this date in 1771, the Scottish writer Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh.

    He told his stories of the Scots -- their history, their culture, and their whimsy -- in poems and novels. He is sometimes said to have "invented" Scotland, or more correctly, its image in popular culture.

    

    He is also credited with inventing the genre of  historical fiction, which he used to great effect in his novels and long, lyrical poems.

    In his youth, Scott was a great reader with an eidetic memory, who loved to amaze others with his ability to recite massive amounts of poetry. When his took to writing, he would compile volumes of the works of others. His first foray into this field was the multi-volume collection, The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

    His next work was The Lay of the Last Minstrel, about an old Scottish legend, and his work was enormously popular. 

    Over the next dozen years, he wrote several long, narrative poems, along with many shorter works. Among these were Lady of the Lake, which contains elements of historical fiction and is still read and referred to today, and the epic Marmion, with these oft-quoted lines:

                                Yet Clare's sharp questions must I shun,

                                Must separate Constance from the nun

                                Oh! what a tangled web we weave

                                When first we practice to deceive

    He then turned to writing novels. His first was Waverley, which tells the story of the 1745 Jacobite Uprising through the eyes of his character, army officer Edward Waverley, Other novels included Ivanhoe, a romance set in England during the Middle Ages; Rob Roy, set in Scotland in the early 18th Century, and Old Mortality, set in Scotland in the late 17th Century.

    Scott died in 1832. 

Book Review: Good Eggs

•  Author: Rebecca Hardiman

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I was looking for a quick and fun read; this was her debut novel, and it looked right

******

    Like her character Millie Gogarty, Hardiman tells a good yarn.

 

    But unlike the elderly Millie, who tends to embellish and stretch out her story telling, Hardiman is concise and keen. She writes a pithy and funny tale about the kerfuffle that three generations of a Irish family find themselves in during the rainy season of their discontent.

    Yet, despite their meanderings, mistakes, and muddled lives, we know, deep down, they are good eggs. Why, it says so right on the cover.

    The middle guy in this saga is Kevin, a son and a father who is trying to hold their lives together, but like many a hapless dad, finds that no one really listens to him. Still, he tries.

     He loves his wife (mostly); he adores his four kids (even when they act out), and he does his best for his mother as she enters the purple phase of her life.

    His mother is Millie, elderly and kinda, sorta losing it, but determined to continue as she always has. She wants to keep her seaside house in Dúg Laoghaire, outside of Dublin, but when she gets arrested for mindlessly shoplifting at her local store, gives in to Kevin's insistences she bring in a caretaker.

    Then there's Aideen, Kevin's 16-year-old daughter. She is, well, she's a moody teenager who hates her family, hates her school, and hates her life -- and she isn't shy about letting everyone know. She does not take kindly to her parents' plan to send her to a nearby boarding school.

    There are a few other characters -- Aideen's perfect but bitchy twin, Nuala (who Aideen calls Nemesis); Kevin's mate's mother, Maeve, who gives Kevin the what for: Miss Bleekland, the school's disciplinarian (and old maid); Sylvia, the American helpmate, and assorted friends, neighbors and relatives -- mostly well drawn, but just around for decoration. Except for one of them. Well, maybe two.

    So that's the setting, and the story takes off from there. It's a short book of 323 pages -- and 64 chapters! -- so it moves quickly. It may take a while to introduce everyone before the real action starts, but then things hurry along. 

    It's funny, gentle, and moving.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Alfred Hitchcock

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. 13th

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    It is the 225th day of the year, leaving 140 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1899, the film director Alfred Hitchcock was born in London.

    He told his stories visually, on the movie screen, from the days of silent films in England, to the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1940s, to the peak of his career in the 1950s and into the '60s. He was the master of suspense, relying on tried and true visual techniques he developed -- using the movie camera to heighten tension and filming scenes to give the audience a sense of voyeurism.

    He plotted out the visualization of every scene. He know how to hold his audience by making it  viscerally feel the terror the characters are going through -- through the use of mistaken identity, charming villains, and distrustful authority figures.

    His films showed a bleak view of humanity and a sometimes macabre sense of humor.

    After studying at the University of London, Hitchcock got his start in the movie industry designing title cards -- used in the silent era to introduce a film or explain the action. He quickly moved into directing, variously receiving or sharing credit in his early days.

    The Lodger: A Story of  the London Fog, released in 1927, is considered the first "real" Hitchcock film, with the use of many of the conceptions he used that soon came to signify his style. It told the story of a man accused of being Jack the Ripper, and forced to try to prove his innocence. Two years later, he released his first talking film, Blackmail, which became that year's big hit in England.

    Five years later, in 1934, he had his first international hit, The Man Who Knew Too Much.

    In 1939, he was persuaded to move to Hollywood, where he directed Rebecca, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1940 and gained Hitchcock his first nomination for best director. (Despite a total of five nominations, he never won.)

    A string of successes followed: Lifeboat, set entirely in a lifeboat during the war years; Dial M for Murder; Rear Window, Vertigo, considered by many critics and film historians to be his best work; North by Northwest; Psycho, perhaps his best known work; and The Birds.

    From 1955 to 1965, he hosted a popular television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

    Hitchcock died in 1980 in Los Angeles.  

Almanac of Story Tellers: Radclyffe Hall

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. 12th

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

   

    On this date in 1880, the English writer Radclyffe Hall was born.

    Hall told her stories in novels and in verse about the struggle for self-identity. She wrote about lesbian relationships before people accepted that such partnerships even exisited, never mind accepted. 

    Hall self-identified as a "congenital invert," a term used in the 19th Century to describe what today would be called transgender. Hall wore traditional male clothing and was lesbian. But she always has been referred to as she and her,  never expressing a desire for other pronouns, and that is what every biographer has used. 

    Her early writings were poetry, and she published five volumes between 1906 and 1915. Her first novels were unremarkable, although The Unlit Lamp was the first to deal with a lesbian relationship. Her 1926, Adam's Breed, was about the life of a restauranteur, and it was successful and won several awards. 

    But her groundbreaking novel, The Well of Loneliness, told the story of the love between a young woman and her older, female companion. While it was not explicit, a judge in England declared its discussion of lesbians "an obscene libel" and ordered all copies destroyed.

    Later, a judge in the United States rejected that contention, finding the mere discussion of homosexuality was not obscene.

    Still, Hall's later novels mostly avoided the topic.

    She died in 1943 in London.