Almanac of Story Tellers: Stephen Crane

 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 Nov. 1st

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    It is the 305th day of the year, leaving 60 days remaining in 2022. 

    On this date in 1871, the author Stephen Crane was born.

 

   He is best known for his novel, The Red Badge of Courage, but his short stories are often considered superior works. He told those stories in colorful settings, with well-drawn characters whom he set off to explore human nature and destiny.

    His novels were both realistic and impressionistic. He achieved dramatic tension by using irony and pity, illusion and reality. 

    In his later years, he worked as a war correspondent, partly to determine how realistic his  visions of the battlegrounds of the American Civil War were in The Red Badge of Courage. Veterans and observers of the war had praised his writing for its ability to reproduce the sense of actual combat.

    His first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, written in 1893, was shocking for its time. Like Crane, i was sympathetic to its protagonist, a young innocent girl from a poor neighborhood who turns to a life on the streets because of abuse, poverty, and alcoholism. Crane, who wrote under a pseudonym, paid for the publication of the novel.

    He turned to journalism for a while before writing The Red Badge of Courage. 

    Among his later short stories was The Open Boat, a semi-autobiographical tale about a young man's effort to became a war correspondent and his survival after being on a boat that was attacked and sunk. Crane and several others rowed to shore on a dinghy.

    Crane died in 1900.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Ali Farka Toure

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 Oct. 31st

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    It is the 304th day of the year, leaving 61 days remaining in 2022. 

 

  On this date in 1939, the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré was born.

    He told his stories through the use of traditional African instruments such as the n'jarka, a single-stringed fiddle, and the n'goni, a four-stringed lute. He also played guitar to help bring Malian music -- sometimes erroneously called desert blues -- to the world stage.

    He did not have any formal training, yet his music was hypnotic, rhythmic, and self-assured. 

    He is a multiple Grammy winner, but considered his musical career secondary to his life in his native Niafunke, on the banks of the Niger River in northwest Mali, where he worked as a farmer and served as mayor.

    He started playing music during his youth. Mali often hosted various African and world music tours, and Touré listened and learned to play instruments and sing in multiple languages. He won several competitions, and eventually heard and became influenced by the American blues guitarist, John Lee Hooker. He continued to play and be recognized on the World Circuit for his African-inspired music.

    Touré won his first Grammy, in 1994, for Talking Timbuktu, with Ray Coda.

    He has appeared and played with American blues and reggae star Corey Harris, Malian kora player Toumani Dianbaté, for which he won a second Grammy, and with members of the Irish band The Chieftains.

    His music has been used in the films Unfaithful and Black Panther, and in Nintendo's Animal Crossing video game.  

    Touré died in 2006.

Book Review: Stories From the Tenants Downstairs

 

•  Author: Sidik Fofana

• Where I bought this book: A Room of One's Own, Madison, Wisc. 

• Why I bought this book: A collection of tales about apartment living in Harlem seemed like a good bet.

*****

      

     This is not a book of happy, spunky tales.

    Rather, the stories in this collection are tales of life, of sorrow, of making do. Of struggling to get by, of cutting corners, of doing what you must to survive.

     If that means taking something that isn't yours, then it's what you do. If it means taking advantage of someone else -- who may or may not be in a better position than you -- then the choice is yours.

    These are tales of making questionable decisions,  choosing between nothing but bad choices, knowing that you can try to fix things later.

    It's not a book of making excuses, or justifying the actions. It's simple stories, explanations perhaps, laying out a life of poverty, indifference, and toil.

    These are tales from an apartment building in Harlem, not quite rundown yet, but not one that has people clamoring to get in. It's a building where the tenants care more than the unseen landlord, but they don't care about much more than how to pay their rent. It's a building on the edge of gentrification, not that that helps those who live there.

    There is Michelle, who tells her story of struggling to find the money to pay the rent on the first of the month or else be homeless. She tells of how she find the money, in different ways each day, and how much more she needs. It's not a tale of lament or woe. It's her life. 

    There are tales of students and teachers in school, putting up with the daily misery because that's what they do. There are tales of hanging out, looking for something to do, whether it's to avenge a perceived wrong or simply to bring a bit of joy into their lives.  

    There is the sad tale of najee, a 12-year-old boy, who writes why he is leaving a dancing activity called lite feet. Written in the vernacular of a young boy with learning disabilities and a literacy problem, it tells of his inability to adapt and fit in with the other boys. It's a struggle to read, mirroring the struggle of najee's life.

    Then there is Mr. Murray, an old veteran who hangs out on the corner with his chessboard, inviting others to play. A new restaurant orders him from his corner, and he moves down the block. But his fellow tenants take up his cause and demand he get to stay. Police are called. The newspapers come. Things happen.

    But this is Mr. Murray's story, and no one asked him. He doesn't care where he sits. He just wants to play chess.

    You up for a game? He'll be in his new spot.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Bill Mauldin

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 Oct. 29th

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    It is the 302nd day of the year, leaving 63 days remaining in 2022. 

   

    On this date in 1921, the illustrator and cartoonist Bill Mauldin was born.

    He told his stories with pencil and ink drawings, depicting the lives of ordinary American soldiers on the battlefields of World War II. He showed them having a gentle weariness and the grim realties of war. Soldiers enjoyed and shared the cartoons, while the brass accepted how they kept up the morale of the troops.

    Portraying the typical infantryman in the characters of 
Willie and Joe, Mauldin showed they were doing their duty, suffering the horrors, but carrying on as they must. 

    He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1940, and started drawing cartoons for the unit's newspaper. By 1943, he was fighting in the Italian theater, and his cartoons were appearing in The Stars and Stripes newspaper. When Gen. George Patton wanted to end Mauldin's work because it criticized him, General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower said no, because it is "the soldiers' paper."

    In 1945, Mauldin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his wartime work.

    Afterwards, he started drawing political cartoons for, among others, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he won a second Pulitzer in 1958. He also drew cartoons for the Chicago Sun-Times, and illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post, Life, and Sports Illustrated, among others.

    Mauldin died in 2003.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Edith Head

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 Oct. 28th

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    It is the 301st day of the year, leaving 64 days remaining in 2022.   

  

    On this date in 1897, the costume designer Edith Head was born.

    She told her stories in fabrics and fashion, designing clothes worn by the leading actors in the glory days of Hollywood. 

    Her range of designs spanned from the simplistically elegant to the absolutely fabulously flamboyant. She lived by the maxim that she should accentuate the positive and hide the rest, and had the ability to design, cut, and drape her designs to highlight the wearer's style and body type. 

    She was able to deal with often temperamental actors and their directors, so much so that she was often "loaned out" to dress stars working for other studios.

     And while she didn't invent the category of costume design, she became synonymous with it at awards ceremonies. In 1948, the Academy Awards announced two new categories: Best costume design in black and white, and in color. Head was nominated for the next 19 years, collecting 35 nominations in total. 

    She started working in 1923, helping to design costumes for silent films. Her first major work was in 1933, with Mae West in She Done Him Wrong. Head gained fame after designing Dorothy Lamour's sarong in The Jungle Princess in 1936, and soon became the most requested designer in Hollywood.

    She worked with Veronica Lake in I Married a Witch in 1942; Barbara Stanwyke in multiple films, including Double Indemnity in 1944; Ginger Rogers in Lady in the Dark that same year, and Ingrid Bergman, Loretta Young, Betty Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, and Grace Kelly. She also worked with male actors, including Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, and John Wayne.

    Head died in 1981.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Mahalia Jackson

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 Oct. 26th

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    It is the 299th day of the year, leaving 66 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1911, the singer Mahalia Jackson was born.

    She told her stories, mostly from the Bible, in the gospel blues style known to many in the Black church, but uncommon elsewhere. Her energy and power was enhanced by the range of her voice, which ran from the low female contralto to the high soprano.

    Her clear voice often used melisma, which required her to change notes several times while holding a single syllable. She would improvise on many a tune, often stretching out a song two to three times longer than normal.

    The granddaughter of enslaved people, Jackson was mostly self taught through her church in New Orleans. As a teenager, she moved to Chicago, becoming part of the Johnson Singers, a gospel group. During these years, she was influenced by the blues singer Bessie Smith.

    Indeed, Jackson mostly refused to sing any song that was non-religious or not biblically inspired.

    She gained national attention with the release of her song, Move On Up a Little Higher, a gospel tune that sold more than 2 million copies. She was soon touring across the United States, as well as in Europe, and began to appear regularly on radio and television.

    She sang the national anthem at the Inaugural Ball for President John F. Kennedy in 1961. She was active in the Civil Rights movement, and fired up the crowd with her voice at the 1963 March on Washington.

    During the 1960s, she often sang to sold-out audiences in Carnegie Hall, and several of her albums sold more than 1 million copies. She was popular in Europe as well -- her version of Silent Night was a best seller in Denmark.

    Jackson died in 1972.

Book Review: Piranesi

 

•  Author: Susanna Clark

• Where I bought this book: A Room of One's Own, Madison, Wisc. 

• Why I bought this book: I was looking for a title by a similarly named author, and came across this instead.

*********

        Yes, there is a story in here, and it's a wonderful one, so it's worth your while to get to it.

    But what keeps you going in this magical place are the descriptions. The fantastical, detailed discoveries behind every door, in every chamber and hall, filled with statues that delight and compel and charm. 

    Yes, Piranesi's wanderings are fun to follow. His attempts to divine the origins and implications of where he is keep the tale from his journals moving along.

    It's a remarkably strange place, even for a fantasy book. It could be a world inside a building, or a building that it a world. We don't know. We explore its ramifications with Piranesi, as he speaks to us through those writings.

    Piranesi is all but alone in the world. There is someone else, named The Other. There is evidence of other people who are or have been there, but it's all speculation, based on snippets of writings he has found.  

 One sentence puzzles me: The world was constantly speaking to Ancient Man. I do not understand why this sentence is in the past tense. The World still speaks to me every day.

    Indeed, the pleasure of this book is not the story of who Piranesi is and where he is, but the place itself, and the secrets it hides. Sometimes, the story actually gets in the way of the pleasure of reading this remarkable book.

    Yes, the secrets are revealed. It is well worth waiting for.        

Almanac of Story Tellers: John Berryman

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 Oct. 25th

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    It is the 298th day of the year, leaving 67 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1914, the poet John Berryman was born in McAlester, Okla.

 

  He told his stories of sadness, of despair, and of infatuation.

   He wrote of his family's history with depression, alcoholism, and suicide. He told of America's  history through pain and pleasure.

    His confessional poetry was sometimes technically daring, with bursts of humor to go along with the inherent melancholy. His writing is intimate, but soaring and hesitant.

    Berryman graduated from Columbia University and studied at Cambridge. He held teaching posts at Wayne State University, Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Minnesota.

    

    In addition to his poetry, Berryman wrote short stories. The Lovers and The Imaginary Jew are often used in anthologies. He wrote a biography of the author, Stephen Crane, in 1950.

    But his poetry set him apart. His Dream Songs collection -- some 400 poems titled Dream Song with a number -- tells of his angst and his vivid remembrance of childhood trauma, including his father's suicide.

                                he only, very early in the morning

                                rose with his gun and went outdoors by my window

                                and did what was needed.

    One collection, 77 Dream Songs, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1965.

    Perhaps his best known work is a long epic poem, Homage to Mistress Bradstreet. It is written about the colonial-era poet, Anne Bradstreet, one of the first poets published in America. Berryman wrote lovingly about the poet, and included himself in the works, describing fantasies he had about her.

    Berryman committed suicide in 1972 in Minneapolis when he jumped off the Washington Avenue Bridge into the icy Mississippi River. He later became sort of a muse for the songwriter Craig Finn, who wrote about his death in the song Stuck Between Station.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Emma Donoghue

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 Oct. 24th

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    It is the 297th day of the year, leaving 68 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date, the author Emma Donoghue was born in Dublin, Ireland.

   

    She tells her stories -- sometimes tales set in modern times, sometime historical fiction inspired by actual events -- with a range of character and styles. She often tell stories of women, whether modern or historical, who shun society's expectations to blaze their own paths through the world.

    In one of her first novels, Hood, she writes about a closeted lesbian, a school teacher at a Catholic school in Ireland, coming to grips with the death of her partner. She can neither grieve, express her love and loss, nor even mourn with her lover's well meaning but naïve father, who still thinks of them as just good friends who live together. 

    In The Sealed Letter, Donoghue resurrects a scandal from 1860s Britain from the records of a sensational divorce case. She tells the tale partly from the involvement of a reluctant spinster. It brings to life all the drama in the case and in London's class system.

    Life Mask tells of three people in 1780s London high society -- a closeted lesbian sculpturer, a leading stage actress, and a wealthy earl who become involved in each other's lives.

    But perhaps her best known work is Room, which came out in 2010 and tell the story of a woman and her child who are locked in a room for the child's first five years. Told in the voice of the young boy, starting from his first questions about who he is and what else is out there, it explores a child discovering the world, and his mother trying to protect him from the worst.

    Room won several major writing awards, including being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The movie version was nominated for four Oscars, including Donoghue for Best Adapted Screenplay.

    Donoghue lives with her wife and two children in Ontario, Canada. 

Almanac of Story Tellers: Johnny Carson

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 Oct. 23rd

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    It is the 296th day of the year, leaving 69 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1925, the TV comedian and host Johnny Carson was born in Corning, Iowa.

    He told his stories long after the witching hour, on late-night television, using a topical opening monologue, deadpan humor, sketch comedy, and friendly interviews of celebrities. He spent three decades hosting The Tonight Show on NBC, pulling in millions of viewers every night. As many as 50 million people tuned into his last show in 1992.

    If Carson didn't invent the late-night talk show, he certainly perfected it.

    He got his start in radio after graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1949. He switched to television two years later after getting a job in Los Angeles. He became a writer for The Red Skelton Show, famously subbing as host one time on a moment's notice. He hosted a game show in New York before replacing Jack Parr on The Tonight Show.

    After a year of gaining confidence, Carson started making the show his own, with comedy skits he invented, and comic personas he turned into his own. The format he used remains in use today -- an opening monologue, various comic moments, performances by guest stars, and celebrity interview. The sidekick, the house band, the interviewer's desk, and the guests' couch all became part of the show.

    While a private man, Carson held a powerful place in the industry. When he moved the location of the show -- now known as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson -- from New York to Burbank, Calif., it helped shift the dynamic of television from the east to the west coast.

    His final show was national, and even international, news.

    Carson died in 2005 in Los Angeles.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Patrick Kavanagh

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 Oct. 21st

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    It is the 294th day of the year, leaving 71 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1904, the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh was born.

    He told his stories about rural Ireland with a realism about the labor, the turmoil, and the poverty surrounding it. He eschewed the romanticism expressed by the Irish nationalist revival that occurred in his lifetime. He said it claimed Dublin as a literary metropolis, and the rest of Ireland was "invented and patented (as) . . . a spiritual entity.

    He was having none of it. In his greatest work, The Great Hunger, an epic poem about the life of an Irish farm boy, he made this clear from the beginning.

                            Clay is the word and clay is the flesh
                            Where the potato-gatherers like mechanised scarecrows move
                            Along the side-fall of the hill -- Maguire and his men.
                            If we watch them an hour is there anything we can prove

    He wrote the poem in 1942.

    Kavanagh was one of 10 children of a cobbler and part-time farmer, who grew up in rural County Monaghan, on the Irish border with Northern Ireland. He was mostly self-educated, and while trying his hand at being a writer, reached into his own background for his first novel, Tarry Flynn.

    His anti-pastoralism, along with criticism of the church and his fellow writers, earned him a reputation as an iconoclast. But his poetry -- always clear, precise, and evocative --  gradually was accepted as extraordinary, and in the 1950s, he began to find the acclaim he felt he so richly deserved. 

    Kavanagh died in 1967 in Dublin

Almanac of Story Tellers: Peter Max

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 Oct. 19th

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    It is the 291st day of the year, leaving 74 days remaining in 2022.

  

    On this date in 1937, the artist Peter Max was born in Berlin, Germany.

    He tells his stories through the use of bright, vivid colors, pop and counter-cultural icons, and by capturing the trends of the moment. He drew commercial posters for Madison  Avenue and flyers for for the Central Park BeIn for the hippies of the 1960s.

    He draws presidents and musical artists. He is fascinated about astronomy, and draws in support of space and the environment,. He created a line of clocks for General Electric. 

    He has exhibited his work in art shops, on television, and in museums.

    Max's parents fled Berlin in 1938, settling first in Shanghai, China, then in Haifa, Israel, before moving on to Paris, and finally New York in 1953. He received formal art training at the Art Students League of New York.

    He was iconic in the 1960s, drawing the Beatles, creating the "Uncola" ad for 7-up, and lending his artwork for a postage stamp commemorating Expo '74 for the 1974 Worlds Fair in Spokane, Wash. In 1976, he drew 235 "Welcome to America" murals for use at U.S. borders.

    In 1981, he painted a half-dozen Statutes of Liberty in the Rose Garden for President Reagan. On the final painting, he asked Reagan to paint the last brushstroke. Max later helped spearhead the campaign to restore the statue.

    In 1990, after receiving a 3 1/2-ton piece of the Berlin Wall, Max chiseled out the form of a dove, painted it, and placed it on top of the wall.

    He has grown with the times. He first painted Taylor Swift's portrait after she won her first Grammy in 2008, and has painted her recently.

    He currently lives in New York with his two grown children.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Terry McMillan

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 Oct. 18th

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    It is the 290th day of the year, leaving 75 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1951, the author Terry McMillan was born.

 

   She tells her stories about the lives of Black women in a realistic, modern manner. She uses humor, a knowing tone, and a warmth that opens up the lives of her characters. In her books, Black women raise children, seek love and friendship, and embrace their identify.

    Born in Port Huron, Mich., she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1977. She did graduate work before publishing her first novel, Mama, in 1987. She helped sell the novel by writing to hundreds of mostly African-America bookstores, encouraging them to display and sell her work.

    She hit her stride with her third novel, Waiting to Exhale, in 1992. The story of four Black professional women looking for love hit a chord among those who saw themselves in the pages of the novel. It was a runaway best-seller, and its movie version in 1995, starring Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett, was a hit.

    Her next novel, How Stella Got Her Grove Back, is about a wealthy Black woman who finds love while on vacation in Jamaica. It also was a hit as a novel and a movie.  

    McMillan continues to write from her home in Los Angeles. Her latest novel is It's Not All Downhill From Here. 

Almanac of Story Tellers: Arthur Miller

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 Oct. 17th

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    It is the 289th day of the year, leaving 76 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1915, the award-winning playwright, Arthur Miller, was born.

   

    He wrote his stories about typical working people who struggle and often are brought down by their flaws. But as the common man in his tales represented the average American, his flaws were those of the larger American society.

    He told those stories on the stage, mostly dramas and tragedies, in a realistic style set in  modern times. His vernacular writing was stark and simple, without flourishes, in keeping with his theme of the common person. His influences included Henrik Ibsen.

    These themes and style were most apparent in his best known, and perhaps his greatest play, Death of A Salesman. A simple, two-act play, told mostly in flashbacks and memories, it tells the story of Willy Loman through his own voice. Loman is defeated, feels betrayed by the American Dream, and acts as if his life amounted to little. He in turns defends and castigates his own actions.

    The play, which premiered on Broadway in 1949, won the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama.

    Miller started writing as a college student at the University of Michigan. His first Broadway play, The Man Who Had All the Luck, flopped and closed after four performances in 1944. But his second, All My Sons -- based on a true story about a business-military payoff regarding defective aircraft -- was a hit. It won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the Tony Award for Best Author. It played on Broadway for nearly two years.

    In reaction to the House on Un-American Activities Committee in the McCarthy era, Miller wrote The Crucible, setting the Salem Witch Trials in modern times. Miller did testify to the committee about his own activities, but refused to name any other people. He was found in contempt of Congress and blacklisted.

    Miller continued to write and was active in politics after the 1950s.

    He died in Roxberry, Conn., in 2005.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Oscar Wilde

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 Oct. 16th

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    It is the 288th day of the year, leaving 77 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1854, the Irish writer and bon vivant, Oscar Wilde, was born in Dublin.

    

    He told his stories about Victorian England with wit and style, much as he paraded around London in his own extravagant style, flinging witty bon mots about the cafes and society homes.

    As a writer, Wilde professed a form of aestheticism, the literary style that favored the aesthetic value of the play house and the written word over whatever its political, moral, or societal leanings were. But he also managed to annoy that society with his lifestyle, and critique and outrage it with his writings and dramas.

    His sole novel, A Picture of Dorian Gray, tells the story of a high society man who hides his moral degradation not in himself, but in a drawing of himself hidden in his house. Critics said it offended moral sensibilities, and many booksellers pulled it from their shelves.

    While Wilde wrote more stories as a playwright, particularly A Woman of No Importance and The Importance of Being Ernest, his accusers lodged many of the same criticisms against him. Still, they played in sold out theaters despite their underlying subversion of societal rules.

    But as the latter play premiered in 1895, it became caught in a feud between Wilde and the Marquess of Queensbury over Wilde's relationship with the man's adult son, Lord Alfred Douglas. Queensbury called Wilde a sodomite; Wilde, at Douglas' urging, sued Marquess, who won the case, and had Wilde arrested for sodomy. He was convicted and served two years in prison.

    Wilde was released from jail in 1897 and fled to France. He was bankrupt, lived in exile, and contracted meningitis. He died in 1900 in Paris.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

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 Oct. 15th

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     It is the 287th day of the year, leaving 78 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1917, the historian and author, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., was born.

 

    He told his stories about U.S. history and history-makers, sometimes from first-hand observations. He was innovative, influential, and prolific. He often wrote about the politics of history and historical events, and his view was that of a mid-20th Century liberal and democracy advocate.

    In one of his earlier books, The Age of Jackson, he wrote about "Jacksonian democracy" and the 1829-1837 presidency of Andrew Jackson. Schlesinger reinterpreted those times to include the cultural, social, and economic lives of people instead of just the major events and decisions.

    It won him the first of two Pulitzer Prizes.

    He then turned his eyes to the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, writing The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom, a defense of anti-communism and the New Deal's regulated economy. During the late 1950s, he put out a three volume exploration of the beginnings, middle, and impact of FDR's presidency.

    During this time, he was engaged in Democratic politics as a supporter of Adlai Stevenson, and in 1960, he backed John F. Kennedy. He joined the JFK administration, working as a speechwriter, among other duties.

    In 1965, he published A Thousand Days, about Kennedy's abbreviated time in the White House. It was criticized for being a history written too soon after the events, but it won Schlesinger his second Pulitzer Prize.

    After JFK's death, Schlesinger became an admirer and supporter of Robert Kennedy, and worked for him during his run for the White House. After RFK's assassination, Schlesinger wrote a biography, Robert Kennedy and his Times.

    He also continued to write about American presidents (Nixon, Lincoln, and more on FDR), Congress, topics in American history, and himself (a memoir, Journals (1959-2000).

    Schlesinger died in 2007.   

Almanac of Story Tellers: E.E. Cummings

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 Oct. 14th

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     It is the 286th day of the year, leaving 79 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1894, the poet E.E. Cummings was born.

    He told his stories in an avant-garde form of poetry all his own. His choice of language and style -- words with meanings he invented, nontraditional use of capital letters, and atypical punctuations -- made him a popular and well regarded American poet who is still studied today.

    For instance, his poem, Buffalo Bill's, uses line shifts and spacings, and words set off or put together to show speed or amazement. 

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Buffalo Bill's

defunct

                who used to

                ride a watersmooth-silver

                                                                 stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                                                                             Jesus

he was a handsome man 

                                                    and what I want to know is 

how do you like your blue-eyed boy 

Mister Death

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    Cummings original use of capital or lower case letters often caused his name to be spelt as e.e. cummings, but he was uncaring about the form of his name. He often signed his name as E.E. Cummings, and used that in legal documents and in his books of poetry.

    He served in the ambulance corps in Paris during the First World War, but was detained and imprisoned for holding anti-war views. But he later was drafted, and returned to serve in the U.S. Army until the war ended.

    For a time, he made Paris his home, also traveling to Africa and Mexico

    In his early years, he also showed his art work, but they received far less attention than his poems. A play, him, was produced in New York. In 1933, he recorded, in 400-plus pages of experimental prose, Eimi, about a trip he had taken to the Soviet Union.

  He was a prolific poet, with nearly 3,000 poems to his credit. He published many books of poetry during his life, the first being Tulips and Chimneys in 1933. They were later compiled into two volumes under the name Complete Poems in 1968.

    Cummings died in 1962.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Arna Bontemps

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 Oct. 13th

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     It is the 285th day of the year, leaving 80 days remaining in 2022.

 

    On this date in 1920, the writer Arna Bontemps was born.

    His told his stories of the lives and struggles of Black people through poetry, novels, short stories, histories, and biographies. He wrote for children and adults. He was an integral part of the Harlem Renaissance, in which Black writers and artists explored what it meant to be a Black person in America and throughout the world.

    After graduating from Pacific Union College in California, he took a teaching job in Harlem, where he started writing poetry. He began a friendship with Langston Hughes and won numerous poetry prizes.

    The first poem he published was called A Record of the Darker Races, and later simply called Hope. But for  Bontemps, hope was a "an empty bark."

    As the Depression worsened and the Renaissance was coming to an end, Bontemps moved to Alabama, where he took a teaching job at Oakwood Junior College. In 1931, he published his first novel, God Sends Sunday, about a Black jockey who is successful at winning races, but has trouble with life. In 1936, he published what is regarded as his best novel, Black Thunder, about a slave rebellion in the early 1800s.

    A few years later, he became the head librarian at Fisk University in Nashville, and his writing career continued to bloom. He wrote novels and children's stories, and he wrote a number of biographies about African-Americans that were geared to children, about Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, and George Washington Carver.

    He wrote about Famous Negro Athletes, and Story of the Negro, a history book for children. He was the first Black author to win a Newberry Award for that work.

    Bontemps died in 1973 in Nashville.

Almanac of Story Tellers: R.K. Narayan

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 Oct. 10th

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     It is the 283nd day of the year, leaving 82 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1906, the Indian writer R.K. Narayan was born in Madras, in British controlled India.

    He is generally considered one of the great three Indian writers of the 20th Century who wrote in English.

    He told his stories in elegant and succinct prose, wit lacing his tales about the clash between a developing, modern India and its ancient traditions.   

    Like the American author William Faulkner, Narayan created a fictional town to set his tales. Narayan's was Malgudi, a Bangalore town, which represented a typical Indian city.

    His first novel was set there. Swami and Friends was a semi-autobiographical tale of a young Indian life published in 1935. Two more novels, also based on his own life -- Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher -- completed the trilogy.

    The final novel, poignant and intense, is consider among his finer works. It is about a teacher who tries to come to grip with his mundane life after the unexpected death of his young wife. It was praised for weaving "tragedy and humor so deftly together."

    His other novels over the years include Waiting for the Mahatma, The Man-Eater of Malgudi, and The Vendor of Sweets.

    Narayan also wrote short stories, which were praised for delivering a powerful tale in a compressed format. Among his collections are Lawley Road, published in 1956, and The Grandmother's Tale, in 1993.

    He has been awarded the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan, India's second and third highest civilian awards.

    Narayan died in Channai, the current name of his hometown, in 2001.