April 13 Birthdays

Happy Festoy Nensktag! (Lipen Søerjehn) to:
　
1506 French Jesuit theologian and co-founder of the Society of Jesus Peter Faber
1519 Italian noblewoman Catherine de' Medici; queen consort of France
1570 English conspirator Guy Fawkes
1743 US President #3 Thomas Jefferson
1750 American historical painter John Trumbull
1769 English portrait painter and draftsman Sir Thomas Lawrence 
1772 American clockmaker and an innovator in mass production Eli Terry
1795 American publisher James Harper; co-founded Harper & Row
1816 English pianist, conductor and composer Sir William Benett (The May Queen)
1852 American businessman Frank Woolworth
1866 American baseball player Herman Long; despite holding the record for most career (17 years) errors, he is considered the best shortstop of his era
1866 American outlaw Butch Cassidy
1871 Mexican Modernist poet, physician and diplomat Enrique Gonzalez Martinez
1885 Hungarian Marxist philosopher, writer and literary critic Gyorgy Lukacs
1888 American inventor John Hays Hammond Jr.; developed radio remote control 
1892 Scottish physicist Sir Robert Watson-Watt; knighted for his role in the development of radar
1899 American architect and inventor of scrabble Alfred Mosher Butts
1906 Nobel Prize-winning Irish-born author, critic, and playwright Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot)
1909 Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer Eudora Welty (The Optimist's Daughter)
1922 English novelist John Braine (Room at the Top); one of the "Angry Young Men"
1939 Nobel Prize-winning Irish novelist Seamus Heaney (Death of a Naturalist)
1949 Anglo-American writer Christopher Hitchens (Hitch-22)

British actor Edward Fox (Ghandi, The Day of the Jackal) is 78 and actor Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas, Slow Dancing in the Big City) is 76.
Oscar-winning film composer Bill Conti (The Right Stuff) is 73. You can probably hum his best known work, the theme to Rocky ("Gonna Fly Now").
Actors Tony Dow (Leave It To Beaver) and Lyle Waggoner (The Carol Burnett Show, Wonder Woman) are 70.
Multiple Grammy-winning soul singer Al Green ("Let's Stay Together") is 69 and actor Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Sons of Anarchy) is 65.
Drummer Max Weinberg (E Street Band) and Grammy-winning R&B singer Peabo Bryson ("Beauty and the Beast," "A Whole New World") are 64.
Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov is 52 and actress Caroline Rhea (Sabrina, the Teenage Witch) is 51.
Actor Rickey Schroder (Silver Spoons) is 45 and actress Kelli Giddish (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) is 35.
Actresses AllisonWilliams (Girls, Peter Pan Live!) and Kallie Flynn Childress (Sleepover) are 27.

Celebrate Read Across America Day!

Read Across America Day is an annual celebration on March 2 that encourages people of all ages to pick up a book and read. It just so happens to coincide with the birthday of one of the world’s most beloved authors, Dr. Seuss.

You probably learned somewhere along the way that the real name of the author of such classics as The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and Green Eggs and Ham is Theodor Geisel. But you may not know:

1.   Geisel’s first children’s book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, was rejected over 20 times.

2.   He wrote an advertising campaign for a bug spray that became part of the popular culture: “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” spawned a song and was used as a punch line for comedians like Fred Allen and Jack Benny.

3.   He wrote the story bases for two Oscar-winning films: Design for Death (1947) and Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950). Two Grinch TV specials won Emmys.

4.   He added “Dr.” to his pen name because his father always wanted him to be a physician.

5.   He believed in luck. Geisel had decided to go home and burn Mulberry Street after so many rejections when he ran into an old Dartmouth classmate who was juvenile editor at Vanguard Press. He said, "If I had been walking down the other side of Madison Avenue, I'd be in the dry-cleaning business today.”

6.   When an editor at Houghton-Mifflin challenged Geisel to "bring back a book children can't put down,” Geisel, using 236 of the 250 words given to him, completed The Cat in the Hat.

7.   He won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for his “contribution over nearly half a century to the education and enjoyment of America's children and their parents."

8.    He never had children of his own. When asked about this, he would say, "You have 'em; I'll entertain 'em."

9.   His books consistently outsell the majority of newly published children's books; his works have spawned eleven television specials, four feature films, a Broadway musical and four television series.

10.   Seuss, his mother's maiden name, is pronounced to rhyme with "voice." But Geisel didn’t mind the Anglicization because it evokes an association with Mother Goose.

“You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.”

 

Quotes from two wise men born February 16

You may recognize some of these:

From Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918), member of the Adams political family:

• Friends are born, not made.
• Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.
• Thank God, I never was cheerful. I come from the happy stock of the Mathers, who, as you remember, passed sweet mornings reflecting on the goodness of God and the damnation of infants.
• It is impossible to underrate human intelligence--beginning with one's own.
• Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.
• No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
• A friend in power is a friend lost.
• The proper study of mankind is woman.

Although noted in his lifetime for his nine-volume History of the United States During the Administration of Thomas Jefferson, Adams received the Pulitzer for his posthumously published memoirs, The Education of Henry Adams. The Modern Library named this work the top English-language nonfiction book of the twentieth century.

**

From presidential advisor/ambassador George Kennan (1904-2005), one of the group of foreign policy elders known as “The Wise Men”:

• The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning.
• The best an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountaintop where few have been before, where few can follow and where few will consent to believe he has been.
• Heroism is endurance for one moment more.

 

10 Quotes from Frederico Fellini, born January 20, 1920

• All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography.
• A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself.
• Experience is what you get while looking for something else.
• The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.
• It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.
• Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real.
• A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provide they come close together.
• There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life.
• God may not play dice but he enjoys a good round of Trivial Pursuit every now and again.
• You exist only in what you do.

Review of Adam Cesare's Tribesmen

I admit to Googling Adam Cesare just before he was a guest on our online writer’s chatroom. “American horror writer of novels, novellas, and short stories,” his Wikipedia entry reads, and lists ten books in the genre, all published within the last two years, with Other People’s Money. Wikipedia was unable to classify another work, Leprechaun in the Hood: The Musical: A Novel, which I found intriguing. So– the guy is young, prolific, and has a sense of humor.

He does. Adam was a very affable chatroom guest who fielded our questions with charm and offered door prizes just for attending. I won one–Tribesmen ((Deadite Press, 2014)–and received a print copy with a nice inscription within a few days. Despite the author’s charm, articulation, and wit, given the gratuitous bloodshed prevalent in so many contemporary horror novels, I still feared Tribesmen would be a gore fest that I would have difficulty finishing.

No need to worry. I read it at one sitting and found it delightful. Yes, it’s gross, but the gore makes sense in the believable world Adam has built. The plot involves a low-budget film crew on a tropical island that–well, it hardly matters. Because what a novel should do is pull you along, no matter what the plot is. There are marvelous turns of phrase and even poignant moments in this tale of sad spirits, cannibals, madness and survival. There will be images you cannot get out of your head, from the relentless attackers in the Prologue to the old woman’s backwards feet and the naked grinning man with the machete. Each chapter is told from a different character’s point-of-view and zips along. The language barrier among the international crew adds a refreshing layer of complication.

 

The novel also has this feature to recommend it–horror master John Skipp did not just provide a cover blurb–he edited the story.

 

Tribesmen adheres to the number one criteria I demand of a novel–it allowed me to stay in it. The voice is consistent and edges into literary territory. There are no author intrusions. And that is an amazing effort for a debut novel. Tribesmen is a fast, fun read.

The Reader Goes Hollywood

I don’t have movie stars playing my characters—I don’t even have actors.

I don’t have a director dictating the action, or a DP or camera crew following it—the only action is the reader turning pages or swiping his screen.

I don’t have a sound track, or background music, or sound effects—I have no audio at all.

I don’t have art directors, sets, wardrobe, makeup, or special effects—I have no design crew whatsoever.

I am dependent on my reader’s imagination alone to produce my movie in his head. It is up to me to provide him, through my words, the sensory, emotional, and informational input he needs to create the action I want him to experience. I am competing with television, films, video games, and the Internet, and my reader is my entire cast and crew.

Is it that way for you?

Flo Stanton Mini-Mystery #2

Sisters

It is not presumptuous to call on Peggy Clegg-Reagan without invitation—she assumes that when those in her circle are not in her immediate presence they are talking about her, or thinking about her, or aching to see her and will naturally drop in unannounced on occasion. As the family attorney and executor of her father’s estate I am granted audience anytime. This visit, however, was precipitated by a message from Charlotte, Peggy’s personal maid, who for a small pourboire keeps me apprised of all things Clegg-Reagan.

Probate concluded less than a month ago and, according to Charlotte, the daughters of the late Reginald Clegg-Reagan applied themselves assiduously to spending their inheritance as rapidly as possible. Winifred, the older sister, having exhausted several wealthy husbands, had a ways to go before depleting hers.

Some wag advised Peggy to invest in a collection, so she settled on the acquisition of Royal memorabilia. In three weeks she had become an expert on all things Windsor and with typical American cheek called the Royals by their Christian names. She purchased a riding crop that once belonged to “Anne,” a book of Byron inscribed to a Cambridge classmate by “Eddie,” and a piece of “Wills and Kate”’s wedding fruitcake.

With a nod Charlotte ushered me to the living room where Peggy hovered over a pink cell phone. “What do you think of Victoria’s silk bloomers?” she asked. She had always been small, even petite, except for a melon-sized bulge at her middle.

“I think they would be too large on you,” I said.

“No, silly,” she said, “for my collection. They’re available again. So is one of Diana’s dresses.”

“Could be a good investment.” I tread lightly. The Clegg-Reagans remit our fees on time.

“Already done. Something came up today, too. I got this from Alec this morning.” She showed me her phone. Alec Redwing was the dealer in Reading who “facilitated” some of her European acquisitions, reported Charlotte. They were fast becoming the best of friends. “Here.” She was a bit breathless. “This—”she zoomed up the image—“has just been found. Very exciting. A letter from Elizabeth—Elizabeth the first, mind you—to her sister Mary. It’s not Windsor, it’s Tudor, Alec says.” I saw a yellowed manuscript in close handwriting and could make out a date of 1554. “You went to Oxford, what do you think?”

She didn’t wait for my reply. “Alec’s note says, ‘there’s a few punctures, some wear to right margin, general light speckling.’ Zoom in on it. Look, you can’t tell the difference between the esses and the effs. And look at the swirls under her name, coming off the ‘z’ and the ‘R’.”

“What is he asking for it?”

“Five thousand pounds. To start.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“There is another interested party.”

“Of course.”

“No, seriously. Winifred.” She sighed. The ever-present older sister. I was well acquainted with the ancient rivalry between the two daughters of a very absent father in addition to their financial status. Winifred could buy and sell Peggy a dozen times over.

“I found out she started collecting the Royals, too. After I did, of course.” Her phone trilled. “It’s Alec. He says, ‘The other party is ready’—what do you think?”

After a moment’s thought, I said, “Bid on it.”

“What?”

“Go ahead. Make your bid.”

She punched her phone. After a few moments she said, “Oh, she’s gone up to seven!”

“Go eight.”

She did. “Now it’s nine!”

“Keep going.”

“Eleven!”

She tapped again.

“She’s jumped to thirteen!”

“All right, stop.”

She clicked off the phone and slumped back on the settee.

“She’ll always outbid you, Peggy. She has the resources to do it.”

Charlotte came in with tea. I poured. “Your sister is now the proud owner of a letter from Elizabeth the first to her sister Mary.”

“I know!” She snatched a scone and tore into it with sharp teeth. “Why did you take Winifred’s side of it?”

I ignored that remark. “Princess Elizabeth.”

“Yes, so?”

“Princess Elizabeth. At the time.”

“Yes, so?”

“Princess Elizabeth to her sister the queen.”

“I wish you would make your point.”

What is the sticking point?



See you in the Comments for the solution!