September 25 - They Say It's Your Birthday!

 

 

Most talented, most charming, most wonderful, crazy man!

Today is his birthday!

This is me with Jimmy's sister, C.J.! In Pensacola, Florida at her gracious, charming home.

Here's wonderful Philip Colin Mitchell,

Jimmy's best friend and my best friend,

with Phil's beautiful daughter Rachel!

 

Here's a geeky picture of Jimmy in the tenth or eleventh grade!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ5rx08TYXE

 

 

We all miss you.

 

Peter Matthiessen

Here's a marvelous picture of Peter Matthiessen, a fabulous writer, author of many, many books worth reading. Born in New York City in 1927, he was a founder of The Paris Review in 1950.

I first became acquainted with this author when I read his stellar book, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, a look at the events surrounding the arrest and incarceration of American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, and chronicling the tumultuous history between the Sioux and the United States Government.

A lawsuit against the author and Viking Press by Bill Janklow, the former governor of South Dakota, kept the book from being sold to the public for eight years after its publication. The court ruled in favor of the author and the publisher.

Other notable books written by Mr. Matthiessen include At Play in the Fields of the Lord, The Tree Where Man Was Born, The Snow Leopard, Killing Mr. Watson, Indian Country, African Silences, Shadow Country, and many more.

An interview with Peter Matthiessen discussing his book, Shadow Country, can be found at www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9104

Calling All Quilters !

I need a Drunkard's Path quilt.

In my novel, Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, the little girl named Lily Claire has a red calico Drunkard's Path quilt, made by her grandmother, Granny Rilla. While writing the book, I always had the intention of making a Drunkard's Path quilt, thinking I would use it as an illustration, maybe on the title page or back of the book.

Well, events went into fast forward mode, my book was published by Chalet Publishers, with the most beautiful cover any book has ever had, and I still want the quilt.

I have wondered if any quilters would be interested in donating one red calico Drunkard's Path block; then I could assemble all the blocks and, at last, have my wonderful representation of Lily Claire's quilt! If, as Mick Jagger says, Time is on my Side, I can do the quilting and binding, or coerce some willing friend or relative to pitch in for an old-fashioned quilting bee.

The quilt would be displayed at booksignings and programs, and might one day be featured in the film version of Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge!

Contact me if you would like to make one Drunkard's Path block, and I'll supply fabric and pattern if needed.

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

Drac' is back!
Bram Stoker's great grand-nephew has published a sequel to the hair-raising classic DRACULA, first published in 1897. That's about when I read it the first time also! My sister and I took turns reading aloud from the book, cover to cover, when I was a pre-teen and she was a young teen.


Dacre Stoker's new book is titled Dracula the Undead. (I don't know how you pronouce the name Dacre; maybe we'll find out later.) Apparently this sequel takes up 25 years after the end of the original story, and looks like Count Dracula wasn't as dead as we all thought. Well, he crumbled into green dust! That looked pretty final to me.

That's Dacre with the bats.

So now we have something new to read, just in time for Halloween!

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, there was a moocow coming down along the road, and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named Baby Tuckoo...
His father told him that story.

So begins the story of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, written by James Joyce, first published as a serial in The Egoist in 1914 - 1915. This strongly autobiographical novel chronicles the life of young Stephen Dedalus, the oldest of ten children in an Irish Catholic family at the turn of the century. The book opens with a stream of consciousness narrative written from a child's perspective, with sensual imagery and words approximating baby talk.

Throughout the novel, the Dedalus family makes a series of moves into increasingly dilapidated homes as their finances dwindle. As a very young boy, Stephen enters boarding school at Clongowes, but soon is forced to withdraw because of his family's poverty. The family moves to Blackrock, where Stephen takes long walks with his Uncle Charles and goes on imaginary adventures with boys from around the neighbourhood. When Stephen is a bit older, the family moves to Dublin, once again because of financial difficulties. There he meets a girl named Emma Clere, who is to be the object of his adoration right up until the end of the book.

As Stephen matures, he struggles with feelings of isolation, sexual fantasies, association with prostitutes, spiritual confession, then religious fanaticism. As this period of religious obsession passes, he becomes increasingly frustrated with Catholicism. Influenced by works of Aquinas and Aristotle on the subject of beauty, the young man develops his own theory of aesthetics concerning beauty and art.

He has come to regard Ireland as a trap, and realizes that he must escape the constraints of nation, family, and religion. Stephen imagines his escape as something parallel to the flight of Daedalus in Greek mythology, who escaped from his prison with wings crafted by his own genius. The book ends with Stephen leaving Ireland to pursue the life of a writer.

I first read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a sophomore in high school, and have returned to it many times, feeling the mixed emotions associated with a return to a childhood home.




A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Maniac


Here's me, not in Ireland but in euphoria!
I'm wearing a pale yellow dress with white collar and brown smocking, made by my mother. The expression on my face pretty much reflects my general state of baffled happiness, then and now! This is my first grade picture, and even then, as now, my motto was "Smoke 'em if you got'em."











This blog is dedicated to the memory of the artist and young man, James Thomas Owens, who introduced me to James Joyce.

A Delightful Man With a Funny Name

There's a book out there somewhere titled No, I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub. Though I haven't read it, I believe it's written by a middle-aged woman taking a stand against getting involved with all the fun stuff we get involved with as we mature.

Well, I am a member of a book club, I must admit. Called The Bookmarkers, we are twelve-or-so ladies who love to read good books, and we get together every so often to talk about the books we read. Now, doesn't that sound like fun? Everyone should join a bookclub; it's a brain-stretching activity.

The book we'll be reading next is Down the Garden Path by a fellow named Beverley Nichols.

Beverley Nichols was a multitalented British socialite who is apparently best remembered for his garden writings. Handsome, urbane, and possessed of a delightful sense of humor, Nichols has emerged as one of the most enduring garden writers of the previous century. He starred in movies in the 1920s, wrote music and songs for the theater, reported for newspapers, and wrote his own memoirs early on, plus numerous novels, mysteries, cat books, and biographies. Lucky for us, he loved plants, gardens, and the eccentric personalities associated with them.

Here's a wonderful Beverley Nichols website to click and view. Look at the Black Kitties!

http://www.timberpress.com/beverleynichols/index.cfm