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A Writer's Wit: Walt Whitman

5/31/2022

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My America is still all in the making. It’s a promise, a possible something: it’s to come: it’s by no means here. Besides, what do I care about the material America? America is to me an idea, a forecast, a prophecy.
​Walt Whitman
Author of Leaves of Grass
​Born May 31, 1819
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W. Whitman
FRIDAY: My Book World | Nancy Turner's These Is My Words
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Author Loves His Tulip

5/27/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
Nothing is intrinsically valuable; the value of everything is attributed to it, assigned to it from outside the thing itself, by people.
​John Barth
Author of Lost in the Funhouse
​Born May 27, 1930
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J. Barth

My Book World

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Ackerley, Joe Randolph. My Dog Tulip. With an introduction by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. New York: NYRB, 1999 (1965).

A man in his sixties when he writes this book, Ackerley tells the story of his beloved Alsatian or German Shepherd, Tulip. I began the book thinking Tulip’s story would be broader in context, but I was wrong. A large middle section involves Ackerley’s attempts to mate Tulip properly with another Alsatian. In minute detail, and in a way that only the British can do, he writes delicately about an indelicate subject: Tulip’s female parts and how they operate every time she is on heat (a term he deems crude but still uses). A swelling this, and dripping that. But overall, the book is an unsentimental portrait of what according to Ackerley is an extraordinary Alsatian bitch whom he loves very much.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Nancy Turner's These Is My Words

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A Writer's Wit: Isadora Duncan

5/26/2022

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So long as little children are allowed to suffer, there is no true love in this world.
​Isadora Duncan
Author of Isadora Speaks
Born May 26, 1877
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I. Duncan
TOMORROW: My Book World | J. R. Ackerley's My Dog Tulip
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A Writer's Wit: Jamaica Kincaid

5/25/2022

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Race is not particularly interesting to me. Power is. Who has power and who doesn't. Slavery interests me because it's an incredible violation that has not stopped. It's necessary to talk about that. Race is a diversion.
​Jamaica Kincaid
Author of Lucy
​Born May 25, 1949
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J. Kincaid
FRIDAY: My Book World | J. R. Ackerley's My Dog Tulip
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A Writer's Wit: Michael Chabon

5/24/2022

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Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” If you're really engaged in the writing, you'll work yourself out of whatever jam you find yourself in.
​Michael Chabon
Author of Wonder Boys
​Born May 24, 1963
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M. Chabon
FRIDAY: My Book World | J. R. Ackerley's My Dog Tulip
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Rosshalde: Story of a Child

5/20/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
A working definition of fathering might be this: fathering is the act of guiding a child to behave in ways that lead to the child's becoming a secure child in full, thus increasing his or her chances of being happy and fruitful as a young adult.
​Clyde Edgerton
Author of Walking Across Egypt
​Born May 20, 1944
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C. Edgerton

My Book World

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Hesse, Hermann. Rosshalde. Translated by Ralph Manheim. New York: Bantam, 1956 (1914).

Spoiler: This novel is primarily about the death of a young child, a son named Pierre. But it is also about the death of a family, how a husband and wife drift apart and divide their love between two sons, the elder “belonging” to the wife and Pierre belonging to his father. But there isn’t much belongingness for any of the family members. The book overall is about the end of their life together at the estate called Rosshalde, an expansive property, a mansion, that seems to have a life of its own. An enchanting but sad read.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | J. R. Ackerley's My Dog Tulip

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A Writer's Wit: Malcolm X

5/19/2022

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We are not fighting for integration, nor are we fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as human beings. We are fighting for . . . human rights.
​Malcolm X
Author of By Any Means Necessary: Speeches, Interviews, and a Letter
​Born May 19, 1925
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Malcolm X
TOMORROW: My Book World | Hermann Hesse's Rosshalde
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A Writer's Wit: Tina Fey

5/18/2022

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When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.
​Tina Fey
Author of Bossypants
​Born May 18, 1970
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T. Fey
FRIDAY: My Book World | Hermann Hesse's Rosshalde
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A Writer's Wit: Jill Johnston

5/17/2022

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Man is completely out of phase with nature. Nature is woman. Man is the intruder. The man who re-attunes himself with nature is the man who de-mans himself or eliminates himself as man.
​Jill Johnston
Author of Lesbian Nation
Born May 17, 1929
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J. Johnston
FRIDAY: My Book World | Hermann Hesse's Rosshalde
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Highsmith's Diaries and Notebooks

5/13/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
Take it from someone who fled the Iron Curtain: I know what happens when you give the Russians a green light.
​Madeleine Albright
Author of Fascism: A Warning
​Born May 13, 1937
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M. Albright

My Book World

Von Planta, Anna, ed. Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks. With an introduction by Joan Schenkar. New York: Liveright, 2021.

This more than fifty-year compendium of Highsmith’s 8,000 pages of diary and notebook entries is a stunning read—particularly if you savor the voyeuristic practice of reading someone’s private thoughts. Her diary entries are brutally honest about everything from her current girlfriend(s) with whom she is madly in love to resentments toward her mother, estranged father, and stepfather. Though bright enough to graduate from Barnard, she never quite masters the art of achieving a meaningful love relationship; her tone seems the same for fifty years. I can’t understand why this relationship has failed. And yet, I believe she does know why: her profession requires much alone time, which is not compatible with a needy lover.
 
Her notebooks, on the other hand, are about her current and proposed works, sometimes a poem here and there. She also talks business. About her agent(s), once her sales go international. Her publishers. Friendships, lasting ones at that, with a broad range of writers. Strong female writers (mostly part of a lesbian group of professionals) mentor Highsmith on how to navigate the heady waters of being a single woman sometimes writing about being queer. Early on, when she is young, she has sex and “love” relationships with a few men, but none of them is every satisfying.

What may be most fascinating is to watch how her life and living influence particular books. The Ripley series of five novels has such an authentic, European backdrop because besides being multilingual, Highsmith lives in Europe much of her life. Still, having been born in Fort Worth, Texas, she does return there to visit once her parents move back from New York. Yet she harbors deep resentments against her abusive mother, who lives to be ninety-five (PH nearly perceives it as a punishment), and, because of her own health problems, fails to visit upon her mother’s own funeral. A sad but triumphant ending for a triumphant but oft-times sad and lonely life. If readers have time, it is well worth theirs to read these 1,000 pages, especially if they’re curious about the writer who authored Strangers on a Train and the Ripley series of five novels, a total of thirty-two books.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World |  Hermann Hesse's Rosshalde.
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A Writer's Wit: Clementina Suárez

5/12/2022

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If there are no conditions for an active art scene, it is our duty to create them.
​Clementina Suárez
Honduran Poet
​​Born May 12, 1902
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C. Suárez
TOMORROW: My Book World | Anna Van Planta, Ed. of Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks 1941-1995
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A Writer's Wit: Mari Sandoz

5/11/2022

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. . . Indians still consider the whites a brutal people who treat their children like enemies—playthings, too, coddling them like pampered pets or fragile toys, but underneath always like enemies, enemies that must be restrained, bribed, spied upon, and punished. They believe that children so treated will grow up as dependent and immature as pets and toys, and as angry and dangerous as enemies within the family circle, to be appeased and fought.
​Mari Sandoz
Author of The Battle of the Little Bighorn
Born May 11, 1896
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M. Sandoz
NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Anna Van Planta, Ed. of Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks 1941-1995
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A Writer's Wit: John Scalzi

5/10/2022

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As a reader, I have a very short attention span and a low tolerance for boredom, and I find that comes in handy with my writing. If I get bored writing something, I pity the people who will then try to read it.
​John Scalzi
Author of The Collapsing Empire
​Born May 10, 1969 
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J. Scalzi
FRIDAY: My Book World | Anna Van Planta, Ed. of Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks 1941-1995
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Latinos Love Kissing Stories: Bésame Mucho

5/6/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
The great tragedy in the new feminist theory in America is the loss of a sense of public commitment . . . . Hungry women are not fed by this, battered women are not sheltered by it, raped women do not find justice in it, gays and lesbians do not achieve legal protections through it.
Martha C. Nussbaum
Author of Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach
​Born May 6, 1947
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M. C. Nussbaum

My Book World 

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Manrique, Jaime, ed. With Jesse Dorris. Bésame Mucho: New Gay Latino Fiction. New York: Painted Leaf, 1999.

On my shelf for a long time, I finally took this collection down and enjoyed most of the stories very much. Among the best, I believe, are Manrique’s “Señoritas in Love,” “What’s Up, Father Infante?”, a gripping story by Miguel Falquez-Certain, and “Ruby Díaz” by Al Luján. The entire collection blends together a beautiful chorus of gay Latino voices, from South America to New York to California. So much that the non-Latino community has to learn what gay Latino men face with regard to their families, their communities, and their relationship to the Roman Catholic Church. They face immense pressures to conform to cultural norms, even more so than the Anglo population, I would dare say. Kudos to these men for sharing their stories by way of lively and enlightening fiction. It never dates.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Anna Van Planta, Ed. of Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks 1941-1995

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A Writer's Wit: Karl Marx

5/5/2022

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Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
​Karl Marx
Author of Das Kapital
​Born May 5, 1818
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K. Marx
TOMORROW: My Book World | Bésame Mucho: New Gay Latino Fiction
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A Writer's Wit: Kate Garraway

5/4/2022

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If you said, “I’m giving up smoking,” people would put on a parade. If you said, “I’m going to eat more healthily,” people would say, “Good for you.” If it’s drinking, the first reaction is, “That’s so boring. You’re going to be so boring.”
​Kate Garraway
Author of The Joy of Big Knickers 
Born May 4, 1967
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K. Garraway
FRIDAY: My Book World | Bésame Mucho: New Gay Latino Fiction
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A Writer's Wit: Rick DeMarinis

5/3/2022

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Kings and cabbages go back to compost, but good deeds stay green forever.
​Rick DeMarinis
Author of The Art and Craft of the Short Story
​Born May 3, 1934
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R. DeMarinis
FRIDAY: My Book World | Bésame Mucho: New Gay Latino Fiction
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    AUTHOR
    Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA.

    See my profile at Author Central:
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