Blog - www.richardjespers.com

AN ACTOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

9/27/2024

A WRITER'S WIT
Silence and reserve will give anyone a reputation for wisdom.
Myrtle Reed
Author of Lavender and Old Lace
Born September 27, 1874

M. Reed

MY BOOK WORLD

Newman, Paul. The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir. Based on interviews and oral histories conducted by Stewart Stern. Compiled by David Rosenthal. With a foreword by Melissa Newman and an afterword by Clea Newman Soderlund. New York: Knopf, 2022.

I'm a big fan of this sensational actor, but the book leaves a lot to be desired. The man tells you over and over again that he is separated from his own feelings, and that emotional distance is evident in his very own words. He hardly says anything about his wife, actor Joanne Woodward, and, even though he mentions going through therapy (finally), he doesn’t reveal much about the process or how it might transform his life from curmudgeon to kind philanthropist. The compilers cover only a fraction of his films. All in all, disappointing.

Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Jimmy Carter (100th birthday)
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Maria Ressa
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Thomas Wolfe
FRI: My Book World | Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

A WRITER'S WIT: SCOTT HEIM

9/26/2024

I like working with memory. Not the truth of memory, but how characters remember an event, either truthfully or not. Something happened to us in the past, and we think we know how it happened, but over twenty years it completely changed.
Scott Heim
Author of Mysterious Skin
Born September 26, 1966

S. Heim

Up Next:
FRI: My Book World | Paul Newman, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Jimmy Carter (100th birthday)
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Maria Ressa
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Thomas Wolfe

A WRITER'S WIT: Carlos Ruiz Zafón

9/25/2024

My work as a screenwriter has influenced my fiction. Writing screenplays forces you to consider many elements regarding story structure and other narrative devices that can be used to enhance the infinitely more complex demands of a novel.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Spanish author of La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind)
Born September 25, 1964

C. Zafón

Up Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Scott Heim
FRI: My Book World | Paul Newman: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

A WRITER'S WIT: ALICE ROSSI

9/24/2024

The single most impressive fact about the attempt by American women to obtain the right to vote is how long it took.
Alice Rossi
Author of Of Human Bonding: Parent-Child Relations across the Life Course
Born September 24, 1922

A. Rossi

Up Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Carlos Ruiz Zafón
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Scott Heim
FRI: My Book World | Paul Newman, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

HOW ART IS MADE

9/20/2024

A WRITER'S WIT
My kids have grown up knowing that their mom made a big investment in making sure there was art and language instruction in school and books in the library. Hopefully, they’ve internalized that.
Elise Broach
Author of The Miniature World of Marvin & James
Born September 20, 1963

E. Broach

MY BOOK WORLD

Moss, Adam. The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing. New York: Penguin, 2024.

I chose to read this book because I’ve always been interested in how creative people work, and because I heard author Adam Moss speak of his book on PBS’s Amanpour and Company. Moss, noted editor and journalist, over a period of many years, interviews forty-three artists, and he paints these portraits, so to speak, with a broad brush. He includes not only visual artists but writers, playwrights, poets, film directors, musician-composers, and some you wouldn’t consider artists at all. For example, he tells the story of two restaurateurs who create a new sandwich and a couple of men who build complex sand castles and photograph the final results.

The book is a visual delight. Moss includes an abundance of visual documentation: photographs, doodles, notebooks, and more. He recreates entire conversations with his subjects, notating who is speaking by way of a script-like presentation. He uses a red font for a sentence and a thin red line extending with an arrow to the example he wishes for you to view. He divides his text into bite-sized sections labeled in bold with a subtitle concerning the text to follow. Moreover, because he has known some of these people for so long, his narrative is a personal one. You feel as if you’ve been let in on some great secrets. Nearly half of the pages include footnotes in a teeny tiny font that challenges readers my age, but I read each one and they all seemed pertinent.

Moss’s subjects appear to have a master plan, whether it is a doodle on a napkin (such a cliché, but I can’t help it) to yards of paper outlining a project. Some projects take years, maybe decades, to come to fruition. The artist or writer abandons a project, then returns, a pattern repeated many times among Moss’s subjects. Or these people may produce many versions or drafts of the same work until it in some way pleases them as being “done.” Many feel that a particular piece is never done; it’s just time to quit and move on to something else.

Moss seems to be finishing this book during the pandemic. Many of the artists speak of how they deal with its chaos and isolation, how much is incorporated into their work or how hard they attempt to ignore the cataclysm and get on with their own work. Moss has selected a particularly apt title, because he demonstrates over and over again the sheer amount of labor—work—that goes into making art. A fine read for anyone but especially those looking for a handle on how art is made.

Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Alice Rossi
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Carlos Ruiz Zafon
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Scott Heim
FRI: My Book World | Paul Newman, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

A WRITER'S WIT: TANITH LEE

9/19/2024

Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.
Tanith Lee
Author of Night's Master
Born September 18, 1947

T. Lee

Up Next:
FRI: My Book World | Adam Moss, The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Alice Rossi
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Carlos Ruiz Zafon
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Scott Helm

A WRITER'S WIT: ANNA DEAVERE SMITH

9/18/2024

My work is about giving voice to the unheard, and reiterating the voice of the heard in such a way that you question, or re-examine, what is the truth.
Anna Deavere Smith, Screenwriter
Author of The American President
Born September 18, 1950

A. Smith

Up Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Tanith Lee
FRI: My Book World | Adam Moss, The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing

A WRITER'S WIT: KEN KESEY

9/17/2024

Listen, wait, and be patient. Every shaman knows you have to deal with the fire that’s in your audience’s eye.
Ken Kesey
Author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Born September 17, 1935

K. Kesey

Up Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Anna Deavere Smith
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Tanith Lee
FRI: My Book World | Adam Moss, The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing

THE TGIF CLUB

9/13/2024

A WRITER'S WIT
There is within every human being a deep well of thinking over which a heavy iron lid is kept clamped.
Sherwood Anderson
Author of Death in the Woods
Born September 13, 1876

S. Anderson

MY BOOK WORLD

Dunne, Griffin. The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir. New York: Random, 2024.

There may be several big takeaways from this celebrity memoir. One, rich (celebrities) and poor (ordinary citizens) alike can suffer from alcohol and drug problems. Two, rich and poor alike may lose a family member to murder and lose, as well, the court case against the accused murderer. Three, rich or poor, family support can mean everything to an individual who’s attempting to suffer through or recover from life’s insurmountable problems. Dunne—actor, producer, director, and writer—writes with humor (usually on the sardonic side) and understanding about his alcoholic father (also in the Biz and later a best-selling novelist), a difficult but caring mother with MS; his long friendship with the late Carrie Fisher (who hails from a similar background); the murder of his beloved sister, Dominique. At the same time the author portrays his mostly solid and loving relationships with relatives close and distant (his father’s brother is married to author Joan Didion, yet the two brothers do not speak for years). All in all, an enjoyable memoir. I know I kept turning the pages.

Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Ken Kesey
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Anna Deavere Smith
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Tanith Lee
FRI: My Book World | Adam Moss, The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing

MICHAEL ONDAATJE

9/12/2024

The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human. Meander if you want to get to town.
Michael Ondaatje
Author of Divisadero
Born September 12, 1943

M. Ondaatje

Up Next:
FRI: My Book World | Griffin Dunne, The Friday Afternoon Club: A Memoir
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Ken Kesey
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Anna Deavere Smith
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Tanith Lee

A WRITER'S WIT: MARIA BARTIROMO

9/11/2024

Some studies show that women can be better money managers than men because they tend to be more conservative and do their homework. Men tend to take more risks without the research.
Maria Bartiromo, Journalist
Born September 11, 1967

M. Bartiromo

Up Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Michael Ondaatje
FRI: My Book World | Griffin Dunne, The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

A WRITER'S WIT: MARY OLIVER

9/10/2024

The world where the owl is endlessly hungry and endlessly on the hunt is the world in which I live too.
Mary Oliver, Poet
Author of Dog Songs
Born September 10, 1935

M. Oliver

Up Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Maria Bartiromo
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Michael Ondaatje
FRI: My Book World | Griffin Dunne, The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

GOD SAVE WHAT?

9/6/2024

A WRITER'S WIT
Depending on where I am in the process, sometimes I have a page count and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I have an hour count; sometimes I’m just happy to string a few words together. I do keep pretty rigorous hours, because otherwise you never get anything done.
Alice Sebold
Author of The Lovely Bones
Born September 6, 1963

A. Sebold

MY BOOK WORLD

Wright, Lawrence. God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State. New York: Knopf, 2018.

I enjoyed reading this compendium of essays about contemporary Texas written by a noted journalist a few months older than I. I could picture myself where I was in my life at the same timeframe he was talking about: the JFK assassination, for instance. (I was a high school sophomore; he was a junior.) That discussion takes place in Chapter Seven titled, “Dallas.”

In Chapter Six, “Turn the Radio On,” Wright asserts there are two Texases. One is AM Texas, the other FM Texas. Of course, FM Texas is located in the large metropolitan areas: Houston, DFW, San Antonio, and more recently, Austin (whose population was only 250,000 people in the early 1970s). These radio stations serve as ready metaphors. FM Texas is made of smooth-sounding music of different varieties from classical to jazz to reggae and others. AM Texas is all country, except for the talk radio stations that are largely fundamentalist and conservative in nature. The city-dwellers (many transplants from the North and East) are moderate to liberal in their political leanings, the AM group more conservative, in fact, voted largely for Trump. In this chapter Wright also tackles the subject of guns:

“In the spring of 2016, I signed up to take a class at Central Texas Gun Works that would qualify me to carry a weapon. There were about thirty people in the class, including six women. Most of the day was spent learning the Texas general firearms laws, which are more nuanced and confusing than I expected. One can’t carry a gun in amusement parks, hospitals, sporting events, school buses, bars, a polling place, a court, a correctional facility, or ‘within 1000 feet of a correctional facility designated as a place of execution on a day execution if proper notice is posted.’ Private businesses, such as supermarkets, can ban guns from their premises; Whole Foods has done so, but Kroger has not” (155).

Even though Wright’s writing is fascinating and his facts interesting, and even though the book was published in 2018, parts of it (especially about Texas politics) can seem dated. Not the writer’s fault—just that because of rapid change the material has not aged well.

Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Mary Oliver
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Maria Bartiromo
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Michael Ondaatje
FRI: My Book World | Griffin Dunne, The Friday Afternoon Club: A Memoir

A WRITER'S WIT: JOHN CAGE

9/5/2024

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.
John Cage, Composer and Music Theorist
"Concert for Piano and Orchestra"
Born September 5, 1912

J. Cage

Up Next:
FRI: My Book World | Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Mary Oliver
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Maria Bartiromo
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Michael Ondaatje

A WRITER'S WIT: RICHARD WRIGHT

9/4/2024

If we had been allowed to participate in the vital processes of America’s national growth, what would have been the textures of our lives, the pattern of our traditions, the routine of our customs, the state of our arts, the code of our laws, the function of our government! . . . We black folk say that America would have been stronger and greater.
Richard Wright
Author of Native Son
Born September 4, 1908

R. Wright

Up Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | John Cage
FRI: My Book World | Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas

A WRITER'S WIT: SARAH ORNE JEWETT

9/3/2024

In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness.
Sarah Orne Jewett
Author of The Country of the Pointed Firs, 15
Born September 3, 1849

S. Jewett

Up Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit |Richard Wright
THURS: A Writer's Wit | John Cage
FRI: My Book World | Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas