BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: PEOPLE #2

AL CAPONE AS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR



" Capone came along to change the subject and give sex a well-earned holiday. The movie massacres were like a breath of pure air after all the impropriety and misconduct of the films."

Alva Johnston. "Capone, King of Crime' in Vanity Fair (May 1931)

**

WINSTON CHURCHILL DESCRIBES LORD CHARLES BERESFORD

"He is one of those orators of whom it was well said, 'Before they get up they do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking, they do not what they are saying; and when they sit down, they do not know what they have said."
**

THOMAS JEFFERSON

'I think it's the most extraordinary collectiom of talent,
human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

John F. Kennedy, at a dinner for U.S. Nobel Prize Winners
(29 April 1962)
**

THE FATHER OF ACCOUNTING

"An Italian mathematician and friar who lived in the 15th century, Luca Pacioli is widely considered the “Father of Accounting.” But his skills expanded beyond bookkeeping: He’s also one of the earliest writers on the art of magic. His unpublished 1508 book De Viribus Quantitatis discusses an array of magic tricks: how to make an “egg walk over a table,” how to make a “cooked chicken jump on the table,” and how to “make a snow torch that burns.” He’s also the first to discuss various card tricks, coin tricks, and fire-eating techniques."

https://www.interestingfacts.com/influential-magicians/Yp6adVuKogAHE3uP?liu=a28bbdc7f2e0154569dc36b4f43a3c0e&utm_source=blog&utm_medium=email&utm_cam
**
THE FABULOUS JOE GOULD

“Let me introduce myself. The name is Joseph Ferdinand Gould, graduate of Harvard, magna cum difficulte, class of 1911, and chairman of the board of Weal and Work, Incorporated. In exchange for a drink, I’ll recite a poem, deliver a lecture, argue a point, or take off my shoes and imitate a sea gull. I prefer gin, but beer will do.”

Recorded by Joseph Mitchell in The New Yorker 
(December 12, 1942

**

SIR EDMUND GOSSE

Gosse was a prolific man of letters who was quite influential in his day. He translated three of Ibsen’s plays, notably Hedda Gabler (1891) and The Master Builder (1892; with W. Archer). He wrote literary histories, such as 18th Century Literature (1889) and Modern English Literature (1897), as well as biographies of Thomas Gray (1884), John Donne (1899), Ibsen (1907), and other writers. Some of his many critical essays were collected in French Profiles (1905). Unfortunately, Gosse was active just before the modern revolution in standards of scholarship and criticism, so that much of his critical and historical output now appears amateurish in its inaccuracies and carelessness."

from THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
*
T.S. Eliot said: "I cannot  conceive of a future society
in which Sir Edmund Gosse would be possible."
**

JESSE JAMES

“He was honest except when he went out to rob (there was no paradox in that to him,).”
                  Homer Croy. Jesse James Was my Neighbor

**

BABE PALEY AND HER HUSBAND WILLIAM S. PALEY

“When we read of Babe Paley’s being driven by her 
chauffeur to Kennedy Airport  so that she can pick
up the freshly shot game bird she has had flown in 
from Europe for her husband’s dinner, our disappointment
at being financially incapable of this sort of thing 
is exactly balanced by our satisfaction in feeling 
morally incapable of it as well.”

Louis Menand.  “The Last Emperor: William S. Paley” in

American Studies (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,2002)

**

JANET FLANNER (Who wrote for The New Yorker under the pen name Genet)

“The nom de plume of Genet was given me by Ross without asking me first…Owing to Ross’s speaking no printable French he did not know that Genet was the broom-flower, a civet cat, and also a jennet , which  is a small Spanish horse, as well as a not very reliable French journalist who after the French Revolution was the first Franco-American Gazeteer.”

CURRENT BIOGRAPHY (March 1943)
**

MAX BEERBOHM HAS LUNCH WITH GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

“In 1906 Max lunched with him to meet Mark Twain, on a visit to
England. Lunch was scarcely over when Shaw jumped up and left.
saying that he had an appointment with his dentist. Was this the way, Max exclaimed to Florence, to treat an aged and distinguished author from hospitable America! Nor could he reconcile himself to Shaw’s appearance. ‘He had a temperance beverage face,’ he said altogether Shaw was too much of a good thing.”
*Florence was Beerbohm’s wife

David Cecil. Max (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1964)

**

"No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius." — Dr. Samuel Johnson


COMPUTING THE FORCE OF MY OWN GENIUS


My I.Q. + My age + The Amount of money I owe MasterCard - the number of copies of my latest book of poems sold on Amazon + the number of persons who read my blog - the number of persons who comment on my blogs, X the money in my savings account,- the number of rejection slips I have received in my lifetime + the number of women who have said they would rather be exiled to Siberia than be seen in public with me + the number of fan letters I received in 2023 (hint the number is less than 2), +
the number of movies I have seen + the number of persons who have complained about my jokes - the number of books I have overdue at the library  DIVIDE THE TOTAL  BY ZERO = ? (show your work on a separate page)


LJP