"When I was growing up, we had a petting zoo, and well, we had two sections. We had a petting zoo, and then we had a heavy petting zoo, for people who really liked animals a lot." Ellen De Generis ** FROM ANN LANDERS' COLUMN ABOUT
"The bride who phoned her mother on her honeymoon to say she was on her way home. Her husband waa a mortician and confessed that he could enjoy sex only with women who were dead or pretended to be. He instructed her to lie in a bathtub filled with very cold water for at least 20 minutes, then come to bed and pretend she was dead."
"Ann Landers Readers' 10 Most Unusual Problems" in The New Book of Lists by David Wallechinsky (New York: Canongate, 2005) **
INCREASING SEXUAL AROUSAL
"There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz SL500." Frank Sinatra
** THE OUTLINE GUIDE TO THE KAMA SUTRA
If you are going to read the Kama Sutra, be sure to read the whole book from cover to cover. Do not read a plot synopsis or an Outline Guide. I had some general idea about contortist positions, but women were inevitably disappointed that I had neglected the finer points of love-making, Foreplay -- what is that? Of course when I was young and dating, there were the initials GU, standing for a person who lived too far away and therefore was Geographically Undesireable. The I met a beautiful young woman who said I was AU. "You mean I am Golden." "No," she said. "Absolutely undesirable."
LJP
**
"I have so much cybersex, my baby's first words will be, "You've got mail" Paula R. Hawkins
** ON BEING ONE'S WIFE'S BUSINESS MANAGER
"Being a strong woman and having a strong marriage don't necessarily go together. I could give you a list of strong women who had husbands that were like valets. I once asked a friend who managed his wife, 'Do you ever have sex with her?' 'Only,' he said, 'if it will further her career.'"
Alan King, with Chris Chase. The Life and Lies of Alan King: Name-Dropping (New York: Scribners, 1996) **
"Japanese women inherit their breasts from their fathers."
Tamayo Otsuki ** DO NOT EAT THE ARENOTLICON BRUTE
"There is an animal which is called hyena in Greek and the brute in Latin. The Law said, 'Thou shalt not eat the brute, nor anything similar to it' (cf. Lev. 11:27). This animal is an Arenotelicon (hermaphrodite) , that is an alternate male-female, at one time it becomes a male, at another a female, and it is unclean because it has two natures." from the Physiologus
Charles Stewart. Demons and the Devil. (Princeton University Press, 1991)
**
"Sex is one of the most wholesome, beautiful, and natural experiences money can buy." Steve Martin D.H. LAWRENCE
D. H. Lawrence – Censors showing great abhorrence Toward Lady Chatterly’s Lover, Drooled over it from cover to cover.
**
" The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less."
Brendan Behan ** ON THE SEX LIVES OF MOSS
"Moss sperm are produced in great numbers, but each tiny cell has a vanishingly small chance of ever finding an egg.Unlike the peepers who call so strenuously to their mates, moss sperm have no signal to guide them to their destination and so swim at random in the water film. Most are simply lost in the labyrinth of leaves."
Robin Wall Kimmerer. Gathering Moss: A study of A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses(Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2003) ** ON READING PEYTON PLACE
"The wives traded copies of Peyton Place, a steamy novel about sex and feminism..." Jill Lepore. If/Then Seated on the floor Between her bed & the wall, My sister Leslie Was reading Peyton Place
When my grandmother, Who shared the room With my two sisters, Caught her in the act "I am glad to know you, Mrs. MacKenzie," said Rossi, and he thought, Very glad to know you, baby. I want to know you a lot better, on a bed, for instance, with that blond hair spread out a pillow."
& demanded that she go Straight to Catholic Church, Our Lady of something or other, To confess the sin
Of having fires in the blood, Fires any adolescent had, That is, if a person was Lucky enough to live that long.
"I can throw out any man alive." Johnny Bench Catcher, Cincinnati Reds ** JUDGE KENESAW MOUNTAIN LANDIS
"Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball's seventy- eight-year-old comissioner is the only successful dictator in United States history. There is no recourse from his decisions; answerable to no one. he can impose any fine or punishment he wishes for failure to obey any rule he sets for the industry which employs him."
CURRENT BIOGRAPHY (May 1944) **
The first baseball player to hit 25 home runs in a season "was Bucky Freeman, outfielder of the Washington club of the National League who hit 25 home runs and 27 triples in 1899." FAMOUS FIRST FACTS, 5th edition, edited by Joseph Kane, Steve Anzovin,nand Janet Podell (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1998) ** ON PITCHING TO STAN MUSIAL
Carl Erskine: “I've had pretty good success with Stan by throwing him my best pitch and backing up third.” ** YANKEE GREATS IN A 1960 FILM Cary Grant was a huge fan of the New York Yankees, which likely made it easier for the producers to get Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to appear in the film.
iDMb Trivia for the 1960 film THAT TOUCH OF MINK, starring Doris Day and Cary Grant **
FROM COMPOSER JAMES D'ANGELO
Thanks for all of these quotations and the great Ted Williams poem. It was pure nostalgia reading it because i was such a follower of baseball as a boy, at least until 16-18. I was a follower (not a fan =fanatic) ofthe Cleveland Indians. In the autumn of 1948, the PE teacher who came into our grammar school said, “Today we going to listen to the World Series on the radio. It could have been the final game of the Boston Braves vs. Cleveland Indians, an all-tribal affair. And Cleveland won that series. It was my introduction to baseball and I decided that Cleveland would be my team. It never crossed my mind that I had to support a NY team. So I could only see my Indians when they played the Yankees, the dominant team of that period. But, in 1954, Cleveland bested the Yankees and played the NY Giants in the WS. And wouldn’t you know it? They lost 4 straight. Willie Mays was sensational. I never entered the Polo Grounds. Only once at Ebbets Field, home of the Dodgers. Only Yankee Stadium. The 1954 first base man for the Indians had the wonderful name of Luke Easter. ** “I’ve seen a lot of powerful hitters in my time but for sheer ability to knock a ball great distances, I’ve never seen anybody better than Easter — and I’m not excepting Babe Ruth.” — Del Baker ** LUCIOUS "LUKE EASTER" ] Luscious “Luke” Easter was born August 4, 1915 at 8:15 PM in Jonestown, Mississippi. During his playing career and later in life, Easter would equivocate on his birth date. Indians general manager Hank Greenberg once said, “no one knows how old Luke really is. No one, that is, but Luke himself, and sometimes I’m not sure that he knows.”
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/luke-easter/
On 29 Mar. 1979,Luke Easter was killed by bank robbers while cashing his fellow workers' paychecks. **
"I've got the right to knock down anybody holding a bat." Early Wynn **
BASEBALL PLAYERS' SALARIES FOR THE 1869 SEASON
The first baseball team whose players received a regular salary was the Cincinnai Red Stockings. "A salary of $1,400 was paid to the shortstop, $1,200 to the center fielder, $1,100 to the pitcher, $1,000 to the 3rd baseman, $800 to first and the second baseman, the catcher, and left and right outfielders, and the substitute."
FAMOUS FIRST FACTS, 5th edition, edited by Joseph Kane, Steve Anzovin,nand Janet Podell (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1998 **
IN 1951 BOB "SUGAR" CAIN PITCHED AGAINST THE MIDGET EDDIE GAEDEL, THE MIDGET THAT BILL VEECK SENT UP TO BAT AS A PINCH HITTER
"Two of the most exciting things that happened, was pitching against the midget(Cain was the only baseball person at Gaedel's funeral in 1961) and also a game against Bob Feller when we both pitched a one-hitter and I beat him 1-0." This was the first time that two opposing pitchers had thrown one-hitters since Three Fingers Brown of the Cubs and Lefty Leifield of the Pirates had done it in 1906."
Burnham Holmes. One Shining Moment. Sports Heroes For a Day(New York: HarperTorch,2003) **
LOU GEHRIG IN THE 1938 MOVIE RAWHIDE
Rawhide is a 1938 American Western film starring Lou Gehrig and released by 20th Century-Fox. It was directed by Ray Taylor and produced by Sol Lesser from a screenplay by Jack Natteford and Daniel Jarrett. The cinematography was by Allen Q. Thompson. This is the only Hollywood movie in which baseball great Lou Gehrig made a screen appearance, playing himself as a vacationing ballplayer visiting his sister Peggy (played by Evalyn Knapp) on a ranch in the fictional town of Rawhide, Montana.[2] The film remains available on DVD and VHS formats."
WIKIPEDIA,entry for RAWHIDE
**
RING LARDNER'S SONNET If Ring Lardner ever wrote a sonnet, I've never heard about it." Adolphe Menjou
That time of year thou mayest in me behold When rookie hurlers , some or few, do hang A sliding curve which strikes against the cold Bat of some hitter, where late my fastball sang; Girlie, in me thou see'st the twilight of my day, While my team -the Giants-- fades in the West. Late in the season a rummer bunch takes away Another pennant, that doth seal up all the rest. Girlie, thou see'st the dimming of my career That on the ashes of my dead arm do lie. My arm is well wore out and must expire, Doin' nothin' with that which it was nourished by. Well, girlie, no merriment in this tune: I love this game which I must leave too soon.
"Virginia Woolf wrote that the cinema was a case of the savages beginning not with two bars of iron and working up to Mozart, but with grand pianos and nothing to play."
Pauline Kael, reviewing Ryan's Daughter in The New Yorker (November 21, 1979) ** JOAN CRAWFORD WANTS TO SING OPERA
David Niven, interviewed by Dick Cavett, revealed that actress Joan Crawford wanted to sing opera. She hired the MGM Orchestra and she made a recording of her singing Aida. She asked Fred Astaire and his wife, and Niven to listen to the recording. It was God-awful, Niven recalled. "It was painful.Two full sides of the record. Fred went an extraordinary color. His face turned blue." It took all their strength and self control to keep from bursting out laughing. When the record finished they told Crawford that she was very good.
** ZASU PITTS
Zasu Pitts-- When One of the Hollywoods wits Quipped: "Her name is prnounced Za-Sue," I brilliantly replied "Is that so"?
**
Zasu Pitts Appeared in a number of hits & some flops. She was in movies with a talking mule or in ones with crooks & cops.
**
SOMETHING GOOD
“’Something Good’ which the archivist Dino Everett rediscovered in 2017 and the scholar Allyson Nadia Field helped identify , shows two vaudeville performers clasping hands and kissing. The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2018 and noted that it ‘may represent the earliest example of African American intimacy onscreen.’”
Ben Kenigsberg. “It Starts With a Kiss in the 19th Century” in. The New York Times (January13,2022) ** MUSSOLINI'S MISTRESS & THE 1964 FILM MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE
"Domenico arranges an apartment in Naples for Filumena. The former tenant's belongings are still in. There is a picture of Clara Petacci ( = dictator Mussolini's mistress) on the wall and Filumena asks when is this going to be removed. The scene is set to late 1940's, so this obviously symbolizes Italy's transition from fascism to a republic. Mussolini himself would probably not have passed the censors."
iMDb trivia
** SHORT REVIEW
"If you think the title ('A BEAUTIFUL LIFE') stinks, try the movie." Anthony Lane **
TALLULAH BANKHEAD, WATCHING HERSELF IN THE MOVIE -- DIE! DIE! MY DARLING!
"At her first closeup she called out: 'I want to apologize for looking older than God's wet nurse.' as years earlier she said: 'They used to shoot Shirley Temple through gauze. They should shoot me through linoleum."
Denis Brian. Tallulah, Darling (New York: MacMillan,1972) ** LOVE AND SEX IN MOVIE ADVERTISING
"Bernard Macfadden, pledging himself to restore the sanctuary of family life in America, advertised a batch of his own films thus: 'Love that defies the World ! Soul-crushing drama! Girls' greatest questions! Life's pitalls! burning love-passionate hate -- Love's siren call!' "One Hollywood copywriter helped himself liberally to a stanza of Byron's Don Juan:
"HER HUSBAND DREW THE GIRL TO HIM AND --a long,long kiss, a kiss of love and youth and beauty, all concentrating like rays into one focus, kindled from above; such kisses as belong to early days. Where heart, soul and sense in concert move, and the blood is lava, and the pulse is ablaze."
E. S. Turner. The Shocking History of Advertising. (New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, Inc. 1953) ** CAROLE LOMBARD IN TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934)
"Howard Hawks was concerned when Carole Lombard could not perform the kicking scene very well. Hawks took her out for a walk and recalls, "I asked her how much money she was getting for this picture. She told me ($2000) and I said, 'What would you say if I told you you'd earned your whole salary this morning and didn't have to act anymore?' And she was stunned. So I said, 'Now forget about the scene. What would you do if someone said such and such to you?' And she said, 'I'd kick him in the balls.' And I said, 'Well, he (John Barrymore) said something like that - why don't you kick him?' She said, 'Are you kidding?' And I said, 'No.'" Hawks ended the conversation with, "Now we're going back in and make this scene and you kick, and you do any damn thing that comes into your mind that's natural, and quit acting. If you don't quit, I'm going to fire you this afternoon." Hawks' white lies did the trick, and the scene was filmed. In addition, Hawks claimed that after that, Lombard never began another movie without sending him a telegram that read, "I'm gonna start kicking him."
iMBd Trivia -- TWENTIETH CENTURY ** LUC SANTE ON NICK ADAMS
"Nick Adams died young, of 'an overdose of drugs he was taking for a nervous disorder,' and this was entirely in character, could have been more appropriate only if he had literally exploded."
Luc Sante. "Rogues Gallery" in O.K. You Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors, edited by Luc Sante and Melissa Holbrook Pierson (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999)
**
A DOORBELL RINGS ON THE SCREEN & I GET UP TO ANSWER THE DOOR
I am beginning to think that my life is One succession of movies after another, Saccules of images at 24 fps. I go to the movies & then I go home, I turn on TV to watch more movies, Skewed days of my life inwoven With frame of light,then darkness, Light, then darkness again. Days like this mean nothing. Lovers, removing clothes, embrace, Fireworks explode in the night sky & a train enters a tunnel. I watch bodies more buff than mine, & I grow restless with longing. Saxophones are playing, But they are not real saxophones.
Emily Dickinson’s hair was for sale on eBay, for an asking price of $250,000.
AMERICA'S LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE HOT DOG
"By 1894 college publications at Yale may have been the first to jokingly call vendors' carts 'dog wagons' that sold "little dogs' or 'hot dogs.'At the time, there was a popular belief that dog meat could turn up in sausages (not totally without reason), so the Ivy League origins of the term are satirical, the scholars say. The dog-meat rumor prompted the Coney Island Chamber of Congress in 1913 to forbid vendors from using the term 'hot dogs' -- evidently without long-term success."
Juan Jose' Sanchez."The Hot Dog: American Icon" in National Geographic History, vol.7, ** JEWISH SOLDIERS IN WORLD WAR II
G.I. JEW: EATING HAM FOR UNCLE SAM
The title of Chapter 8 of Sidney Lumet: A Life by Laura Spiegel (NY: St. Martin's Press, 2019)
** THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURES
“My view of history is that trusting the better angels of our natures is a bad bet. The founders didn’t believe in the better angels: they created a constitution which was designed to deal with imperfect humans.” Joseph Ellis **
OKLAHOMAO.K. The name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw language phrase okla, 'people', and humma, translated as 'red'.[10][16] Choctaw Nation Chief Allen Wright suggested the name in 1866 during treaty negotiations with the federal US government on the use of Indian Territory. He envisioned an all exclusive American Indian state controlled by the United States bureau of Indian Affairs. Oklahoma later became the de facto name for Oklahoma Territory, and it was officially approved in 1890, two years after that area was opened to American settlers.[17][18][19]In the Chickasaw language, the state is known as Oklahomma', in Arapaho as bo'oobe' (lit. 'red earth'),[20] Pawnee: Uukuhuúwa,[21] and Cayuga: Gahnawiyoˀgeh.[22]**
WIKIPEDIA
DOUBLE DACTYL by the late NEIL HICKEY
Higgledy piggledy General Washington Dallied with Sally and Mortgaged the farm. Martha took washing in, Cursing the day that she Incomprehensibly Fell for his charm. **
SCOTT SHANE DISCOVERS THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM "UNDERGROUND RAILROAD" -FIRST USED BY THOMAS SMALLWOOD IN 1842
"Addressing in his usual antic style a Washington slaveholder whose 'walking property walked off.' as he once put it. Mr. Smallwood told the man 'It was your cruelty to him that made him disappear by the same 'underground railroad or 'steam balloon,' about which one of your city constables was swearing so bitterly a few weeks ago, when complaining the 'd--d rascals got off so, and no trace of them could be found."
Scott Shane. " The Man Who Named the Underground Railroad" in Sunday Opinion, The New York Times (September 17,2023),p.10. **
ON WALT KELLY'S COMIC STRIP "POGO"
"Senator Joe McCarthy’s appearance in the strip in 1953, as a malicious wildcat named Simple J. Malarkey, was a particular “hot potato.” In October of 1954—just before the actual McCarthy would be censured by the Senate—Malarkey made another appearance. This time, the editor of the Providence Bulletin told Kelly that if Malarkey’s face appeared in the strip again, the paper would drop the strip. "Kelly finessed this by introducing a character from Providence, giving Malarkey the line “nobody from Providence should see me!” before he pulls an empty bait bag over his head. This had the double effect of getting rid of Malarkey’s face and making him look like a Klan member. “Now we find we are kidded”the Bulletin’s editor admitted, moving the strip to the op-ed page, where satire was evidently permitted.'
from JSTOR, nonprofit library for the intellectually curious **
SEATTLE
"In downtown Seattle, for some reason, most of the excess buildings are beige. Seattleites complain of beige a vu: the sensation that they’ve seen that color before." Tom Robbins ** FLEEING THE BRITISH, DOLLEY MADISON LEAVES THE WHITE HOUSE, CARRYING WITH HER THE ROLLED UP CANVAS OF GILBERT STUART'S PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
"After leaving the President's house, Dolley hurried across the Potomac in a carriage looking for her husband. At one point she sought refuge in the house of an aquaintance. But she had just gone upstairs when the mistress of the house screamed out, 'Miss Madison! Your husband's got mine out fighting and, damn you, you shan't stay in my house; so get out!' Dolley eventually ended up in Wiley's Tavern in Virginia. There the President, who had been frantically looking for her,finally joined his wife after thirty-six hours' separation."
Paul F. Boller,Jr. Presidential Anecdotes (New York: Penguin Books, 1981) ** THE WEALTH OF J.P. MORGAN
On February 25, 1901, financier J. P. Morgan’s men filed the paperwork to incorporate a new iron and steel trust, and over the weekend, businessmen waited to see what was coming. Five days later, on March 2, the announcement came: J. P. Morgan was overseeing the combination of companies that produced two thirds of the nation’s steel into the United States Steel Corporation. It was capitalized at $1.4 billion, which at the time was almost three times more than the federal government’s annual budget. "
Heather Cox Richardson (March 3, 2024) ** AUTOMOBILES IN THE ALAN LADD MOVIE --THE BLUE DAHLIA
Many of the cars in the film have a "B" sticker on the windshield. This is a reflection of the wartime rationing of gasoline. Gas was rationed primarily to save rubber, because Japan had occupied Indochina, Malaysia, and Indonesia. (There was a shortage of gas on the East Coast until a pipeline from Texas was constructed to replace the transport of crude oil by sea.) The B sticker was the second lowest category, entitling the holder to only eight gallons of gas a week.
iMBd Trivia -- THE BLUE DAHLIA
**
ODE TO POLAROID
In 60 seconds, You shall see How this poem Comes out.
JONATHAN MILLER ON DIRECTING & DIAGNOSTIC MEDICINE
"Condemnation and ridicule of the Actors' Studio style of training is general. 'I don't care how somebody feels about a part -- that's between him and his conscience,' Jonathan (Miller) says ' What I want is an actor who can say a line eighteen different ways. I am not running a clinic.' Yet a few minutes later he is talking about the relation between his current job and the one he was trained for. 'Directing and diagnostic medicine are mirror images. In both cases you're concerned with small physical signs which connote deep inner states. But you work in opposite directions."
Alison Lurie. "What Happened in Hamlet" in Words and Worlds : from Autobiography to Zippers (Encino, Ca.Delphinium Books, 2019 )
** SPEECH FROM AN 18th CENTURY PLAY
VAPID: Now do write a play - and if any accident happens, remember,it is better to have written a damn'd play than no play at all -- it snatches a man from obscurity. Frederick Reynolds. The Dramaid (1793) "...folk assume actors must be extroverts, but a lot aren't; many performers are big presences on stage, but quite shy off. There is, after all, a huge difference between pretending your somebody else and being yourself."
John Cleese. So, Anyway... (New York: Random House, 2014) ** HOW TALL SHOULD A PLAYWRIGHT BE?
2 October 2005 --- "Some drunken lads at the buffet bar as we are queuing to get off the train at King's Cross, one of whom was trying to explain to the others who I was. 'Really? He's tall for a playwright." Difficult to tell if this was wit or drink, but quite funny nevertheless.
Alan Bennett. Keeping on Keeping on (New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005) **
ON ENTERING THE THEATER
"I spent last winter translating The Three Sisters and Cheryl Crawford is going to produce it with the Actor's Studio. I want to write a play myself but it's rather like joining some church-- I need to believe in the plot first." Randall Jarrell in a letter to Robert Penn Warren (July 1954) Randall Jarrell's Letters, edited by Mary Jarrell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985) ** OPENING NIGHTS IN BOSTON
" We went to Boston, and you know that opening night in Boston, that they don't let you in you are under 90." Neil Simon in The Dramatist Guild Quarterly(Spring 1973) **
ON THE SET FOR THE BUDGET WAS ROSES BY FRANK D. GILROY & A THEATER CRITIC WHO DID NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE BRONX
"I don't know much about the Bronx, but I hope that the middle-income group there doesn't have to live in the sort of setting that Edgar Lansbury has designed." John McCarten
The New Yorker (June 6, 1964)
** EXCELLENT CRITICISM FOR GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
"Mr. Shaw's cook was speaking . Way back at the century's turn, she had gone to see Janet Achurch as Lady Cicely in her vegetarian master's Captain Brassbound's Conversion. In the manner of Moliere, Mr. Shaw had ventured into her kitchen for a real dramatic opinion. He was not disappointed. ' No,' his cook had said, 'she was not right:: no high lady would do that.' Mr. Shaw had no other choice. He wrote Miss Achurch. 'This is excellent criticism. You played the whole part , as far as the comedy we went , with your dress tucked in between your knees.'"
John Mason Brown. "South of Boston" in Seeing Things (New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1946).
**
JOHN HUSTON, as Abraham Lincoln in the play THE LONELY MAN by Howard Koch,presented at the Blackstone Theater in Chicago (1930's)
"As for Gram, as John called his grandmother, she sat in the first row every night of his performance. His exit after the first scene always brought a round of applause from the audience. One night for some reason the applause didn't come. This was an omission Gram refused to brook. With the help of her cane, she struggled to her feet, faced the audience with a stern expression. and stopped the show while she clapped her hands until others joined in. Of all the tributes, I think this is the one John enjoyed the most."
Howard Koch. As Time Goes By (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 1979)
** THEATER AS SOME POET SAID
"...it's rather like joining some church" Randall Jarrell
Has any actor got a tan Standing in a spotlight Or under a ghost light Waiting for a cue?
No longer entranced By travelling actors, Packing and unpacking, Half-eaten sandwiches On the make up table, One night stands In countries not their own, I too have played Caliban, Crying out in dusty halls "The isle is full of noises" Or in another play: "I know where to wear This dagger then. Cassius..."
The rising of a scene Delivers me from bondage. When two persons kneel To create a river or an ocean From a long skein of blue silk. Then I am transported. When the curtain goes down, My heart is wide awake.
What is the sound Of three hundred hearts clapping?
In 1940, (DALE) Messick created a new heroine—a "girl bandit" named Brenda Starr—whose looks were modeled on the film star Rita Hayworth, and named after a popular debutante, Brenda Frazier.[5] She submitted the new strip to the Chicago Tribune-New York News syndicate, but the syndicate chief, Joseph Medill Patterson, "had tried a woman cartoonist once... and wanted no more of them." Patterson's assistant, Mollie Slott—later the vice president of the syndicate—saw the discarded samples, and encouraged Messick to make Brenda a reporter. Patterson accepted the strip, but ran it in the Chicago Tribune's Sunday comic book supplement, rather than the daily paper. He refused to run it in his other paper, the New York Daily News, which finally carried Brenda Starr in 1948, two years after Patterson's death.[3] After the strip was established, other instances of resistance were reported. "Whenever Ms. Messick drew in cleavage or a navel, the syndicate would erase it. She was once banned in Boston after showing Brenda smoking a polka dot cigar."[6]
From WIKIPEDIA – BRENDA STARR
** WHAT THE CARTOONIST KNOWS
"The cartoonist knows what we are up to. He sees through the surface of the status and fancy manner; and through the illusion and fakery of the facade we build up and observes what is really going on. That, for example, the married couple with their arms around each other, lighting each other's cigarettes, are really out to kill each other. When he shows us this truth, we laugh. Nothing is quite so funny as the truth."
John Bailey. Great Cartoons of the World (New York: Crown Publishers, 1970) **
OF COMICS & THE BIBLE
“In 1941 , he (Max Gaines) produced Picture Stories from the Bible, a fifty-cent, 232-page collection that as a contemporary put it, ‘strictly in the comic-book technique, yet with sensationalism left out.” Although the title first met a rocky reception, religious leaders, including Norman Vincent Peale, eventually endorsed it. Eight hundred thousand copies of the book were sold in two years, and it was read in over two thousand Sunday schools. Gaines may not have been as saintly as the figures his book portrayed (“I don’t care how long it took Moses to cross the desert, “I want it in three panels.”
Jeremy Dauber. American Comics : A History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2022) **
TARZAN BATTLES NAZIS
The Ape-Man has also been involved in international political chaos that includes fighting in World War I…. “ The Ape-Man battled the Axis in another time, as Tarzan in another media – motion pictures. In the 1943 film Tarzan Triumphs, Nazis invade the jungle and Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan, after uttering that immortal line, ‘ Now, Tarzan make war!’ goes out and thrashes them.”
from Tarzan, Jungle King of Popular Culture by David Lemmo | 2016 **
SATIRISTS IN AFRICA
"...all over Africa, where satirists are often the boldest commentators on politics and vice. 'Cartoonists use visual imagery as a kind of mask, to conceal in order to reveal,' says Ganiyu Jimoh, a Nigerian cartoonist and scholar. He compares the wit and allusions in cartoons to the traditional masquerades in Yoruba culture, in which masked performers would ridicule the powerful. As an adage has it, 'Oba kii mu onkorin': the king does not arrest a satirist."
Political Cartoons in Africa: the king does not arrest a satirist." in The Economist (June 17th-23rd 2023)
** THE COMIC STRIP THAT EXPLAINS THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN PARENTING
"What eight decades of Goofus and Gallant illustrate about society’s changing expectations of children" By Julie Beck
" For more than 75 years, the boys have been boxed in. Since 1948, Goofus and Gallant, the stars of their eponymous comic strip in Highlights for Children magazine, have taught generations of kids the dos and don’ts of how to be. The premise is as simple as it is effective: two panels, side by side, depicting two approaches to the same situation. On the left, Goofus does the wrong thing. On the right, Gallant does the correct thing. If Goofus is rude, Gallant is polite. If Goofus lies, Gallant tells the truth."
HOW ORPHAN ANNIE’S DOGGREETED THE COMPOSER OF CARMINA BURANA
Arf, Orff.
** DICK TRACY TAKES MOMENTARY REFUGE UNDER THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL “The entire run of Dick Tracy is a parade of changing, brooding, threatening, underlying moods.” Richard Marschade
Crime does not pay. Who said that? What a miserable liar he was. Look! The world is wet with suspense, Sleet battles a 1000lb Gorilla & This is Sam Catchem’s first appearance. Perhaps later Dick Tracy will track down Counterfeiters who live in a sewer.
So much of humanity going out “Via the hot lead route.” Our world has more villains Than we know what to do with, Snakes who place their tails In their own mouths: The Nazi known as The Brow. Mumbles who dies by drowning. Pruneface & 88 Keys who, in 1943, Murdered the millionaire A.B. Helmut.
We have been told more than once That if we are alive, We are waiting for something to happen. Am I waiting for Dick Tracy, Ace Detective, To tackle Madonna as Breathless Mahoney? Surely there must be other events to live for.
1946: Dick Tracy vs. Cueball Is playing at the Rialto (Jack Lambert is the actor cast as Cueball). Next year it will be Dick Tracy’s Dilemma. Well, what about my dilemma & Your dilemma & our dilemmas?
The world is once again at war. Dropping bombs with impunity, & I, like so many others, In spite of clever inventions, i.e a television wrist watch, Am afraid & ashamed. Evil is not always naked.
" March 15 is too important a day to ignore. As the man who taught me to use a chainsaw said, it is immortalized by Shakespeare’s famous warning: “Cedar! Beware the adze of March."
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON MAR 16, 2024 ** SHAKESPEARE & VIRGINIA WOOLF
"Shakespeare’s living presence in home readings aloud of the plays and in amateur theatricals, Garber gets down to the meat of the book, a 100-page chapter on Virginia Woolf. After describing in her diary a fancy-dress party at her sister Vanessa Bell’s London house in 1923 Woolf ended: “Shre [her habitual abbreviation], I thought would have liked us all tonight”. To Molly McCarthy she wrote: “I kept thinking of Shakespeare. We were so mellowly and good-fellowly; not any intensity or bitterness, but all serene and melodious”. Shakespeare, for her and her friends, was the comforter, the consoler. Talking about him was, as Garber puts it, “both a pleasure and a sign of intimacy”. The mature comedies, of course, but, perhaps surprisingly, also King John, Richard II, Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, Pericles and Cymbeline all figure in their writings, conversations and epistolary exchanges."
Gabriel Josipovici, reviewing SHAKESPEARE IN BLOOMSBURY by Marjorie Garber ( Yale University Press. £25 (US $35) in TLS (March 22, 2024) ** WHERE IS THE SKULL OF SHAKESPEARE?
" In 2016, a team of scientists used radar scans to investigate the burial site of William Shakespeare and uncovered signs of disturbances around the remains. The evidence suggests that his skull was likely removed from his grave at some point in history."
** FROM A STUDENT IN MARK CURLEY'S SHAKESPEARE CLASS
After discussing the plot of the Winter's Tale, a student wrote, "I cannot make this up, but apparently, Shakespeare can." **
PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN A SONNET BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
When I count my TIMEX that tells the time, And see brave days sink in hideous night, When I behold foaming AJAX removing grime From bathroom tiles silvered o’er with white; When I see HOLIDAY INNS and their rooms, Which erst from heat did canopy salesmen, And spinsters spinning on HEIRLOOM LOOMS, Make soft beds for love-making now & then. Of your beauty do I no question make That thou amongst THE DAILY NEWS must go, Since scurrilous rumors stir and shake, But die as fast as other gossips grow Against FOX NEWS we shall make defense. & our true love drives fake news hence.
** HOW ACTORS CAN COME UNDER THE MAGIC POWER OF A PLAY
"Already, just a few weeks into rehearsal, there are moments when the mood of Hamlet appears to dominate the company. Even the 'sickness imagery' noted by the scholar Caroline Spurgeon seems to affect them, so that presently not only Peter (Eyre) but also many of the other actors are or have been ill, and there is much talk of symptoms and remedies. The reheasal hall also begins to look like one of the spare ballrooms of a rundown Scandinavian castle; the actors lounging round it like disaffected courtiers who most of the time have no occupation, but dare not leave for fear of the king's displeasure.
Alison Lurie. "What Happened in Hamlet" in Words and Worlds : from Autobiography to Zippers (Encino, Ca.Delphinium Books, 2019) ** COMING UNDER THE SPELL OF SHAKESPEARE
The 1947 film -- A DOUBLE LIFE:
Highly regarded theater actor Anthony John (Ronald Colman) has a violent temper, which leads his actress wife, Brita (Signe Hasso), to leave him. When the two perform together in a production of "Othello," the strain of playing Othello drives John insane, to the point of killing his mistress, Pat Kroll (Shelley Winters). John does not remember the incident, but is forced to face his actions when promoter Bill Friend (Edmond O'Brien) uses the murder to publicize the play.
The "Othello" scenes were filmed separately and in the exact order in which they occur in Shakespeare's play, so as to give Ronald Colman the feeling that he was really appearing in "Othello." Colman felt uneasy about performing Shakespeare, so director George Cukor and Shakespearean actor Walter Hampden, who acted as coach and advisor for these scenes, tried to make Colman as comfortable as possible in them. iDMb Trivia && From "BRUSH UP ON YOUR SHAKESPEARE" by COLE PORTER, IN THE MUSICAL KISS ME, KATE
Brush up your Shakespeare Start quoting him now Brush up your Shakespeare And the women you will wow
Just declaim a few lines from Othella And they'll think you're a hell of a fella If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er Tell her what Tony told Cleopatterer
**
SHAKESPEARE AND WILD GEESE "I, also, want to use one of the Fool's lines as a title for something -- 'Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way.' Can't think how to shorten it. "Is there any connection between wild geese and Lady Wildgoose? Lady W and her sister Lady Sandy tried, in 1603, to get their old father Brian Annesley registered as insane. They were frustrated by their cordell. Shakespeare must have heard gossip about it."
FILM DIRECTOR JOHN CROMWELL (In 1945 he hosted the Academy Awards alongside Bob Hope.)
As for William Shakespeare, John Cromwell played "Paris" to Katharine Cornell's "Juliet" and Maurice Evans' "Romeo" in McClntic's "Rome and Juliet" in 1935, and appeared as "Rosenkrantz" in McClintic's 1936 Broadway staging of "Hamlet", with John Gielgud in the title role, Lillian Gish as "Ophelia" and Judith Anderson as "Gertrude". He also appeared as "Lennox" in the 1948 revival of Shakespeare's "Scottish Play", with Michael Redgrave as "Macbeth" and Flora Robson as "Lady Macbeth" (young actors also featured in the play who went on to renown were Julie Harris, Martin Balsam and Beatrice Straight)."
A **
KING LEAR
King Lear In Venice, asking a gondalier If the Merchant was open on Monday, Suddenly realized he was in the wrong play. ROMEO & JULIET
Romeo When Juliet's cat mewed meo- w, the Montague lover began to fret That his presence wd be revealed to a Capulet.
LADY MACBETH
After killing the king, Lady Macbeth Exclaimed: "I need a bath. A little water will cleanse us of this deed. Or perhaps a cold shower is what I really need."
In the 17th century,Sir William Brereton published his Travels in Holland, etc, (1634-1635), and alas! he was not so enamored of the household smells of the good citizens of Edinburgh:
"...their houses and halls, and kitchens, have such a noisome taste, a savour and that so strong, as it doth offend you so soon as you come within their walls; yea, sometimes when I have light from my horse, I have felt the distaste of it before I have come into the house; yea, I never came to my own lodging in Edinborough, or went out, but I was constrained to hold my nose...." **
ON THE AIR IN IRELAND
When Lady Cateret expressed her admiration for the quality of the air in Ireland, Jonathan Swift responded,
"For God's sake, madam, don't say that in England for if you do, they will surely tax it,"
** REMEMBER THIS PASSWORD?
“ Dildano's password, "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch", is the name of a real village in Wales, United Kingdom. It's also the United Kingdom's longest place name.”
iDMb trivia to Barbarella (1968)
** JOHN JAY AUDUBON TRAVELS THROUGH FLORIDA
“At Indian Key I observed an immense quantity of beautiful Tree Snails of a pyramidal or shortly conical form, some pure white, others curiously marked with spiral lines of bright red, yellow and black. They were crawling vigorously on every branch of every bush where there was not a nest of the White Ibis. Wherever that bird nested not a live snail was to be seen; hundreds lay dead underneath.”
John James Audubon ** ON STAYING AT THE RIOT HOUSE IN LOS ANGELES
"...we checked into the legendary 'Riot House' on the Sunset Strip . This Hyatt House hotel had earned it sobriquet from the destruction wrought in it by visiting English rock stars such as Keith Moon, who threw television sets out of its windows and drove cars into its pool. We were soon leading lives of careless abandon in the California sunshine. Graham legendarily took a limo to a restaurant just across the street. He hadn't realized it was that close...
*we--The Monty Python players Graham -- Graham Chapman
Eric Idle. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: a Sortabiography (New York: Crown Archetype, 2018)
** YUMA ARIZONA IN THE MID 1940's
"Yuma grinds out marriages the way Detroit turns out cars, some of them defective. Since the town is tucked away close to the Mexican border, most of the ceremonies are performed at night, performed being the telling word. The main street is theatrically lit with lofty neon signs advertising its marital wares -- license,minister, appropriate bridal music, witnesses if you need them, beds if you want them, even rice throwers -- all in one 'hallowed hall.'"
Howard Koch. As Time Goes By (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979) **
HERMIONE GINGOLD TRAVELS ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS FROM PARIS TO HUNGARY
So off to Paris I went to board the Orient Express, a train full of elegance, glamour, and orchids. Passengers sipped champagne and changed into full evening dress to eat a six-course meal, served by white -gloved waiters. while a pianist tried to drown out the train's rattling as we sped across Europe into Hungary. It was a divine trip marred only by the fact that they served sterilized milk with the coffee; but I dare say it's not the only time sterilization has been used to overcome a difficulty."
Hermione Gingold. How to Grow Old Disgracefully (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988) **
DO NOT SAIL ON THE CHANNEL BETWEEN CAPE MALEAE AND THE ISLAND OF CYTHERA
"The channel between Cape Maleae, the southernmost tip of Peloponnesus, and the island of Cythera was famous was famous for treacherous wind, giving rise to the proverb, 'When you double (Cape) Maleae, forget your home.' The risks were so great that shipowners preferred to have the cargoes of larger vessels unloaded and transported across the isthmus, a distance of less than five miles where other ships would be waiting. Light boats could be hauled from one sea to the other on moveable trolleys across the Diolkes, a paved road going from the
Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs."
W.L. Lane. "Corinth"in Major Cities of the Biblical World ,1985.
** SAILING DOWN THE RIVER AMUR
Sailing down the River Amur, I started to dream of Dorothy Lamour. I cried out: “Leave her alone, Bob Hope.” “Wake up,” my wife sd, “and quiet down, you dope!”
"I don't have to live in New York. I could live in hell." Greta Garbo
Epigraph to Married to the Icepick Killer by Carol Muske-Dukes (New York: Random House, 2002) **
NEW YORK CITY'S JACOB BEACH
Jacob Beach in Manhattan was the descriptive phrase referring to a small area near the old Madison Square Garden. It was named for the noted fight promoter. Jacob's Beach was the principal market place for fighters, managers, promoters and their satellites to make arrangements for boxing matches etc.
Nat Fleischer. The Heavyweight Champions, 1948.
**
THE BIG APPLE
Paul Bloess: "The term 'Big Apple' was originally used in the 1920s and '30s by jazz musicians as a way of saying, 'There are many apples on the success tree, but when you pick New York City, you pick the Big Apple. '" **
* PRAISE FOR THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE
“Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first world promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world… “Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over the bridge,” I thought, “anything at all.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby.
Epigraph to New York Days by Willie Morris **
FAMOUS NEW YORKER #1
"Joseph C. Gayetty (c.1827 – May 2, 1895) was an American inventor credited with the invention of commercial toilet paper. It was the first and remained only one of the few commercial toilet papers from 1857 to 1890 remaining in common use until the invention of splinter-free toilet paper in 1935 by the Northern Tissue Company."
Wikepedia
* Many references cite that Joseph Gayetty was born in c. 1817, give or take a decade, in Massachusetts, USA. Not much is known about his early years, seeing as the first mention was in the U.S. census of 1850. He was living in New York City with his wife, Margaret Louisa Bogart, and their two children. ** RENTAL NEWS (2024) 27-year-old pays $1,850/month to live in an old NYC laundromat: ‘I knew true community as a child and I know it again now’ **
NOT ALL MOVIES ABOUT NYC ARE SUCCESSFUL
1946 film --SO THIS IS NEW YORK, produced by Stanley Kramer, With Henry Morgan, Rudy Vallee,Leo Gorcey, Virginia Grey irected by Richard O. Fleischer, with music by Dimitri Tiomkin.
The film was savaged by the critics and it did poorly at the box office. One of the comment cards submitted at a preview screening was particularly brutal, saying, "What belongs in the toilet shouldn't be exhibited first in a theater."
iDMb Trivia **
NEW YORK CITY'S SUBWAY SYSTEM " The subway system runs for 840 miles with 34 lines and 469 stops, it is counted amongst the largest urban mass transportation systems of the world, taking five million people to their destinations each day. You can cover the entirety of the system in 21 hours and 49 minutes --do it quicker and you'll have broken the current world record."
Ace Rider. Now Wait Just A New York Minute & Other Fun Facts About The City (Orlando, Florida, 2023) * 110 Riverside Drive, New York, NY-- where Babe Ruth lived.
** The First known radio Commercial Aired in 1926
The first known radio advertisement was a real-estate commercial for the Hawthorne Court Apartments in Jackson Heights, Queens, broadcast by New York station WEAF in August 1922. There’s a bit of disagreement over whether the duration of the ad was 10 minutes or 15 minutes, but fortunately for listeners, it wasn’t long before the ad format was pared down considerably.
https://historyfacts.com/science-industry/article/5-facts-about-the-golden-age-of-radio/. ** THE MURKY WATERS OF HELL GATE
The murky waters of Hell Gate, between Queens and Manhattan, hide a mystery that has puzzled historians and treasure hunters for hundreds of years. A British ship, the HMS Hussar, went down in Hell Gate’s perilous waters after colliding with Pot Rock in 1780. The ship was rumored to be carrying a significant British military payroll. Despite these stories, no treasure has ever been recovered. Could remnants of the ship and its gold still lie beneath the waves? Whether or not there is a fortune waiting to be found, there are remnants of the Hussar shipwreck you can see without a diving permit."
In 1929, the New York Yankees at Sing Sing prison played the prison baseball team . The Yankees won and it was said that Babe Ruth slugged a 620 foot home-run.
The New York Daily News (January 4, 2005),p. 15 **
DON GULLETTAT THE CAR-WASH
Willie Stargell, the Hall of Fame slugger for the Pittsburgh Pirates, once said that (DON) Gullett "could throw a ball through a car-wash without it ever getting wet;"
Alex Williams. NY TIMES obituary for Don Gullett, Cincinnati Reds pitcher (Feb, 17, 2024) **
Rye Resident Now Owns the Most Expensive Baseball Card in the World! 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle Sells for $12.6 Million! For more than 50 years, the most valuable baseball card has always been the 1910 Honus Wagner. The baseball cards back then came in a pack of cigarettes, and recently that card sold for $7.25 Million. NEW YORK TIMES (September 1, 2022) ** ABOUT CATCHERS
" The catcher has more equipment and more attributes than players at other positions. He must be large, brave, intelligent, alert, stolid, foresighted, resilient, fatherly, quick, efficient, intuitive, and impregnable. These scoutmaster traits are counterbalanced, however, by one additional entry -- catching's bottom line. Most of all, the catcher is invisible." Roger Angell ** BASEBALL QUESTION #8754
Most readers are aware of the title of J.D. Salinger's classic novel -- CATCHER IN THE RYE. What ex-baseball player and humorist wrote a memoir titled CATCHER IN THE WRY? **
** MANHATTAN MERRY-GO-ROUND (1937)
It was while appearing as a guest star in this film that Joe DiMaggio first met his future wife, actress-dancer Dorothy Arnold, who was also appearing in it as a member of the Archive newsreel footage of Joe DiMaggio's home run in the 1936 World Series is shown in the film. iMBd Trivia ** ON PITCHERS
"Essentially pitching is this simple. You try to put the ball where you want it and where -- you hope -- the batter doesn't want it. You throw the curve inside, the fast ball outside. Then you bring the fast ball in, send the curve out. You move the ball around. You change speeds. You try not to throw your strikes over the middle of the plate."
Whitey Ford in The Saturday Review. March 3, 1962 **
WILLIE MAYS --DOES CATCH RHYME WITH WATCH?
Willie Mays Made one of the greatest plays In baseball history. Watch The catch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bLt2xKaNH0
** THE STRATTON STORY starring James Stewart
"Although Monty Stratton was a real baseball player who continued to play baseball after having a right-leg, above-knee amputation, much of the story was fictionalized for this film. For instance, in the hunting accident, the real Monty Stratton shot himself with a pistol, rather than with a rifle. Also, the game in which the real Monty Stratton returned to baseball after his amputation was not an All-Star game, as in the movie, but rather a 1939 charity game between the White Sox and the Cubs (the proceeds of which went to Stratton).
Monty Stratton played for the Chicago White Sox from 1934-38 and compiled a 36-23 won/loss record and 3.71 Earned Run Average with 196 strikeouts. He was a better than average hitter (for a pitcher) with a .224 (43/192) batting average, hitting four home runs and 24 runs batted in."
iMDb Trivia **
THE WINNINGEST JEWISH PITCHER
It’s the question that has cost many a bar bet: Who was the winningest Jewish pitcher in baseball history?
If you guessed Sandy Koufax, you’d be wrong. The honor goes to Ken Holtzman, who died Sunday night. He was 78.
Holtzman would end his 15-season career, which spanned the 1960s and 1970s, with 174 wins, nine more than Koufax. The MLB veteran threw two no-hitters, won four World Series rings and beat Koufax head-to-head once."
**
ANSWER TO BASEBALL QUESTION #8754 Bob Uecker
** WILLIAMS’ LAST GAME
“I felt nothing,” he said. “No sentimentality? No gratitude? No sadness?” “I said nothing, Ted said. “Nothing, nothing.”
Yeah, well, we knew it all along. If he had struck out we would have cried, If he had walked We would have lynched the pitcher & maybe The manager & well maybe the whole town of Baltimore.
But we knew something was going to happen Because he hadn’t done much all day, Walked in the 1st because Steve Barber Wasn’t throwing him much & you know if it’s only a 10th of an inch Outside the zone Williams Ain’t going to swing at it, just watch it
Ride by & then him loping off to 1st. He does more walking in Boston Than the postmen, if you know what I mean. So then in the 3rd he flies out to Jackie Brandt, So there really isn’t much to talk about
Until the 5th, what with the Sox trailing 3 to 2, but the Kid really gets hold of one, & the horsehair is flying, climbing, & 10,000 of us are up on our feet until Al Pilascik Grabs it at the 400 foot mark.
& so all of us sit back down & it’s damp & there’s not much wind. I’m telling you it’s a pretty gray day. Later the Kid says, “I don’t think I could hit one any harder Than that. The conditions weren’t good.” But Gus Triandos, The catcher, just squats back down
& the game goes on, all of us knowing That something has to happen Because that’s no ordinary ballplayer up there & if you can’t believe in that, What can you believe in, huh?
Ed Hurley Starts calling balls & strikes again & so we wait & then it happens Just the way it’s supposed to: Williams is up, see, & you know It’s going to be his last time at bat in Boston, Except Jack Fisher’s Pitching now & not Steve Barber,
& then it happens: it’s a 1 & 1 count, see, & Fisher lets go with a fastball, But he doesn’t get it in there low enough, The way he wants it. He goes a little too high & Williams Unloads one. I mean he unloads it,
& 10,000 of us are on our feet, Screaming like crazy WE WANT WILLIAMS WE WANT WILLIAMS & he’s circling those bases with his head down & you know it’s going to be the last time, & his head is down & everybody’s screaming, I mean Who in the hell cares about the score,
& then he’s in the dugout & we’re screaming WE WANT WILLIAMS, WE WANT WILLIAMS. But he’s not going to come out for us Until at the end of the inning Higgins sends him out to left field With Carrol Hardy Tagging at his heels,
& then Williams turns & runs back. Later The Sporting News says, SPLINTER TIPS CAP TO HUB FANS AFTER FAREWELL HOMER But that wasn’t the way it was. What he did was Hit a homer his last time up, His 521st homer,
& then walk away, not nodding, Not cheering, not tipping his cap, Just walking away Like a man who’s done a good job The best he can & knows it. Now maybe he wants to be alone Or with his friends in a bar somewhere. Anyway, hitting a homer your last time up, That’s the way to go, isn’t it?
Louis Phillips
from THE DOMAIN OF SILENCE and THE DOMAIN OF ABSENCE: New and Selected Poems 1963-2015. (NY:Pleasure Boat Studio, 2015)
PhillipsMiscellany 