Category Archives: Uncategorized

“Quite a few women told me, one way or another, that they thought it was sex, not youth that’s wasted on the young.” Janet Harn EXAMINING THE THOUGHTS OF THOSE WE LOVE “When we come to examine the thoughts, the actions of a woman whom we love, we are as completely at a loss asContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: LOVE & SEX”

GROUCHO MARX SEES JOE DIMAGGIO ‘P.S. I saw Joe DiMaggio last night at Chasen’s and he wasn’t wearing his baseball suit. This struck me as rather foolish. Suppose a ballgame broke out in the middle of the night? By the time he got into his suit the game would be over.” Groucho Marx in aContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:BASEBALL”

HENRY FORD REVEALS HIS LACK OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT AMERICAN HISTORY “I don’t like to read books. They muss up my mind.” Henry Ford ** Lawyer: Do you know anything about the American Revolution? Henry Ford: I understand there was one in 1812. Lawyer: Any other time? Henry Ford: I don’t know of such thing. Lawyer:Continue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: AMERICANA”

WHAT DID VIRGINIA WOOLF THINK? or READING THE DIARIES OF VIRGINIA WOOLF “…I haven’t often read writers’ diaries, but I like the entries. I like knowing what Woolf was thinking about her books as she wrote them and their reception after they came out, and what she thinks of the other writers of her time.Continue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THE JOYS OF READING”

For Gregory Abby who would keep all animals from harm **’ THE SINGULAR BEAUTY OF A PURE WHITE GOOSE “No night time sight can compare with the singular beauty of a pure white goose, or several, their motionless, luminous contours on dark moonstruck grass that absorbs the light, the contrast of each bird’s brilliance, glowingContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: ANIMALS”

WHAT NORA EPHRON LEARNED ABOUT FILM SCRIPT WRITING FROM TOM HANKS “…I learned from Tom was a thing that’s really important, which is that scene after scene, you have to give the main actor something to play, he can never be passive in the scene, et. cetera, even (or especially) when he’s sharing it withContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: FILMS #16”

SAINT FRANCIS “Did St. Francis really preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.” Rebecca West ** EMILY DICKINSON & HER LOVE FOR BIRDS “I hope you love birds, too. It is economical . It saves going to heaven.” Emily Dickinson, inContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:PEOPLE”

OF LANGUAGE AND THE BIRDS”Our language reflects our disrespect. Something worthlessor unappealing is ‘for the birds.’ An ineffectual politicianis a ‘lame duck.’ To ‘lay an egg’is to flub a performance. To be ‘henpecked!’ is to be harassed with persistent nagging.’Eating crow’is eat humble pie. The expression ‘bird brain,’ for a stupid, foolish, or scatterbrained person,Continue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: WORDS, WORDS, WORDS”

“A human being is nothing but a story with skin around it.” Fred Allen Quoted in Writing Changes Everything , edited by Deborah Brodie (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997) ** IDEAS OF ENDANGERMENT “It’s too much, this being alive. Too heavy , too uncertain, too chronically cataclysmic, too bellicose, too unwell, too freighted withContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:PHILOSOPHY (sort of)”

“There are no uninteresting people in the world,says Yevtushenko in one of his best lyrics; everyonecarries around with him his first snow and his firstkiss it is not people who die but worlds.”Edward Thomas. London Magazine (November 1967)**ON BRAZIL’S FAMOUS POETCARLOS DRUMMOND de ANDRADE & CHARLIE CHAPLIN“The figure of ‘Carlitos’ as Chaplin was knownin Brazil,Continue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: POETS & POETRY #3”