Category Archives: Fiction

August 6, 2012

Thought of the Day 8.6.12 M. Night Shyamalan

“I like to write in a shroud of secrecy because I have to keep finding ways to scare myself.”

–M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Manoj Shyamalan was born on this day in Mahe, Pondicherry, India in 1970. Today is his 42nd birthday.

His parents lived in the US prior to his birth, but his mother traveled back to India to be with her parents for the last few months of her pregnancy. She came back to the states with the baby when he was 6 weeks old. He was raised outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was given a Super 8 camera as a kid and began making home movies starring himself, his friends and his toys. While attending New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts he added “Night” as his middle name. He also finished his first feature film, Praying with Anger. The film roughly echoed his own experiences on a visit to India and deals with cultural tensions and family secrets.

Miramax optioned Wide Awake which Shyamalan directed and shot in Pennsylvania (his location of choice.) Then he penned the script for Stuart Little.

Cover of "The Sixth Sense (Collector's Ed...

Cover via Amazon

His big break came with The Sixth Sense. [No spoilers here, all I’ll say is… if you haven’t seen this tight, dramatic, ghost story rent it now. It is part 1 of the M. Night trifecta ] The movie was filmed in Philadelphia and starred Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment. Shyamalan again directed. And it received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.

He added Producer credit to the list with 2000’s Unbreakable. The film tapped Willis as star again, this time partnering him with Samuel L. Jackson. More superhero than supernatural this film did well at the box office, but didn’t deliver the punch of its predessor.

Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix starred in Signs a sci-fi, alien invasion thriller. [It is part 2 of the M. Night trifecta so add this to your queue as well.]

Cover of "The Village (Full Screen Editio...

Cover via Amazon

The Village shifts the action to an idealistic 19th century farming village. There’s just one problem, the surrounding woods are populated by huge clawed monsters. As long as the villagers keep inside set boundaries and don’t wear red (red is a bad color and attracts the monsters) all is well. But this is an M. Night Shyamalan film… nothing ever stays all well. The Village did not achieve the audience or critical favor that Sixth Sense or Signs enjoyed. [But I really like it. So it’s my number 3 pick for the trifecta. ]

He based The Lady in the Water with Bryce Dallas Howard and Paul Giamatti on a story he told his kid. During filming of Lady he had a break with Disney films. Warner Bros. picked up the picture, but it lost money.

The writer/director returned to his horror roots with The Happening starring Mark Walhberg and Zoey Deschanel .

In 2010 He made The Last Airbender based on Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender. The show received very poor reviews, but has done well internationally. He also wrote and produced Devil, a story about people stuck on an elevator with the Devil in disguise.

He is currently in post-production for After Earth, a science fiction thriller staring Jaden Smith.

Shyamalan’s latest project takes him to the television’s cable network Syfy where it has just been announced that he will work with producer Marti Noxon (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) on of a scripted series called Proof. According to a press release for the show:

In Proof, after the tragic accident and sudden death of his parents, the son of a billionaire tech genius offers a large reward for anyone who can find proof of life after death,

Shyamalan will direct the pilot which he and Noxon will co-write .

1 Comment | tags: M. Night Shyamalan, Sixth Sense | posted in Fiction, Film, M. Night Shyamalan, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, Writing

August 3, 2012

Thought of the Day 8.3.12 Leon Uris

By ritalovestowrite

“Often we have no time for our friends but all the time in the world for our enemies.”

–Leon Uris

Leon Marcus Uris was born on this day in Baltimore, Maryland in 1924. This is the 88th anniversary of his birth.

Son of Polish and Russian Jewish immigrants Leon went to schools in Baltimore, Norfolk and Philadelphia. He failed English three times, but he loved History and Literature. He allegedly wrote an operetta about the death of his dog when he was only six years old.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 Uris dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Marine Corps. He served from 1942 to 1945 in the South Pacific. He was a radio operator and saw combat at Guadalcanal and Tarawa. When he contracted malaria he was sent to San Francisco to recuperate. There he met his first wife Marine sergeant Betty Beck.

1st edition cover Pages: 694 pp (Mass Market Paperback) (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After his discharge from the service he worked for the San Francisco Call-Bulletin and wrote fiction in his spare time. His first book, Battle Cry, retold his war experiences. Published in 1953 ,and made into a movie by Warner Brothers with Uris as screen writer, the film did well at the box office.

His second novel also took place during WWII, but this time in the European Theatre. The Angry Hills is about Greek resistance fighters. It too was made into a movie, this one starring Robert Mitchum.

Research Uris did for The Angry Hills and his time as a war correspondent during Arab-Israeli fighting in 1956 lead to most his most successful novel, Exodus. Published in 1958 the book is the result of thousands of interviews. Uris traveled 12,000 miles in Israel and read hundreds of books on Jewish history. Doubleday bought the book which out sold Gone with the Wind, becoming the biggest bestseller in the United States. It was translated into 50 languages. A blockbuster movie starring Paul Newman came out in 1960.

Mila 18 is about Jewish resistance fighters during the Warsaw uprising. Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin is about the complications of the Cold War during and after and the Berlin Airlift. Topaz, a spy story, has the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War in its cross hairs. Alfred Hitchcock directed it for the big screen. QBVII is a courtroom drama about a doctor who was pressed into service in a Nazi concentration camp. It was made into a mini series starring Anthony Hopkins in 1974.

In Trinity Uris tacked the troubles in Ireland, following the lives of several families from the potato famine to the Easter Uprising. Redemption, written two decades later follows up on the Irish story.

The Haj delves again into the troubled Middle East. The Milta Pass is about the Suez Crisis.

A God in Runs takes on the American political scene when Quinn Patrick O’Connell runs for president. His last novel, O’Hara’s Choice, was published posthumously, and was not well received.

Non fiction works include: Ireland: A terrible Beauty and Jerusalem: Song of Songs both include photographs by his with Jill Uris.

More on Leon Uris try this site: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/uris.htm

2 Comments | tags: Leon Uris | posted in Baltimore, Fiction, Film, History, Maryland, Non Fiction, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, World War Two, Writing

August 2, 2012

Thought of the Day 8.1.12 Herman Melville

By ritalovestowrite

“To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee; For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee”

–Herman Melville

Photo of Herman Melville (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Herman Melvill was born this day on 1819 in New York City. Today is the 193 Anniversary of his birth.

He was the third of eight children. He grew up in Boston and Albany. His father, Allan Melvill, was a successful merchant and the family lived comfortably for several years until an unsuccessful trading venture led to financial ruin. The elder Melvill sparked Herman’s love for adventure and the sea with stores of seafaring excitement and faraway places. Herman was 12 when his father died and the family moved to Lansingburg on the Hudson. It was then that his mother added the “e” to the end of the family name, and Melvill became Melville.

He got a job on a ship bound from New York to Liverpool as a cabin boy. After several years as a teacher he heard the call of the sea again. In 1840 he signed on with the Acushnet from Fairhaven, Massachusetts. The ship left port for an 18 month journey in Pacific journey in January of 1841. The Acushnet was a whaler and much of his material for Moby-Dick came from his time on board the ship. By the time they reached the Marquesas Islands in July of 1842 Melville had had enough of life on the Acushnet.

He deserted the ship and lived among the Typee tribe for three weeks. He then joined the crew of another whaler, this one, an Australian ship called the Lucy Ann, was bound for Tahiti. Melville participated in a mutiny and landed in jail. Upon his release he signed up with yet another whaler and made it as far as Honolulu where he jumped ship again. He worked as a clerk until he was able to sign on with the USS United States which got him back to Boston in 1844. There Melville began to write about his adventures.

Cover of Typee (Signet classics)

Typee is a quasi-autobiographical adventure novel about Tommo’s four month stay on a tropical paradise amidst the “nobel savages” (or cannibals) who may or may not be about to eat him, and his relationship with the beautiful, and exotic, Faraway. He had trouble fining an American publisher, but the book was an overnight success when it was published in England. Omoo, continued the tale, again roughly following Melville’s adventures in the Pacific. Mardi, and a Voyage Thither showed a more sophisticated writing style. It was not a successful as the straight forward narratives of Typee and Omoo. In 1849 He published Redburn : His First Voyage, the fictionalized account of his first sea journey as a cabin boy. In 1850 White-Jacket, based on his time as a seaman on the USS United States, was published. Because of its graphic depiction’s of flogging the U.S. Navy banned the punishment.

Sadly at this point the tides seem to have turned in his literary career. His popularity waned. Other books didn’t garner critical or popular acclaim in his lifetime. The Confidence-Man, Pierre, Billy Budd, and even Moby-Dick had to wait until a Melville revival, some 30 years after his death, to get their rightful praise.

Herman Melville: Moby-Dick (Photo credit: wolfgraebel)

Melville went on the lecture circuit to supplement his writing income. He then moved his family to New York City and worked at the New York Custom House. He continued to write, working on both poetry and fiction, until his death.

http://www.online-literature.com/melville/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville

5 Comments | tags: Herman Melville, Moby-Dick | posted in American History, Fiction, Herman Melville, Ocean, postaday, Sailling, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, United States, Writing

July 31, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.31.12 JKRowling

By ritalovestowrite

“It matters not what a person is born, but who they choose to be.”

–J.K.Rowling

English: J.K. Rowling reads from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at the Easter Egg Roll at White House (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Joanne Rowling was born on this day in Yate, England in 1965. She is 47 years old.

Her creative writing career began as a little girl when she would tell her sister Di fantasy stories. At five or six she wrote down a story about a rabbit who got the measles and was visited by a giant bumble bee.

The idea for Harry Potter, a boy who finds out he has magical powers and attends a school for Wizards, came to her while she was travelling from Manchester to London.

Upon graduating from Exeter University Rowling moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. There she met Jorge Arantes and fell in love. The two married and had a daughter, Jessica, in 1993. When the marriage ended Rowling moved to Edinburgh, to be near her sister. She struggled financially and she and Jessica lived in a small flat and lived on welfare for a while. While she worked on her postgraduate degree in education (so she could teach in Scotland) She began to write Harry Potter in earnest. Rowling often wrote in coffee shops because taking the baby for a walk was the best way to get her to fall asleep.

Cover of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone

She completed Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and found an agent. The book was submitted to twelve publishers before finding a home at Bloomsbury Publishing House in London. The publisher thought the target audience for the book would be pre-teen boys so they asked her to use her initials. She added “K” as her middle initial in honor of her grandmother. They did an first run of 1,000 copies.

An auction was held for the rights to publish the book in the US (under the name “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”) Scholastic Inc. won the auction and paid a whopping $105,000.

Cover of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone from Amazon.com

The story of the young wizard took off like a golden snitch.

In 1999 the first three books in the Harry Potter series, ...The Sorcerer’s Stone, …The Chamber of Secrets and …The Prisoner of Azkaban held the top three spots on the New York times best-seller list. The books “earned approximately $480 million in three years, with over 35 million copies in print in 35 languages.” according to biography.com. The following year Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in the series became the fastest-selling book of all time. It had a first printing of 5.3 million copies. And in 2000 the British Book Awards pegged Rowling as Author of the Year.

English: Alternate coat of arms of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry from Harry Potter book series, by J.K Rowling, with added shading effects. The motto translates to “never tickle a sleeping dragon” vector drawing,.SVG format. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

…The Order of the Phoenix came out in 2003 (an excruciating three years wait for Potter fans). …The Half-Blood Prince “sold 6.9 million copies in the United State in its first 24 hours, the biggest opening in publishing history.” This time the British Book Awards gave the book the prize granting it Book of the Year for 2006. The final book in the series …The Deathly Hallows had the largest pre-order numbers ever. It sold 11 million copies on the first day it was released in the UK and the US.

All seven books in the Harry Potter series in order without their dust jackets. Each hardcover book used a different two-color scheme. The books are the first American editions published by Scholastic. Author’s collection. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Films of the books (with different directors and screenwriters) started in 2001. They were all blockbuster events. And [despite some serious directing/screen writing and even acting quality issues (IMHO) with several of the movies] they all grossed top dollar and were box-office successes.

Director Alfonso Cuaron amped up the creepy and played down the camp in this, the third installment of the HP movies. In my humble opinion this is the best book to movie translation of the series. (Though I do like the Deathly Hallows 1&2 quite a lot as well.)

Royalties from the HP series, movies, merchandise and add-ons have made Rowling Britain’s 13 wealthiest woman.

Although the Harry Potter series has concluded (at least for now, rumor has it that she may revisit Hogwarts) Rowling continues to write. Her dark comedy about small town politics, The Casual Vacancy, is due out soon.

She works with several charities including Amnesty International, Comic Relief, Gingerbread (formerly One Parent Families), Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and Lumos. And she established the Volant Charitable Trust to combat poverty.

She married Dr. Neil Murray in 2001 and they have two children together.

—————————————–

It is also Harry Potter’s birthday.

8 Comments | tags: Harry Potter, JK Rowling | posted in Fiction, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, Writing

July 30, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.30.12 Emily Bronte

By ritalovestowrite

“Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, But which will bloom most constantly?”

–Emily Bronte

A portrait of Emily, painted by her brother Branwell. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Emily Jane Bronte was born this day in Thornton, near Bradford, Yorkshire England in 1818. Today is the 194th anniversary of her birth.

Maria Branwell and Patrick Bronte had six children; Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Patrick Branwell, Emily and Anne. The young family moved to Haworth Parsonage in 1824 where Patrick Bronte was curate. Emily was only three when her mother died, probably of stomach cancer, and she remembered little of the vivacious, lively woman who had brought so much joy to the house.

English: Brontë Parsonage Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1824 the older girls were sent to Cowan Bridge School, a school for the daughters of middle class clergymen in Lancashire. The students endured harsh conditions, corporal punishment and fire and brimstone sermons along with long hours of study and prayer. The dormitories were unheated. In the morning the students shared a basin of water to wash. Often it was so cold that the water had frozen over. It’s not surprising that the students took ill. There was an outbreak typhus and tuberculosis. The girls were brought home, but both Maria and Elizabeth died with in weeks of each other. The family was devastated. Charlotte changed the name of the horrible school to Lowood and wrote about it in Jane Eyre,

Charlotte and Emily stayed at home and were educated by their Aunt Elizabeth Branwell along with their Brother and little sister Anne. The children had very vivid imaginations and created fantasy adventures. “Glasstown” featured Branwell’s 12 wooden soldiers. Charlotte and Branwell invented “Angria” and Emily and Anne created “Gondal.” Gondal was and island in the South Pacific and was ruled by a woman who “was in control of herself fan her life.” Both Charlotte and Emily return to themes from Angria and Gondal in their later novels.

Brontë (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After a brief stint as a teacher in Halifax Emily return to Haworth Parsonage and took over as housekeeper. In 1845 Charlotte discovered two notebooks of Emily’s poems and encouraged her to publish them. Emily felt betrayed and refused, but relented when she found out that Anne writing about Gondal too.

Cover of the first edition of Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, by the Brontë sisters, 1846 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Aylott and Jones published 62 of the sister’s poems in “Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.” The initial run sold only 2 copies, but the sisters were undaunted. By 1847 they had each had a novel published (with in months of one another. Charlotte penned Jane Eyre (October). Emily and Anne had a three volume deal. Emily took two volumes for Wuthering Heights, and Anne had the the last volume for Agnes Grey. The set was published in December. Anne quickly followed up with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in June of 1848. Emily was working on a second novel at the time of her death, but it has been lost. (Some speculation has it that Charlotte destroyed the manuscript.)

Emily took ill after her brother Branwell’s funeral. She died of tuberculosis on December 19, 1948.

Wuthering Height is Emily Bronte’s literary legacy. CLICK HERE For a readers guide to the novel. You can pick up a FREE Kindle edition or read the book on line at Bibliomania. Prefer a hard copy? (and don’t we all?) Go to the library or click here.

3 Comments | tags: Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights | posted in Fiction, Poerty, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, Writing

July 28, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.28.12 Beatrix Potter

By ritalovestowrite

“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”*

-Beatrix Potter

English: A picture of Beatrix Potter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Helen Beatrix Potter was born on this day in South Kensington, London in 1866. Today is the 146th anniversary of her birth.

Beatrix and her younger brother (Walter) Bertram were raised in London, but enjoyed long holidays in rural Scotland and the English Lake District. According to the web site for the Beatrix Potter Society she was educated by a governess at home and loved languages and literature especially fairy tales and folk tales. Her early talent for drawling and as a water colorist was encouraged and she illustrated several popular fairy tales for her family’s entertainment. She wrote stories about the family pets . The children kept “rabbits, a hedgehog, some mice and bats…” most of which would one day wind up in her stories.

She kept a journal — written in a code she invented herself (and which was not deciphered until 1958) — and a sketchbook. In her 20’s she “sold some of her artwork for greetings (sic) cards and illustrations” but she largely concerned herself with the study of natural history, giving special focus to mycology — the study of fungi. She produced beautiful and technically accurate watercolors of mushrooms and became an adept scientific illustrator. She wrote a paper on the reproduction of fungi. On April 1, 1897 the paper was presented by a male scientist since women weren’t allowed to attend, much less present at, The Linnean Society (“the world’s oldest biological society” has since changed their Men Only policy).

She also wrote delightful letters to children of her acquaintance that were wonderfully illustrated and told tales of little woodland creatures and pets. In 1901 she adapted some of those letters into The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Cover of the first, privatley printed edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since she couldn’t get any commercial publishers to take on the book she self published the initial edition. But then Frederick Warne & Co. agreed print Peter Rabbit and Potter converted the black and white illustrations to color.

Cover of the first edition, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Norman Warne, the youngest son of the publishing magnet was assigned as Potter’s editor and the two brought twenty Potter books to market, usually at a rate of 2 or 3 a year. Potter also marketed stuffed animals, paint books and wall paper based on the characters in her books.

In 1905 Norman Warne proposed to Beatrix Potter. Her parents vehemently against the match because Warne was socially inferior and “from Trade.” Beatrix found this ironic since her grand parents had been engaged in the cotton trade. But ultimately their pressure won out and she kept the engagement a secret. It didn’t matter. Norman had lymphatic leukemia — a disease that was hard to diagnose at the turn of the century — he died within a month. Potter was summoned to the sick bed, but she arrived too late.

Photo of Norman Warne ca 1900 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Beatrix bought Hill Top Farm in the Lake District in Lancashire as a sanctuary. She wanted to paint, write and learn about land management. Later she purchased Castle Farm across the road from Hill Top Farm. Her goal was to preserve land in the area from development.

English: Hill Top Farm, Near Sawrey, Cumbria. Home of children’s author, Beatrix Potter. As requested in her will, the interior has been “left as if she had just gone out to the post”: a fire burning in the hearth, cups and saucers on the table ready for a visitor! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1923 she bought and restored Troutbeck Park. The sheep at Troutbeck were disease-ridden and under her stewardship the Herdwick sheep were restored to health. She became very involved in the local community and joined several committees to help improve rural live including the founding of a nursing trust to improve local health care. In 1913 she married a local solicitor, William Heelis.In 1926 the semi-autobiographical The Fairy Caravan was published in the United States (it didn’t show up in England until after she passed away).

At her death Beatrix Potter Heelis left 4,000 acres, on 15 farms, in the Lake District to the National Trust.

Beatrix Potter and her husband William Heelis on their wedding day (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Beatrix Potter Society was founded in 1980 to promotes the appreciation of the life and works the author. Please see their web site and the excellent article by Linda Lear for more information on Potter.

The relationship between Beatrix Potter and Norman Warne is basis of the film Ms. Potter starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor.

——————————————————————————————————————–

*Perhaps her teachers were forced to teach to the TEST!

AND Maggie would like you to know that Beatrix Potter is NOT Harry Potter’s Muggle cousin.

NOT related to this guy. Also not a lego. Yet I love all three. Harry Potter (Photo credit: Profound Whatever)

2 Comments | tags: Beatrix Potter, Norman Warne, Peter Rabbit | posted in Art, Beatrix Potter, Fiction, Film, Gardens, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, Writing

July 26, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.26.12

By ritalovestowrite

“Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”

–Aldous Huxley

Türkçe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ald...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Aldous_Huxley.gif (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Aldous Leonard Huxleywas born on this day in Godalming, Surrey in 1894. Today is the 118th anniversary of his birth.

Huxley was born into a family of scientist, educators and writers. His grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley was a biologist and anatomist who was know as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his strong support of Darwin’s theories on evolution. His father, Leonard Huxley, who was a writer, editor, and schoolmaster, had a botanical laboratory of his own that he shared with Aldous and his siblings. Both his older brother, Julian, and his step brother, Andrew, became renowned scientist (Julian was a leading evolutionary biologist and the first director of UNESCO; Andrew won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1963.) Aldous attended Eton College, but he suffered from keratitis punctata at 16 and was almost totally blind for a year and a half. By learning Braille and with the use of special glasses he was able to continue his studies, but he could no longer follow his dream of becoming a scientist (his first career choice). It also meant he couldn’t fight in WWI.

2011 edition of Chrome Yellow published by Create Space.

He taught French at Eton (Eric Blair aka George Orwell was one of his students) and began to write poetry and novels. Chrome Yellow was his first novel, a social satire that was published in 1921. With his use of social criticism, snappy dialogue and cynicism Huxley saw critical and financial success as a writer. He published a dozen books during the 1920s.

: 2006 edition of Brave New World published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics

Huxley met D.H. Lawrence when he moved to Italy part time in 1920. The two authors remained close friends until Lawrence’s death. While in Italy Huxley wrote his masterpiece, Brave New World. It is a dystopian vision of a world controlled by genetic engineering, it’s citizens pacified by institutional drug use.

He moved to Hollywood, CA in 1937. Here he wrote essays and worked on screenplays (including the 1940 version Pride and Prejudice and the 1944 version of Jane Eyre.) He became involved with the counter culture and experimented with self-directed psychedelic drugs. In 1962 he published Island, a “good” Utopia. Where the people of Brave New World took the drug Soma to numb and intoxicate themselves, the people of Island take a perfected (and fictional) LSD variant that helps them expand their world in a religious way.

The 2009 edition of Island published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics

Huxley died on November 22nd, 1963, the same days as C.S. Lewis and President John F. Kennedy.

1 Comment | posted in Fiction, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, Writing

July 14, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.14.12

By ritalovestowrite

“Sometimes love is stronger than a man’s convictions”

—Isaac Bashevis Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer was born on this day in Radzymin, Poland in 1904. He would have been 98 years old today.

He came from a religious family. His father was a rabbi and his mother had several rabbis in her family. He grew up surrounded in a world steeped in Hasidic traditions and even attended Rabbinical School. According to Singer’s Nobel Prize biography, it was a world:

which the reader encounters in Singer’s stories, … a very Jewish but also a very human world. It appears to include everything – pleasure and suffering, coarseness and subtlety…

But Singer wanted a more secular life. The World was changing fast around him and he wanted to be a part of it. The conflict of old verses new (both on a personal level and a global level as Eastern Europe churned through WWI and the build up and horrors of WWII ) were fodder for Singer’s budding journalism and short story writing. Singer gave voice to those conflicts, mixing the tragic with the comic; breaking our hearts but warming them too, all on the same page.

He emigrated to the United States in 1935 and began to work for Yiddish Newspapers. Because of the Holocaust the Yiddish language was nearly wiped out in Europe, but Singer reveled in the power of his native tongue and knew there was still an audience for it. His work often recalled a Poland before the War, but without the sugar coating of nostalgia.

He published memoirs, essays, novels, children’s books and short stories. Singer won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978.

English: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Miami Book Fair International, 1988 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Leave a comment | tags: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Prize in Literature | posted in Fiction, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, World War Two

July 10, 2012

Thought of the Day 7.10.12

By ritalovestowrite

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

— Marcel Proust

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was born in Auteuil, France 1871.Today is the 141st anniversary of this birth.

[I’m writing today — real stuff that I might get paid for one day — and don’t have time to do the usual research / write up for my Thought of the Day birthday boy or girl. Instead I’ll let Proust speak for himself. Here’s a questionnaire he filled out at a social event when he was 20 years old. Looks like something that would be on Facebook, doesn’t it? Hmmmm I wonder how we’d answer some of these questions…]

Türkçe: en:wiki’den (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Your most marked characteristic?
The quality you most like in a man?
The quality you most like in a woman?
What do you most value in your friends?
What is your principle defect?
What is your favorite occupation?
What is your dream of happiness?
What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
What would you like to be?
In what country would you like to live?
One where certain things that I want would be realized – and where feelings of tenderness would always be reciprocated
What is your favorite color?
What is your favorite flower?
What is your favorite bird?
Who are your favorite prose writers?
Who are your favoite poets?
Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Who are your favorite composers?
Who are your favorite painters?
Who are your heroes in real life?
Who are your favorite heroines of history?
What are your favorite names?
What is it you most dislike?
What historical figures do you most despise?
What event in military history do you most admire?
What reform do you most admire?
What natural gift would you most like to possess?
How would you like to die?
What is your present state of mind?
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
What is your motto?

For more on the Proust questionnaire and to see one he took when he was a child click here.

Leave a comment | tags: France, Marcel Proust | posted in Fiction, postaday, Proust, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, Writing

ritaLOVEStoWRITE

Category Archives: Fiction

Thought of the Day 8.6.12 M. Night Shyamalan

Thought of the Day 8.3.12 Leon Uris

Thought of the Day 8.1.12 Herman Melville

Thought of the Day 7.31.12 JKRowling

Thought of the Day 7.30.12 Emily Bronte

Thought of the Day 7.28.12 Beatrix Potter

Thought of the Day 7.26.12

Thought of the Day 7.14.12

Thought of the Day 7.10.12

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