Category Archives: postaday

September 27, 2012

Thought of the Day 9.27.12 Clementine Paddleford

By ritalovestowrite

“Beer is the Danish national drink, and the Danish national weakness is another beer. ”

“Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where you backbone ought to be.”
–– Clementine Paddleford

Clementine Paddleford was born on this day in Stockdale (near Manhattan), Kansas in 1898. She grew up with a strong connection to the land and people who tilled it.

Clementine Paddleford as a girl. [Image courtesy: K-State Libraries]

She rode a horse to school, where she learned to love writing at an early age. She loved food too. She learned to cook by her mother’s side in their Kansas kitchen.

In a memoir called “A Flower for My Mother,” she wrote of fresh-picked corn and strawberries, ice cream made from new-fallen snow. [A Life in the Culinary Front Lines, by R.W. Apple, Jr, 11/30/05 The New York Times]

At 15 she worked for the Manhattan (Kansas) Daily Chronicle writing “personals” — She would borrow the family car and go down to the meet the 4 A.M. train for Kansas City and report  on which locals got on the train. It wasn’t journalism at its finest, but it was her first paid gig. She went to Kansas State Agriculture College and graduated in 1921 with a degree in Industrial Journalism. Industrial Journalism was a “boys club,” most women took home economics, and Paddleford was a trailblazer.

She moved from Manhattan, Kansas to Manhattan, New York and attended the Columbia School of Journalism at night while she worked reviewing books for Administration (a business magazine) and the New York Sun during the day. She specifically requested lengthy, more difficult, scientific books because, although she only earned $3 or $4 for a review, she could usually sell the book for $5 to a dealer. She also wrote women’s features for the New York Sun and the New  York Telegram. 

Later Paddleford became the woman’s editor for Fame and Fireside working there until 1929. When a change of management led to her leaving the publication she began to write on a freelance basis, mostly about food.

At home writing. [Image courtesy: The New School]

At 34 she was hospitalized for a malignant tumor on her larynx. She had the growth removed, along with her vocal chords. The operation left her with a breathing tube, and she had to re-learn how to talk. Her voice was never the same and she declined to speak in public after the operation. As for the breathing tube? She took it in stride.

She disguised the tube with a velvet choker that became part of her trademarked look and continued with her work. [the Found Recipe Box]

She worked as a food editor at the New York Herald-Tribune for 30 years from 1935-1966 bringing her signature editorial point of view to reviews and recipes. She made…

forty dollars a week to write six half-columns of advice to New York housewives on buying and eating. The job sounded like a cinch to Paddleford. Half a column a day shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. And forty dollars was bread and butter. But what with her conscientiousness and her growing interest in the job, it wasn’t long before she was putting in as much as twelve hours a day combing food markets and writing the column. [Clementine Paddleford: her Passion is Food, by Josef Israels II, K-State Libraries; ]

She also did a weekly column at This Week Magazine and a monthly column for Gourmet Magazine. At her peak in the 1950’s and 1960’s she had 12 million readers.

Prior to Paddleford, food was treated in a dry academic manner. A recipe was just a list of numbers… x amount of flour… z amount of time in the oven… Paddleford brought the  food life. She told a story around the recipe.

Before Paddleford, newspaper food sections were dull primers on home economy. But she changed all of that, composing her own brand of sassy, unerringly authoritative prose designed to celebrate regional home cooking…[from the book description of Hometown Appetites: The Story of Clementine Paddleford]

She did the same when reviewing a restaurant or exploring the local cuisine …

We opened the mail one morning to learn a barrel of frogs’ legs… was coming our way. They came. We gave half of them away and cooked the rest for an important little dinner for three. The very thought of frogs’ legs sent memories reaching back to our first interest in the “greenies”—as we used to call frogs. Then we children were the hunters along the banks of a creek out Kansas way. We were small savages with clubs who caught froggies with a wallop over their noggins, took them home, and ate the shanks, a choice morsel. We’d wind up with only a few mouthfuls after a couple of hours’ work, but it seemed worth the effort. [Food Flashes, Clementine Paddleford, March 1951, Gourmet Magazine]

Paddleford was a food explorer too. She loved to go to remote places and discover the local cuisine. She learned to fly so she could get to places more quickly. She even had dinner on a nuclear submarine to see what the sailors had in the mess hall. (She came away from the encounter with a recipe for hamburger pie for 100 and one for brownies for 80.)

Well, I couldn’t write about Clementine Paddleford without sharing one of her recipes. Here is Hurry-Up Marble Cake…

Hurry-Up Marble Cake

Here’s an old-time marble cake with a new-time trick, one double quick–no splitting the batter. Use your spatula as a wand–marbleize by magic. Pour the batter into layer-cake pans, drizzle over syrup made without cooking, using a ready-prepared cocoa. Swirl the spatula through the layers and dark chocolate spirals will show when the cake’s cut. The same method can be used to marbleize the frosting. Another day bake the marble loaf.

Double Marble Cake

1/2 cup instant sweet milk cocoa
2 tablespoons boiling water
2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1 egg
1 cup milk

Combine cocoa and water; stir until smooth. Set aside. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Combine shortening and vanilla. Gradually add sugar and cream well. Add egg yolks and egg, one at a time, and beat well. Add flour mixture alternately with milk. Pour into 2 9-inch round cake pans lined with wax paper. Drizzle cocoa mixture back and forth over both layers. With a spatula or knife, “swirl” through batter to marbleize. Bake at 325°F. 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pans 10 minutes. Remove from pans, peel off paper. Cool thoroughly. Frost with marble frosting. Yield: 1 9-inch layer cake.

Marble Frosting

Combine 1/2 cup instant sweet milk cocoa with 2 tablespoons boiling water and stir until smooth; set aside. Combine 2 egg whites, 1/3 cup water, 1 1/2 cups sugar and 2 teaspoons white corn syrup (or substitute 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar) and beat constantly over boiling water with rotary beater for 7 minutes, or until frosting holds its shape. Remove from water and beat for 2 minutes. Pour cocoa mixture over top of frosting in double boiler; do not stir. Spread between layers and on top and sides of cake. Frosting will become marbleized when spread.

Quick Marble Loaf Cake

Combine 1/2 cup instant sweet milk cocoa with 1 1/2 tablespoons milk; stir until smooth, set aside. Sift together 2 cups sifted cake flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Combine 1/2 cup shortening and 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla. Gradually add 3/4 cup sugar and cream well. Add 2 eggs, one at a time, and beat well. Add dry ingredients alternately with 3/4 cup milk. Fold in chocolate mixture gently several times to marbleize batter. Pour into a 10x5x3-inch pan lined with wax paper. Bake at 350°F. for 1 hour. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan, peel off paper and cool cake thoroughly. Yield: 1 loaf cake. [recipecurio.com]

Leave a comment   |  tags: | posted in Baking, Clementine Paddleford, Food, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, United States, Writing

September 26, 2012

Thought of the Day 9.26.12 George Gershwin

By ritalovestowrite
Life is a lot like jazz.. it’s best when you improvise.
 –George Gershwin
English: George Gershwin, 28 March 1937 Azərba...

English: George Gershwin, 28 March 1937 Azərbaycan: Corc Gerşvin, ABŞ bəstəkarı, 28 mart 1937 Español: George Gershwin, 28 marzo 1937 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jacob Gershvin was  born on this day in Brooklyn, New York in 1898. Today is the 114th anniversary of his birth.

His parents were Russian Jewish emigrants. He had three siblings, Ira, Arthur and Frances. His parents bought a piano and paid for lesson for Ira, but it was George who took up the instrument. At 15 he left school and began to work at New York’s Tin Pan Alley. (He changed his name George Gershwin when he entered the professional music world.) He sold his first song, “When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em; When You Have ‘Em, You Don’t Want ‘Em,” for $5.

Music theatre folk-lore has it that one day Gershwin was performing his composition “Swanee” at a party when Broadway star Al Jolson heard it. Jolson added the song to his show in 1919 and it became his signature song. Gershwin rose in the ranks of New York City song composers.

Gershwin collaborated with Arthur L. Jackson and Buddy De Sylva on his first complete Broadway musical, “La, La Lucille” [American Masters; George Gershwin]

He worked in Vaudeville for a bit, and in 1920 he teamed up with lyricist Buddy DeSylva for a one-act jazz opera, Blue Monday.

opening bars rhapsody in blue - gershwin

opening bars rhapsody in blue – gershwin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At 25 his Rhapsody in Blue for solo piano and orchestra debuted in New York. It combined Gershwin’s twin musical loves a jazz and classical. Bandleader Paul Whiteman commissioned the piece  and it was premiered in a concert titled “An Experiment in Modern Music on February 12th with Gershwin at the piano. His other “serious music” includes Concerto in F, An American Paris and his Second Rhapsody (originally New York Rhapsody.)

In 1924, when George teamed up with his older brother Ira, “the Gershwins” became the dominant Broadway songwriters, creating infectious rhythm numbers and poignant ballads, fashioning the words to fit the melodies with a “glove-like” fidelity. [Gershwin.com]

George and his brother Ira worked together in 1924 on the musical Lady Be Good. The show opened at the Liberty Theatre and starred  Fred Astaire and his sister Adele and featured the songs “Fascinating Rhythm“, “O Lady Be Good” and,  “The Half of It, Dearie, Blues.”  You can hear Gershwin’s complicated rhythms and the jazz chords that he would build on in later compositions like Rhapsody and Blue in this  early recording of “The Half Of It, Dearie, Blues“…

Oh, Kay! a musical about an English Duke and his sister turned American bootleggers opened at the Princess Theatre in 1926. It featured the dance number”Clap Yo’ Hands,” the love duet “Maybe” and “Someone To Watch Over Me“.

Funny Face opened in 1927, again with the Astaires in the lead. Songs included “S’Wonderful”, “My One and Only,” He Loves and She Loves” and “Let’s Kiss and Make Up.” An updated of Funny Face opened on Broadway as “My One and Only” in 1983 and ran for over 700 shows. And Hollywood made a move starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn in 1957 called Funny Face and using four of the songs, but with a different plot.

In Strike Up the Band America declares war on Switzerland. The original production only made it to previews in Philadelphia in 1927, but the Gershwins revised it and brought it to Broadway in 1930.  The songs “The Man I Love,” “Strike Up the Band,” “Soon,” and “I’ve Got a Crush on You“  were added to the Gershwin Song Book from the show. [If you ignore all the other links in this post, do yourself a favor and click on I’ve Got a Crush on You — I pulled the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald’s smooth as silk rendition of the Gershwin classic… and no matter how crazy / busy your day is… you deserve this 3min. 18sec. piece of musical heaven.]

True to its name, Show Girl, is all about show business. It starred Ruby Keeler as an up and coming show girl Dixie Dugan. Other “A list” performers like Jimmy Durante and Eddie Foy, Jr. filled out the bill.  It  was produced by Florenz Ziegfeld. Songs include“Harlem Serenade,” and “Liza (All the Clouds’ll Roll Away)” [– Ruby Keeler was married to Al Jolson and he used to come see the show several times a week and sing this, the last song, out loud from the audience, lovingly, to her. ]

In 1929 he wrote the score for the Fox film Delicious. His “New York Rhapsody” (which later became his “Second Rhapsody”) and a five-minute dream sequence was all that the producers chose to use of his score. Gershwin was disgusted.

In 1930 Girl Crazy hit the stage. It starred Ethel Merman, and made a star out of Ginger Rogers [to read the Thought of the Day Ginger Roger’s profile click HERE.]. The show was made into 3 movies,  and while the films shared many of the stage show’s  most popular songs — like “Embraceable You,” “But Not For Me” and “I’ve Got Rhythm” — the plots lines deviated from the original.

Of Thee I Sing premiered in 1931 and became the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1932.
This all-American political satire focuses on the election campaign and Presidency of John P. Wintergreen, whose party, lacking a viable platform, runs on love, promising that if elected he will marry the partner chosen for him at an Atlantic City beauty pageant. When he falls for Mary Turner (a campaign secretary who bakes a mean corn muffin) instead of Diana Deveraux (the fairest flower of the South and winner of the pageant), trouble begins! [MTI Music theatre International]

His ground breaking, genre defying Porgy and Bess came out in September of 1935. George wrote the music, DeBose Heyward wrote the libretto, and Heyward and Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics. It was based on Heyward’s novel Porgy .  Gershwin intended it to be a folk opera.  Although it is considered a modern masterpiece now, the show flopped when it premiered on Broadway. It had revivals in 1942 and 1952, but it and didn’t get the recognition it deserved in the  opera world until the Huston Grand Opera staged it in 40 years later (1976). Songs include “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” “Bess You Is My Woman Now,” and “Summertime.”

Disappointed in the reception that Porgy and Bess received on Broadway he moved to Hollywood. He and Ira worked with RKO movies to score Shall We Dance, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’s 10th film. He won an Academy Award for his song “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” from the film.
Starting in early 1937 George Gershwin began to have blinding headaches and the sensation of smelling burned rubber. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died  on July 11, 1937.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Broadway, Entertainment, Film, George Gershwin, Music, Musical Theatre, postaday, Theatre, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, Uncategorized

September 25, 2012

Thought of the Day 9.25.12 Shel Silverstein

By ritalovestowrite

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”

–Shel Silverstein

[Image courtesy: Poetry Foundation]

Sheldon Allan Silverstein was born on this day in Chicago, Illinois in 1930. Today is the  82nd anniversary of his birth.

Shel grew up in the Logan Square area of Chicago. He was notoriously private and seldom gave interviews so there is not much know about his early life. In one of the rare interviews he gave he said:

“When I was a kid—12 to 14, around there—I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls, but I couldn’t play ball. I couldn’t dance. Luckily, the girls didn’t want me. Not much I could do about that. So I started to draw and to write. I was also lucky that I didn’t have anybody to copy, be impressed by. I had developed my own style…” [Publishers Weekly, February 24, 1975.]

At 12 he became interested in cartooning and would practice his drawing by tracing comics, including Al Capp, from the “funny papers.” He attended the University of Illinois (for “One useless semester”), and the Art Institute of Chicago (for a summer session) before landing at Roosevelt University. It was a Roosevelt that he was first published, his cartoons appeared in the Roosevelt Torch.

In 1953 he was drafted into the US Army. He served from 1953-1955 and worked as a cartoonist for Stars and Stripes Newspaper. He said in a later Stars and Stripes interview that the Army  helped his art work because he didn’t have to worry about selling the cartoons anywhere. He was guaranteed 3 square meals a day. The Army also gave him the structure of a daily deadline. [To read the entire Stars and Stripes interview go to Off On a Tangent: Shel Silverstein Stars & Stripes Interview] His book Take Ten is a compilation of the cartoons he drew for Stars and Stripes.

Take Ten cover art. (Image courtesy: Amazon.com]

When he got out of the Army he found it difficult to sell his work on a regular basis. He freelanced for Sports Illustrated and Playboy and in 1956 he became a staff cartoonist for Playboy. He contributed poems and published several collections of his cartoons through the magazine.

Then in 1963 things took a turn.

“…at the suggestion of fellow illustrator Tomi Ungerer, he was introduced to Ursula Nordstrom who convinced him to begin writing for children. One of Silverstein’s most popular books, The Giving Tree, was published in 1964.” [Shel Silverstein, Introduction by Meghan Ung. Humanities on the Internet]

Cover art for The Giving Tree [Image courtesy: Amazon.com]

No on had wanted to publish the book. They thought it was too sad for a children’s book. They thought it was too short. They couldn’t pigeonhole it as either for adults or children. But they all agreed it was wonderful. Then Harper and Row gave it a chance and it became a classic in children’s literature.

Here’s the 1973 animated movie of The Giving Tree narrated by Silverstein:

1974’s Where the Sidewalk Ends, a collection of poetry for children, won the New York Times Outstanding Book Award. The collection has been republished several times with Silverstein added poems at the 25th and 30th anniversary.  Here’s one of my favorite poems from the book, Hug o’ War:

Hug o’ War

I will not play at tug o’ war.

I’d rather play at hug o’war.

Where everyone hugs

instead of tugs,

Where everyone giggles

and rolls on the rug,

Where everyone kisses,

And everyone grins,

And everyone cuddles,

And everyone wins.

Next up was The Missing Piece is a beautifully written story about a circle who is looking for its soul mate. The nontraditional ending is both truthful and bittersweet.

A Light In the Attic brought more wonderful poems and illustrations. [Backward Bill always cracked us up at our house…]

…Backward Bill’s got a backward pup.

They eat their supper when the sun comes up…

Silverstein’s illustration of Backward Bill. [Image courtesy: Amazon.com]

Silverstein wrote a sequel to The Missing Piece called The Missing Piece Meets the Big O (see below) which won the 1982 International Reading Association’s Children’s Choice Award.

The Shel Silverstein collection  — “borrowed” from the shelves of an obliging independent brick and mortar bookstore, Greetings and Readings, Hunt Valley, Maryland.

Silverstein also had a musical side. He played guitar and wrote songs, including the Johnny Cash hit “A Boy Named Sue“, the Irish Rovers “Unicorn Song” and the Dr. Hook song “The Cover of the Rolling Stone.” He performed on several albums (both his own and others.)

He was also a playwright. He had a hit with The Lady or the Tiger Show a play where contestants in a game show have to choose between two doors. Behind one door is a beautiful woman, behind the other door is a man-eating tiger. He co-wrote Oh, Hell! with David Mamet for Lincoln Center. The two worked together again on the film Things Change.

Silverstein died of a heart attack on May 10th, 1999 in Key West.

Shel playing his guitar. [Image courtesy: 105.7 Hawk]

Here’s the YouTube video for The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, I’d never read this book, or seen this video, but I just loved the message and had to share it…

5 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Art, Poerty, postaday, Shel Silverstein, Theatre, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, United States, Writing

September 24, 2012

Thought of the Day 9/24/12 Jim Henson

By ritalovestowrite

“My hope still is to leave the world a bit better than when I got here.”
–Jim Henson

James Maury Hensonwas born on this day in Greenville, Mississippi in 1936. Today is the 76th anniversary of his birth.

He grew up  near Leland,  Mississippi exploring the countryside around his home. He was encouraged to pursue his artistic side, but he didn’t see a puppet show until the family moved to Washington, D.C. in the late 40’s. Henson recalled the family getting their first television as “the biggest event of his adolescence.” He enjoyed watching early puppet shows like Kukla, Fran and Ollie, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and Bil Baird and Charlemagne the lion. While still at Northwestern High School he got his first TV experience on WTOP-TV where he created and performed puppets for The Junior Morning Show on Saturday mornings. At the University of Maryland  Henson  was a studio arts major with hopes of working that into a career in stage or television design.

As a freshman he worked for WRC-TV on a five-minute long program that ran nightly at 6:40 pm called Sam and Friends. For the show he created a cross-breed of a marionettes and hand puppets  which he called “muppets.” Muppets were more flexible and could express more emotion than traditional puppets. Instead of painted wood he used foam rubber-covered with fabric which gave the creatures soft bodies. He gave them large mouths “that allowed them to convey a wide range of emotions.” [The Mississippi Writers Page]

The Sam and Friends characters were donated to the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC [Image courtesy: National Museum of American History]

Here’s a sketch from Sam and Friends…

He asked fellow UofM freshman Jane Nebel to help him on the show. Hensen and Nebel married in 1959 and had five children together.

Sam and Friends ran for six seasons and…

proved the stepping stone for a series of commercials that brought him nationwide fame. Soon, he was making guest appearances on such national network programs as The Steve Allen Show, The Jack Paar Show…The Tonight Show, Ed Sullivan, and The Jimmy Dean Show, and weekly appearances on The Today Show …[The Mississippi Writers Page]

Muppets, Inc. grew. Jim and Jane added puppeteer and writer Jerry Juhl, puppet builder Don Sahlin and puppeteer Frank Oz to the fold. In 1968 they created a special for National Education Television “Muppets on Puppets” a 9 minute mini documentary on the world of puppeteering.

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The next year Sesame Street premiered. Children’s Television Workshop asked Henson and his creative team to develop a family of muppets to populate Sesame Street. They came up with Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Grover, the Cookie Monster and others.

Hensen, center, works on Sesame Street. [Image courtesy: Jedimouseketeer.com]

Next came  the weekly syndicated variety show, The Muppet Show, starring Kermit. The show included an expanded cast of muppets (like Miss Piggy, Gonzo, the Count, and Elmo) and featured a human guest star. It ran from 1976 to 1981.

Here’s a clip from the show featuring John Cleese…

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Movies followed. Henson found success with both Muppet productions and other puppet enhanced movies like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

Henson won 18 Emmy Awards, 7 Grammy Awards and 4 Peabody Awards in his 30 year career and touched millions of lives. He died from complications of pneumonia in New York on May 16, 1990. Here’s “Just One Person” (one of my favorite Muppet songs) performed at Henson’s tribute.

<iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/0Zzfdlxjx4Y&#8221; frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>

2 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Art, Entertainment, Film, Jim Henson, Musical Theatre, NPR, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday

September 23, 2012

Thought of the Day 9.22.12 Louise Nevelson

By ritalovestowrite

“I never feel age…If you have creative work, you don’t have age or time.”

–Louise Nevelson

Leah Berliaswsky was born on this day in Perislav, Russia in 1899. This is the 113th anniversary of her birth.

Her family lived in Czarist Russia until 1905 when they emigrated to Rockland, Maine in the United States. Her father worked as a woodcutter, owned a junkyard, a lumberyard and became a realtor.

When Leah saw a bust of Joan of Arc at the local library she knew she wanted to become an artist. She started to take art lessons, and experimented in drawing & watercolors.

Nevelson in a 1913 class picture. (She is fourth from the left) [Image is courtesy Wikimedia Commons.]

Upon graduating high school she began to work as a stenographer in New York. She met Charles Nevelson of the Nevelson Brothers shipping company. The two married in 1920. She began to study art in earnest adding singing, acting and dancing to the mix. In 1922 she gave birth to Myron (Mike) Nevelson. Two years later the family moved to Mount Vernon, NY. Louise felt stifled by the small town environment and role she was expected to play as dutiful wife. She longed for the artistic life she knew in New York City.

Louise Nevelson as a young woman. [Image courtesy: Abstract Artist.org]

In 1931 she left both her husband and her son and took a trip to Europe. She studied with cubist Hans Hofmann in Munich, but as the NAZIs began their stranglehold on the city she left for Italy and France.  In 1932 she came back to the United States, where she continued to work with Hofmann (he was now teaching at the Art Students League) and she officially separated from her husband. In 1933 she worked with Diego Rivera on his Man at the Crossroads mural at Rockefeller Plaza. Shortly after that she took a sculpture class at the Education Alliance, and decided to focus on sculpture as her medium of choice.

At first she produced…

primarily cubist figure studies made from bronze, plaster and clay… It wasn’t until 1943 that the art-world got their first glimpse of what would become Nevelson’s signature style of assembling wood.  [Abstract Artist.org]

In the 1940s she began to make pieces from reclaimed materials and scraps of wood.

Nevelson… crafted surreal, totemic monuments that served loosely as maps to the artist’s mind. … Nevelson also cultivated her extravagant personal style, which included long dresses and false eyelashes, to dovetail with her desire to express emotion through art. [The Art Story.org]

One of her most famous sculptures is Dawn’s Wedding Feast, a room size installation created in 1959 made of wood and white paint. The installation has four chapels, a bride, groom, wedding cake, various other pieces and hanging columns that represent the wedding guests. It was too big and too expensive for one buyer to purchase so Nevelson broke the installation into sixteen stand alone pieces.

 

Dawn’s Wedding Feast, 1959-60 [Image Courtesy

In her “Late Period” she abandoned “typical carpentry” and “Her process became purely additive, wherein she stacked and balanced objects before nailing together and painting them…” [The Art Story.org]  She selected small scaled pieces that worked together to form a larger installation.

Black Zag Z — 1969 [Image courtesy: Abstract Artist.org]

Nevelson and her granddaughter Neith in 1967. Photo by Ugo Mullas. [Image Courtesy Amazon.com]

Nevelson toward the end of her life. [Abstract Artist.org]

By the time she died in on April 17,1988, Louise Nevelson was considered by many to be one of the most important American sculptors of the twentieth century and one of the world’s best-known woman artists.  [Abstract Artist.org]

Leave a comment   |  tags: | posted in Art, Louise Nevelson, postaday, Russia, Sculpture, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, United States

September 21, 2012

Thought of the Day 9.21.12 Henry Tingle Wilde

By ritalovestowrite

“I still don’t like this ship . . . I have a queer feeling about it.”

–Henry Tingle Wilde

Henry Tingle Wilde, Jr was the Chief Officer of the Titanic. [Image courtesy: Wikipedia]

Henry Tingle Wilde was born on this day in Walton, Liverpool, England in 1872. Today is the 140th anniversary of his birth.

Wilde was drawn to the sea at an early age. At 17 he left his home for an apprenticeship on the iron sailing ship the Greystoke Castle — a three mast, square sail vessel– as a third mate. He served on the Greystoke’s sister ship the Hornby Castle, also as third mate. He was posted to the steamships the S.S. Brunswick and the S.S. Europa before joining the White Star Line in 1897. He was a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve, and held ordinary and extra masters certificates.

The Hornby Castle, a sailing ship that Wilde trained on. He worked on both sail and steam vessels.  [Image Courtesy Wreck Site]

Starting in 1905 he transferred to the White Star passenger line, working mostly on the Liverpool to New York, and Australian routes. He rose in the ranks aboard The Arabic, The Covic, The Cufic, The Tauric, the Celtic, the Medic, The Delphic, the Cymric and The Olympic until he reached the rank of Chief Officer under Captain Edward John Smith on The Olympic.

The Titanic [Image courtesy: Mail Online]

Smith transferred to the White Star’s newest vessel, The Titanic as her Captain. Wilde was due to ship out with The Olympicbut White Star officials sent word for him to stay in Southampton and await further orders. At 39 and with years of experience he was certainly seasoned enough to get his own ship. But Captain Smith wanted to add experience to his senior staff and he requested that Wilde join the crew as Chief Officer. Wilde debated the move. His family urged him to take the position, but, as he wrote in a letter to his sister…

“I still don’t like this ship…I have a queer feeling about it…” [Henry Tingle Wilde, Chief Officer by Christine Ehren, Titanic-lore.info]

He officially joined The Titanic crew on April 9th, the day before she sailed. The post was for the great ship’s maiden voyage only. And it meant that the other senior officers would be shifted down in rank. William Murdoch became first officer, Charles Lightoller became second officer. The man originally slated to be second officer, David Blair, did not make the journey. The junior officers retained their positions.

Henry Tingle Wilde in his summer white uniform, that he wore on the Olympia. [Image courtesy: Encyclopedia Titanica]

Publicity still from the Movie Titanic. Mark Lindsay Chapman, third from the left, plays Chief Officer Henry Tingle. He stands just to the left of Bernard Hill who is playing Captain Smith. [Image courtesy: William Murdoch.org]

 

The Titanicleft Southampton, England on April 10th, 1912 with stops at Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland before heading west across the Atlantic toward New York. Wilde had the 2-6 AM and the 2-6 PM shifts as “Officer of the Watch.” So he was not on the bridge when the ship hit an iceberg at 11:40 PM on April 14th.

Wilde was in charge of the loading the even-numbered lifeboats on the port side of the ship. (He also distributed firearms to the senior officers.) He adhered strictly to Captain Smith’s order to “put women and children in and lower away…” so the boats from that side of the ship only contained women, children and two crew members (to work the boats). When all the boats on his side of the ship were launched he went to starboard side of the ship. Some survivors recall seeing him attempting to release Boat A or B from the roof the Officers’ Quarters when the Titanic’s deck flooded.

Schematic of Titanic. [Image courtesy: Mail Online]

Survivor George Rheims wrote in a letter dated just days after the sinking:

“While the last boat was leaving, I saw an officer with a revolver fire a shot and kill a man who was trying to climb into it. As there remained nothing else for him to, the officer told us, “Gentlemen, each man for himself. Good bye.” He gave a military salute and then fired a bullet into his head. That’s what I call a man!” [Henry Tingle Wilde, Chief Officer by Christine Ehren, Titanic-lore.info]

But it isn’t known if that officer was Wilde or First Officer Murdoch. It doesn’t matter. If he didn’t die of a self-inflicted gunshot wound he died a few minutes later in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. His body was never found. He was 39 years old.

In 1998 the newspaper Liverpool Echo wrote about Wilde’s role on the Titanic as follows:

Liverpool’s forgotten hero, Chief Officer Henry Wilde… from Walton, flits through the enquiry evidence but witnesses have described how Wilde supervised the loading of the lifeboats and stopped 100 people rushing them by the sheer force of his personality….He is believed to have prevented a panic which would have led to even greater losses. [Henry Tingle Wilde, Chief Officer by Christine Ehren, Titanic-lore.info]

 He was survived by four children (he had recently lost his wife and twin boys.)

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Thanks to J.G.Burnette at jgburdette.wordpress.com for suggesting Henry Wilde as the Thought of the Day Birthday Bio for today. J.G. is a big Titanic fan and was able to give me both the name and birthdate so I could start my research.–I hope I found some new nugget for your Titanic files! — IF YOU have some one you’d like to see profiled on Thought of the Day please let me know. Cheers, Rita

10 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in England, Henry Tingle Wilde, History, Ocean, postaday, Sailling, Thought of the Day, Titanic, Today's Birthday

September 20, 2012

Thought of the Day 9.20.12 Elizabeth Kenny

By ritalovestowrite

“He who angers you conquers you.”

–Elizabeth Kenny

“Sister” Kenny [Image courtesy: Australian War Memorial; AWM.Gov.au]

Elizabeth Kenny was born on this day in Warialda, New South Wales, Australia in 1880. Today is the 132nd anniversary of her birth.

Because her father was an itinerant farmer the family moved often when Elizabeth was growing up. Her education was limited to home-schooling and a variety of small town primary schools. When she was 17 she fell off her horse and broke her wrist. Her father, Michael, took her to the town of  Toowoomba to see Dr. Aeneas McDonnell. Kenny remained in Toowoomba to recover from the injury and grew fascinated with Dr. McDonnell’s medical books, especially those on anatomy, and his model skeleton. It started Kenny on her life long journey in medicine. She made her own model skeleton to study how muscles and bone worked together in the human body.

Elizabeth Kenny as a young woman. [Image courtesy: Minnesota Public Radio.org]

At 18 she became an unaccredited,  unpaid bush nurse. She later (probably) volunteered at the maternity hospital at Guyra in New South Wales.

There is no official record of formal training or registration as a nurse. She probably learned by voluntary assistance at a small maternity hospital at Guyra, New South Wales. About 1910 Kenny was a self-appointed nurse, working from the family home at Nobby on the Darling Downs, riding on horseback to give her services, without pay, to any who called her. [Elizabeth Kenny, by Ross Patrick, Australian Dictionary of Biography]

Kenny opened St. Canice’s Cottage Hospital in Clifton. She kept in contact with Dr. McDonnell and would often telegraph him when a case stymied her.

In 1911 one such case presented itself. She contacted McDonnell about a new case that stymied her.. a young girl who was crippled, but not from a fall or external trauma. McDonnell replied that it was probably “It sounds like Infantile Paralysis.  There’s no known treatment, so do the best you can.” [Sister Elizabeth Kenny. Australians Documentary Series. 1998. from Teachspace.org] Kenny used a common sense approach. She applied hot compresses to the little girl’s spasming muscles. Hot, heavy woolen blankets were applied that help loosen the muscles and relieve the pain. Then she stretched the little girls legs and strengthened the muscles. It worked. The pain abated, the girl (allegedly) asked “Please, I want them rags that well my leg.”

Of the twenty children in the district, the six that Kenny treated survived without complications. [Sister Elizabeth Kenny. Australians Documentary Series. 1998. from Teachspace.org]

With the outbreak of World War I Kenny, with a letter of recommendation from Dr. McDonnell, joined the Australian Medical Corps. She worked on hospital ships bringing the wounded home from Europe. She was received a shrapnel wound to the leg while at the front.

She patented her invention of a stretcher that immobilized shock patients during transport, the Sylvia Stretcher, and used the royalties  open a clinic for polio patients in Townsville, Queensland. Here she treated long-term polio and cerebral palsy patients, tossing aside the braces and concentrating on hot baths, passive movements and foments.

Sister Kenny works with a young patient as other doctors, nurses and physiotherapist observe. [Image courtesy: Sister Elizabeth Kenny: Medical Pioneer]

Her “homespun” methods for polio treatment, though effective, were controversial as the  accepted practice was to splint the affected limbs to keep them rigid. That way the stronger muscles wouldn’t pull on the weaker/paralyzed muscles and create deformities. Kenny thought that splinting the limbs would actually produce deformities and increase paralysis. She alternately dismissed, ridiculed or vilified by the medical establishment. Kenny soldiered on, buoyed by the support of parents who witnessed first hand the results her methods were having on their children. Kenny opened clinics in Brisbane and through out Queensland.

The controversy over her methods followed her to England  and the US. Kenny worked in the Minneapolis General Hospital where…

Her methods became widely accepted. She began courses for doctors and physiotherapists from many parts of the world. The Sister Kenny Institute was built in Minneapolis in 1942 and other Kenny clinics were established. [Elizabeth Kenny, by Ross Patrick, Australian Dictionary of Biography]

Kenny in 1950. {Image courtesy: Wikipedia]

She developed Parkinson’s disease and retired to Toowoomba in 1951. Kenny died there of cerebrovascular disease on 30 November 1952.

Sister Kenny’s pioneering principles of muscle rehabilitation became the foundation of physical therapy. Today, Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Services is one of the premier rehabilitation centers in the country, known for its progressive and innovative vision. [Nurses for nurse everywhere.info]

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Australia, Elizabeth Kenny, History, Medicine, Polio, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, World War One

September 19, 2012

Thought of the Day 9.19.12 Jeremy Irons

By ritalovestowrite

“It’s always great to play a man who sets himself up to be punctured.”

–Jeremy Irons

Jeremy John Irons was born on this day in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, England in 1948. He is 64 years old.

He grew up on the island, and didn’t have much connection with the professional performing arts. The family only ventured to the mainland once a year. But when he was an adolescent the family moved to Hertfordshire and, at 13, Jeremy was sent to the Sherborne School in Dorset. There he took part in a four-man school band called the Four Pillars of Wisdom. The group played for their mates on Sunday afternoons, with Jeremy on drums and harmonica (including stand out harmonica solos in “Moon River” and “Stairway to Heaven.” — because when you think of Stairway to Heaven you think ‘harmonica solo!’) He also performed comedy skits and was in the school’s production of My Fair Lady (he played Professor Higgins.)

Irons trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. There he “gained much experience working in everything from Shakespeare to contemporary dramas.” [IMDB biography] He supported himself with a number of odd jobs and by busking on the streets of Bristol.

In 1971 he moved to London and landed the role dual role of John the Baptist/Judas in Godspell at the Round House.

He did a lot of television work in the 1970’s including: The Pallisers;  Love of Lydia; Churchill’s People; Langrishe, Go Down; The Voysey Inheritance; and as Franz Liszt in Notorious Woman,

His film debut was in the 1980 film Nijinsky, but his break out role was opposite Meryl Streep in the French Lieutenant’s Woman. The film, based on the John Fowles novel, follows two parallel love stories — one between Victorian palaeontologist Charles and “the French Lieutenant’s Whore” Sarah; the other between Mike and Anna, the actors who play the Victorian couple in a movie they are making on the novel. Irons was nominated for a BAFTA Award for best Actor (Streep won one for Best Actress.)

Still from The French Lieutenant’s Woman [Image Courtesy: Encyclopedia Britannica]

Back on television he played another Charles, Charles Ryder, opposite Anthony Andrew’s Sebastian Flyte in the hugely successful Brideshead Revisited  based on the Evelyn Waugh novel.  Irons got another BAFTA Nomination (Andrews won), both men were nominated for Emmy Awards.

Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons in Brideshead Revisited (Image Courtesy The Guardian.)

He followed those two high profile projects with an independent film about Polish guest workers in London, Moonlighting.

Irons played Father Gabriel in Roland Joffe’s The Mission. Father Gabriel is a Spanish Missionary who is sent into the jungles of South America. He builds a sanctuary for the Guarani Indians. Robert DeNiro, a reformed slave hunter joins him at the mission. Together they must defend both the mission and the people who live there from the encroaching Portuguese It is all set to Ennio Morricone’s beautiful music.

Father Gabriel’s (Irons) first encounter with the Guarani Indians. [Image courtesy: Mostly Movies]

David Cronenberg’s psychological thriller Dead Ringers saw Iron’s playing identical twin gynecologist. The movie brought the word “co-dependant” to a whole new level. Iron’s is cool (maybe even icy) and creepy in the movie. (It is a total departure from his Father Gabriel. So if you are planning a Jeremy fest, don’t book these two back to back.)

Reversal of Fortune finally brought Irons the Gold. He won both an Academy Award  and a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of Claus von Bulow.

Irons took on the role of Rene Gallimard when Cronenberg brought M. Butterfly from stage to screen.

You might recognize his growling voice from Disney’s the Lion King. He played Simba’s uncle Scar.

When Bruce Willis brought his Die Hard franchise to New York for Die Hard with a Vengeance, Irons played his foil, psychopath Simon Gruber.

He pulled on some tights when he took on Aramis in The Man in the Iron Mask; Antonio, to Al Pacino’s Shylock, in Michael Radford’s 2004 movie of Shakepeare’s The Merchant of Venice;  suited up as Tiberias, a Knight Templar, in Kingdom of Heaven; and starred in the tv mini-series Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, as the Earl of Leicester/Lord Dudley, opposite Helen Mirren’s Bess.

He played photographer Alfred Stieglitz in the made for TV biopic Georgia O’Keefe in 2009.

Still from Georgia O’Keefe. (Image Courtesy: IMDB)

Heck, he’s even voiced the part of Moe’s Bar Rag in the Simpsons!

Irons currently can be seen in Showtime’s sweeping TV mini series The Borgias, a crime drama set in 1492 Italy.

And he plays Henry IV in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 & 2  in the BBC’s the Hallow Crown series.

Still from Henry IV, Part 1 with Irons and Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal (Image Courtesy: The Telegraph)

Here’s Ennio Morricone’s BAFTA Award winning song Gabriel’s Oboe from the film The Mission. [The soundtrack holds a very special place in my heart because we used parts of it, including Gabriel’s Oboe at our wedding. I wrote the publisher to see if I could get the sheet music, but it wasn’t published yet. They contacted Mr. Morricone and they supplied us with a copy of the hand written piano score. How’s that for romantic? This was played on a pipe organ as I walked up the aisle with my dad. ]

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Elizabeth I, England, Film, Jeremy Irons, postaday, Shakespeare, Theatre, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday

September 18, 2012

Thought of the Day 9.18.20 Peace, Love, and Understanding

By ritalovestowrite

“My world, your world, one world” collage. [copyright: ritaLOVEStoWRITE]

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

— Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem on December 25th in the year O*. We’ll celebrate his 2012th birthday soon.

[So, you may be wondering why am I bumping up Jesus in the usual chronological birthday list of Thought of the Day and featuring Him today?  I did it because I was looking for a good quote that reflected how I felt about current events, and this quote says it all. Let me explain…]

I’m dumb.

I must be.

Certainly I’m naive.

Absolutely I’m a fool.

Because… no matter how often I am presented with it…I just don’t understand hate.

This week has been a good one for hate and the haters. The bullies and the manipulators have been out in force. Frankly, people, I just don’t get it and I’m telling you to stop.

Please stop making (or rather manipulating**) movies so they are purposefully incendiary to an entire religion. While you are at it, stop sanctioning that movie in some misguided blessing from my God (as one Florida preacher did). Don’t speak for  Jesus unless it is a direct quote. Jesus, as I recall, said “Love one another as I have loved you.”  ONE ANOTHER — meaning everybody, not just the people who look, think, love, vote, or pray the way you do.

I’m a writer. (The word “write” is in the NAME of my BLOG). Obviously I believe in FREE SPEECH, but I also believe that Freedom of Speech comes with responsibility. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theatre and then, after people stampede out, shrug and say “Free Speech.” You can’t liable someone and evoke the right. And you shouldn’t knowingly spew hatred. Is it your free speech right to make any movie you want? Yes, but it is wrong, and you know it.

Hatred hurts. In this case it killed.

That brings me to the other side of this crisis, and the other side of the world. To those of you in Muslim countries and of the Muslim faith, PLEASE know that most of us in the U.S. are just as revolted by that movie as you are. In fact most of us didn’t know anything about it until the protest started in Egypt.

That movie in no way represents America.

But, it is also wrong that this stupid little movie is being used to insight violence through out the Middle East and in other Muslim countries. What happened in Libya was horribly wrong and senseless, and the only agenda it promoted is one of hate.

To my Muslim brothers and sisters I ask you to consider a more peaceful response.

I hope we can all dial back the rhetoric, the name calling, the stone throwing and resentment and redirect our efforts towards building peaceful relationships… large and small.

I know I’m not a genius,  but I do know that hate begets nothing but hate, whereas a hand held out in peace can build a better world.

Peace be with you, my friends.

Holding a virtual candle, and saying a prayer for peace, love and understanding.

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(*Jesus’ birth is either on year O 0r the year 6 or 4 BC depending on which scholar you read)

(**The actors and crew for that movie didn’t know that their work would be over dubbed to become an anti-Muslim film btw. They thought it was just a low budget sci-fi movie about a astroid falling to the desert.)

5 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Faith, Peace, postaday, Thought of the Day, Writing