“Perhaps there is another kind of writing, I only know this one: in the night, when fear does not let me sleep.”-Franz Kafka
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Author Archives: maedez
A Year in Books/Day 203: Raving Fans
- Title: Raving Fans A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service
- Authors: Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles
- Year Published: 1993 (William Morrow and Company, Inc.)
- Year Purchased: 2010
- Source: An ex-place of employment
- About: I hate this book. I’m tempted to say that I passionately hate this book, but it’s too ridiculous and poorly written to engender that amount of feeling. If you’re wondering why I’ve kept a book this bad instead of tossing it on a rubbish heap whilst kicking up my heels in glee, I use it as a reminder to work my writing fingers to the bone so I do not have to toil in the corporate world again. Ever, ever again. Ever. Because if I do, I’ll probably have this crap thrown at me a third time. I’m not knocking the premise behind Raving Fans; it is sound-very basic, but sound. The execution, though, is worthless. The single worst passage I’ve read in my entire reading life is in this book. (See below) Honestly, if you can run through 132 pages in 15 minutes while knocking back Scotch in a dark, noisy bar without missing anything, what you are reading is too watered-down. Continue reading
Shopping for the Bookworm: Truman Capote Edition
I love Truman Capote. He makes me giddy. His writing-when he was at his best, when he cared enough to really try-is sublime. I could listen to his voice all day long. No, I could listen to his voice all the live long day. Enjoy these Capote-themed goodies from Etsy.
Truman Capote Necklace by Art History Nerd-$25.00
I adore the photograph embedded in this necklace. It’s probably my favourite of Capote. If I wore this piece, I’d spend too much time fiddling with it like a toy.
Truman Capote Quote by hendersweet-$3.00
A nice little card with a quote from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Truman Capote Print by Senioritis-$15.00
Colourful, kitschy print (11×17).
Vintage 1970s Cosmo featuring Truman Capote Article from Shop Buy Love-$24.99
This July, 1972 edition of Cosmopolitan features the article Truman Capote by Truman Capote.
House of Flowers Soundtrack from The Vinyl Frontier-$25.00
This is the soundtrack to the Truman Capote/Harold Arlen musical, House of Flowers. Starring Pearl Bailey, it was recorded in 1954.
The Grass Harp by Truman Capote from Bound By Books-$10.00
A Penguin Books edition of The Grass Harp.
Voices from the Grave #34: Mae West on Mr. Ed
Yes, I’m serious with this one. Mae West wasn’t just a performer; she was also a playwright and screenwriter. Whether you love or hate her, she still fits the bill for inclusion here.
Mae West on Mr. Ed in March 1964, when she was 70. This is the full episode, so feel free to skip ahead to the tasty/ridiculous bits.
A Year in Books/Day 202: Tales of Mystery and Imagination
- Title: Tales of Mystery and Imagination
- Author: Edgar Allan Poe
- Illustrator: Harry Clarke (from the 1919 edition published by George C. Harrap and Company Ltd.)
- Year Published: 1987 (The Franklin Library)
- Year Purchased: 2005
- Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
- About: It’s Poe, people. We all know Poe, don’t we? His stories are such an immutable fact of our culture that we’re practically born with them embedded into our consciousness. Continue reading
The Dead Writers Round-Up: 25th-28th August
- Bret Harte was born on 8/25/1836. “A bird in hand is a certainty. But a bird in the bush may sing.”
- Truman Capote died on 8/25/1984. “A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.”
- Zona Gale was born on 8/26/1874. “The world consists almost exclusively of people who are one sort and behave like another sort.”
- Christopher Isherwood was born on 8/26/1904. “One should never write down or up to people, but out of yourself.”
- Theodore Dreiser was born on 8/27/1871. “In order to have wisdom we must have ignorance.”
- Ivy Compton-Burnett died on 8/27/1969. “People who have power respond simply. They have no minds but their own.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on 8/28/1749. “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”
- Robertson Davies was born on 8/28/1913. “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”
[All images are in the Public Domain and are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.]
Daily Diversion #37: Card House Kafka
It lives on a shelf above my desk. I look at it when I need to loosen my thoughts, daydream.
House of card
The card was made in Nepal and purchased in Montreal, but it reminds me of Kafka, Prague, and my artist friend Jack. I wonder, do the windows creak when they open? I’ve never been dreamy nor drunk enough to find out. Pity.
A Year in Books/Day 201: George Eliot A Life
- Title: George Eliot A Life
- Author: Rosemary Ashton
- Year Published: 1996 (Penguin Books)
- Year Purchased: 2007
- Source: A discount bookstore in New York.
- About: I have a lot of nice things to say about this biography, but the words refuse to line up in the right order. If I wrote down what I was thinking, it wouldn’t make any sense to you. Actually, I tried. About five times, and it didn’t make any sense to me, either. In an effort to get my point across in a straightforward way, and not drive myself crazy whilst doing so, I’m going to toss some descriptive and applicable words at you: Thoughtful. Intelligent. Careful. Illuminating. Human. Measured. Absorbing. Interesting. Appropriate. Subtle. George Eliot is one of my favourite English-language novelists of the 19th century. Her books bear reading and stand up to repeated visits. So does Ashton’s biography.
- Motivation: I like George Eliot’s work. I love biographies to the point of near obsession.
- Times Read: 2
- Random Excerpt/Page 72: “Her isolated position high up in her foreign attic, poised between a past life of much frustration and under-achievement and an unknown future, encouraged her penchant for thorough analysis and turned it inward. Sara had worried about her state of mind and her ability to cope alone. Mary Ann replied that she did quite enough worrying on her own account. Solicitude which expressed itself in criticism was not helpful.”
- Happiness Scale: 9
English: George Eliot (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A Year in Books/Days 199 and 200: MGM Posters/MGM When the Lion Roars
DAY 199: MGM Posters The Golden Years
- Title: MGM Posters The Golden Years
- Text: Frank Miller
- Year Published: 1994 (Turner Publishing, Inc.)
- Year Purchased: 1990s
- Source: I have no idea!
- About: There’s nothing like an old movie poster. When art and commerce combine with history and nostalgia, the result is a visually stunning social commentary. In looking at the representative posters of five decades, changing attitudes and mores are as obvious as changing aesthetics. MGM was known for the luxuriousness of its productions, and the top talent of its employees. Although designed as throwaways, the posters that advertised its movies were no exception, and neither were their artists. My favourite era for this exciting medium is definitely the 1920s.The posters are stunning. At the risk of sounding like a crotchety hundred year old, it has been all downhill since then.
- Motivation: Old movies are my friends. We’re tight. I’m pretty close with art, too. Continue reading
A Year in Books/Day 198: The Roosevelts An American Saga
- Title: The Roosevelts An American Saga
- Author: Peter Collier with David Horowitz
- Year Published: 1994 (Simon & Schuster)
- Year Purchased: Late 1990s
- Source: An ex
- About: This book is exhaustive; comprehensive; and any other applicable word over-used by critics and reviewers. To horribly paraphrase Joni Mitchell, after reading An American Saga I can honestly say that I have looked at the Roosevelts from both sides now. (*groan*) It’s a biography of the entire family, radiating from Teddy and FDR, to be sure, but giving flesh and voice to all of the members. Neither man, after all, was created in a laboratory; nor are the two lines of the family treated as barely associated branches, but as richly interconnecting pieces of a large and complex puzzle. This is a classic.
- Motivation: I’ve been intrigued by FDR since that day in 6th grade history when I drew his name out of the assignment hat. My best friend, Jessy, was not so lucky: she was forced to research Ronald Reagan, the then-sitting head of state. At least neither of us had the task of padding out a report on William Henry Harrison, which was probably an F waiting to happen. Small mercies, people. Small mercies.
- Times Read: 1
- Random Excerpt/Page 37: He was curious about how things worked. He captured insects, rodents, and other specimens and took them apart on makeshift dissecting tables, almost as if by opening them up for examination he might better understand what was wrong with his own machinery. He drew, catalogued, and described what he saw. At the age of eight, when his mother threw out the corpses of two mice he had stored in the icebox for future autopsy, he accused her, in a tiny indignant voice, of “defeating the ends of science.”
English: William Henry Harrison: ninth President of the United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia). Sorry, Will, but I’m glad I was assigned FDR as a book report subject back in the sixth grade. We’re still friends, right?
- Happiness Scale: 9 1/2
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 