Author Archives: maedez

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About maedez

Writer, biographer, poet. History nerd, silent movie maven. Punk rocker, amateur baker, bookworm. Cricket fan, Scotch drinker, craft beer snob.

A Year in Books/Day 150: Classics of the Silent Screen

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  • Title: Classics of the Silent Screen A Pictorial Treasury
  • Author: Joe Franklin
  • Year Published: 1959 (Cadillac Publishing Co., Inc.)
  • Year Purchased: 1990s
  • Source: Antique Barn at the Ohio State Fair
  • About: When this book was published in 1959, silent movies could still be glimpsed in the cultural rear view mirror. The childhood memories of those over 35 would likely have included going to the movies before talkies existed, when the only noise in the theatre came from the accompanying orchestra or fellow patrons’ coughing and munching. Classics of the Silent Screen is split into two parts, with the first half devoted to Fifty Great Films and the second to Seventy-Five Great Stars. The variety of  films and performers is more interesting than the standard roll call usually found in contemporary studies, as the fame of silent movies and their stars has dropped considerably in the last five decades. Franklin is  both a solid film scholar and an unabashedly passionate fan-the ideal combination for a movie writer. The stills that adorn the text are priceless, and add greatly to the book’s appeal. It is well worth the effort to track this one down.

    Betty Bronson

    Betty Bronson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Motivation: When I bought this book, I hadn’t started writing about silent movies. I was just a young old movie fan turned theatre student, still in the early stages of learning everything I could on the subject. This was one of the first volumes on silent cinema I owned.
  • Times Read: 4 or 5
  • Random Excerpt/Page 72: “Even Peter Pan seemed almost ordinary by comparison when, the following year, director Brenon and star Bronson teamed again to make this second adaptation from Barrie. One of the loveliest and most poignant films ever screened, it was, sad to relate, a flop at the box office-putting an immediate end to further follow-ups.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

A Year in Books/Day 149: The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare

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  • Title: The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare
  • Edited by: Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells
  • Year Published: 2001 (Oxford University Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2001/2002
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: Everything you could want to know about Shakespeare, his works, and his era, this volume is an accompaniment to the Oxford Shakespeare. Dense, detailed and, like any encyclopedia, culled from a diverse, sometimes contradictory set of sources, it is one of the definitive texts on the king of all playwrights. It’s a cornerstone of my Shakespeare collection. Bonus points for the handsome coffee table treatment, complete with beautiful photographs and illustrations.

    English: Title page of Shakespeare's Sonnets (...

    English: Title page of Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1609) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Motivation: I was that lone teen in high school English Literature class who was thrilled whenever Shakespeare showed up on the syllabus. I grew up to study Shakespearean Theatre (yep, that’s a thing). I’m still passionately keen for the Bard of Avon, whose works comprise one of my favourite linguistic and literary playgrounds.
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover:1/As resource: countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 482: “Translation, the rendering of Shakespeare texts into another language, is inalienably part of the process whereby Shakespeare has been, and is being, received in non-English-speaking countries. Hence Shakespeare translation has not only (1) linguistic but also (2) theatrical and cultural-even political-aspects.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10+++

A Reading List a Mile Long: Bas Bleu Summer 2012 Edition

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When it comes to books, I am straight-up greedy. I offer no apologies, only slow, regretful sighs that I cannot own all the books I want to read. Or read all the books I want to read. I could probably spend all of my waking time reading, until it carried over into my dreams, making my life a soft, sweet, contented whirl of words. Other people’s words. Oh. At this point, I would cease to be a writer. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all, but you get my drift. Books-I need them in my life. These are the volumes and literary-related goodies making me drool and pant and dream. Enjoy! Continue reading →

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 6th-8th June

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  • Thomas Mann was born on 6/6/1875. “A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.”
  • Elizabeth Bowen was born on 6/7/1899. “Art is one thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting.”
  • Gwendolyn Brooks was born on 6/7/1917. “Art hurts. Art urges voyages-and it is easier to stay at home.”
  • Dorothy Parker died on 6/7/1967. “I shall stay the way I am because I do not give a damn.”
  • E.M. Forster died on 6/7/1970. “America is rather like life. You can usually find in it what you look for. It will probably be interesting, and it is sure to be large.”
  • Henry Miller died on 6/7/1980. “An artist is always alone-if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.”
  • Thomas Paine died on 6/8/1809. “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”
  • George Sand died on 6/8/1876. “Admiration and familiarity are strangers.”
  • Marguerite Yourcenar was born on 6/8/1903. “A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.”

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[All images are in the Public Domain and are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.]

 

A Year in Books/Day 148: Rebels Pretenders & Impostors

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  • Title: Rebels Pretenders & Impostors
  • Author: Clive Cheesman & Jonathan Williams
  • Year Published: 2000 (St. Martin’s Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2001
  • Source: History Book Club
  • About: Rebels Pretenders & Impostors covers all manner of aspirants to various thrones and seats of power throughout the centuries. Armed with intrigue, deceit and delusion (and often shored up by a skewed sense of destiny), the majority of these fake kings, faux queens and misguided rebels ended up on the wrong side of history. Built on strong research and excellent writing ,while remaining fast-paced, this short book resides in the middle ground between popular history and academic study. It is fun food for thought.
  • Motivation: History, how I love thee! Academic or popular, you are both alright in my book.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 137: “Nor are the Stuarts the only British royal dynasty from whom people claim to descend. The end of the house of Tudor did not inspire either constitutional crisis or a romantic sense of loss in the same way as the events of 1688, but the Tudor monarchs are for many heroic figures, larger than life, loved and hated in equal measure, and with plenty of significance for political and national questions that are still debated. It is not surprising therefore that several individuals have presented themselves as their legitimate descendants.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9

A Year in Books/Day 147: Bare Blass

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  • Title: Bare Blass
  • Author: Bill Blass
  • Year Published: 2002 (HarperCollinsPublishers)
  • Year Purchased: 2010
  • Source: My lovely momma
  • About: The loosely structured autobiography of the great American fashion designer is a fun, quick and riveting read. His perspective on national and international society of the mid-to-late 20th-century is considerably more interesting that what I expected. His retelling of his journey from the Indiana boy he never quite left behind to sophisticated man-of-the-world is complex, humorous and compelling, with detours that I never suspected. Yet, his writing voice is exactly what you would expect: barbed, candid, and smooth. By story’s end, it is obvious why he was welcomed with open arms by high society. Bonus: The book includes his apparently famous recipe for meatloaf.
  • Motivation: It was $1.00. My mom knew that I would find it interesting, as I am  a fashion history hobbyist. Well played, Momma. Well played.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 72: “Actually, what I was shooting for was swagger-a cross between Damon Runyan and the Duke of Windsor, or what fashion editor Sally Kirkland, after seeing my first show, called “the Scarsdale Mafia look.” I loved the expressive masculine style of the thirties. I didn’t give a damn about tastefulness.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8