BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: AMERICANA

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

BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THE JOYS OF READING

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

BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: ANIMALS

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

BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: FILMS #16

WHAT NORA EPHRON LEARNED ABOUT FILM SCRIPT WRITING FROM TOM HANKS “…I learned from Tom was a thing that’s really important, which is that scene after scene, you have to give the main actor something to play, he can never be passive in the scene, et. cetera, even (or especially) when he’s sharing it with

BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:PEOPLE

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

BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

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

BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:PHILOSOPHY (sort of)

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

BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: POETS & POETRY #3

“There are no uninteresting people in the world, says Yevtushenko in one of his best lyrics; everyone carries around with him his first snow and his first kiss it is not people who die but worlds.” Edward Thomas. London Magazine (November 1967) ** ON BRAZIL’S FAMOUS POET CARLOS DRUMMOND de ANDRADE & CHARLIE CHAPLIN “The

BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: SHAKESPEARE #3

SHAKESPEARE ON TELEVISION “Every single one of Shakespeare’s plays has an organic rhythm of its own. I do not think he understood the five-act system until mid-career, but he had a practical sense of timing and variation, and he was a perfect story-teller. Therefore no commercial programme can ever do Shakespeare properly, because the breaks

BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THE JOYS OF READING

“Reading was such a wonderful thing that to have made a life around the experience was almost criminal and it was so fortunate.” Elizabeth Hardwick ** THE CREATOR OF THE WIZARD OF OZ PREDICTED THE INVENTION OF THE CELL PHONE “Baum wrote dozens of other novels and short stories, and he had a knack for