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- On grief: Eric Church and Anderson Cooper
- “Life was bitter and I was not. All around me was poverty and sordidness but I refused to see it that way. By turning it into jokes, I made it bearable.” — Max Shulman
- “I couldn’t keep a dog and a James Joyce and a bookshop.” — Sylvia Beach
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- “Make the most of what you have and enjoy being female; enjoy being you.” — Bunny Yeager
- “My mother gave me my drive but my father gave me my dreams.” — Liza Minnelli
- “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” — Jack Kerouac
- “I am not descended from flesh. I am God.”: It’s Vaslav Nijinsky’s Birthday
- “My aim is to imply rather than to overstate. Whenever the reader participates with his own interpretation, I feel that the book is much more successful.” — Ezra Jack Keats
- “A good director must be able to inspire whoever he was coaching so that the actor would live the scene. Make-believe must become reality.” — Raoul Walsh
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- JAMES DAVID BAIN on The Books: “Collected Plays of Anton Chekhov” – ‘Swan Song’ (Anton Chekhov)
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Author Archives: sheila
On grief: Eric Church and Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper’s “grief” series has been going on for years now, really, and I always find them so soothing, so comforting, just … the quietness of two people listening and talking, sharing, opening up the space to share thoughts on … Continue reading
“Life was bitter and I was not. All around me was poverty and sordidness but I refused to see it that way. By turning it into jokes, I made it bearable.” — Max Shulman
It’s Max Shulman’s birthday. Who the hell is Max Shulman, some of you may ask? He was one of the most popular humorists of his day, who reached his peak of popularity in the 1950s. He’s the guy who created … Continue reading
“I couldn’t keep a dog and a James Joyce and a bookshop.” — Sylvia Beach
It’s her birthday today. Sylvia Beach is one of my heroes due to her influential bookshop in Paris (Shakespeare & Co.), and her nurturing of the writers of that time. You know, minor writers like James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day
Tagged France, Memoirs, Sylvia Beach, Ulysses, WWI
17 Comments
2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
My progress: Shakespeare Reading Project Henry VI, parts 1, 2, 3 and Richard III Two Gentlemen of Verona The Taming of the Shrew Titus Andronicus The Comedy of Errors Love’s Labour’s Lost Romeo & Juliet A Midsummer Night’s Dream Midsummer … Continue reading
“Make the most of what you have and enjoy being female; enjoy being you.” — Bunny Yeager
“I want to show off how beautiful my subjects are, whether its a cheetah or a live girl or two of them together.” — Bunny Yeager It’s the birthday of model and pin-up photographer Bunny Yeager. She is most famous … Continue reading
“My mother gave me my drive but my father gave me my dreams.” — Liza Minnelli
It’s her birthday today. Years ago, my friend Alex, her friend Shannon and I drove through the desert from Los Angeles, blasting Liza Minnelli the whole way. We were headed to see Liza Minnelli live in Las Vegas. Alex was … Continue reading
“I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” — Jack Kerouac
It’s his birthday today. In Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe paints a pretty brutal picture of Jack Kerouac, at a party in New York, when the Hippie Bus rolled into town. (Robert Stone was also at that party. He … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, fiction, Jack Kerouac, James Salter
4 Comments
“I am not descended from flesh. I am God.”: It’s Vaslav Nijinsky’s Birthday
From Tennessee Williams’ semi-autobiographical last play, Something Cloudy, Something Clear: CLARE. [to Kip] I’m about to deliver a lecture to him on making concessions in art. KIP. For or against? CLARE. I think any kind of artist — a painter … Continue reading
“My aim is to imply rather than to overstate. Whenever the reader participates with his own interpretation, I feel that the book is much more successful.” — Ezra Jack Keats
Ezra Jack Keats was one of my authors when I was about six years old and his books were staples in my childhood. He is somehow looped in my head to Sesame Street, because the world being depicted in his … Continue reading
“A good director must be able to inspire whoever he was coaching so that the actor would live the scene. Make-believe must become reality.” — Raoul Walsh
It’s his birthday today. Raoul Wash directed a number of great films (in a career as vast as his, the names stick out), but one also thinks of the great PERFORMANCES in these great films, often from actors who were … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Ida Lupino, James Cagney, Raoul Walsh, Roaring Twenties, White Heat
4 Comments