Go To Monday January 23| Tuesday January 24| Wednesday January 25|

Thursday January 26| Friday January 27| Saturday January 28|

January is

National Mentoring

Month

===============================

Sunday January 22

—————————

Born January 22

Subhash Ram Prajapati (b. 1980) – Nepalese ethnomusicologist, documentary filmmaker, author

Arkady Gaidar (b. 1904) – Russian writer, children’s stories – Timur and His Gang (1940)

Francis Bacon (b. 1561) – British philosopher – The New Atlantis (1626)

———————————————

Monday January 23

————————-

Born January 23

Derek Walcott (b. 1930) -  Caribbean-American poet; 1992 Nobel Literature prize

Elvira Lindo (b. 1962) – Spanish journalist, children’s novelist and adult novelist / screenwriter – Manolito Gafotas (1994)

———————————————

Tuesday January 24

—————————

Born January 24

Marguerite Durand (b. 1864) – French feminist, founder of the first feminist newspaper, La Fronde (The Slingshot)

Edith Wharton (b. 1862) – U.S. novelist – The Age of Innocence (1921 Pulitzer prize winner)

Vítězslava Kaprálová (b. 1915) – Czechoslovakian composer – April Preludes (1937) 

———————————————

Wednesday January 25

—————————

Born January 25

Gloria Naylor (b. 1950) – U.S. novelist – The Women of Brewster Place (1983)

Virginia Woolf (b. 1882) – British novelist, essayist – Three Guineas [1938]

David Grossman (b. 1954) – Israeli author, activist

———————————————

Thursday January 26

—————————

Born January 26

Shinjo Mayu (b. 1973) – Japanese Manga author

Jules Feiffer (b. 1929) – U.S. cartoonist, screenwriter, novelist, children’s book
writer – I Lost My Bear

Henry Jaglom (b. 1938 or 1941) – U.K.-U.S. film director, playwright – Festival in Cannes (2001)

———————————————

Friday January 27

—————————

Born January 27

Eliette Abécassis (b. 1969) – French novelist, historian, philosopher – Qumran (1996)

Mordecai Richler (b. 1931) – Canadian novelist, screenwriter, essayist – The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959 – novel; 1974 – film)

Djavan (b. 1949) – Brazilian singer/songwriter

———————————————

——————————

Born January 28

(Sidonie-Gabrielle) Colette (b. 1873) – French novelist – Gigi (1945)

José Martí (b. 1853) – Cuban poet, political activist, essayist – A Cuba

Arnaldur Indriðason (b. 1961) – Icelandic crime fiction novelist

=======================

Visit the online used bookstore DempseyBooks at

http://dempseybooks.com

Twitter Updates

follow LitBirthdays on Twitter

=========================================

At Dempsey Books

x

x

Go To Monday January 16| Tuesday January 17| Wednesday January 18|

Thursday January 19| Friday January 20| Saturday January 21|

January is

National Mentoring

Month

===============================

Sunday January 15

Giles Milton (b. 1966) – U.K. historical narrative writer, journalist, novelist – Wolfram: The Boy Who Went to War (2011)

Read about Giles Milton here

—————————

Born January 15

Sonya Kovalevsky (Sofia Kovalevskaya) (b. 1850) Russian mathematician, memoirist, novelist – A Russian Childhood (1889)

Moliere (Jean Baptiste Poquelin) (b. 1622) – French playwright, comedian – Tartuffe

Mikki Doyle (Miriam Leventhal) (b. 1916) – U.S. journalist, women’s page editor, Communist

Martin Luther King, Jr. (b. 1929) – U.S. civil rights activist, Christian minister

———————————————

Monday January 16

————————-

Born January 16

Garth Ennis (b. 1970) – Northern Irish comic book writer – Preacher series

Robert W. Service (b.  1874) – Scottish-Canadian poet (the bard of the Yukon)

———————————————

Tuesday January 17

—————————

Born January 17

Anne Bronte (b. 1820) – British novelist, poet – Agnes Grey

Benjamin Franklin (b. 1706) – U.S. philosopher, statesman, historian – The Way to Wealth

———————————————

Wednesday January 18

—————————

Born January 18

A.A. Milne (b. 1882) – U.K. author – Winnie the Pooh

———————————————

Thursday January 19

—————————

Born January 19

Edgar Allan Poe (b. 1809) – U.S. poet, essayist, mystery and horror writer

———————————————

Friday January 20

—————————

Born January 20

Ernesto Cardenal (b. 1925) – Nicaraguan priest, poet theologian

Nancy Kress (b. 1948) – U.S. science fiction writer – Probability Space (2002)

———————————————

——————————

Born January 21

Judith Merril (b. 1923) – U.S. science fiction writer

Richie Havens (b. 1941) – U.S. singer / songwriter – Freedom

=======================

Visit the online used bookstore DempseyBooks at

http://dempseybooks.com

Twitter Updates

follow LitBirthdays on Twitter

=========================================

At Dempsey Books

Evenings Near the Village of Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol

Go To Monday January 9| Tuesday January 10| Wednesday January 11|

Thursday January 12| Friday January 13| Saturday January 14|

January is

National Mentoring

Month

===============================

Sunday January 8

Stephen Hawking (b. 1942) – U.K. physicist – The Grand Design (2010)

Read about Stephen Hawking here and here

Stephen Hawking talks about his appearance on The Simpsons television show

Hawking: Allmost as many people know me through The Simpsons as through my science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei-pKsNiINk

—————————

Born January 8

Terence Dean “Terry” Brooks (b. 1944) – U.S. fantasy fiction writer – Dark Wraith of Shannara (graphic novel)

Gaston Miron (b. 1928) – French-Canadian poet

———————————————

Monday January 9

————————-

Born January 9

Simone de Beauvoir [b. 1908] – French philosopher, essayist, novelist – The Ethics of Ambiguity (French title: Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté)

Hayim Nachman Bialik (b. 1873) – Israeli poet

Thorvald Steen (b. 1954) – Norwegian novelist – Camel Clouds / Kamelskyer

———————————————

Tuesday January 10

—————————

Born January 10

Peter Barnes (b. 1931) – British playwright, screenwriter – Red Noses (1985) (Olivier award winner)

Fran Walsh (b. 1959) – New Zealand screenwriter – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001); The Lovely Bones (2009)

Louise Carver (b. 1979) – South African singer/songwriter

———————————————

Wednesday January 11

—————————

Born January 11

Siti Nurhaliza (b. 1979) – Malaysian singer / songwriter

Sulamith Wülfing (b. 1901) – German artist, illustrator – Angels

———————————————

Thursday January 12

—————————

Born January 12

Ferenc Molnár (originally Ferenc Neumann)  (b. 1878) – Hungarian novelist, playwright - The Play at the Castle

Inoue Takehiko (b. 1967) – Japanese manga artist

———————————————

Friday January 13

—————————

Born January 13

Flora Nwapa (Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa) (b. 1931) – Nigerian novelist, poet, publisher, activist – Efuru (1966)

Jay McInerney (John Barrett McInerney Jr.) (b.1955) – U.S. novelist – How It Ended: New and Collected Stories (2010)

———————————————

——————————

Born January 14

Emily Hahn (b. 1905) – U.S. journalist, adventure writer, feminist-China To Me

Albert Schweitzer (b. 1875) – Swiss medical missionary, humanitarian – On the Edge of the Primeval Forest (1924)

=======================

Visit the online used bookstore DempseyBooks at

http://dempseybooks.com

Twitter Updates

follow LitBirthdays on Twitter

=========================================

At Dempsey Books

Soviet Russia in China by Chiang Kai Shek

Go To Monday January 2| Tuesday January 3| Wednesday January 4|

Thursday January 5| Friday January 6| Saturday January 7|

January is

National Mentoring

Month

===============================

Sunday January 1

Read

—————————

Born January 1

Edward Morgan Forster (b. 1879) – British novelist – A Passage to India

Isma’il Raji al-Faruqi (b. 1921) – Palestinian philosopher – Al-Tawhid: Its Implications for Thought and Life

———————————————

Monday January 2

————————-

Born January 2

André Aciman (b. 1951) – Egyptian-American memoirist, professor of literature – Out of Egypt: A Memoir (1995)

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (b. 1873) – French Roman Catholic nun – L’Histoire d’une Âme (The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux)

Isaac Asimov (b. 1920) – Russian-American science fiction writer – Foundation (1951)

———————————————

Tuesday January 3

—————————

Born January 3

Rodrigo de la Cadena (b. 1988 or 1989) – Mexican singer, songwriter

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (b. 1892) – British fantasy fiction author and poet

Marcus Tullius Cicero (b. 106 BC) – Roman philosopher – “Laelius De Amicitia” (Laellius on Friendship)

Savitri Bai Phule (b. 1831) – Indian poet, teacher, educator of women

———————————————

Wednesday January 4

—————————

Born January 4

Harlan Coben (b. 1962) – U.S. mystery/thriller novelist – The Final Detail: A Myron Bolitar Novel (2009)

Gao Xingjian (b. 1940) – Chinese playwright, novelist, painter; 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature  – The Other Shore (1986)

———————————————

Thursday January 5

—————————

Born January 5

Hayao Miyazaki 宮崎 駿, Miyazaki Hayao (b. 1941) – Japanese manga, film animation artist, film director/producer – Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

Umberto Eco (b. 1932) – Italian novelist, essayist – The Name of the Rose (1980)

———————————————

Friday January 6

—————————

Born January 6

Karin Slaughter (b. 1971) – U.S. crime writer – Broken (2010)

Idris Davies (b. 1905) – Welsh poet

———————————————

——————————

Born January 7

Nicholson Baker (b. 1957) – U.S. novelist – Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II (2008)

Shobhaa Dé (b. 1948) – Indian novelist

=======================

Visit the online used bookstore DempseyBooks at

http://dempseybooks.com

Twitter Updates

follow LitBirthdays on Twitter

=========================================

At Dempsey Books

Here’s an excerpt:

This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Go To Monday December 26| Tuesday December 27| Wednesday December 28|

Thursday December 29| Friday December 30| Saturday December 31|

December is

AIDS Awareness

Month

and

Write to a Friend

Month

===============================

Sunday December 25

Read about Sheila Heti here and here and here

Q: Is an MFA not something available at the University of Toronto? Or were you not interested in being taught writing?

Sheila Heti: It’s probably offered, but it just never appealed to me, going to school to write; it always seemed like something you had to learn on your own – like having sex, I wouldn’t go to school for that either. You do it until you figure it out, and the figuring it out is part of the fun. It should be natural, not institutional. Besides, for me, the essential joy of making art is that it has nothing to do with anyone else.

[from The litblog co-op interview with Sheila Heti]

The Poet and the Novelist as Roommates by Sheila Heti (Brown Bunny Magazine, January 23, 2011)

Sheila Heti reads her letter of support for Temesgen Gebreyesus, an imprisoned Eritrean journalist.
(Read more about Temesgen Gebreyesus here and here and in the Human Rights Watch report on Eritrea’s political prisoners, page 16)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIPvX5sPHrA

—————————

Born December 25

Dido (Florian Armstrong) (b. 1971) – U.K. singer / songwriter
Rod Serling (b. 1924) – U.S. television screenwriter – The Twilight Zone

———————————————

Monday December 26

David Sedaris (b. 1956) – U.S. comedian – SantaLand Diaries (1992)

Read about David Sedaris here and here

He’s a writer who still can’t quite believe his good fortune, despite nine million book sales that say: “Believe it.”

Sedaris was born in upstate New York, but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. He’s the second of six children, all of whom – along with his mother Sharon and father Lou – figure prominently in his stories. The quest for attention, and the love of storytelling, he says, began around the family table.

“All we ever wanted was to make our mother laugh, and she was generous with her laughter. She wasn’t a fool, though. She would say, ‘That went on way too long’ or ‘I’ve heard that before.’ Even at the time, I remember thinking, ‘I think this is different than other people’s lives.’ “

If young David had high ambitions, he kept them to himself. He dropped out of college, twice. He did way too many drugs, and kept together with a series of low-paying jobs. One of those jobs was as a Christmas elf at Macy’s department store in New York City.

“I don’t have any skills, and I’m small, so they hired me,” he said.

That led to his story, “Santaland Diaries”: “I wear green velvet knickers, a forest green velvet smock and a perky stocking cap decorated with spangles. This is my work uniform.”
[from a CBS News article by Serena Altschul, "David Sedaris: A Writer's Fairy Tale Life"]

Read excerpts from SantaLand Diaries

In order to become an elf, I filled out ten pages worth of forms, took a multiple choice personality test, underwent two interviews. and submitted urine for a drug test. The first interview was general, designed to eliminate the obvious sociopaths. During the second interview we were asked why we wanted to be elves, which, when you think about it, is a fairly tough question. I listened as the woman ahead of me, a former waitress, answered the question, saying: “I really want to be an elf? Because I think it’s about acting? And before this I worked in a restaurant? Which was run by this really wonderful woman who had a dream to open a restaurant? And it made me realize that it’s really really important to have a … dream?”

Everything this woman said, every phrase and sentence, was punctuated with a question mark and the interviewer never raised an eyebrow. When it was my tum I explained that I wanted to be an elf because it was one of the most frightening career opportunities I had ever come across. The interviewer raised her face from my application and said, ‘And…?”

I’m certain I failed my drug test. My urine had roaches and stems floating in it but still they called me back for another round of questioning. I met with the two head managers for a brief interview where they asked questions related to my interests and hobbies. I can’t recall my exact words but somewhere along the line I expressed an interest in whittling. In truth the only thing I’ve ever whittled is a bong. I was just searching for something elf-like and figured I’d pulled it off when they sent me downstairs to fill out a series of tax forms. Afterwards I was sent to a holding pen where I took a seat beside a female dwarf. This, I thought, was a good sign. Names were called and the smallest people were summoned into the managers office. After them went the guys with the biggest ears and the women without chins. I waited at long time. Just when I’d given up hope the manager cocked her finger and led me into her office where I was told,”Congratulations, Sir. You are an elf.”

I have spent the last several days sitting in a crowded, windowless, Macy’s classroom undergoing the first phases of Elf Training. This morning we were lectured by the SantaLand managers and presented with a Xeroxed booklet of regulations titled “The Elfin Guide.” Most of the managers are former elves who have worked their way up the candy-cane ladder but retain vivid memories of their days in uniform. Several of the bosses led us in motivational cheers, a concept which stuns me to the core. One guy rolled up his sleeves and yelled, GIVE ME AN S! “S,” WHERE’S MY A? “A!,” HOW ‘BOUT A BIG OL’ N? “N,” DID SOMEONE SAY T? “T,” LET’S GET A RECALL ON THAT A! “A!” What’s that spell? “SANTA!” WHO’S THE MAN?! “SANTA.” COME ON ELVES, FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELVES, LET’S RAISE THE ROOF!!! SANTA, SANTA SANTA! It was his goal to send chills down our spine and personally speaking I think he did an excellent job. I was mortified.

They closed the meeting saying, “I want you to remember that even if you are assigned Photo Elf on a busy weekend, YOU ARE NOT SANTA’s SLAVE.”

David Sedaris performs “Six to Eight Black Men“

————————-

Born December 26

Narendra Prasad (b. 1946) – Indian playwright, novelist, actor, theatre director

Alejo Carpentier (b. 1904) – Cuban novelist / essayist – The Kingdom of This World

———————————————

Tuesday December 27

Greg Mortenson (b. 1957) – U.S. humanitarian – Three Cups of Tea (2006)

Read about Greg Mortenson here

Reflecting on the state of a post-9/11 world, Mortenson advocates in his books and during his speaking engagements that extremism in the region can be deterred through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls. Formerly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, schooling focused on boys. Because educated boys tend to move to the cities to find jobs, they seldom return. By contrast, educated girls tend to remain in the community and pass their enhanced knowledge to the next generation, thus, Mortenson suggests, educating girls has more of a lasting benefit for their community. [from Wikipedia]

Read a summary of Jon Krakauer’s “Three Cups of Deceit,” which claims that Greg Mortenson has used the majority of funds received for personal gain rather than building and operating schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mortenson has built some schools in remote areas and deserves credit for that, Krakauer writes. But he hasn’t been as successful at putting teachers and students in the buildings, the author says, or building nearly as many as he claimed. Staff at CAI are mostly devoted to supporting the promotional activities, Krakauer says, rather than actually getting schools staffed and functioning.

http://humanosphere.kplu.org/2011/04/ten-points-from-three-cups-of-deceit-starting-in-seattle/

Read Mahvesh Khan’s opinion article about the Greg Mortenson scandal

Although his story might have inspired Americans to hope for a better future as regards their relationship with Pakistan, the lies he told destroyed his credibility and provided one more reason for cynicism in a turbulent world. I am Pakistani. I grew up here in Pakistan, I was educated here, I work here. Therefore, I understand and, to an extent, share certain perspectives with my fellow countrymen. These include the idea that all non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by the Americans are fronts for the CIA. Americans working in the development sector and caught telling lies are automatically used as further evidence for this view.

My second point is that a “serious and large-scale engagement” with the American public is not necessary for Pakistan to turn its education system around. The only engagement Pakistan requires is with its own self. This I hold to be true for any Pakistani system, education or otherwise. Leaders for social change emerge from the struggle within their own societies. They do not visit the society in question from time to time, inject a little money to assist a certain project, then go off home to continue with their other, more comfortable lives.

http://www.ethancasey.com/2011/12/it-is-indeed-about-greg-mortenson-by-mahvesh-khan/

—————————

Born December 27

Mirza Ghalib (b. 1796) Urdu-Persian poet

Kevin Patterson (b. 1964) – Canadian novelist, short story writer, M.D. – Consumption – A Novel (2007)

———————————————

Wednesday December 28

Read about Liu Xiaobo here and here and here

Liu Xiaobo was formally arrested by the Beijing Public Security Bureau on June 23, 2009 and charged with “inciting subversion of state power” for co-authoring Charter 08, a declaration calling for political reform, greater human rights, and an end to one-party rule in China that has been signed by hundreds of individuals from all walks of life throughout the country.

——————

The son of a university professor, during the Cultural Revolution he followed his parents to the Inner Mongolian countryside, where he stayed from 1969 till 1973. He then spent more than two years in a rural people’s commune in his home province of Jilin, and was given a job as a construction worker in Changchun in 1976.

When Communist Party Chair Hua Guofeng re-established the national university entrance examination in 1977, Xiaobo was admitted to the Chinese department of Jilin University. He graduated in 1982 and entered Beijing Normal University where he was awarded his Ph.D in 1988.

Liu Xiaobo did not take part in the pro-democracy movement of the late 1970s. While Wei Jingsheng and his comrades were fighting for democracy, Liu was interested only in literature, writing poems, and reading Western philosophy.

He made a name as a literary critic when, in 1986, he wrote an article denouncing Chinese writers’ dependence on the state and their inability to think for themselves. The article had an enormous impact and he was labeled the “black horse” of China’s literary scene.

He was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York when the 1989 pro-democracy movement erupted in China. Whereas many of his colleagues at home were seeking ways to go abroad, Liu immediately returned to China and spent most of his time in Tiananmen Square. Consequently, he left his apartment and was arrested on 6 June. Labelled a “black hand” behind the movement, he spent 20 months at Qincheng jail in Beijing.

On his release, he was a changed man. He wrote no more about literature, but joined the struggle for democracy, publishing articles in the Hong Kong media criticizing the Chinese government, and organizing petitions to denounce human rights violations.

The 4 June massacre had completely changed his outlook. A man who had been interested mostly in debating with the elites, discovered the courage, the intelligence, and the political sophistication of the common people – the lao bai xing.

[from an Amnesty International article by Jean-Philippe Béja]

Read Liu Xiaobo’s Charter 08 manifesto here

—————————

Born December 28

Shen Congwen (Shen Ts’ung-wen) 沈從文 (b. 1902) – Chinese novelist – The Long River / Chang He (长河)

Mortimer J. Adler (b. 1902) – U.S. philosopher, essayist – How To Read a Book (1940)

———————————————

Thursday December 29

Gilbert Adair (b. 1944) – U.K. film critic, screenwriter, playwright, novelist

Read about Gilbert Adair here and here and here

He was the author of five novels, including The Holy Innocents (1988), which won the Authors’ Club First Novel Award, Love and Death on Long Island (1990), which was made into a film by Richard Kwietniowski in 1998, and later, A Closed Book (1999), a literary thriller about a prize-winning novelist left blind after a serious car accident. He also wrote a parody of Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, sequels to Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan and a number of books of non-fiction, including Hollywood’s Vietnam (1981) and The Postmodernist Always Rings Twice (1992).

[from the British Council of Literature bio]

————————

Gilbert Adair was for two years at the end of the last century the chief film critic of The Independent on Sunday. As he pronounced upon, damned and just occasionally approved of the week’s offerings, he did so in a voice that deprecated its owner’s undeniable cinephile authority – a ludic, knowing quality that extended beyond his writing on film. His irresistibly playful fiction ranged from Agatha Christie pastiches (the Evadne Mount trilogy) to literary thrillers (A Closed Book), via imagined further adventures of Peter Pan and Lewis Carroll’s Alice.

[from the Independent obituary]

—————————

In Gilbert Adair’s And Then There Was No One (2009), the third of his pastiches of Agatha Christie’s detective stories, a writer called Gilbert Adair is lacerated thus by a reader: “Postmodernism is dead … Nobody gives two hoots about self-referentiality any longer, just as nobody gives two hoots, or even a single hoot, about you. Your books are out of sight, out of sound, out of fashion and out of print.”

In the 1997 film of his novel Love and Death on Long Island, Giles De’Ath (John Hurt) finds himself in the wrong cinema. “This isn’t EM Forster,” De’Ath bawls fruitily at the screen. True. It is Hotpants College II, about randy undergraduates, starring Ronnie Bostock, with whom De’Ath becomes unrequitedly, but touchingly, obsessed, just as Von Aschenbach in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice becomes obsessed with the boy Tadzio. Indeed, Adair wrote The Real Tadzio (2001), a biography of the boy who inspired Mann’s novella. Bernardo Bertolucci’s film The Dreamers (2003), about an incestuous student menage a trois, was adapted by Adair himself from The Holy Innocents and was in part autobiographical.

Adair was born in Edinburgh. He made few details about his early life public, a reticence perhaps befitting a writer who erased himself from his books so assiduously. He told one interviewer he did not want to mention the university he attended (where he studied modern languages). In the late 60s, he left Britain for Paris to indulge his love of cinema. At the Cinémathèque Française, he found not just a spiritual home, but also became both “politicised and eroticised”. As he recalled: “It was a very sexy thing, and romantic, being with these young people watching old American movies, or being in the streets arm-in-arm …The whole thing was like a collective orgasm.”

[from the Guardian obituary]

Read the December 2011 U.K. Telegraph obituary for Gilbert Adair here

Parody and pastiche informed much of Adair’s wide-ranging work as a novelist, film critic and poet. He wrote a long poem riffing on Pope called ‘The Rape of the Cock’, and sequels to Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. His novel Love and Death on Long Island is a homage to Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Even his most brilliant work of film criticism, Flickers: A History of the Cinema in 100 Images, could be seen as a parody of coffee-table film books: this collection of stills from the movies is glossed not with the usual banal commentary but with tangential, eccentric, often deeply personal essays.

Adair received much critical acclaim in recent years for two book-length Christie pastiches, The Act of Roger Murgatroyd (2006) and A Mysterious Affair of Style (2007). It is the tropes, structures and rhythms of the whodunit he is playing around with and, like Christie herself, his ingenuity is only fully apparent when the detective explains the clues and elucidates the mystery in the final chapter.

Until you get there it’s the digressions and arcane information that keep you entertained, especially on the subject of crime fiction. The Evadne books sit alongside the great critical studies by Dorothy L Sayers, Julian Symons and Michael Dibdin on my shelf.

The epigraph to one of the books is Alfred Hitchcock’s line, “cinema is not a slice of life but a slice of cake”; Adair is tipping us the wink that he’s offering us pure entertainment. But there is a third Evadne novel, And Then There Was No One (2009), which is a very different kettle of red herrings. It is set in the present day and narrated by an author attending a Sherlock Holmes festival in Switzerland. Gradually we discover that the narrator is Gilbert Adair himself, and things take a bizarre turn when he discovers that Evadne, the character he has created, is also at the festival.

It is an author’s worst nightmare: a confrontation with a character who knows her creator’s every flaw and failing and is prepared to fling them in his face. The honesty with which Adair faces his own regrets and inadequacies makes this book extremely poignant as well as riotously entertaining.

He was never a best-seller; as his Guardian obituary notes, when somebody mistook him for Red Adair, he replied “no, I’m unread Adair”. One can only hope that his death prompts more people to buy his books and give their little grey cells a work-out they’ll never forget.

[from the December 10, 2011, Telegraph obituary written by Jake Kerridge]

—————————

Born December 29

William Gaddis (b. 1922) – U.S. novelist – J R (1975)

Dallas Austin (b. 1970) – U.S.  songwriter

———————————————

Friday December 30

Read about Julia Briggs here and here

At Oxford, while bringing up her family, she wrote a BLitt thesis on the English ghost story – not considered a proper subject for a doctorate – which became Night Visitors (1977), her first book. From 1978 she took up a permanent post as fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. In 1983 she published This Stage Play World: Texts and Contexts 1580-1625, revised in 1997 and still in use by students. She then devoted herself to finishing Donald Crompton’s book on William Golding, A View from the Spire (1985), after he died. In 1987 she published a life of the children’s writer and Fabian socialist, E Nesbit, A Woman of Passion, which contributed to the emerging study of children’s literature, as did Children and Their Books: a Celebration of the Work of Iona and Peter Opie (1989), co-edited with Gillian Avery.

She was a dedicated editor of Renaissance and modern writers alike, always fascinated by the evolution of a writer’s thought and imagination. The creative process is at the heart of her illuminating Virginia Woolf: an Inner Life (2005). She wanted to understand Woolf primarily through her books rather than her social milieu, capturing for her reader the excitement of the life of the mind.

The least territorial or rivalrous of colleagues, Julia was a nurturer of others, while insisting upon the highest standards of research. She was in her element supervising doctoral students, and they adored her. A natural supporter of the underdog, she was hugely sympathetic to the needs of mature students, and relished teaching adults in day schools and workshops throughout her life. [from the Guardian obituary by Alison Light]

Read Anne Fernald’s tribute to Julia Briggs here

I did not know her well but she always struck me as someone who had the hang of life. It’s not that life was easy for her. Often, when I saw her, she was or had been sad. But still she was so beautiful, such fun, so funny, so loving and generous. She just seemed to have the knack for being alive. That has long inspired me as it will continue to do. I know so few feminist academics who are so openly happy in both their work and their children and so knowing Julia was for me, a tremendous gift.

—————————

Born December 30

Alfredo Bracchi (b. 1897) – Italian lyricist, scriptwriter

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (b. 1865) – British author and poet –  The Jungle Book (1894) (short stories)

———————————————

Machi Tawara (俵 万智 Tawara Machi) (b. 1962) – Japanese poet

Read about Machi Tawara here and here

Her first volume of tanka, Salad Anniversary, was published in 1987 and became an immediate bestseller with nearly three million copies in print. With this outstanding debut publication, she recieved the Modern Japanese Poets Association Award(1988). Her third collection of tanka, Chocolate Revolution, was published in 1997.

Read about Japanese tanka verse here

“Your left hand exploring my fingers one by one maybe this is love”
[from Machi Tawara's Salad Anniversary, English translation by Juliet Winters Carpenter]

A birthday I spend thinking
how a whole year is so short,
a single day so long.

[From Salad Anniversary, translated by Quentin S. Crisp]

[Read more of Tawara's tanka verse here]

——————————

Born December 31

Siné (Maurice Sinet) (b. 1928) – French cartoonist

Odetta Holmes Gordon (b. 1930; d. December 2, 2008) – U.S. Singer, songwriter, civil rights activist

=======================

Visit the online used bookstore DempseyBooks at

http://dempseybooks.com

Twitter Updates

follow LitBirthdays on Twitter

=========================================

At Dempsey Books

Susan Boyle sings “Silent Night” here

Susan Boyle and the Hudson River Children’s Choir sing “Away in a Manger” here

Celine Dion sings “Feliz Navidad” here

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing “O Holy Night” here

Go To Monday December 19| Tuesday December 20| Wednesday December 21|

Thursday December 22| Friday December 23| Saturday December 24|

December is

AIDS Awareness

Month

and

Write to a Friend

Month

===============================

Sunday December 18

Read about Hal Kanter here and here

He wrote or co-wrote films including Once Upon a Horse … (1958) for Rowan and Martin; The Road to Bali (1952) for Hope and Bing Crosby; Move Over, Darling (1963), starring Doris Day; and Frank Capra’s Pocketful of Miracles (1961). In 1957, as well as co-writing the script, he directed Loving You, Elvis Presley’s second movie and his first with top billing. For television, in 1968 Kanter created the pioneering sitcom Julia, starring Diahann Carroll as Julia Baker, a widowed nurse whose husband had been killed in Vietnam and who was bringing up a young son (Corey Baker) alone. It was the first show to feature a black female lead and, Kanter said, was also important in providing a role model for black children. [from the U.K. Guardian obituary, November 10, 2011]
 

—————————

Born December 18

Alfred Bester (b. 1913) U.S. science fiction novelist, TV and radio writer - The Demolished Man (1953) “And the bartender says to Renee Descartes, “Another beer?” And Descartes says, “I think not,” and disappears”

Khas-Magomed Hadjimuradov (b. 1953) – Kazakh Chechen songwriter

———————————————

Monday December 19

Péter Tímár (b. 1950) – Hungarian film director, screenwriter

Read about Péter Tímár here and here

Read a review of Timar’s film Csinibaba / Dollybirds (1997) here

It’s 22 August 1992, and the day is starting much like any other in Communist Hungary. Uncle Simon wakes up the tenement block with some stirring music and makes the day’s announcements. To Attila, there is one that really is worth listening to this time. There is to be a talent competition and, more than that, the first prize will be a trip to a youth convention on the other side of the Iron Curtain -in Helsinki. This has particular interest for Attila, since his beloved, Katinka, lives in Toronto. The distance between them is straining his heart, not to mention the fact that she hasn’t written for a good number of years. Winning the competition would be an ideal way of escaping to Canada so they may be reunited.

Exploiting the very absurdity of the medium of the musical, Timar gains good comic effect when all manner of characters break into song in the most unlikely of places. Timar also makes very effective use of editing to caricature his characters, speeding up short impulsive movements to accentuate how laughable they are or slowing characters down to allow them to wallow in their own narcissistic sensuality. This all makes Csinibaba an engaging mix of period accuracy and anachronism.

And it’s the flavour of this age which Timar so endearingly recreates. A period when life was comfortable, but didn’t give you much space for hopes and dreams. In such a climate, the young at heart can hardly fail to have dreams and they can only be frustrated ones. [from Andrew J Horton's article in Central European Review, 1999]

Watch the opening of Csinibaba here (Hungarian language)

Péter Tímár talks about his film Zimmer Feri / Feri’s Gang (1998) here

The main character is played by Gábor Reviczky, he is Feri Zimmer, his wife is Judit Pogány, their daughter is Vanda Kovács, the actress known from Dollybirds, while her fiancé is played by József Szarvas. These four together are there to rip off people. Renting a house at the shore of Lake Balaton, they open a small hotel and a restaurant with the firm purpose of getting rich in a single summer. They need to buy a home for their daughter on one hand, and they are head over heels in debt on the other. Then all they want is disappear quickly, because they hate catering and hate Germans. But that’s what one can get rich with quickly at present. Feri’s favourite saying is : “Do we have capitalism? All right. The survival of the surviving? All right. Do the large fish eat the small fish? Let them enjoy their meal!”

The Zimmer family catch their guests by throwing nails on the road in front of the house, causing the puncture of tyres, which prompts guests to stop at the hotel. They catch two public health officers in disguise, (Erika Ozsda and László Szacsvay), who, realising the something is wrong here, decide to rent a room and stay to do a control.

I have for a long time felt an interest in what was going on at Lake Balaton, which I think is shameful. What makes this story entirely absurd is that hotel-owners live almost only of Germans, while they simply can’t stand them. The story is topical even today, and perhaps even more so. In the four years that have elapsed, we have even learnt to see things clearer. Because I do not think that what we are having here is the wild version of capitalism. When back in 1947 the Hungarian Workers’ Party took a turn towards socialism, then, in parallel, a conscious process of re-education was also launched, which was going on for years. Those in power literally taught people what socialism was. While now we have just been thrown into this new situation, and everybody has to learn to survive it on their own. By ripping off others, for example.

————————-

Born December 19

Gisèle Freund (b. 1908) German-born French photographer – Photographie et société (1974)

Su Tung-p’o [Su Shi] (b. 1036 or 1037) Chinese Buddhist poet of the Song Dynasty

———————————————

Tuesday December 20

Read about Kate Atkinson here and here

 
Behind the Scenes at the Museum won the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 1995, beating works by authors such as Salman Rushdie. This sprawling work traces the life of Ruby Lennox, an unusually self-aware narrator, from conception to death as she weaves a complicated tapestry of the lives of her family. Its postmodern style, at once playful and profound, and its concern for the details of everyday life have led to Atkinson’s work being described as “Kurt Vonnegut meets Jane Austen.” [from the Encyclopedia of British Writers]

If Atkinson had her way, she would write in a bland hotel, shut down the decisions of real life to sink more deeply into fiction. “When I’m writing,” she says, “my neural pathways get blocked. I can’t read. I can barely hold a conversation without forgetting words and names.” It’s as if her brain is a computer, running a writing programme that demands more and more memory until all other operations are left sluggish.

“I wish I could wear the same clothes and eat the same food each day,” she sighs. And as talk of food and the mind coincides, she tells me that a psychologist friend told her recently that all her books are “about cannibalism”. Are they? I ask.

“Well,” she muses, “there’s a lot of flesh, taking it in…” [from U.K. Telegraph "A Writer's Life: Kate Atkinson" by Helen Brown, August 29, 2004]

Read a review of Started Early, Took My Dog

“Started Early, Took My Dog” is the fourth of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie novels (the others are, in order: “Case Histories,” “One Good Turn” and “When Will There Be Good News?”). Each one of these books, including this latest, is a delight: an intricate construction that assembles itself before the reader’s eyes, populated by idiosyncratic, multidimensional characters and written with shrewd, mordant grace. They are in some respects mystery novels, but they’re written with a literary skill uncommon in that genre, and in a mode — the tragicomic — that few but the most adept novelists can pull off in any genre. Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie books are like high-wire acts in which she is forever defying gravity (in the form of crime fiction’s improbable conventions) by making the work fresh, unpredictable and alive. [from Salon.com March 13, 2011]

—————————

Born December 20

Nalo Hopkinson (b. 1960) Jamaican-Canadian novelist / short story writer – Brown Girl in the Ring

Väinö Linna (b. 1920) – Finnish novelist – Tuntematon sotilas / The Unknown Soldier (1954)

———————————————

Wednesday December 21

Heinrich Boll (b. 1917) – German writer (fiction and nonfiction) – Irish Journal (1957)

Read about Heinrich Boll here

Watch a video about Heinrich Boll in Ireland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W89p4PMYbik

Longer and longer grew the line-up at the counter where the nectar of Western Europe was available in generous quantities for a small sum: tea, as if the Irish were doing their utmost not to surrender this world record held by them just ahead of England: almost ten pounds of tea are consumed annually per head in Ireland; enough tea to fill a small swimming pool must flow down every Irish throat every year.

As I slowly moved along in the line-up I had time to recall the other Irish world records: this little country holds not only the tea-drinking record, but also the one for the consecration of new priests (the Archdiocese of Cologne would have to consecrate nearly a thousand new priests a year to compete with a small archdiocese in Ireland); the third world record held by Ireland is that of moviegoing (again—how much in common despite the differences!—just ahead of England); finally the fourth, a significant one of which I dare not say it stands in causal relationship to the first three: in Ireland there are fewer suicides than anywhere else on earth. The records for whisky-drinking and cigarette-smoking have not yet been ascertained, but in these disciplines Ireland is also well ahead, this little country the size of Bavaria but with fewer inhabitants than those between Essen and Dortmund. [from Irish Journal, Chapter 1]

—————————

Born December 21

Ivan Blatný (b.1919) – Czechoslovakian poet

Edward Hoagland (b. 1932) – U.S. essayist, travel and nature writer – “The Big Cats” Esquire April 1961

———————————————

Thursday December 22

Read about Giacomo Puccini here and here

Mario Lanza sings “Che Gelida Manina” from Puccini’s La Boheme

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLwrs-pf8To&feature=related

Maria Callas sings “Un bel di vedremo” from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly here
and
“Signore ascolta” from Puccini’s Turandot here

Anita Cerquetti sings “Vissi d’arte” from Puccini’s Tosca here

“Recondita armonia” from Puccini’s Tosca here

—————————

Born December 22

Kenneth Rexroth (b. 1905) – U.S. poet

Eduard Uspensky (b.1937) – Russian children’s fiction – Uncle Fyodor, His Dog and His Cat

———————————————

Friday December 23

Read about Alison Sudol here

Listen to Sudol perform “Whisper” here (studio) or here (DVD-live)

—————————

Born December 23

Katie Underwood (b. 1975) – Australian singer / songwriter

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (b. 1896) – Italian (Sicilian) novelist and essayist – Il Gatopardo (The Leopard)

———————————————

Read about Mary Higgins Clark here and here

Although the Great Depression began when Higgins Clark was still a baby, her family was initially not affected, and even insisted on feeding the men who knocked on their door looking for work. By the time Higgins Clark was ten, however, the family began to experience financial trouble, as many of their customers were unable to pay the bar tabs they had run up. Higgins Clark’s father was forced to lay off several employees and work longer hours, spending no more than a few hours at home each day. The family was thrown into further turmoil in 1939, when young Mary returned home from an early Mass to discover that her father had died in his sleep.

Nora Higgins, now a widow with three young children to support, soon discovered that few employers were willing to hire a 52-year-old woman who had not held a job in over fourteen years. To pay the bills, Higgins Clark was forced to move out of her bedroom so that her mother could rent it out to paying boarders.

Six months after their father’s death, Higgins Clark’s older brother cut his foot on a piece of metal and contracted severe osteomyelitis. Higgins Clark and her mother prayed constantly for him, and their neighbors came en masse to give blood for the many transfusions the young boy needed. Despite the dire predictions of the doctors, Joseph Higgins survived. Higgins Clark credits his recovery to the power of their prayers.

At sixteen Higgins Clark made her first attempt at publishing her work, sending an entry to True Confessions which was rejected.

To help pay the bills, she worked as a switchboard operator at the Shelton Hotel, where she often listened in to the residents’ conversations. In her memoir she recalls spending much time eavesdropping on Tennessee Williams, but complained that he never said anything interesting. On her days off, Higgins Clark would window shop, mentally choosing the clothes she would wear when she finally became a famous writer. [from Wikipedia]

Mary Higgins Clark tells Tavis Smiley about her experience with Tennessee Williams here

——————————

Born December 24

Herbert Reinecker (b. 1914) – German novelist, screenwriter

Isador Feinstein Stone (b. 1907) – U.S. Journalist / liberal investigative political writer – In A Time Of Torment, 1961-1967

=======================

Visit the online used bookstore DempseyBooks at

http://dempseybooks.com

Twitter Updates

follow LitBirthdays on Twitter

=========================================

At Dempsey Books

Jerusalem: A History of Forty Centuries
by Teddy Kollek & Moshe Pearlman

Jerusalem: A History of Forty Centuries by Teddy Kollek & Moshe Pearlman

Go To Monday December 12| Tuesday December 13| Wednesday December 14|

Thursday December 15| Friday December 16| Saturday December 17|

December is

AIDS Awareness

Month

and

Write to a Friend

Month

===============================

Sunday December 11

Read about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn here and here

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published in edited form in 1962, with the explicit approval of Nikita Khrushchev, who defended it at the presidium of the Politburo hearing on whether to allow its publishing, and added: “There’s a Stalinist in each of you; there’s even a Stalinist in me. We must root out this evil.” The book became an instant hit and sold-out everywhere. During Khrushchev’s tenure, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was studied in schools in the Soviet Union as were three more short works of Solzhenitsyn’s, including his acclaimed short story Matryona’s Home, were published in 1963. These would be the last of his works published in the Soviet Union until 1990.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich brought the Soviet system of prison labor to the attention of the West. It caused as much of a sensation in the Soviet Union as it did in the West—not only by its striking realism and candour, but also because it was the first major piece of Soviet literature since the twenties on a politically charged theme, written by a non-party member, indeed a man who had been to Siberia for “libelous speech” about the leaders, and yet its publication had been officially permitted.  [from Wikipedia]

I was brought up by my mother, who worked as a shorthand-typist, in the town of Rostov on the Don, where I spent the whole of my childhood and youth, leaving the grammar school there in 1936. Even as a child, without any prompting from others, I wanted to be a writer and, indeed, I turned out a good deal of the usual juvenilia. In the 1930s, I tried to get my writings published but I could not find anyone willing to accept my manuscripts.

I was arrested on the grounds of what the censorship had found during the years 1944-45 in my correspondence with a school friend, mainly because of certain disrespectful remarks about Stalin, although we referred to him in disguised terms. … I served the first part of my sentence in several correctional work camps of mixed types (this kind of camp is described in the play, The Tenderfoot and the Tramp). In 1946, as a mathematician, I was transferred to the group of scientific research institutes of the MVD-MOB (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of State Security). I spent the middle period of my sentence in such “SPECIAL PRISONS” (The First Circle). In 1950 I was sent to the newly established “Special Camps” which were intended only for political prisoners. In such a camp in the town of Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich), I worked as a miner, a bricklayer, and a foundryman. [from Solzhenitsyn's autobiography at NobelPrize.org]

Watch Remembering Solzhenitzyn (RT 2008 news feature)

—————————

Born December 11

Subramanya Bharathi (b. 1882) – Indian poet

Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (b. 1892) – U.S. children’s mystery series contributor (Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys) – The Ringmaster’s Secret (Nancy Drew series)

———————————————

Monday December 12

Christian Metz (b. 1931) – French film theorist, semioticist – Film Language – A Semiotics of Cinema (1974)

Read about Christian Metz here

Read Constance Penley’s critique of Film Language here

In Film Language Metz’ cinesemiotics leans heavily on linguistic models. The enterprise of semiotics arose out of the methods of structural linguistics, formulated by Ferdinand de Saussure in the early part of the century.

Metz sees the image as being too close an analog of the thing in the real world; it is not an indication of the thing but the actual “pseudo-presence of the thing.” The mechanical nature of the basic filmic operation (photographic and phonographic duplication) has the consequence of integrating into the final product “chunks of signification whose internal structure remains afilmic, and which are governed mainly by cultural paradigms.”

This mimetic notion of the image is the opposite of that held by Umberto Eco, the Italian semiologist whom Metz cites as responsible for many of his later changes. Eco posited the rather startling idea that the iconic (photographic) image is, like the verbal sign, “completely arbitrary, conventional and unmotivated.” He points out that there are so many transformations involved from the object to the representation of the object that the image has none of the properties of the object represented…

[from Jump Cut, no. 5, 1975, pp. 18-19]

Read Rikke Bjerg Jensen’s paper about semiotics in film here

Metz believes in the linguistic approach to cinema, but in order to justify the study of cinema as a language, the perception of language had to be redefined. Any form of communication is a language, but Danish, English and Spanish is a ‘language system’, Metz states (Monaco 1981; 157). Therefore cinema may be a language of some kind but it is not a language system. Metz suggests that denotation is to be studied before connotation. According to him, the denotation is the basic form of cinematic material, because it presents, it doesn’t interpret. Denotation is the images that make up a story. Connotation has to come second, he says, because what the images connote is not directly presented by the basic material of the film and connotation is only partly indicated by the denotation (Braudy 1998; 91).

Metz argues that there’s no unit in film that equals the word in language. The image, which he believes is the smallest unit in cinema, is already at the same level of a sentence or a paragraph. This fact leads him on to compare the shot and the word, which illustrates his strong relations to the linguistic semiotics (See appendix 1). Metz’s point is that in literature you can imagine, you can create your own visual images, whereas in cinema you can’t, because the images have already been chosen for you. For instance, not many readers of the trilogy The Lord of the Rings would have created the same visual image of Frodo, as the director of the film invented him on screen. In this context, film doesn’t suggest: it states. It puts the visual images in front of us.

Even as Metz concluded that cinema isn’t a ‘language system’, because he believes that it lacks minimal units and double articulation, it still suggests a systematicity that resembles that of language. In the same way as literary language expresses itself through written material, cinema expresses itself through five tracks: moving photographic image, recorded phonetic sound, recorded musical sound and writing.

[from "Do we learn to 'read' television and film and do televisual and filmic codes constitute a 'language'?" by Rikke Bjerg Jensen]

Read excerpts from Metz’s book Film Language

————————-

Born December 12

Robert Lepage (b. 1957) – Canadian playwright, actor, producer/director

Gustave Flaubert (b. 1821) – French novelist – Madame Bovary

———————————————

Tuesday December 13

James Wright (b. 1927) – U.S. poet

Read about James Wright here and here

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

—————-

As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter, I Think Of An Ancient Chinese Governor

And how can I, born in evil days
And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate?
– Written A.D. 819

Po Chu-i, balding old politician,
What’s the use?
I think of you,
Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze,
When you were being towed up the rapids
Toward some political job or other
In the city of Chungshou.
You made it, I guess,
By dark.

But it is 1960, it is almost spring again,
And the tall rocks of Minneapolis
Build me my own black twilight
Of bamboo ropes and waters.
Where is Yuan Chen, the friend you loved?
Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness
Of the Midwest? Where is Minneapolis? I can see nothing
But the great terrible oak tree darkening with winter.
Did you find the city of isolated men beyond mountains?
Or have you been holding the end of a frayed rope
For a thousand years?

Listen to James Wright read the above poem here

—————————

Born December 13

Amy Lee (b. 1981) – U.S. songwriter, musician, lead singer of Evanescence

Heinrich Heine (b. 1797) – German romantic poet – “Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam”

———————————————

Wednesday December 14

Read about Tove Ditlevsen here and here

One of Denmark’s most popular and beloved writers in recent times. Having grown up in poor circumstances in a Copenhagen working-class district, she published her first collection of poems in 1939. Two years later her first novel was published. She also wrote short stories, memoirs, and children’s books, and for a number of years she was the editor of a column in one of Denmark’s most read weeklies. In spite of her fame and popularity she did not feel that she was sufficiently appreciated in literary circles. She was married four times, and made no secret of her psychological problems nor of the fact that she had at times been a drug addict and an alcoholic. Finally her basic insecurity and loneliness made her take her own life.

[from the FindaGrave.com bio by Erik Skytte]

Her most famous quote is, “There is a young girl in me who refuses to die.” I have loved this quote for many years, and apparently it means a lot to many other people, too, as I have seen this line quoted any number of times both on the Internet and in books.

[From Life Is Beautiful blog, September 3, 2010]

Another central theme is the effects of childhood experiences on adulthood; her friends at that time were mostly interested in sex and stealing. In the poem ‘Rain’ she wrote: “Drunk men / are not dangerous / said my / girlfriend / child molesters / are always sober.”

Ditlevsen first attracted attention in 1941, when she wrote a novel about child molestation, MAN GJORDE ET BARN FORTRÆD.

Among her autobiographical works are BARNDOM, UNGDOM, GIFT (1967-76), and OM MIG SELV (1975). All of her novels drew material from her difficult childhood, three failed marriages, and her experiences as a female writer. The title of Gift refers to her drug addiction. From her husband, who was a doctor, Ditlevsen received Pethidine injections. She used this addictive, narcotic drug, for years. ANSIGTERNE (1968, The Faces) was a psychological masterpiece, exploring the psychosis of a woman, who is torn between her roles as mother, wife, and writer. “We’ve found out what kind of person you are. When you’re going to write a book, you go around looking at all kinds of other books written by people who know their stuff. You steal a sentence from every book and put them together like a puzzle, and then you make people think that you’ve written every sentence yourself.” (from The Faces, transl. by Tiina Nunnally)

[from the Authors Calendar]

Lise, the main character in the book “Faces”, was a woman like many in our country and the world. Her husband and children, her success in the field of writing children’s books, and her life – seemed to be arranged, stable – the ideal, for some. But what we would call “normality” for Lise was only a mask. She hid under it like a small, frightened animal. She saw and heard things that the average person learns only from horror movies or when having nightmares. The neighbors she encountered, nay, even her own relatives she saw as the conspirators, saboteurs, who wanted to ridicule and destroy it. And worst of all, nobody was able to realize that it was solely the product of a sick person’s subconscious…

Lise is not an explicit form, but we believe that her antics are only a manifestation of the disease. It is just a part of self that is hidden deep in the body of a mature woman. Like a part of a larger puzzle, daily clashes with the internal enemy, and as she can not uncover this, she sees her adversary in anyone else. Oh, if the world was simple enough that we could point a finger: This and that is to blame for our wrongs, and pain disappears. Somewhere there is a heavy, steel cloud on the horizon, … Each of us struggles with his own demons. We, only temporarily – so much more fortunate than the literary character created by Tove …

It is not easy reading, but as it is thin, it will not take you much time and it can be of great benefit, even if only cognitive. Thanks to these books we learn to see the truth hidden under the guise of human behavior, and we also understand ourselves.

[Google translation of a Polish language blog post
"Faces - Tove Ditlevsen" by Barbara Silver]

See photos of Tove Ditlevsen here and here

—————————

Born December 14

Nostradamus (Michel de Nostredame) (b. 1503) – French clairvoyant / prophet – Les Propheties

Lucrecia Martel (b. 1966) – Argentinian film director, screenwriter – La Ciénaga / The Swamp (2001)

———————————————

Thursday December 15

Donald Goines (pseudonym Al C Clark) (b. 1937 or 1936) – U.S. novelist (black experience novels) – Kenyatta’s Last Hit 1974

Read about Donald Goines here and here and here

The novels of Donald Goines, described by Entertainment Weekly reviewer Suzanne Ruta as “nasty, brutish, and short,” are slices of life in the inner-city underworld. They describe, in graphic detail, the short careers of black crime kingpins, hit men, drug pushers and other criminals. Set mostly in Detroit, his hometown, Goines’s novels teem with scenes of violence and mayhem and the language of the characters is laced with obscenities. The plots of most of Goines’s novels center around the workings of a criminal enterprise and proceed to a grim and tragic conclusion. [from Answers.com quoting Contemporary Black Biography / Gale ]

————-
Donald Goines was born in Detroit to a relatively comfortable family – his parents, Joseph and Myrtle Goines, owned a local dry cleaner, and he did not have problems with the law or drugs. The children occasionally helped at the shop. Goines attended Catholic elementary school and was expected to go into his family’s laundry business. Instead Goines enlisted in the US Air Force, and to get in he had to lie his age. From 1952 to 1955 he served in the army. During this period he got hooked on heroin. When he returned to Detroit from Japan, he was a heroin addict.

The next 15 years from 1955 Goines spent pimping, robbing, stealing, bootlegging, and running numbers, or doing time. His seven prison sentences totaled 6,5 years. [from Authors Calendar]
————-

Goines would soon develop a writing routine, he would shoot up heroin and nod off, wakeup, and write non-stop.

Goines would author over 14 books, which are still popular, especially in the prison system. His books would go on to sell millions of copies and he became known as the ‘Godfather Of Urban Fiction.’

Goines would eventually marry a woman named Shirley. She already had one daughter and she would give birth to another daughter, fathered by Goines. One evening, they were relaxing at home and Shirley was popping popcorn in the kitchen when the doorbell rang.

She answered the door, two white men stormed in, pulled out guns and killed Donald and Shirley while the kids played nearby, they were left unharmed. Rumors on the street indicated that a contract was taken out on Goines over a drug debt and the black underworld was not happy with his book. They considered the books too revealing and thinly based on real life characters, who didn’t want their illegal activities publicized. The killers were never apprehended.

To this day, his books have never been out of print, making him one of the most successful African-American authors in history. [from PanacheReport.com]

—————————

Born December 15

Betty Smith (Elisabeth Wehner) (b. 1896) – U.S. Novelist / playwright – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Ludwik Łazarz Zamenhof (b. 1859) – Polish philologist (A Yiddish Grammar)

———————————————

Friday December 16

Read about Benny Andersson here and here

Watch an interview with Benny Andersson (Swedish with English subtitles)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpfNbcRVtrk

—————————

Born December 16

Noel Coward (b. 1899) British playwright and composer

Barbara Smith (b. 1946) – U.S. politician, feminist writer

———————————————

Es’kia Mphahlele (b. 1919) – South African fiction writer, human rights activist – Man Must Live (1947)

Read about Es’kia Mphahlele here and here

——————————

Born December 17

William Safire (b. 1929) – U.S. columnist, etymologist, speechwriter – “On Language” (New York Times column)

=======================

Visit the online used bookstore DempseyBooks at

http://dempseybooks.com

Twitter Updates

follow LitBirthdays on Twitter

=========================================

At Dempsey Books

Jerusalem: A History of Forty Centuries
by Teddy Kollek & Moshe Pearlman

Jerusalem: A History of Forty Centuries by Teddy Kollek & Moshe Pearlman

Go To Monday December 5| Tuesday December 6| Wednesday December 7|

Thursday December 8| Friday December 9| Saturday December 10|

December is

AIDS Awareness

Month

and

Write to a Friend

Month

===============================

Sunday December 4

Read about Wen Shaoxian here and here

—————————

Born December 4

Frances Power Cobbe (b. 1822) – Irish, Victorian-era human and animal rights activist, feminist

Rainer Maria Rilke (b. 1875) – Austrian poet – The Book of Hours (Das Stundenbuch)

Jay-Z (Shawn Corey Carter) (b. 1969) – U.S. Rapper

———————————————

Monday December 5

Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt for Life Magazine - Nov 1, 1938

Walt Disney (b. 1901) – U.S. producer of animation film, creator of Mickey Mouse

Read about Walt Disney here and here

“Walt Disney: The Man and His World” Life Magazine photos

Watch Mickey Mouse
Steamboat Willie (1928)
	The Opry House (1929)
Mickey’s Delayed Date (1947)

Mickey and Minnie Mouse

(with Pluto)

Walt Disney was NOT Born in Spain

(article by Wade Sampson of MousePlanet.com)

I’ll be repeating that sentence in this article several times in this column to try and make it as clear as possible. Walt Disney was NOT born in Spain.

When Walt rose to international prominence in the 1930s, a rumor started that he had actually been born out of wedlock to a young Spanish woman and was later adopted secretly by Elias and Flora Disney. Over the years, the rumor grew and grew so that some believe the child was the result of an affair Elias had—and this illegitimate child and was actually born in Spain in a small town called Mojacar.

[Read more ...]

vs.

Walt Disney nació en Mojácar / Walt Disney Was Born in Mojacar

(Spanish language article in El Confidencial, August 29, 2011)

The Disney Blog’s Happy Birthday message here

Watch “Flowers and Trees” (1932), the first color cartoon animation here

————————-

Born December 5

Miloš Đukelić (b. 1976) – Serbian film/television writer, director, producer

Tomson Highway (b. 1951) – Canadian (First Nations, Cree) playwright, novelist, musician – The Rez Sisters (1986)

Joan Didion (b. 1934) – U.S. novelist, essayist, screenwriter – The Year of Magical Thinking

———————————————

Tuesday December 6

Read about Martin Hirsch here and here

Martin Hirsch’s blog

Watch a video interview of Martin Hirsch here

Q: What is the cost to Europe of there being no social policy?

Martin Hirsch: The cost is huge … 80 million people living on poverty’s threshold, you have many poor workers. When you have poor workers, it means that you can’t reach the competitiveness and the social objectives. We have the obligation to fight against poverty if we want to remain in the race.

————————–

Eve Curie Labouisse (b. 1904) – French-U.S. journalist, biographer, “First Lady of UNICEF” from 1965-1979

Read about Eve Curie here and here

In the 70 years since its publication, “Madame Curie” has endured as a classic of scientific biography, devoured by generations of academically minded girls.

In wide demand as a lecturer after “Madame Curie” was published, Mrs. Labouisse was also known for her staunch public advocacy of the Free French cause after the Nazis occupied France in 1940. Her other books include “Journey Among Warriors” (Doubleday, Doran, 1943), a best-selling account of her 40,000-mile trip across a series of wartime fronts: North Africa, Iraq, Iran, Russia, India, Burma and China.

Originally trained as a concert pianist, she performed throughout France and Belgium as a young woman and later wrote music criticism for several French periodicals. She was also considered to have been one of the most beautiful women in Paris in the 1920s and ’30s.

[from the New York Times obituary, October 25, 2007]

Read the Wikipedia description of Curie’s World War II book Journey Among Warriors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_Among_Warriors

—————————

Born December 6

James Elphinston (b. 1721) – Scottish philologist,  orthographer, grammarian of English language -  A Minniature ov Inglish Orthoggraphy (1795)

Ira Gershwin (b. 1896) – U.S. lyricist – “I Got Rhythm” (Girl Crazy)

———————————————

Wednesday December 7

Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) – U.S. linguist, philosopher

Read biographies of Noam Chomsky here

Read a blog article on Noam Chomsky here

Chomsky: I later learned even in high level circles, so for example, the Council on Foreign Relations and the State Department had planning studies going on from 1939 to 1945, planning for the post-war world. The basic plan was that the U.S. would take over what they called a “grand area” that would include the entire Western Hemisphere, to which the U.S. had laid claim but it could never do much about it, except in the neighboring region. So they take over the whole Western Hemisphere, the Far East and the former British Empire at a minimum. That was the region that was held to be necessary for satisfying the needs of U.S. corporations, the U.S. economy, U.S. control, strategic resources, and so on, and what they called security.

But they also assumed that there would be … a German world in Eurasia, which would be the other force in the world. And that, well, until about 1943 or so, that was a prevailing conception. By 1942, it was pretty clear the Japanese would be defeated, so the U.S. would take over the Far East and would keep everyone else out. So the Allies, Britain, France, weren’t even allowed into the postwar discussions about the peace treaty for Japan and how to organize the Far East and so on. But Eurasia was not so clear. It really wasn’t until the huge tank battles in mid-1944 where the Russians smashed up most of what remained of the major German armies. It wasn’t clear until about then that the Germans were going to be defeated.

[from the Targeted Individuals Canada blog, quoting the 2004 Democracy Now interview of Noam Chomsky]

More from the 2004 Democracy Now interview — Chomsky on the U.S. approval of fascism

Chomsky: In the 1930s, it was used as a descriptive term for a particular form of social organization which involved a powerful state linked to corporate systems, organized society in corporate structures, state — overwhelming rule by state power, but with private enterprise given tremendous advantages and freedom. The working class crushed, the parliamentary systems crushed. Sometimes the use of violence to control the population, sometimes not. In fact, the New Deal was called fascist in those days by many people without, you know, without any particular program. It was just one of the versions of this form of social and economic organization that was spreading over the world with some hideous parts like Hitler and some parts like Italy, which were actually approved.

Mussolini was quite popular in the United States over a broad spectrum, including labor. Roosevelt called him “that admirable Italian gentleman.” As late as 1939, he was saying that fascism in Italy was an experiment that was worthwhile and had to be carried out, and distorted later by its association with Hitler, but — in fact, the U.S. business community loved it. Investment in Italy just shot up after Mussolini took over, same after Hitler took over. In fact, if you look back at the records, which are now available, there was really never — what’s now called appeasement is a very misleading term. I mean, it was supported. Hitler was described by the State Department into the late 1930s, 1937, as kind of a moderate standing between extremes of left and right … who was protecting the West against the terrible threat of the working class and the Bolsheviks, and a possible revolution which might overturn the core of civilization, meaning capitalist civilization.

… I mean, in the early 1930s, I remember Fortune magazine, a main business magazine, had an issue with the cover saying something like “The wops are unwopping themselves.” These backward dirty Italians are finally learning how to do something right. This was — it was not — I mean, I thought that — I didn’t know most of this, but I knew enough to see that there was no serious opposition to fascism, and it was, for me and people like me, it was a scandal.

Amy Goodman: The businesses that were benefiting, that remained investing in Hitler’s companies, I mean, the, you know, IBM and now the discussion of George Bush’s father, Prescott Bush.

Chomsky: The oil companies, GM, Ford. Yeah. I mean, they really didn’t see a lot wrong with it. It was giving them enormous advantages, great investment opportunities, crushing the labor movement. They didn’t care if the parliamentary system didn’t function significantly, and through various mechanisms, it’s now known they sustained contacts even during the war. The thing with Japanese imperialism, Japan, practically up until Pearl Harbor, the U.S. position in negotiations with the Japanese, the official position was that the U.S. would be willing to accept Japan’s actions in Asia, which were utterly monstrous, if U.S. business opportunities were protected, if the U.S. wasn’t cut out of the China market, say, was allowed to participate freely, just after the Rape of Nanking, terrible atrocities all over.

And you know, actually, if you look at what the Japanese were doing, the way Americans look at themselves today, there wasn’t much to complain about. I mean, in fact, even Pearl Harbor, by the standards that the U.S. now accepts, the bombing of Pearl Harbor was a pretty acceptable action. It falls very strictly within official U.S. doctrine. And it’s even less contentious than the invasion of Iraq, much less contentious.

Noam Chomsky replies to a question about the U.S. attacking Iran here

December 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor bombed
by the Japanese; the United States
enters World War II

—————————

Born December 7

Willa Cather (b. 1875) – U.S. Short story writer, novelist, poet – Death Comes for the Archbishop

Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi [عبدالرحمن صوفی] (b. 903) – Persian astronomer – Book of Fixed Stars [Suwar al-Kawakib al-Thabit] (964)

Dom Joseph Pothier (b. 1835) – French monk (Benedictine), Gregorian chant scholar, composer – Les mélodies grégoriennes: d’après la tradition (French Edition) / Traditional Gregorian Melody (1880)

———————————————

Thursday December 8

Horace (b. 65 BCE) – Roman lyric poet

Read about Horace here and here

Horace is best known today for his Odes, which often celebrate common events such as proposing a drink or wishing a friend a safe journey. Although he wrote in many different meters and of different themes, the odes often express ordinary thoughts and sentiments with a deceptive finality and simplicity. [from Poets.org]

Horace’s Ars Poetica has made a powerful impact on Western poetry, even some modernist poets have responded to its prescriptions. Horace’s books were copied throughout the Dark Age, quoted by early Christian writers, including St. Jerome, and he was among the earliest pagan poets to be printed. His lyric meters were used by Prudentius and other hymn composers. Dante listed Horace in his Divine Comedy third among poets, after Homer and Virgil. The period from 1650 to 1725 was an era in which his work received much scholarly and literary attention. Horace’s poems were read and are still read in schools and his influence is seen in the works of such authors as Montaigne, Ben Johson, Henry Fielding, John Gay, Lord Chesterfield and Horace Walpole. [from The Authors Calendar]

Read Nichola Lezard’s book review of The Odes of Horace, translated by Len Krisak

Now, which great Latin author are you going to read? I suggest Horace, for two reasons: first, because you quite simply have to know him. You cannot claim to care a fig for poetry unless you have at least a rough idea of what he was about; and his essence is in his Odes. Second, to show you that Latin isn’t actually a walk in the park. Horace’s Latin is hard: packed, allusive, almost impenetrably elegant unless you know your stuff.

The good news about this is that Horace gets translated with great frequency. Considering he’s been dead for 2,000 years, it’s remarkable that you never really have to wait too long for a new version to come along. He is to poetry what “Yesterday” is to the pop song.

The Horatian message is extremely beguiling, and unmistakeably his: relax, sit down, have a drink, money isn’t everything, hot today, isn’t it? Thank goodness for this nice fountain.

[More ...]

Leuconoë, don’t ask, we never know, what fate the gods grant us,
whether your fate or mine, don’t waste your time on Babylonian,
futile, calculations. How much better to suffer what happens,
whether Jupiter gives us more winters or this is the last one,
one debilitating the Tyrrhenian Sea on opposing cliffs.
Be wise, and mix the wine, since time is short: limit that far-reaching hope.
The envious moment is flying now, now, while we’re speaking:
Seize the day, place in the hours that come as little faith as you can.

Horace, Odes, Book I:XI Carpe Diem

—————————

Born December 8

Jim Morrison (b. 1943) – U.S. Singer, songwriter, poet – “End of the Night”

Delmore Schwartz (b. 1913) – U.S. poet

Nicki Minaj (b. 1984) – U.S. (from Trinidad) hiphop singer/songwriter 

———————————————

Friday December 9

Read about Imogen Heap here

Speeding Cars

Here’s the day you hoped would never come
Don’t feed me violins
Just run with me through rows of speeding cars.
The paper cuts, the cheating lovers
The coffee’s never strong enough
I know you think it’s more than just bad luck.

There, there, baby, it’s just textbook stuff
It’s in the A-B-C of growing up.
There, there, darling, oh don’t lose your head,
‘Cause none of us were angels and
You know I love you, yeah.

Sleeping pills, no
Sleeping dogs lie never far enough away
Glistening in the cold sweat of guilt.
I’ve watched you slowly winding down for years.
You can’t keep on like this –
Now’s a bad a time as any.

There, there, baby, it’s just textbook stuff
It’s in the A-B-C of growing up.
There, there, darling, oh don’t kill yourself,
‘Cause none of us were angels and
You know I love you yet. Oh yeah.

It’s goin’ okay by me; it’s goin’ okay by me,
It’s goin’ okay by me, it was a long time ago.
It’s goin’ okay by me; it’s goin’ okay by me,
It’s goin’ okay by me, it was a long time ago.

There, there, baby, it’s just textbook stuff
It’s in the A-B-C of growing up.
There, there, darling, oh don’t lose your head,
‘Cause none of us were angels and
You know I love you, yeah.

Listen to Imogen Heap perform “Speeding Cars” here

Read about Love the Earch, a joint project of Thomas Ermacora and Imogen Heap
http://www.lovetheearthfilm.org/

—————————

Born December 9

Joel Chandler Harris [b. 1848] – U.S. journalist, short story writer – Uncle Remus

Grace Hopper (b. 1906) – U.S. computer scientist, computer language developer – FLOWMATIC (computer compiler language)

Edoardo Sanguineti (b. 1930) – Italian poet, critic, playwright

———————————————

Marina Orlova ( Марина Владимировна Орлова ) (b. 1980) – Russian – U.S. philologist “putting the LOL in phiLOLogy” – Hot For Words (2009)

Read about Marina Orlova here

The theme of Orlova’s website and YouTube videos, which begin with the tagline “Intelligence is Sexy,” is tracing the origins of English words. The channel became active in February 2007, at a time when, Orlova said, “everybody was uploading cleavage.” Orlova has since been voted “World’s #1 Sexiest Geek” in Wired Magazine’s “Sexy Geek of the Year Contest” contest. G4 TV has listed Orlova among its “Hot Women of the Net” on several occasions, and Cosmopolitan Magazine has identified her as the “most subscribed to YouTube guru.” In an interview, Orlova explained how she got viewers interested in words: “How else could I attract them to words?” “Everyone knows that sex sells.” [from Wikipedia]

Visit HotforWords.com

——————————

Born December 10

Emily Dickinson (b. 1830) – U.S. poet – “If I can stop one heart from breaking”

Maria Benitez (Maria Bibiana Benitez Constanza) (b. 1783) – Puerto Rican poet – Soneto (1839)

=======================

Visit the online used bookstore DempseyBooks at

http://dempseybooks.com

Twitter Updates

follow LitBirthdays on Twitter

=========================================

At Dempsey Books

Sanderson Private Pilot Course + Felsenthal E6B Computer