Ruthless

‎"Pan me, don't give me the part, publish everybody's book but this one and I will still make it!...Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, face the facts" Ruth Gordon 1896-1985

So, because I wrote a couple of books about our 2nd President and his family and because these sorts of facts seem to stick in my head, I knew perfectly well [if not the names of people I knew in high school] that today's John Adams's birthday, by way of the 'new' calendar, adopted by the Brit. Empire in 1752, when John was 17, seeing as he was born in Braintree [later incorporated into Quincy, Mass, in 1735, a very different America. But I didn't know until I googled about this morning that this is the anniversary of the day that Ruth Gordon was born in 1896. May I only note two things, maybe three - certainly no more than four:

1. Well I remember, will always remember, how I loved Ruth Gordon's performance in "Harold & Maude.'

2. I'll remember her, too, in that bit o' silly-terrific Clint Eastwood movie, 'every which way but loose' and her gossiping about poor old Dorothy Parker in that swellegant documentary about the Algonquin Hotel gathering: The Ten Year Lunch' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094119/

3. Today's also the birthday of poet Ezra Pound, [I very much like the cake named after him.] who once wrote that "A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." That's for damned sure.

4. "A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man." John Adams 1735-1826 Amen to that! http://www.nps.gov/adam Splendid books there are about THE Adams Family, but my introduction to them was Irving Stone's fine Those Who Love. I'd surely recommend it. [I.S.'s Agony & the Ecstasy is a treat, too, absolutamenté ]

29 Oct

“Men always fall for frigid women because they put on the best show.” Fanny Brice, born Fania Borach in NYC, 29th of October, 1891.

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

."I have a long journey to take & must bid the company farewell." Sir Walter Raleigh, 66, just before he was executed in the courtyard of the Old Palace at Westminster, 29th of October, 1618. "Tis a sharp remedy," he said to the masked man, touching lightly the blade of his axe,"but a sure one for all ills."

http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/sir-walter-raleigh.htm

Once he'd been a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. I am SO picturing Bette Davis & Helen Mirren... and signing off to get down to today's writing. Maybe watch Funny Girl again, later on... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKivfzjQxOQ

"It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It's my partner." Dr. Jonas Salk, b. 28 Oct. 1914

The good doctor was born in NYC, just a few weeks after ships began passing through Panama's newly-completed Canal; just a few weeks before before U.S. ships sailed out of Veracruz, Mexico. Our govt. had sent out the marines to keep the Germans, or "Huns," as they'd have been termed in these spun-up proper-gandered times. WWI had begun a couple of months before Jonas Salk came into the world. Edgar Rice Burroughs published Tarzan of the Apes that year & Alfred Joyce Kilmer, a much-respected literary critic & journalist, published - "I think that I shall never see..." – Trees that year, what would be the most famous of his many poems. Only 31 he was, when he was killed in "the Great War," in the summer of 1918, a couple of weeks after Quentin, TR's youngest cub, [TR, whose cousin FDR suffered so w/ poliomyelitis, largely vanquished, thanks to the work of Dr. J.S.] was shot out of the sky over France... sigh. Ah well. It's Victor Hugo's birthday, too, jfytk, in 1828. I'm glad we had them while we had them.

The 27th

So, according to the wikibots, it was on this day in history, in 1682, that Wm. Penn founded the C. of B. L. a.k.a. Philadelphia. Sometime that year, Wm. Blackledge, another Englishman, settled himself in PA, Bucks County, to be a little more exact. If I remember rightly [be dubious] here's how my mother line goes: Wm. B. > Thos. > Jos. > another Joseph > Emma Blackledge m. Jake Brown > Eulah > Elaine > Me. There you go. When my great-grandmother, Emma B. Brown of Cameron, MO, was 39 yrs. old, her country got itself a new president by way of a nasty bit of tragedy, the murder of Wm. McKinley in Sept. 1901. I most happily wrote about our 26th President in not one but two books of mine, the latter being The Remarkable, Rough-Riding Life of Theodore Roosevelt, which, not so by the way, began on this day, 102 yrs. ago. scholar, reader [voracious when it came to books and all else] naturalist, athlete, rancher, soldier [would be awarded the Medal of Honor], passionate husband & father [passionate in every role incl. warmonger] police commissioner, NYC, big-game hunter, historian, author, NY governor, US president, 1st American to be awarded Nobel's Prize for Peace. Here, Theo, you say something:

"There must be the keenest sense of duty and with it must go the joy of living; there must be shame at the thought of shirking the hard work of the world, and at the same time delight in the many-sided beauty of life. With soul of flame and temper of steel, we must act as our coolest judgment bids us." TR 1858-1919

Do, dear, dear Readers, read this book or somebody's book and learn more about one of the most interesting Americans who ever, ever lived - as far as I know anyway.

http://www.amazon.com/Remarkable-Rough-Riding-Theodore-Roosevelt-Histories/dp/1426300085/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288194762&sr=8-1

So, this is a big day, anniversary-wise. Two big fat ones occur today, having to do with two of my favorite books: The Amazing Impossible Erie Canal http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Impossible-Canal-Aladdin-Picture/dp/0689825846/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288136307&sr=1-1

and They're Off! The Story of the Pony Express http://www.amazon.com/Theyre-Off-Story-Pony-Express/dp/0689851219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288136486&sr=1-1

Together, to my mind, these two were a pair, TAIEC representing the first phase of the USA's unstoppable taking over the continent, 1820s & 30s, when the Ohio Country was the Wild West. The USA was a young exuberant nation along the Atlantic seaboard, busting to penetrate the wilds beyond the Appalachian Range. Americans set their sites on the wealth of land, a bounty of raw materials waiting on the other side (to be marketed to the rest o' the world) - on the Native Americans' whose ancestral home were there - not so much. Another obstacle to be vanquished, I'm afraid. Our history is not a tame lion.

It took 8 years of back-busting work from July 4, 1817 to the fall of 1825 to complete the waterway between Lake Erie & the Hudson River, flowing > NYC>the Great World). Just think of it: 363 miles, 4 feet deep, 40 feet wide. AND - oh baybee - I'd get to paint a glossy ribbon of manmade waterway in some of the most beauteous landscape in North America. I know because my old dad (God rest him) & I drove the distance and got on one another's nerves terribly as we're related. As for 1820s fashions - shut up! - high waisted gowns, glorious bonnets for de ladies & for de gents, high collars & cravats, waistcoats, top hats [too bad for you, beavers. kiss your pelts goodbye.] Anyway, the whole shebang opened for business on this day in history: October 26, 1825. One of my favorite paintings ever is TAIEC's opening spread, showing a glorious flotilla setting 'sail' east out of Buffalo.

Now, if TAIEC represented Phase One, what better way to represent Phase Two (the pressing westward, from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean) than those wiry riders & their 4-leggers, carrying the U.S. Mail? Here's how Mark Twain [I did a book about him as well, and the "Queens of the Mississippi" Steamships, fyi. Another tale for another day.] wrote about the Pony Express in his terrific "Roughing It" [by golly, I need to read that again.] :

"The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a man, brimful of spirit and endurance. No matter what time of the day or night his watch came on, and no matter whether it was winter or summer, raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting, or whether his "beat" was a level straight road or a crazy trail over mountain cragsand precipices, or whether it led through peaceful regions or regions that swarmed with hostile Indians, he must bealways ready to leap into the saddle and be off like the wind! There was no idling-time for a pony-rider on duty. He rode fifty miles without stopping, by daylight, moonlight, starlight, or through the blackness of darkness--just as it happened. He rode a splendid horse that was born for a racer and fed and lodged like a gentleman; kept him at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then, as he came crashing up to the station where stood two men holding fast a fresh, impatient steed, the transfer of rider and mail-bag was made in the twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair and were out of sight before the spectator could get hardly the ghost of a look."

Thank heavens, you don't have to be a genius like Mr. Twain to write about this chapter in our history, this connecting up of the U.S. [about to be @ war] & the golden west. I took my best whack at it and adored doing the paintings, though I so wish I could redo the jacket art. Ah well. You probably know that the PonyEx only lasted a year & a half, until the telegraphic wires were strung & hoisted pole to pole, messages sent by electricity, somewhat faster than any old pony. It ended on this day, October 26, 1861.

"Art is a lie that makes us realize truth." Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Few men during their lifetime comes anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used. Adm. Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888-1957)

The 25th - it's date spiced with Christmas associations. As a 13-year-old, I remember rather liking the fact that one of the Beatle birthdays was the 25th of February, George's, of course. Anyway, a pair of explorers came into the world through the door marked 25 October. One, Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, so he was christened,would explore the worlds within & without, as he perceived with those fierce brown eyes of his and equally fierce mind. He was born in Spain, Oct. 25, 1881 - I don't know why it sticks in my mind that President Garfield had died less than a month before and that right about then, young Theodore Roosevelt was besotted with the lovely blond Alice, his first wife, who must have looked smashing in the wasp-waisted, bustled [crazy-ass] fashions then. Oh well. I tend to remember.

On Pablo's 7th birthday, Richard E. Byrd was born in Boston. Pioneer aviator, explorer

of the vast, physical world, particularly the cold parts. Really, an astonishing individual he was.

I'd write more about both these birthday dudes, but other projects await. Quest on!

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

http://www.south-pole.com/p0000107.htm

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”...said to be an "Eskimo proverb" Profound thoughts get thought, seems to me, where the nights are deep & cold.

"How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems," said Daniel Webster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Webster

So, it appears that Almanzo James Wilder, (1857-1949) and Vicki Grove's mom, Mrs. Baum of Lincoln, MO, both passed out of the world through the door marked October 23. Bess, a.k.a. Laura Ingalls Wilder of Mansfield, MO, surely did portray her husband as a solid chap, boy & man. Not for the longest time, when I was a kid, would I read about him. Why would I want to read about a boy? Turned out that "Farmer Boy," would be my favorite of all of L.I.W.'s books. I reveled, virtually, in the apple pie and everything else Almanzo's hard-working mom, Angeline, served up in the Wilders' home near Malone, NY www.almanzowilderfarm.com/ (way up by the Canada border. Thanks to my dear, cool, amazing, tomboy, dog-rescuing, bagpipe-playing, swell writer friend Natalie Kinsey-Warnock of Vermont, http://www.kinsey-warnock.com/ (have you read her 'The Night the Bells Rang"? Go and do so. I LOVE that little book, even more than her fine and better-known The Canada Geese Quilt.) got to visit the wonderfully restored Wilder Farm. Do go there if you haven't.

And, as I was saying before I got off the rails, one of my very best friends in this here vale of tears, Vicki Grove http://mowrites4kids.drury.edu/authors/grove/ lost her 88-year-old mom yesterday, after a long, heroic and steadfast stint as caretaker of both her parents, while managing to turn out a steady stream of thoughtful, careful prose, being as she is, a genuine, daily writer. "Destiny," I think, is one of my favorite V.G. books, though I was mighty taken w/ "Rhiannon," her historical novel.... Anyway, old Mrs. Baum finally got her ticket punched & passed to the Blue Beyond. Maybe she'll get to meet the great Daniel Webster. His deathday is today, October 24 (1852). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Webster