I thought today of those “iconic photos” that define a point in time and enlighten us with moments of reflection. There was the flag raising at Iwo Jima (Joe Rosenthal, photog), the sailor kissing a woman in Times Square as the world celebrated VE Day (Alfred Eisensataedt), the woman kneeling in front of student Jeffrey Miller shot at Kent State in 1970 (John Filo), General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon soldier (Eddie Adams).
I’m sure you can think of others. The question is what photograph describes our age most memorably? Somehow, Michael Jackson lying in his coffin doesn’t have the esthetics or meaning even of Demi Moore’s profile in pregnancy or George Bush, the little emperor, crying “Mission Accomplished”? And don’t suggest President Obama looking Heavenward like a cheap litho of Jesus.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Bill Safire, R.I.P.
The New York Times Magazine is the last section of the Sunday paper I read, and then weeks pass before I get to this mostly innocuous magazine. But when I open the pages, the first piece I stop at is Bill Safire’s “On Language” column. I’m a word nerd, keep a list of new words to learn, read Quinion's World Wide Words RSS feed, and so on.
When I heard of Safire’s death, Sept. 28 of pancreatic cancer I felt the loss of a kinsman.
The Times obit mentions Safire’s “rules for writers,” which I love. “Remember to never split an infinitive. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. Avoid clichés like the plague. And don’t overuse exclamation marks!” I even forgive him, when he was Nixon’s speechwriter, for coining Agnew’s phrase about “nattering nabobs of negativism.”
He was the kind of guy I’d want to have a beer with. He reportedly needed a shoeshine, hair could’ve used a trim, clothes were rumpled. “He was tall but bent—a man walking into the wind. He slouched and banged a keyboard, talked as fast any newyawka and looked a bit gloomy, like a man with a toothache.”
Yep, I know that kind of guy, and I recall banging out copy on a Remington when I was a cub reporter in the Chicago ‘burbs.
I’ll keep his last column when I find it in the pile on the coffee table. Now, the editors report he will be “on hiatus for a while.”
When I heard of Safire’s death, Sept. 28 of pancreatic cancer I felt the loss of a kinsman.
The Times obit mentions Safire’s “rules for writers,” which I love. “Remember to never split an infinitive. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. Avoid clichés like the plague. And don’t overuse exclamation marks!” I even forgive him, when he was Nixon’s speechwriter, for coining Agnew’s phrase about “nattering nabobs of negativism.”
He was the kind of guy I’d want to have a beer with. He reportedly needed a shoeshine, hair could’ve used a trim, clothes were rumpled. “He was tall but bent—a man walking into the wind. He slouched and banged a keyboard, talked as fast any newyawka and looked a bit gloomy, like a man with a toothache.”
Yep, I know that kind of guy, and I recall banging out copy on a Remington when I was a cub reporter in the Chicago ‘burbs.
I’ll keep his last column when I find it in the pile on the coffee table. Now, the editors report he will be “on hiatus for a while.”
Monday, October 5, 2009
Bite the Bride
A news story out of Ohio gripped me by the, er, throat. A middle-aged couple was married, with the groom arriving in a coffin and dressed like Dracula ,while the bride was also dressed as a vampire. The minister appeared as Jason in Friday the 13th.
Now, I know Twilight soared to the charts and half a dozen neck-biting novels are on the best-seller list, but isn’t this carrying things a bit far? What did “Jason” say when the ceremony concluded? “You may now bite the bride?” Was the Champagne toast replaced with Type O blood—or plasma for those on a diet?
I know there’s a back story here somewhere!
Now, I know Twilight soared to the charts and half a dozen neck-biting novels are on the best-seller list, but isn’t this carrying things a bit far? What did “Jason” say when the ceremony concluded? “You may now bite the bride?” Was the Champagne toast replaced with Type O blood—or plasma for those on a diet?
I know there’s a back story here somewhere!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
All the News from Sioux City
Unfortunately, it’s true. Even trying to call up the devil with the best of intentions can go awry. All hell can break loose. The news from Iowa gripped me in its cold fingers until the real unvarnished, true back story emerged: The ritual killer was simply dyslexic. You've heard of the dyslexic who walked into a bra? That's Louis Harris, Jr.
Read the truth of “Satanic Ritual Gone Bad” at
http://www.short-humour.org.uk/3writersshowcase/satanicritualgonebad.htm.
Read the truth of “Satanic Ritual Gone Bad” at
http://www.short-humour.org.uk/3writersshowcase/satanicritualgonebad.htm.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Don’t Overlook Elmore Leonard
Is 9/09/09 an auspicious day? Hell no. I wrote about it in “Number Eleven” years ago. Check it out at http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue272/number_eleven.html.
Okay, to another subject: Elmore Leonard has written a new book, the 41st notch on his gun, not counting 31 works turned into movies and TV shows. Robert Pinsky, in The New York Times, said Elmore Leonard’s Road Dogs “is about the varying degrees of truth and baloney in human relationships. Sometimes the truth or the baloney is lethal. Droll and exciting, enriched by the self-aware, what-the-hell-why-not insouciance of a master now in his mid-80s, Road Dogs presents interesting questions: Can a grown person change? Specifically, can a man abandon expertise that wins him respect but makes a mess of his life? Can anybody trust anybody? Is love ever true? Is friendship ever real? Or, leaving aside love and friendship, does loyalty exist? We road dogs—trotting along companionably on our way to sniff and woof and boogie-woogie and perhaps knock over an occasional trash barrel together—are we reliable?”
I’ve kept a list of every book I’ve read since 1973, starting when I realized I was reading an embarrassing amount of pop fiction at the expense of more worthy literary efforts. Not that Robert Ludlum is bad, but it’s genre writing.
Finishing my seventh Elmore Leonard opus I realized it was time to get back to Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering or David Liss’s Conspiracy of Paper. Then I had my epiphany: Elmore Leonard is a damn good writer.
You know Leonard from the films Get Shorty, Stick, Mr. Majestyk, Jackie Brown and 27 others. You just haven’t read him.
The Christian Science Monitor’s James Kaufman wrote in 1983, “It’s taken awhile for people to catch onto Leonard, though Stick finally brought him the scrutiny of the critical establishment…. But like more overnight successes, Leonard had been writing…since 1953.” Newgate Callendar, writing in The New York Times Book Review, stated, “When [Leonard’s] 52 Pickup appeared in 1974, it had some critics talking in terms of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald
Leonard’s characters are for the most part, good, decent people, but ones who might challenge you to arm wrestle. The writing is spare and lacking in simile or metaphor. His protagonists have interior thoughts and existential questions. What remains when the reader puts down a Leonard work are characters drawn in clean, sharp lines. He is Hemingway, unexpurgated and sitting in a bar or police squad room. Don’t apologize for going out to pick up Road Dogs. You'll find Leonard is addictive.
Okay, to another subject: Elmore Leonard has written a new book, the 41st notch on his gun, not counting 31 works turned into movies and TV shows. Robert Pinsky, in The New York Times, said Elmore Leonard’s Road Dogs “is about the varying degrees of truth and baloney in human relationships. Sometimes the truth or the baloney is lethal. Droll and exciting, enriched by the self-aware, what-the-hell-why-not insouciance of a master now in his mid-80s, Road Dogs presents interesting questions: Can a grown person change? Specifically, can a man abandon expertise that wins him respect but makes a mess of his life? Can anybody trust anybody? Is love ever true? Is friendship ever real? Or, leaving aside love and friendship, does loyalty exist? We road dogs—trotting along companionably on our way to sniff and woof and boogie-woogie and perhaps knock over an occasional trash barrel together—are we reliable?”
I’ve kept a list of every book I’ve read since 1973, starting when I realized I was reading an embarrassing amount of pop fiction at the expense of more worthy literary efforts. Not that Robert Ludlum is bad, but it’s genre writing.
Finishing my seventh Elmore Leonard opus I realized it was time to get back to Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering or David Liss’s Conspiracy of Paper. Then I had my epiphany: Elmore Leonard is a damn good writer.
You know Leonard from the films Get Shorty, Stick, Mr. Majestyk, Jackie Brown and 27 others. You just haven’t read him.
The Christian Science Monitor’s James Kaufman wrote in 1983, “It’s taken awhile for people to catch onto Leonard, though Stick finally brought him the scrutiny of the critical establishment…. But like more overnight successes, Leonard had been writing…since 1953.” Newgate Callendar, writing in The New York Times Book Review, stated, “When [Leonard’s] 52 Pickup appeared in 1974, it had some critics talking in terms of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald
Leonard’s characters are for the most part, good, decent people, but ones who might challenge you to arm wrestle. The writing is spare and lacking in simile or metaphor. His protagonists have interior thoughts and existential questions. What remains when the reader puts down a Leonard work are characters drawn in clean, sharp lines. He is Hemingway, unexpurgated and sitting in a bar or police squad room. Don’t apologize for going out to pick up Road Dogs. You'll find Leonard is addictive.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Sayonara Summertime
One more week to Labor Day. Is it too soon to fear the end of summer is creeping in like a bad dream? Time to shake the sand out my beach towel and gird myself for autumn? No matter, it’s been a great summer. The family is doing well. The heat has been tolerable. My only regret is that if we’d had more rain I’d’ve written more instead of hanging out at the pool or hitting the Point Pleasant boardwalk or eating at the raw bar on the Manasquan Inlet.
Still, I did a fair amount of writing. “Demon Switch” suggested measures to prevent demonic mayhem, published June 5 by Everyday Weirdness, at http://everydayweirdness.com/e/20090605/. “Death in the Afternoon” took a metaphorical look at adolescent relationships through melting ice cubes, published by Every Day Fiction. July 4, at http://www.everydayfiction.com/death-in-the-afternoon-by-walter-giersbach/. “Who Dares Call It Murder?” was a venture into near-future speculative fiction, published by OG Short Fiction on July 15 at www.theopinionguy.com. Bewildering Stories has slated “Gothic Revival” for an upcoming issue. And a trio of humor pieces was published by the U.K. site, http://www.short-humour.org.uk/3writersshowcase/deathbyapathy.htm.
Still, I wonder if I have the energy, endurance and perspicacity to write a novel. Maybe I'll know when NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month—rolls around in October. Hell, maybe I won’t shake out the beach towel just yet..
Still, I did a fair amount of writing. “Demon Switch” suggested measures to prevent demonic mayhem, published June 5 by Everyday Weirdness, at http://everydayweirdness.com/e/20090605/. “Death in the Afternoon” took a metaphorical look at adolescent relationships through melting ice cubes, published by Every Day Fiction. July 4, at http://www.everydayfiction.com/death-in-the-afternoon-by-walter-giersbach/. “Who Dares Call It Murder?” was a venture into near-future speculative fiction, published by OG Short Fiction on July 15 at www.theopinionguy.com. Bewildering Stories has slated “Gothic Revival” for an upcoming issue. And a trio of humor pieces was published by the U.K. site, http://www.short-humour.org.uk/3writersshowcase/deathbyapathy.htm.
Still, I wonder if I have the energy, endurance and perspicacity to write a novel. Maybe I'll know when NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month—rolls around in October. Hell, maybe I won’t shake out the beach towel just yet..
Sunday, August 2, 2009
If There’s a Doctor in the House…
Until recently, I’ve been running to doctors for checkups like a rat chasing nachos. All I get are concerned frowns as they consult their PDRs. So, perhaps I’m not the best of patients. But there are worse, and they’re part of “Innovations in Medicine, at The Short Humour Site. Read it at http://www.short-humour.org.uk/3writersshowcase/innovationsinmedicine.htm and call me in the morning.
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