brave concord

I've just about killed this bottle of wine that sharkbait got me.

Earlier I got some nails at the hardware store and put the fence in the backyard back up. Bang bang bang.

Skimmed through a biography of Rube Waddell. Unfortunately, there are pages missing from it and also chapters not in the right order. I'll have to let the library know this. It's also the only copy in the system. Crazy turn of the century lefthander. He pitched, briefly, for the old Columbus Senators and was married (the first of his three marriages) here. If I had the gumption I'd look for a marriage certificate. He used to leave games when he heard firetrucks and would bring in his fielders to deliberately strike out the side with no one behind him. He was a drunk, probably bi-polar and one hell of a showman. He died of tuberculosis on April Fools Day 1914 at the age of 41.

The kid is climbing in and out of his high chair. He's also doing lots of things with his Weebles. Putting them on the ledge by the stairs then pushing them off. Moving them up the stairs one stair at a time. One Weeble at a time.

Imaginative play?

from two years ago

TCM's artist of the month is Harold Lloyd. Last night they showed five films of his. I stayed up and was able to watch most of three of them. Of the big silent comics of his era such as Keaton and Chaplin, Lloyd is least remembered today. He had complete control of how his films were shown, and did so very rarely. Now though, the Harold Lloyd film trust, in the capable hands of his Granddaughter, is beginning to release his movies to the public.

The Freshman was a pleasant movie. Lloyd goes to college to be a BMOC. Becomes the class joke, ends up a football hero.

For Heaven's Sake they said had not be shown since 1926. The print was STUNNING (heck, all the prints were gorgeous). Harold, because he is in love with the minister's daugher, helps out at a mission. There are a couple of very good chase scenes in this one.

The Kid Brother was set in rural America. Harold is the young brother who gets little respect, until he fights for the money his father is accused of stealing and wins the love of the medicine show girl. Very slow moving, but an exciting fight and chase sequence in the end perked things up.

Finally, over 75 years later, we're being allowed to see Lloyd properly. He was a bigger money earner in his day than both Keaton and Chaplin.

Also, Lloyd in an accident lost the thumb and index finger on his right hand. He did most of his stunt work and was shown on film wearing a prosthetic glove.

What always amazes me is that his glasses stayed on. How did that happen :)

Last night was certainly an eye opener. Lloyd gained a few points of respect.

day off

Going to be taking N. to school in a bit. Not sure what I'll be doing out east while he's there. Need to read The Cave. So I might finds me someplace to sit, drink a refreshing beverage and read.

Also have a couple of movies to look at. Should get that in tonight, after the american idol results. I think Scott's done. Possibly Andrew. A guy's getting the boot tonight though.

I'll be pucking all day tomorrow.

Need to figure out what to do Friday night. Anyone?

neil finn taking a break after paul hester's death

poor guy

all you need is sun

Let me say HAPPY BIRTHDAY vertamae!

Did you get the new car?

What a lovely day. Took N. to school then went to the stepford mall. Went to B&N for discounted lemonade and paper products. Sat in the court and watched people stroll by. Ran into laughingrat at Trader Joe's.

Woodface is one fine record. Got a bet teary listening to Italian Plastic. Just freaking sad. really. JEM is Dido with louder guitars.

My attorney called me, from the library. He was looking for me at work. I sold tomorrow's extra ticket that I had. He should have acted quicker!

whoa

Longtime Iowa Workshop Head Conroy Dies

Entertainment - AP

By TODD DVORAK, Associated Press Writer

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Frank Conroy, the memoirist and longtime director of
the celebrated University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, died Wednesday
at 69, according to a colleague.

Conroy died at his home in Iowa City of colon cancer, said James Alan
McPherson, acting co-director of the workshop. "Frank took a great
program and made it an extraordinary one," McPherson said.

Conroy won literary praise with his 1967 book "Stop Time," an
impressionistic memoir about his youth in Brooklyn that was nominated
for a National Book Award before he turned 30.

It was a classic story of innocence, violence and violation, as
elemental as his mastery of the yo-yo and as troubling as a gang of
boys - Conroy included - tormenting a schoolmate, punch by punch.
His other works never surpassed it.

Instead, he gained even greater stature, and welcome stability, by
helping others. In 1987, he traded life on the East Coast for the
slower-paced Midwest when he accepted the job of directing the Writers'
Workshop, the nation's oldest and most prestigious creative writing
program.

Famously demanding, to the point of reducing students to tears, he held
the post for 18 years before announcing his resignation last year. ZZ
Packer, Nathan Englander and Thisbe Nissen were the among the young
writers he worked with.

He returned to teaching last year after a bout with colon cancer, but
became ill again in recent months with cancer and entered hospice care
in Iowa City.

Conroy's books also include "Time & Tide, A Walk Through Nantucket," a
collection of essays entitled "Dogs Bark, But the Caravan Rolls On,"
"Body & Soul," and "Midair." He sold his first short story when he was
a senior at Haverford College, dabbled in journalism, wrote short
stories and essays for a variety of magazines and served as literary
director at the National Endowment of the Arts.

A lover of jazz, Conroy also played piano in clubs in New York for
several years and befriended such musicians as Keith Jarrett and Wynton
Marsalis. Conroy's friend David Halberstam once called him "innately
hip, the first true counterculture person I had ever met."

After his stint with the NEA, Conroy moved to Iowa City and became the
workshop's fourth director. Founded in 1936, the workshop was the
nation's first creative writing program and boasts alumni and past
faculty such as Kurt Vonnegut, T.C. Boyle, Raymond Carver, John Irving
and Flannery O'Connor.

Conroy was known for favoring old-fashioned narration to experimental
writing and for being a no-nonsense, curmudgeonly instructor. His
reputation for classroom criticism admittedly made at least one student
cry and another student faint.

"But luckily one of the students in that class was a doctor, so he saw
it happening and got to her before she fell down," Conroy said with a
laugh during a 2004 Associated Press interview.

"You have to get across to them that the work is separate from them.
That's what good work is: a life independent of the life of the author.
So you have unintended qualities in the prose - personal tics,
pretending to write, instead of really writing. All writers have to go
through this and get it past them. I try to make that quicker for them
rather than longer."

But overseeing the workshop, the faculty and its endless stream of
talented, young writers was a job he loved. Conroy rejoiced in his
ability to help emerging writers along and then read their published
works.

"I don't know what could be more satisfying or enjoyable," Conroy,
seated behind his desk cluttered with newly published books and papers,
told the AP last year.

Conroy is survived by his second wife, Maggie, his three sons and three
grandchildren.