Hearts & Minds
Actress Caterina Murino will host the opening ceremony of the 80th Venice Film Festival. Photo from reuters.com:
Born in Tulsa, the late Billie Letts found literary success in her mid 50’s. A mom of three, in her 30’s, she earned a teaching degree from Southeast Missouri State and went into the profession, retiring when she came of age. Her first novel, Where the Heart Is, was selected for Oprah’s Book Club. I just finished it. It begins in 1987 and covers seven-plus years in the life of a young woman abandoned by her boyfriend at a Walmart in rural Oklahoma. Seven months pregnant, she secretly sets up house in the store, where she delivers a healthy baby girl with the help of a male librarian she has befriended, and finds a brief period of fame. She has the great fortune of several compassionate people of diverse backgrounds and modest means helping her get on her feet, then thrive. About a quarter of the narrative is devoted to the selfish twit who dumped her. The portraits are of a positive and negative lifestyle, one who triumphs over upbringing, another who does not. The young woman overcomes every obstacle in her path, growing despite several setbacks, including her wayward mom stealing from her when she just happens to show up one day. The tale is episodic, not driven by plot. The prose and dialogue are solid, the 358 pages of the large paperback, minus many blanks between the chapters and the four parts, read like considerably less. 2000+ users at Amazon have rated Where the Heart Is, forging to a consensus of 4.5 on a scale of five. I’ll go with 3.25. More than 20 years after its publication, it is still selling modestly. Letts wrote three other books. She was married to Dennis Letts, who began as an educator and found a second career as an actor, amassing 50 credits, which include Cast Away (2000), Passenger 57 (1992) and an adaptation of Where the Heart Is (2000). He passed away at 73 in 2008. His wife died at 76 in 2014. Well done. Photo from Google Images:
Another counterpunch from DT, headline from nypost.com: “AI-generated Trump rap song mocking latest arrest tops iTunes chart: ‘My mugshot worth a billi’.” Word to your mother.
A leftist professor speaks, headline from foxnews.com: “Third-party ‘spoiler’ candidate Cornel West says Democratic Party is ‘beyond redemption’.” What — they’re not liberal enough? Or has he been visited by common sense?
The forecast said rain on and off all afternoon. The sky began to clear at eleven, then at about one PM it was absolutely beautiful. My thanks to Romania born artist Andu, the floating book shop’s only customer of the day, who bought Charlie Brown’s ‘Cyclopedia: Super Questions and Answers and Amazing Facts, Vol. 1: Featuring Your Body by Charles Schulz, one from the Jedi Academy series, The Godfather Papers by Mario Puzo, Daniel X: Alien Hunter by James Patterson and Leopoldo Gout, the illustrated Rainbow and Black Vol. 2 by Eri Takenashi, and Mystics Places (Mysteries of the Unknown) by George Constable, a pictorial.
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