Monday
UK. Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA, posted at theguardian.com:
Edna O’Brien, 1930–2024, grew up in western Ireland. She wrote fiction and non, short stories, plays, children’s books, screenplays and poetry. Her Wiki profile lists more than forty titles. I just finished her memoir, Country Girl, published in 2012. Her family lived in a large house and owned a significant amount of land until her father, gambling and drinking, frittered a lot of the wealth away. She attended a boarding school staffed by nuns. She rebelled against her strict Catholic upbringing. At first she worked in pharmacy, earning a license. She was astonishingly well-read. The autobiographical content of James Joyce’s novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was a major influence. She moved to London and worked as a reader, then was commissioned to write a novel. Ahead of its time, The Country Girls Trilogy, ‘60-’64, was banned in her homeland. Her beloved mom was not happy with the career her daughter had chosen. O’Brien soldiered on. What I like most about the memoir is the namedropping. She met artists from all fields: McCartney, Faithfull, Vidal, Mailer, Picasso, Brando, Mitchum, Fonda, Burton, the latter reciting Shakespeare at one of her many parties. Vanity Fair dubbed her “The playgirl of the western world.” The writing is solid, although the differences in UK/Irish and American English are often stark. I had to backtrack many times and still was occasionally baffled. Then again, she was a lot smarter than I, so maybe that was it. O’Brien’s one marriage, loveless, lasted ten years. It was volatile. She fought hard for co-custody of her two sons. She does not go into detail about other loves. At one point she contemplated suicide. A letter from one of her boys, slipped under the door of her hotel room while she was on a reading tour, may have been what saved her. Psychoanalysis did not help, although “it opened many doors.” Eventually her work was accepted and even praised in Ireland, which she often visited. She was the recipient of numerous awards. It seems she was as successful commercially as she was critically, although not on the level of top sellers. Here’s a quote attributed to her: “Unhappy houses are a very good incubation for stories.” 543 users at Amazon have rated Country Girl, forging to a consensus of 3.8 on a scale of five. I’ll go with three. She had an incredible life. Kudos, Madam. Photo from Google Images:
After 57 years, WCBS radio, all news, is ending its run. It will be replaced by an ESPN affiliate, more low brow talk, no doubt.
To me, the following is madness. Headline from nypost.com: “Babe Ruth ‘called shot’ Yankees jersey sells for $24.12 million in record-shattering auction.” As a free market capitalist, I grudgingly accept it, but so much good can be done with such a sum.
From NYP: “Cigarette smoking plummets to all-time low: Just 11% of US adults say they’ve lit up recently.” Great news, but I doubt the figure is that low in my Brooklyn neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay.
Among today’s many celebrations, it’s National Toilet Paper Day, especially relevant to those of us who are full of it.
This may be the most amusing headline of the day. From foxnews.com: “Key senator reportedly behind Harris’ rise to power withholds his endorsement for president.” Montana’s Jon Tester didn’t attend the DNC, either. The race is viewed as a tossup. He is running against a former Green Beret.
Another amusing headline: “Quentin Tarantino tells Kamala Harris to continue dodging interviews until election: ‘Don’t f — — s — — up’.” The mainstream media’s effort to protect Harris isn’t surprising. It did the same regarding Obama.
The humidity returned today, but it’s not nearly as brutal as it was a couple of weeks ago. The Anti-Inflation Book Shop was blessed with a variety of sales. My thanks to the man who dropped off a bag full of magazines, most of which I left in the lobby, and to the woman who donated two paperbacks in Russian and to the one who jumped on them minutes later; and to the young woman who bought The Everything Career Tests Book: 10 Tests to Determine the Right Occupation for You by A. Bronwyn Llewellyn and Robin Holt; and to the gentleman who took home four pieces of 3D art; and to the one who chose The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg by Nicholas Dawidoff; and to the one who purchased DVDs of The Warriors (1979) and Friends Season Two; and to the woman who selected four issues of Time magazine.
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