A Writer Writes . . .

 
Tucson Weather Today

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What happened to the writer that once sat with me, first wielding a rigid pen whose nub was repetitively dipped in blue-black ink from the well in the corner of a student's desk and transferred to the lines of a page from a goldenrod tablet?

Where is that writer who later after I'd put schooling aside accompanied me while I pounded the stiff keys of a manual typewriter?

And to where  has that once eager writer fled who guided the tapping of my somewhat matured fingers on a computer keyboard?

Is that writer still skulking around in the shadows somewhere?

I wonder . . .

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WORD FOR TODAY

vocabulary [voh-CAB-yoo-lehr-ee]
Noun
The body of words used in a particular language.
A part of such a body of words used on a particular occasion or in a particular sphere: "the vocabulary of law".

A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental

tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the largest challenges in learning a second language.

Source

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BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY



Richard Wright


Born Sept. 4, 1908
Died Nov 28, 1960

Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. His work helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century.

Wright was criticized for his works' concentration on violence. In the case of Native Son, people complained that he portrayed a black man in ways that seemed to confirm whites' worst fears.

Paul Harvey

Born Sept 4, 1918
Died Feb 28, 2009

Paul Harvey Aurandt, better known as Paul Harvey, was a conservative American radio broadcaster for the ABC Radio Networks. He broadcast News and Comment on weekday mornings and mid-days, and at noon on Saturdays, as well as his famous The Rest of the Story segments. His listening audience was estimated, at its peak, at 24 million people a week. Paul Harvey News was carried on 1,200 radio stations, 400 Armed Forces Network stations and 300 newspapers. His broadcasts and newspaper columns have been reprinted in the Congressional Record more than those of any other commentator.

Mitzi Gaynor

Born Sept 4, 1931
Age: 80 years old.

Mitzi Gaynor is an American actress, singer and dancer. Notable roles included There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) which featured Irving Berlin's music and also starred Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Marilyn Monroe, Donald O'Connor, and Johnnie Ray.

She also appeared in Les Girls (1957) with Gene Kelly and Kay Kendall, and the remake of Anything Goes (1956), co-starring Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor, and Zizi Jeanmaire, loosely based on the musical by Cole Porter, P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton. Her biggest international fame came from her starring role as Ensign Nellie Forbush in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific.

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The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination.
--Richard Wright

Story, Myth, Fable, Legend

Tucson Weather Today

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Last night while I watching a PBS segment of Nature about Bears of the Frozen North I was struck by the number of poetically descriptive allusions to nature's seemingly human characteristics, such as the punishing winds of cruel winter at the top of the world. We know, of course, that the cold winds are really not punishing the creatures it blows against. And we know that the winter is not consciously cruel. Nor is this windy winter's event happening at the top of the world.

The simile, the metaphor, and the analogy undeniably enhance the portrayal of what would otherwise be a dull and forgettable listing of meteorological data: temperature, wind speed, and specific latitudes for regions at the arctic circle.

Figures of speech and active imagination have their uses.

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Grammarphobia as I've mentioned before is a website of which I am a great fan and I check out its blog section almost daily. From its pages I have learned a great deal about the English language, about its roots and about correct grammar.

The authors are Patricia T. O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman who have written five books about the English language and have more than half a century of experience as writers and editors. Just recently I finally got around to reading Stewart Kellerman's interview with Raymond Carver in the New York Times -- just a few months before Mr. Carver died... link below:

For Raymond Carver, a Lifetime of Storytelling

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I read, and I read, and I read again, and again, and again. I write, and I write, and I write again, and again, and again. I read and I write, but never am I satisfied; never do I read enough, never do I write enough. There seems no end to that twin endeavor this side of my final eternal nothingness.

In the words of Richard Wright:

I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.

Richard Wright

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(a brief diversion, if I may)

The Chosen People

What is the true meaning of The Chosen People? Were the Israelites chosen by YHWH or was YHWH chosen by the Israelites? And what does it matter, anyway?

Below is reportedly from a letter Albert Einstein wrote in January 1954 to philosopher Eric Gutkind.

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilized interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them."

I admit that the above paragraph was lifted from monricks. but only after I had considered the meaning of The Chosen People and began to do some research on the concept.

The Chosen People.

Absolutely ridiculous.

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And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
--Sylvia Plath