Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins & Johnny Cash (Behind Stage 1955)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
RIP James Whitmore
James Whitmore dies at 87; veteran actor brought American icons to life
An avid gardener, he also was known as the TV pitchman for Miracle-Gro.
By Dennis McLellan
February 7, 2009
James Whitmore, the veteran Tony- and Emmy-winning actor who brought American icons Will Rogers, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt to life in one-man shows, died Friday. He was 87.
Whitmore died of lung cancer at his home in Malibu, said his son, Steve. He was diagnosed with the disease a week before Thanksgiving.
"He cared about acting; his whole life was dedicated to the theater and to movies," said actor David Huddleston, a longtime friend who appeared in Whitmore's 1964 movie "Black Like Me" and did a couple of plays with him. "I asked James Cagney one time to tell me the best thing you can about acting. He said never to get caught at it. That's kind of how I'd sum up Jim Whitmore."
James Arness, who appeared with Whitmore in the movies "Battleground" and "Them!," said Whitmore was "an actor's actor," adding that " it was always a treat to work with him."
Arness also remembered the "great intensity" Whitmore could bring to a role.
"When we wanted to get an actor to play a character who had that quality, Jimmy was the guy you'd think of," said Arness, who starred in "Gunsmoke," a TV series that Whitmore appeared on a number of times.
A stocky World War II Marine Corps veteran who bore a resemblance to actor Spencer Tracy and shared Tracy's down-to-earth quality, Whitmore earned early acclaim as an actor.
In 1948, he won a Tony Award for outstanding performance by a newcomer in the role of an amusingly cynical Army Air Forces sergeant in the Broadway production of "Command Decision."
Whitmore's Broadway success brought him to Hollywood, where he received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor in his second movie, the hit 1949 World War II drama "Battleground," in which he played a tobacco-chewing, battle-weary Army sergeant.
Supporting roles and occasional leads in some 50 movies followed over the next 50-plus years, including "The Asphalt Jungle," "Them!," "Kiss Me Kate," "Battle Cry," "Oklahoma!," "Planet of the Apes," "Tora! Tora! Tora!," "The Serpent's Egg," "Nuts," "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Majestic."
A frequent guest actor on television, Whitmore also starred in three series: the 1960-62 legal drama "The Law and Mr. Jones," the 1969 detective drama "My Friend Tony" and the 1972-74 hospital sit-com "Temperatures Rising" (although he left after a year, he later said, "because it was just a series of jokes").
In 2000, Whitmore won an Emmy Award as outstanding guest actor in a drama series for "The Practice," and he received a 2003 Emmy nomination in the same category for "Mister Sterling."
An avid flower and vegetable gardener, Whitmore also was known to TV viewers as the longtime commercial pitchman for Miracle-Gro garden products.
Whitmore often said he found acting in films and television boring because of the long waits between scenes; his passion was for the theater, and he continued to act on stage throughout his long career.
"I've been very, very lucky," he said in a 2003 interview with the Nashville Tennessean. "The stage is human beings sharing something together -- flesh and blood together -- and the others are mechanical and shadows on the screen."
Although he starred in productions of plays such as "Our Town," "Inherit the Wind" and "Death of a Salesman," Whitmore was best known for his three one-man shows: as Truman in "Give 'em Hell, Harry!," as Roosevelt in "Bully" and as Rogers in "Will Rogers' U.S.A."
The 1975 film of his performance in "Give 'em Hell, Harry!" earned Whitmore a best actor Oscar nomination.
But the one-man-show character he said he "always felt most comfortable with" was Rogers.
"He was wise with a sense of humor, and that's an unbeatable combination," Whitmore told the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader in 2003.
He was initially resistant to the idea of playing the gum-chewing, lariat-twirling humorist -- his first one-man show -- when adapter-director Paul Shyre brought "Will Rogers' U.S.A." to him in 1969.
"I didn't think I could conceivably carry an evening by myself. I had difficulty holding the attention of my family," Whitmore recalled in a 1995 interview with The Times.
But any qualms he had disappeared when the show premiered in a small theater in Webster Groves, Mo., in January 1970.
"I realized immediately that I was in the presence of an extraordinary man," Whitmore told The Times. "I didn't realize that until I heard the response of other human beings to him."
Whitmore ultimately had about eight hours of Rogers' various comments about the topics of the day memorized, changing the show each time he did it.
"I tried to use whatever seemed to be of interest to the folks in the audience that day," he told the Tulsa World in 2001. "I took the news from today's newspaper but didn't change what Will Rogers said. It's amazing how little things have changed since Will was about."
Whitmore completed 30 years of on-and-off touring as Rogers at Ford's Theatre in Washington in 2000, and his costume is now housed in the Smithsonian Institution.
Born in White Plains, N.Y., on Oct. 1, 1921, Whitmore later moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where he attended public schools until his senior year of high school, when he attended the Choate School in Wallingford, Conn., on a football scholarship.
He was a pre-law major on an athletic scholarship at Yale University, but he had to quit playing football after suffering two knee injuries.
While at Yale, Whitmore helped launch the campus radio station.
"I was able to stay in school with a nightly sports show, 'Jim Whitmore Speaks,' with interviews and sports news. I made 40 bucks a week," he told the Tennessean in 2003.
With World War II underway, Whitmore joined the Marines during his senior year in 1942 and served in the South Pacific. After his discharge, he eventually moved to New York City and used the GI Bill to study acting at the American Theatre Wing.
In 1947, he married his first wife, Nancy Mygatt, with whom he had three children. They were divorced after 24 years. After Whitmore's second marriage in the 1970s, to actress Audra Lindley, he and his first wife were remarried but divorced after two years
Whitmore, who was an early student at the Actors Studio in New York in the late '40s, taught an acting workshop after moving to Hollywood. Among his students in the early '50s was young James Dean, whom Whitmore advised to go to New York.
"I owe a lot to Whitmore," Dean told Seventeen magazine in 1955. "One thing he said helped more than anything. He told me I didn't know the difference between acting as a soft job and acting as a difficult art."
For his part, Whitmore remained modest about his own acting talent.
"I never thought I was good," he told the Palm Beach Post in 2002. "I've touched the hem of the garment a few times but never grabbed it full-hand."
When he died Friday, Whitmore "was surrounded by what he considered to be the most important thing in his life, which was his family," his son Steve said.
In addition to his son, Whitmore is survived by his wife, Noreen; his sons James Jr. and Dan; eight grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Services are pending.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospitalized
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospitalized
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized for surgery for pancreatic cancer. Here is the court’s statement:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman on the Supreme Court, had surgery Thursday for early stage pancreatic cancer, the Supreme Court announced.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has undergone two bouts of cancer since she joined the court in 1993.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has undergone two bouts of cancer since she joined the court in 1993.
Ginsburg, 75, is at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the court said in a news release. It said she will likely remain there for seven to 10 days, according to her attending surgeon, Dr. Murray Brennan.
"Justice Ginsburg had no symptoms prior to the incidental discovery of the lesion during a routine annual checkup in late January at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland," the court said.
A CAT scan "revealed a small tumor, approximately one centimeter across, in the center of the pancreas," the release added.
Court sources said the surgery went well and that doctors and the family were cautiously optimistic. Ginsburg was still working in her chambers late last week. She had been diagnosed shortly after attending the presidential inauguration, the sources said.
The court returns for public oral arguments February 23, after a month-long break, but justices are also scheduled for a closed-door conference February 20. There is no word whether Ginsburg will attend in person, or if she will eventually have to curtail her workload.
Ginsburg previously underwent surgery for colorectal cancer in September 1999. Court sources said she continued to work on pending cases while in her hospital bed and during her subsequent recovery. Less than a month later she appeared in public to give a speech and said, "I am still mending but have progressed steadily." She never missed a day on the bench.
She received chemotherapy between October 1999 and June 2000. There was no word on her future course of treatment beyond Thursday's surgery.
President Obama wished Ginsburg a speedy recovery, offering his thoughts and prayers, said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
She is the second oldest justice on the high court, after 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens.
"Cancer is a dreadful disease," Ginsburg told a women's health research dinner in 2001. "The surgery, and what I call the post-operative insurance course (chemotherapy and radiation) are not easy to bear physically and can generate large anxiety."
But, Ginsburg added, "there is nothing like a cancer bout to make one relish the joys of being alive. It is as though a special, zestful spice seasons my work and days. Each thing I do comes with a heightened appreciation that I am able to do it."
Don't Miss
*
Ginsburg's mother died of cancer the day before the future justice graduated from high school. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer while she was in law school, but was successfully treated.
Almost 35,000 Americans are estimated to have died from pancreatic cancer in 2008, making it the fourth leading cause of cancer death overall, according to the American Cancer Society. For all ages combined, the one-year survival rate is 24 percent; the five-year survival rate is 5 percent.
However, it is not often discovered in the early stages, because symptoms usually do not appear until the condition is advanced.
Ginsburg, considered one of the more liberal jurists on the bench, was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton.
She is admired by her colleagues for her intellectual prowess, her understanding of court precedent and her quiet but firm manner. She loves opera and fine arts and is close friends with Justice Antonin Scalia, a fellow New Yorker but one of the most conservative members of the bench. They have vacationed and organized dinner parties together.
She is the only woman serving on the high court, and the second ever, following Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who served from 1981 to 2006.
Ginsburg was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to the U.S. District Court of Appeals, where she served from 1981 until her nomination to the Supreme Court.
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized for surgery for pancreatic cancer. Here is the court’s statement:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman on the Supreme Court, had surgery Thursday for early stage pancreatic cancer, the Supreme Court announced.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has undergone two bouts of cancer since she joined the court in 1993.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has undergone two bouts of cancer since she joined the court in 1993.
Ginsburg, 75, is at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the court said in a news release. It said she will likely remain there for seven to 10 days, according to her attending surgeon, Dr. Murray Brennan.
"Justice Ginsburg had no symptoms prior to the incidental discovery of the lesion during a routine annual checkup in late January at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland," the court said.
A CAT scan "revealed a small tumor, approximately one centimeter across, in the center of the pancreas," the release added.
Court sources said the surgery went well and that doctors and the family were cautiously optimistic. Ginsburg was still working in her chambers late last week. She had been diagnosed shortly after attending the presidential inauguration, the sources said.
The court returns for public oral arguments February 23, after a month-long break, but justices are also scheduled for a closed-door conference February 20. There is no word whether Ginsburg will attend in person, or if she will eventually have to curtail her workload.
Ginsburg previously underwent surgery for colorectal cancer in September 1999. Court sources said she continued to work on pending cases while in her hospital bed and during her subsequent recovery. Less than a month later she appeared in public to give a speech and said, "I am still mending but have progressed steadily." She never missed a day on the bench.
She received chemotherapy between October 1999 and June 2000. There was no word on her future course of treatment beyond Thursday's surgery.
President Obama wished Ginsburg a speedy recovery, offering his thoughts and prayers, said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
She is the second oldest justice on the high court, after 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens.
"Cancer is a dreadful disease," Ginsburg told a women's health research dinner in 2001. "The surgery, and what I call the post-operative insurance course (chemotherapy and radiation) are not easy to bear physically and can generate large anxiety."
But, Ginsburg added, "there is nothing like a cancer bout to make one relish the joys of being alive. It is as though a special, zestful spice seasons my work and days. Each thing I do comes with a heightened appreciation that I am able to do it."
Don't Miss
*
Ginsburg's mother died of cancer the day before the future justice graduated from high school. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer while she was in law school, but was successfully treated.
Almost 35,000 Americans are estimated to have died from pancreatic cancer in 2008, making it the fourth leading cause of cancer death overall, according to the American Cancer Society. For all ages combined, the one-year survival rate is 24 percent; the five-year survival rate is 5 percent.
However, it is not often discovered in the early stages, because symptoms usually do not appear until the condition is advanced.
Ginsburg, considered one of the more liberal jurists on the bench, was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton.
She is admired by her colleagues for her intellectual prowess, her understanding of court precedent and her quiet but firm manner. She loves opera and fine arts and is close friends with Justice Antonin Scalia, a fellow New Yorker but one of the most conservative members of the bench. They have vacationed and organized dinner parties together.
She is the only woman serving on the high court, and the second ever, following Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who served from 1981 to 2006.
Ginsburg was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to the U.S. District Court of Appeals, where she served from 1981 until her nomination to the Supreme Court.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
For Fans of Edgar Allan Poe, a Happy 200th Birthday
For Fans of Edgar Allan Poe, a Happy 200th Birthday
Remembering the writer of terror and mystery, who developed the modern detective novel. He led a short but extremely creative life. Transcript of radio broadcast:
02 February 2009
VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
And I'm Shirley Griffith. This year is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of writer Edgar Allan Poe. The United States Postal Service is honoring him with a stamp. And several museums in cities where he lived are remembering him with plays, readings and other events. This week on our program we explore his life and the continuing influence of his work.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Edgar Allan Poe wrote stories and poems of mystery and terror, insanity and death. His life was short and seemingly unhappy.
He was born Edgar Poe on January nineteenth, eighteen hundred and nine in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were actors. He was a baby when his father left the family. And he was two when his mother died. At that time they were in Richmond, Virginia.
Edgar went to live with the family of a wealthy Richmond businessman named John Allan. John Allan never officially adopted him as a son, but the boy became known as Edgar Allan Poe.
He attended schools in England and in Richmond. He also attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He was a good student. But he had a problem with alcohol. Even one drink seemed to change his personality and make him drunk. Also, he liked to play card games for money. Edgar was not a good player. He lost money that he did not have.
John Allan refused to pay Edgar's gambling losses. He also refused to continue paying for his education. So the young man went to Boston and began working as a writer and editor for monthly magazines.
VOICE TWO:
Poe served in the Army for two years, before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point to become an officer. He was dismissed from the academy in eighteen thirty-one after six months. By then he had already published three books of poetry.
He began writing stories while living with his aunt in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. In October of eighteen thirty-three, he won a short story contest organized by a local newspaper. He received fifty dollars in prize money and got a job editing the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. He published many of his own stories.
In eighteen thirty-four, Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm, the thirteen year old daughter of his father's sister. They moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in eighteen thirty-eight. There, Poe served as editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and continued to write.
He published many of his most frightening stories during this time. These included "The Black Cat," "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum."
VOICE ONE:
Edgar Allan Poe did something unusual for writers of his time: he used a narrator in a story to describe what was happening. A good example is the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart."
The narrator claims that he is not mad, yet reveals that he is a murderer. He has killed an old man for no apparent reason. He cuts up the body and hides the parts under the floorboards of the victim's house.
Police officers arrive after getting reports of noises from the house. The murderer shows them around the house and is proud of the way he has hidden all the evidence. But he begins to hear a sound. The others in the room cannot hear it.
READER:
Yet the sound increased -- and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound -- much a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath -- and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly -- more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men -- but the noise steadily increased. Oh God what could I do? I foamed -- I raved --I swore. But the noise continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder!
VOICE TWO:
Edgar Allan Poe is also remembered for the kind of literature known as detective fiction. These are stories of an investigator who has to solve murders and other crimes.
In fact, Edgar Allan Poe is considered the father of the modern detective novel. His fictional detective C. August Dupin first appeared in his story "The Murders In the Rue Morgue" in eighteen forty-one. Dupin also appeared in two later stories, "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter."
Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, wrote about Poe's influence on other crime writers: "Each may find some little development of his own, but his main art must trace back to those admirable stories of Monsieur Dupin, so wonderful in their masterful force, their reticence, their quick dramatic point."
VOICE ONE:
Jeff Jerome is the curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore. He says Poe's influence can also be seen in the work of H.G. Wells and Alfred Hitchcock, to name a few. Poe's influence extends to plays, movies, operas, music, cartoons, television, paintings -- just about every kind of art.
Poe's creation of the detective novel is recognized by the Mystery Writers of America. The writers group presents the yearly Edgar Awards to honor the best detective and suspense books, movies and TV shows.
An award also goes to an individual, organization or business for working to continue the influence of Edgar Allan Poe. The award is named for Poe's most famous work. This year, the Edgar Allan Poe Society and the Poe House in Baltimore will receive the Raven Award.
VOICE TWO:
Edgar Allan Poe became famous after "The Raven" was published in eighteen forty-five. The poetry is rich in atmosphere. The rhythm suggests music.
The narrator of "The Raven" is a man whose love has died. He sits alone among his books late at night. He hears a noise at the window:
READER:
Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word "Lenore!"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"
Merely this, and nothing more."
VOICE TWO:
The man finds a large black bird and asks it questions. The raven answers with a single word: "Nevermore." At the end of the poem, the man has quite clearly gone mad from grief:
READER:
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted -- nevermore!
VOICE ONE:
The sadness and horror in Poe's writing might lead readers to suspect a disordered mind. Yet people who knew him reported him to be a nice man. Some even called him a real gentleman.
His wife died in eighteen forty-seven. Virginia Clemm Poe had suffered from tuberculosis for many years. At the same time, Poe's magazine failed, and so did his health. He died on October seventh, eighteen forty-nine, under mysterious conditions.
He was found in a tavern in Baltimore. He did not know where he was or how he got there. He was dressed in rags. He died four days later in a hospital. He was forty years old.
VOICE TWO:
Over the years, historians and medical experts have tried to explain the cause of Poe's death. Some say he killed himself with drink. Others say he developed rabies from an animal bite. Many in Baltimore believe he was beaten by local criminal gangs.
Every year about two thousand people visit Edgar Allan Poe's grave at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore. And every year on January nineteenth -- Poe's birthday -- people watch for a man dressed in black to appear. His face is covered. He places a bottle of French cognac and three roses on the grave.
No one in Baltimore really wants to know the visitor's identity. They prefer that it remain a mystery, much like Edgar Allan Poe himself.
VOICE ONE:
Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Shirley Griffith. Doug Johnson was our reader. To hear the short story "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe, listen at this time Saturday for the program AMERICAN STORIES. And join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.
Remembering the writer of terror and mystery, who developed the modern detective novel. He led a short but extremely creative life. Transcript of radio broadcast:
02 February 2009
VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
And I'm Shirley Griffith. This year is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of writer Edgar Allan Poe. The United States Postal Service is honoring him with a stamp. And several museums in cities where he lived are remembering him with plays, readings and other events. This week on our program we explore his life and the continuing influence of his work.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Edgar Allan Poe wrote stories and poems of mystery and terror, insanity and death. His life was short and seemingly unhappy.
He was born Edgar Poe on January nineteenth, eighteen hundred and nine in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were actors. He was a baby when his father left the family. And he was two when his mother died. At that time they were in Richmond, Virginia.
Edgar went to live with the family of a wealthy Richmond businessman named John Allan. John Allan never officially adopted him as a son, but the boy became known as Edgar Allan Poe.
He attended schools in England and in Richmond. He also attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He was a good student. But he had a problem with alcohol. Even one drink seemed to change his personality and make him drunk. Also, he liked to play card games for money. Edgar was not a good player. He lost money that he did not have.
John Allan refused to pay Edgar's gambling losses. He also refused to continue paying for his education. So the young man went to Boston and began working as a writer and editor for monthly magazines.
VOICE TWO:
Poe served in the Army for two years, before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point to become an officer. He was dismissed from the academy in eighteen thirty-one after six months. By then he had already published three books of poetry.
He began writing stories while living with his aunt in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. In October of eighteen thirty-three, he won a short story contest organized by a local newspaper. He received fifty dollars in prize money and got a job editing the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. He published many of his own stories.
In eighteen thirty-four, Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm, the thirteen year old daughter of his father's sister. They moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in eighteen thirty-eight. There, Poe served as editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and continued to write.
He published many of his most frightening stories during this time. These included "The Black Cat," "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum."
VOICE ONE:
Edgar Allan Poe did something unusual for writers of his time: he used a narrator in a story to describe what was happening. A good example is the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart."
The narrator claims that he is not mad, yet reveals that he is a murderer. He has killed an old man for no apparent reason. He cuts up the body and hides the parts under the floorboards of the victim's house.
Police officers arrive after getting reports of noises from the house. The murderer shows them around the house and is proud of the way he has hidden all the evidence. But he begins to hear a sound. The others in the room cannot hear it.
READER:
Yet the sound increased -- and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound -- much a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath -- and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly -- more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men -- but the noise steadily increased. Oh God what could I do? I foamed -- I raved --I swore. But the noise continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder!
VOICE TWO:
Edgar Allan Poe is also remembered for the kind of literature known as detective fiction. These are stories of an investigator who has to solve murders and other crimes.
In fact, Edgar Allan Poe is considered the father of the modern detective novel. His fictional detective C. August Dupin first appeared in his story "The Murders In the Rue Morgue" in eighteen forty-one. Dupin also appeared in two later stories, "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter."
Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, wrote about Poe's influence on other crime writers: "Each may find some little development of his own, but his main art must trace back to those admirable stories of Monsieur Dupin, so wonderful in their masterful force, their reticence, their quick dramatic point."
VOICE ONE:
Jeff Jerome is the curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore. He says Poe's influence can also be seen in the work of H.G. Wells and Alfred Hitchcock, to name a few. Poe's influence extends to plays, movies, operas, music, cartoons, television, paintings -- just about every kind of art.
Poe's creation of the detective novel is recognized by the Mystery Writers of America. The writers group presents the yearly Edgar Awards to honor the best detective and suspense books, movies and TV shows.
An award also goes to an individual, organization or business for working to continue the influence of Edgar Allan Poe. The award is named for Poe's most famous work. This year, the Edgar Allan Poe Society and the Poe House in Baltimore will receive the Raven Award.
VOICE TWO:
Edgar Allan Poe became famous after "The Raven" was published in eighteen forty-five. The poetry is rich in atmosphere. The rhythm suggests music.
The narrator of "The Raven" is a man whose love has died. He sits alone among his books late at night. He hears a noise at the window:
READER:
Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word "Lenore!"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"
Merely this, and nothing more."
VOICE TWO:
The man finds a large black bird and asks it questions. The raven answers with a single word: "Nevermore." At the end of the poem, the man has quite clearly gone mad from grief:
READER:
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted -- nevermore!
VOICE ONE:
The sadness and horror in Poe's writing might lead readers to suspect a disordered mind. Yet people who knew him reported him to be a nice man. Some even called him a real gentleman.
His wife died in eighteen forty-seven. Virginia Clemm Poe had suffered from tuberculosis for many years. At the same time, Poe's magazine failed, and so did his health. He died on October seventh, eighteen forty-nine, under mysterious conditions.
He was found in a tavern in Baltimore. He did not know where he was or how he got there. He was dressed in rags. He died four days later in a hospital. He was forty years old.
VOICE TWO:
Over the years, historians and medical experts have tried to explain the cause of Poe's death. Some say he killed himself with drink. Others say he developed rabies from an animal bite. Many in Baltimore believe he was beaten by local criminal gangs.
Every year about two thousand people visit Edgar Allan Poe's grave at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore. And every year on January nineteenth -- Poe's birthday -- people watch for a man dressed in black to appear. His face is covered. He places a bottle of French cognac and three roses on the grave.
No one in Baltimore really wants to know the visitor's identity. They prefer that it remain a mystery, much like Edgar Allan Poe himself.
VOICE ONE:
Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Shirley Griffith. Doug Johnson was our reader. To hear the short story "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe, listen at this time Saturday for the program AMERICAN STORIES. And join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
SHERIFF JOE IS AT IT AGAIN!
You all remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona , who painted the jail cells pink and made the inmates wear pink prison garb. Well.........
SHERIFF JOE IS AT IT AGAIN!
Oh, there's MUCH more to know
about Sheriff Joe!
Maricopa County was spending approx. $18
million dollars a year on stray animals, like cats and dogs.
Sheriff Joe offered to take the department over, and the County Supervisors said okay.
The animal shelters are now all staffed and operated by prisoners.
They feed and care for the strays. Every animal in his care is taken out and walked twice daily. He now has prisoners who are experts in animal nutrition and behavior. They give great classes for anyone who'd like to adopt an animal. He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows.
The best part? His budget for the entire department is now under
$3 million. Teresa and I adopted a Weimaraner from a Maricopa County shelter two years ago. He was neutered, and current on all shots, in great health, and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him. Cost us $78.
The prisoners get the benefit of about $0.28 an hour for working, but most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for the day. Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals.
I have long wondered when the rest of the country would take a look at the way he runs the jail system, and copy some of his ideas. He has a huge farm, donated to the county years ago, where inmates can work, and they grow most of their own fresh vegetables and food, doing all the work and harvesting by hand. He has a pretty good sized hog farm, which provides meat, and fertilizer. It fertilizes the Christmas tree nursery, where prisoners work, and you can buy a living Christmas tree for $6 - $8 for the Holidays, and plant it later. We have six trees in our yard from the Prison.
Yup, he was reelected last year with 83% of the vote.
Now he's in trouble with the ACLU again. He
painted all his buses and vehicles with a mural, that has a special
hotline phone number painted on it, where you can call and report
suspected illegal aliens. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn't doing enough in his eyes, so he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up his hotline, and bought 4 new buses just for hauling folks back to the border. He's kind of a 'Git-R Dun' kind of Sheriff.
TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO
HE IS THE MAR ICOPA ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF
AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED
OVER AND OVER THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:
Sheriff Joe Arpaio (In Arizona ) who created the ' Tent City Jail':
He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.
He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights Cut off all but 'G' movies.
He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.
Then He Started Chain Gangs For
Women So He Wouldn't Get Sued For Discrimination.
He took away cable TV Until he found out there was A Federal Court Order that Required Cable TV For Jails So He Hooked Up The Cable TV Again Only Let In The Disney Channel And The Weather Channel.
When asked why the weather channel He Replied, So They Will Know How Hot It's Gonna Be While They Are Working ON My Chain Gangs.
He Cut Off Coffee Since It Has Zero Nutritional Value.
When the inmates complained, he told them, 'This Isn't The Ritz/Carlton......If You Don't Like It, Don't Come Back.'
He bought Newt Gingrich's lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jails.
When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.
More On The Arizona Sheriff:
With Temperatures Being Even
Hotter Than Usual In Phoenix (116 Degrees Just Set A New Record), the Associated Press Reports:
About 2,000 Inmates Living In A Barbed-Wire-Surrounded Tent Encampment At The Maricopa County Jail Have Been Given Permission To Strip Down To Their Government-Issued Pink Boxer Shorts.
On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 Degrees Inside The Week Before..
Many Were Also Swathed In Wet, Pink Towels As Sweat Collected On Their Chests And Dripped Down To Their PINK SOCKS.
'It Feels Like We Are In A Furnace,' Said James Zanzot, An Inmate Who Has Lived In The TENTS for 1 year. 'It's Inhumane.'
Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates: 'It's 120 Degrees In Iraq And Our Soldiers Are Living In Tents Too, And They Have To Wear Full Battle Gear, But They Didn't Commit Any Crimes, So Shut Your Mouths!'
Way To Go, Sheriff!
Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders.
Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.
SHERIFF JOE IS AT IT AGAIN!
Oh, there's MUCH more to know
about Sheriff Joe!
Maricopa County was spending approx. $18
million dollars a year on stray animals, like cats and dogs.
Sheriff Joe offered to take the department over, and the County Supervisors said okay.
The animal shelters are now all staffed and operated by prisoners.
They feed and care for the strays. Every animal in his care is taken out and walked twice daily. He now has prisoners who are experts in animal nutrition and behavior. They give great classes for anyone who'd like to adopt an animal. He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows.
The best part? His budget for the entire department is now under
$3 million. Teresa and I adopted a Weimaraner from a Maricopa County shelter two years ago. He was neutered, and current on all shots, in great health, and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him. Cost us $78.
The prisoners get the benefit of about $0.28 an hour for working, but most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for the day. Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals.
I have long wondered when the rest of the country would take a look at the way he runs the jail system, and copy some of his ideas. He has a huge farm, donated to the county years ago, where inmates can work, and they grow most of their own fresh vegetables and food, doing all the work and harvesting by hand. He has a pretty good sized hog farm, which provides meat, and fertilizer. It fertilizes the Christmas tree nursery, where prisoners work, and you can buy a living Christmas tree for $6 - $8 for the Holidays, and plant it later. We have six trees in our yard from the Prison.
Yup, he was reelected last year with 83% of the vote.
Now he's in trouble with the ACLU again. He
painted all his buses and vehicles with a mural, that has a special
hotline phone number painted on it, where you can call and report
suspected illegal aliens. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn't doing enough in his eyes, so he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up his hotline, and bought 4 new buses just for hauling folks back to the border. He's kind of a 'Git-R Dun' kind of Sheriff.
TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO
HE IS THE MAR ICOPA ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF
AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED
OVER AND OVER THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:
Sheriff Joe Arpaio (In Arizona ) who created the ' Tent City Jail':
He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.
He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights Cut off all but 'G' movies.
He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.
Then He Started Chain Gangs For
Women So He Wouldn't Get Sued For Discrimination.
He took away cable TV Until he found out there was A Federal Court Order that Required Cable TV For Jails So He Hooked Up The Cable TV Again Only Let In The Disney Channel And The Weather Channel.
When asked why the weather channel He Replied, So They Will Know How Hot It's Gonna Be While They Are Working ON My Chain Gangs.
He Cut Off Coffee Since It Has Zero Nutritional Value.
When the inmates complained, he told them, 'This Isn't The Ritz/Carlton......If You Don't Like It, Don't Come Back.'
He bought Newt Gingrich's lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jails.
When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.
More On The Arizona Sheriff:
With Temperatures Being Even
Hotter Than Usual In Phoenix (116 Degrees Just Set A New Record), the Associated Press Reports:
About 2,000 Inmates Living In A Barbed-Wire-Surrounded Tent Encampment At The Maricopa County Jail Have Been Given Permission To Strip Down To Their Government-Issued Pink Boxer Shorts.
On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 Degrees Inside The Week Before..
Many Were Also Swathed In Wet, Pink Towels As Sweat Collected On Their Chests And Dripped Down To Their PINK SOCKS.
'It Feels Like We Are In A Furnace,' Said James Zanzot, An Inmate Who Has Lived In The TENTS for 1 year. 'It's Inhumane.'
Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates: 'It's 120 Degrees In Iraq And Our Soldiers Are Living In Tents Too, And They Have To Wear Full Battle Gear, But They Didn't Commit Any Crimes, So Shut Your Mouths!'
Way To Go, Sheriff!
Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders.
Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
RIP John Updike
John Updike was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and spent his first years in nearby Shillington, a small town where his father was a high school science teacher. The area surrounding Reading has provided the setting for many of his stories, with the invented towns of Brewer and Olinger standing in for Reading and Shillington. An only child, Updike and his parents shared a house with his grandparents for much of his childhood. When he was 13, the family moved to his mother's birthplace, a stone farmhouse on an 80-acre farm near Plowville, eleven miles from Shillington, where he continued to attend school.
John Updike Biography Photo
At home, he consumed popular fiction, especially humor and mysteries. His mother, herself an aspiring writer, encouraged him to write and draw. He excelled in school and served as President and co-valedictorian of his graduating class at Shillington High School. For the first three summers after high school, he worked as a copy boy at the Reading Eagle newspaper, eventually producing a number of feature stories for the paper. He received a tuition scholarship to Harvard University, where he majored in English. As an undergraduate, he wrote stories and drew cartoons for the Harvard Lampoon humor magazine, serving as the magazine's president in his senior year. Before graduating, he married fellow student Mary E. Pennington. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1954, and in that same year sold a poem and a short story to The New Yorker magazine.
Updike and his wife spent the following year in England, where Updike studied at Oxford's Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. While they were in England, their first daughter was born and Updike met the American writers E. B. and Katharine White, editors at The New Yorker, who urged him to seek a job at the magazine. On returning from England, the Updikes settled in Manhattan, where John took a position as a staff writer at The New Yorker. He worked at the magazine for nearly two years, writing editorials, features and reviews, but after the birth of a son in 1957, he decided to move his growing family to the small town of Ipswich, Massachusetts. He continued to contribute to The New Yorker but resolved to support his family by writing full-time, without taking a salaried position. Over the years, he has maintained a relationship with The New Yorker, where many of his poems, reviews and short stories have appeared, but he has resided in Massachusetts ever since.
John Updike Biography Photo
Updike's first book of poetry, The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures, was published by Harper and Brothers in 1958. When the publisher sought changes to the ending of his first novel, The Poorhouse Fair, he moved to Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., his publisher ever since. The first novel was well-received, and with support from the Guggenheim Fellowship, Updike undertook a more ambitious novel, Rabbit, Run. The novel introduced one of Updike's most memorable characters, the small-town athlete, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. Updike's publishers feared that his frank description of Rabbit's sexual adventures could lead to prosecution for obscenity, and made a number of changes to the text. The book was published to widespread acclaim without legal repercussions. The original text was restored for the British edition a few years later, and subsequent American editions of the book have reflected the author's original intent. Updike's reputation as a leading author of his generation was established.
After the birth of a third child, Updike rented a one-room office above a restaurant in Ipswich, where he wrote for several hours every morning, six days a week, a schedule he has adhered to throughout his career. In 1963, he received the National Book Award for his novel The Centaur, inspired by his childhood in Pennsylvania. The following year, at age 32, he became the youngest person ever elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and was invited by the State Department to tour eastern Europe as part of a cultural exchange program between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1967, he joined the author Robert Penn Warren and other American writers in signing a letter urging Soviet writers to defend Jewish cultural institutions under attack by the Soviet government.
John Updike Biography Photo
In 1968, Updike's novel Couples created a national sensation with its portrayal of the complicated relationships among a set of young married couples in the suburbs. It remained on the best-seller lists for over a year and prompted a Time magazine cover story featuring Updike. In Bech: A Book (1970), Updike introduced a new protagonist, the imaginary novelist Henry Bech, who, like Rabbit Angstrom, was destined to reappear in Updike's fiction for many years. Rabbit Angstrom reappeared in Rabbit Redux (1971).
In the 1970s, Updike continued to travel as a cultural ambassador of the United States, and in 1974 he joined authors John Cheever, Arthur Miller and Richard Wilbur in calling on the Soviet government to cease its persecution of dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Updike separated from his wife Mary in 1974 and moved to Boston where he taught briefly at Boston University. Two years later, the Updikes were divorced, and in 1977 he married Martha Ruggles Bernhard, settling with her and her three children in Georgetown, Massachusetts.
John Updike Biography Photo
Rabbit is Rich, published in 1981, received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1983 Updike's other alter ego, Harry Bech, reappeared in Bech is Back, and Updike was featured in a second Time magazine cover story, "Going Great at 50." Among his novels of the 1980s and 1990s are a trilogy retelling The Scarlet Letter from the points of view of three different characters, and a prequel to Hamlet, entitled Gertrude and Claudius. In 1991 he received a second Pulitzer Prize for Rabbit at Rest. He was only the third American to win a second Pulitzer Prize in the fiction category.
In an autobiographical essay, Updike famously identified sex, art, and religion as "the three great secret things" in human experience. The grandson of a Presbyterian minister (his first father-in-law was also a minister), his writing in all genres has displayed a preoccupation with philosophical questions. A lifelong churchgoer and student of Christian theology, the Jesuit magazine America awarded him its Campion Award in 1997 as a "distinguished Christian person of letters." He received the National Medal of Art from President George H.W. Bush in 1989, and in 2003 was presented with the National Medal for the Humanities from President George W. Bush. He is one of a very few Americans to receive both of these honors. The same year saw the publication of The Early Stories, 1953-1975. His latest novel is Villages (2004). To date he has published over 60 books, including novels, collections of short stories, poetry, drama, essays, memoirs and literary criticism. Today, he resides in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, in the same corner of New England where so much of his fiction is set.
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