Happy Thanksgiving

 

Recommended reading - In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash

 
In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash

by Jean Shepherd.
 
Filmed as A Christmas Story (1983), directed by Bob Clark.
 
Published by Broadway Books.
Published 1966.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 0385021747
ISBN-13: 978-0385021746
 
Description:
 

A collection of humorous and nostalgic Americana stories – the beloved, bestselling classics that inspired the movie A Christmas Story.

 

Before Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray there was Jean a master monologist and writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant – and utterly hilarious – works of comic art. In God We All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations.

 

In God We Trust, Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown, disproves the adage “You can never go back.” Bending the ear of Flick, his childhood-buddy-turned-bartender, Shepherd recalls passionately his genuine Red Ryder BB gun, confesses adolescent failure in the arms of Junie Jo Prewitt, and relives a story of man against fish that not even Hemingway could rival. From pop art to the World's Fair, Shepherd's subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth.

 

A comic genius who bridged the gap between James Thurber and David Sedaris, Shepherd may have accomplished for Holden, Indiana, what Mark Twain did for Hannibal, Missouri.

 

“Shepherd has a fine eye for absurdity, for the madness and idiocy in all of us.” – Best Sellers.

Author humor...on reading positions:

mine is #2, my husband's is #6

Anaïs Nin, on writing:

 We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.
- Anaïs Nin.

On this day in movie history - Barfly (1987)

 

Barfly

directed by Barbet Schroeder,

written by Charles Bukowski,

was released in the United States on October 16, 1987.

Music by Jack Baran.

 
Cast:

Mickey Rourke, Faye Dunaway, Alice Krige, Jack Nance, J.C. Quinn, Frank Stallone, Sandy Martin, Roberta Bassin, Gloria LeRoy, Joe Unger, Harry Cohn, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Joe Rice, Julie ‘Sunny’ Pearson, Donald L. Norden, Wil Albert, Hal Shafer, Zeke Manners, Pearl Shear, Rik Colitti, Michael Collins, Ronald G. Joseph, Damon Hines, Lahmard J. Tate, Gary Carlos Cervantes, Peter Conti, Vance Colvig Jr., Stacey Pickren, Leonard Termo, Gary Cox, Fritz Feld, Albert Henderson, Sandy Rose, Madalyn Carol, George Marshall Ruge, Debby Lynn Ross, Charles Bukowski, John Forker.

On this day in movie history - Marathon Man (1976)

Marathon Man

directed by John Schlesinger,

written by, and based on the novel by William Goldman,

was released in the United States on October 8, 1976.

Music by Michael Small.

Cast:

Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane, Marthe Keller, Fritz Weaver, Richard Bright, Marc Lawrence, Allen Joseph, Tito Goya, Ben Dova, Lou Gilbert, Jacques Marin, James Wing Woo, Nicole Deslauriers, Lotte Palfi Andor, Lionel Pina, Church Ortiz, Tricoche, Jamie Tirelli, Wilfredo Hernández, Harry Goz, Michael Vale, Fred Stuthman, Lee Steele, William Martel, Glenn Robards, Ric Carrott, Alma Beltran, Daniel Nunez, Anthony Pena, Chuy Franco, Billy Kearns, Sally Wilson, Tom Ellis, Bryant Fraser, Igor Dega, Gene Bori, Annette Claudier, Roger Etienne, Raymond Serra, John Garson, Charlott Thyssen, Estelle Omens, Madge Kennedy, Jeff Palladini, Scott Price, Abebe Bikila, S.C. Dacy, Bobra Harris, Robert Hitchcock, Shawn McAllister, Irving Metzman, Monty O'Grady, N.J. Osrag, Harrison Ressler, Louis Tanno, Mark L. Taylor, Treat Williams.

Mary Lee Settle, on writing:

I start with a question.
Then try to answer it.
- Mary Lee Settle.