Paul Johnson has died at 94

"Paul Johnson, prolific journalist and best-selling popular historian, has died at 94. The range of his writing’s subject matter was astonishing: from Egyptology and the history of the Jews and Christianity to that of the United States; from studies of Mozart, Napoleon, and Darwin to art history and the history of modern times. He was, as this range might suggest, vastly knowledgeable and possessed of an elephantine memory. He was also a formidable polemicist: indeed, it was as if he were born with polemic in his blood."

I have his A History of the American People, c1997. Amazing writer. Originally a Leftist and Socialist, he moved to the Right when he realized what it actually was. Unfortunately, Johnson wrote very loooong books--about 1,000 pages with 2,000 notes. So I haven't finished the book.

Knowledge and Verve: Remembering Paul Johnson (city-journal.org)

"There’s an old joke that academics bitterly complain about popular historians for the high sin of publishing books people enjoy reading. Few working journalists have written history with as much elan and narrative force as the British author Paul Johnson, who died this week at age 94." Wall St. Journal

Reading and cycling

My office was cleaned out to the bare walls and moved to the laundry room to make way for our son’s hospital bed and supplies. At first the exercycle was in my husband’s office, but I pushed it into the laundry room so I could multi-task.  My washing machine, which I’ve written about before, is a little touchy and likes to dance around if not loaded evenly, so sometimes I just jump on the cycle during spin.

But it’s sort of boring, so I’m reading a new book I was sent for review: American Harvest, God, Country and Farming in the Heartland, by Marie Mutsuki Mockett, a Californian with a Japanese mother, and American father.  There’s been a 7,000 acre wheat farm in her family for over 100 years, although her grandfather had left the area as a child.

What caught my interest was not just the farmer angle, but the Christians who annually harvest the wheat using teams from the Pennsylvania Anabaptist country. I’m only in chapter 2, but so far, unless her liberal side takes over, I’m enjoying her vivid descriptions of the farms and her compassionate look at the harvesters she travels with to get material for this book.  I can go 3-4 miles a day with Marie.

http://www.mariemockett.com/books/american-harvest/

Here’s a review, but it sounds like the reviewer only finished the first 2 chapters, which is how far I am on my exercise plan. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-04-03/evangelicals-marie-mockett-american-harvest

In a perfect world

That’s the name of a blog  by Don whom I vaguely remember meeting blogging or in a Usenet writers’ group. I’ll note it here so I don’t lose it again. http://mytypewriterbroke.blogspot.com/  The crazy thing about blogging, or the internet in general, is it’s just too easy to get side tracked.  And I really wasn’t looking for Don when I found him. Or Paula.

And Paula is still blogging. Goodness.  How many years.  Longer than me I think. Light Motifs. http://lightmotifs.wordpress.com/  I met her on Usenet. Likes to write romance novels.

106 ways to show love

A guy named Vince writes an advice and review column for romance writers and readers. This one is pretty good--106 ways to show (not tell) people (your characters in a story) are falling in love. There's a few (26-28) I don't care for and I think he meant have patience instead of have patients, but it's a very good list about showing love. My husband of 50 years would get an A if this were a test.

The D Word

Carlos Alcala who writes for McClatchy had an article in today's Dispatch about the reluctance to use the D (death, dying) word. My goodness, I wrote about that thirteen years ago. I even wrote a poem about it because I like to write about words, fudge phrases, jargon, new words, vocabulary and euphemisms. My concern is not the euphemisms, but that now more and more people don't even get a verb!

Today in the obituaries

Dying for a Verb
By Norma Bruce
September 28, 1997

Emmy Lou departed this world;
Frank entered his eternal rest;
Polly is at home with the Lord.

Ray’s gone to his home in glory;
Ted is asleep with the angels;
Ann Louise simply crossed over.

And I am left to wonder why
They sent him off without a verb--
“Ralph David, May 15, at home.”

When my earth's book is overdue,
Please open heaven’s library;
Let me live in God’s promises.

When finally I fold this tent,
Lease me a heavenly mansion
Renewable eternally.

When I slip out of the saddle,
Boost me up high to ride bareback
On a steed into the stronghold.

When the last crumbs have been swept up,
Seat me at the banquet table
To listen with the disciples.

When the final ticket’s been bought,
Give me the best seat in the house
To hear the angels’ choir sing.

When I’ve gathered up the harvest,
Fill my buckets, silos and bins
To overflowing with God’s love.

When the bow breaks in the treetops,
Bear me up on wings of eagles
Never faint, tired or weary.

Pine box, urn, or fancy casket,
Paragraph, note or just a line;
Don’t send me off without a verb!

What's another term for free lance writer?

Unemployed. Whether they call themselves writers, journalists or free lancers, they are really threatened by bloggers. Some bloggers make a lot of money with ads (I've never been interested in that.) Some writers solve the problem by just starting a blog and double dipping! The June 2008 Scientific American has an article by Jessica Wapner on brain research of bloggers. The on-line title is different than the print. I have 11 blogs. If I played golf on the senior circuit like Salley or exhibited quilts in arts shows like Mary, or worked 24/7 for Obama like Lynne, I would be praised. But I like to write. I think free lancers like Wapner who write for a living, hate us.

She says blogging (writing about personal experiences) serves as a stress-coping mechanism, might aid sleep and reduce viral load in AIDS patients. Possibly could help cancer patients. But on the darker side, look out! It just could be uncontrollable like hypergraphia, or an out of control drive like eating or sex or a type of lobe lesion like aphasia! There must be some neurological underpinnings at play, considering the explosion of blogs (I think blogging is actually decreasing has young people move on to the next tech widget and ad-on).

Since no one knows how much people used to write, doodle or create scrapbooks before blogging, or if this fascination with the brain of bloggers is influenced by an over supply of grant money and the need for promotion and tenure, just how will this be judged? How to weigh the influence of the computer, or broad band, or improved templates and access, or boomers entering retirement and having no other talent than stringing together sentences, posting photographs of their travels, or writing poetry? There's a lot of fudge words in this article, but "several researchers are committed to uncovering the cluster of neurological pathways," reports Wapner.

I can hardly wait. Meanwhile, I'll blog.

Dear Samuel Swann

I'm a big fan of free-circ serials and newspapers, and today I saw CityNewsUSA (serving Cleveland, Akron and Columbus) for the first time. I'm a retired librarian, and at one time I'd planned to write an article about the role of free-circs in the information food chain, lamenting that they aren't indexed (at least they weren't in 1999). They are an excellent source of news, advertising, and a good market for writers, but without being indexed, they are a hard to find segment. I gave up that project before I retired in 2000. By then I had collected about 40 that served our metropolitan area--pets, recreation, sports, leisure, politics, religion, fashion, home decor, cooking, parenting, book reviews, etc. Perhaps the internet advertising has solved the print indexing problem.

I was very impressed by your article "Making the Grade; gaps still exist between urban and suburban grad rates," on p. 8 of the Oct-23-29, Columbus edition. I just blogged on that topic two days ago, referencing a Columbus school teacher, the Wall Street Journal, and a current book review. Columbus and Cleveland were in the bottom five of 50 major cities. The WSJ article used the study you cited commissioned by America's Promise Alliance.

I am a big booster of marriage and parental involvement as the #1 best reducer of poverty and poor academic performance by children, and was glad to see that you included it as

The biggest reason we have so many drop outs in Cleveland is lack of parental involvement and the failure of the middle schools to continue the grammar school educational process."

I know your paper is a heavy supporter of Obama-Biden, however, I don't see this as a resource or funding problem as you also suggested. The Ohio parent who sued a few years ago was in a district that had much higher graduation rates with lower per-pupil state funding. For instance, Obama wants universal day care beginning in infancy, when we're already spending $11 billion on child care for at risk children, and it hasn't made any difference. How can children of poor single mothers compete with children from in tact homes with biological, married parents? (I'm speaking statistically--this is not to say individual single parents can't or won't do a good job.)

Keep up the good work of reminding parents that children need their involvement to succeed--and I would add a reminder that Uncle Sam is a poor step-father.

3815

Sometimes I have trouble with English, too

Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised if newspapers are shrinking or folding and people are communicating in text messages with no capital letters, numbers for words, and no punctuation. English is a world-wide language, can be difficult, and each culture puts its own slant on it. I use English all the time, and sometimes I struggle. (I have a problem overusing adverbs and parenthetical statements.) Yesterday I was reading Terry Teachout's theater column in the Wall Street Journal (you can see part of it here on his blog). I don't do theater, although I did see a matinee in New York about 50 years ago, but I like to keep up. Please don't misunderstand; he's a superb writer, but I'm out of practice. It's like reading some of the old research articles from the 20s or 30s in JSTOR--it's good exercise, but tiring. Maybe it's my age, or the age we live in age in which we live. I was exhausted by my own pauses: read, reread and ponder the meaning. I knew the idioms and phrases weren't critical to the sense of the essay, that he was just enjoying being playful, but still. . . I love words, language and meaning, and it shouldn't be so difficult. For instance:

"not excluding," does that mean "including?"

"repays careful watching," does that mean you get back the time if you pay attention?

"a couple of much-admired revivals not with standing," does that mean yes, the play has had revivals that were good?

"it goes without saying," I know that means "I'm going to say something you'll agree with, but I'm saying it anyway," but . . . it's still confusing to say you're not going to say it and then you do.

"an actor who sings not a singer who acts," would mean one is better at cross over than the other?

"can't be anything other than gorgeous," means very pretty, but why do so many of our idioms use the negative to be positive? Do Greeks or Cambodians do this? Probably, if they speak English.

"would that this tale were something other than an ordinary celebrity vehicle," What do you call that construction of, "would that. . .were. . .other than"? Future pluperfect past something?

"deliver the goods with postage to spare," must mean it's beyond successful, but I'm not familiar with the phrase. Is it theater English? New Yorker English? An idiom from his school days? Pony Express?

"so transparent as to be but invisible" I'm sure this construction has a name (so . . .as to be . . .), but it's been a long time since English class.

"a pair of golf-playing straw businessmen in bespoke suits" Yes, I did have to look up "bespoke" which is past tense of "bespeak" which is a British tailoring term meaning you choose the material. And I know a straw man is something made up to knock down. But strung together (a play about African Americans), I'm a bit confused.

The terrible, sad marriage of Annie and Frank

You never know the tales you'll find when browsing a digitized, obscure record in the New York Public Library! I found Annie's photo in Cabinet Card Portraits in the Collection of Radical Publisher Benjamin R. Tucker. Tucker was publisher of The Radical Review from 1877 to 1878, and the anarchist magazine Liberty from 1881 to 1908. His magazine was the first to publish George Bernard Shaw in the U.S., and to translate Pierre Joseph Proudhon. Tucker also published other works considered radical at the time, such as Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata, and Oscar Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol. [notes from the catalog record at NYPL]

The Besants
by Norma Bruce
February 23, 2007

Frankie and Annie were married,
Oh Lordy, how they could fight.
Clergy was he, a writer she,
taking her fees was his right.

Frankie preached long dull sermons,
Short stories Annie would write.
Divorce for them was unthinkable--
society and God would smite.

Annie helped farmers to unionize,
Frank to the landlords leaned.
The couple was split by politics,
you’ve probably already gleaned.

"You read too many damn books,"
Frank was known to tell his wife.
He got custody of their children,
And she kept his name for life.