Remembering Studs Terkel

Author, historian, actor, activist, broadcaster, and chronicler of the American experience, Studs Terkel passed away on Friday at the age of 96. In books such as The Good War, for which he won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize, and Working, which became the basis for the hit musical of the same name, Terkel celebrated the lives of common people. He gave voice to the great majority of Americans — like you and me — who work and live, struggling to get by, in an era marked by war, heartbreak, violence, and disillusion. He used his books and radio show, which was on the air for an astonishing 45 years, to stand up for those he called “the uncelebrated”.

In celebrating Studs Terkel, I came across pages of wonderful quotes from this man who was on the pulse of politics, social change, and the desires of working-class Americans. Here’s just a small sampling of insights from Terkel’s long and varied career, which I think are especially important to take in on this Election Eve.

“I hope for peace and sanity — it’s the same thing.”

“I’ve always felt, in all my books, that there’s a deep decency in the American people and a native intelligence—providing they have the facts, providing they have the information.”

“I read somewhere that when a person takes part in community action, his health improves. Something happens to him or to her biologically. It’s like a tonic.”

“Take it easy, but take it.” (the sign-off line on his radio show)

“I was walking downstairs carrying a drink in one hand and a book in the other. Don’t try that after ninety.” (on breaking his hip)

Speaking with Doris Lessing in 1969–

Lessing: ”You do still have gangsters [in Chicago], don’t you?”

Terkel: “Yes, but these days they’re mostly in business or politics.” 

“A lot of people feel, ‘What can I do, [it's] hopeless.’ Well, through all these years there have been the people I’m talking about, whom we call activists…who give us hope and through them we have hope.”

“I was born in the year The Titanic sank. The Titanic went down, and I came up. That tells you a little about the fairness of life.”

“A man comes from New York. He says, ‘These petitions, your name is on all of them: anti-poll tax, anti-lynching, friendship with the Soviet Union….don’t you know the communists were behind them?’ And he said, ‘Look, you can get out of this pretty easy. All you got to do is say the communists duped you. You were dumb. You didn’t mean it.’ I said, ‘But I did mean it!’” (on being blacklisted in 1953)

“You know, ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’? It’s the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely. Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew.

“I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you.”

“Curiosity did not kill this cat.” (when asked what he wanted his epitaph to be)

 

So long, Studs.

 

Story Source  Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Chicago Tribune  |  Image Source  The Jewish Journal

November 3, 2008 | Filed Under Authors, Newsies | 31 Comments 

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Anne Rice.

In a perfect story for Halloween Eve, Yahoo News has published an interesting profile of famed author Anne Rice, who has gone from being the Queen of Vampire Fiction to — cue horror movie scream — an emerging voice in Christian literature. Yes, gone are the days of ravenous bloodsuckers Lestat and Louis, not to mention the sexual escapades of Sleeping Beauty humping her way through the castle, and in their place we have a decidedly different Anne Rice.

In Rice’s new book, a memoir entitled Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, the 67-year-old writer recounts her journey from Catholic youth to Existentialist college student to adamant Athiest — and her eventual voyage back to Christianity. In the late 90s, after the death of her beloved husband, the poet and artist Stan Rice, and she herself facing health problems, Rice returned to Mass and found her spiritual home.

But remaining true to her mystical leanings, Rice also tells of the more supernatural elements of her religious transformation. In a string of epiphanies, mostly on pilgrimmages to European cathedrals, Israel, and Brazil, she remembers the dizzy euphoria of rediscovering Christ. In Brazil, when she visited Rio de Janeiro’s monolothic Jesus statue, Rice writes of her “delirium” and religious intoxication, recalling equally-blissful events in her Catholic childhood (as a girl, Rice wanted to be a saint).

Refreshingly, she doesn’t disown her series of wildly successful vampire novels. ”I do think that those dark books were always talking about religion in their own way,” Rice said. “They were talking about the grief for a lost faith.”

This time, though, her goals are a bit loftier than just entertaining the masses. ”My objective is simple: It’s to write books about our Lord living on Earth that make him real to people who don’t believe in him; or people who have never really tried to believe in him,” she said.

While I’m sure many of Rice’s die-hard fans are put off by her recent change of faith — or at least her decision to write about it so intimately — I myself am happy for Ms. Rice. Our religious views may be different, but I’m all for an artist exploring his/her world in whatever method he/she may choose. In an uncharacteristically UN-snarkish bit of commentary, I welcome Rice’s transformative journey and how it has enriched her life. When an artist does the same thing over and over again, there is a sense of static, a lack of evolution, if you will. When an artist grows and changes, in whatever ways, it shows us that a) he/she is human, and b) there is a constant supply of new and wondrous things to investigate. So even though the New York Times called her memoir “the literary equivalent of waterboarding”, I applaud Anne Rice.

Called Out of Darkness is available now. Two other Christian-themed works by Rice, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, the first novels of a four-part, first-person history of Jesus, were released earlier this year.

 

Story Source  Yahoo News

October 30, 2008 | Filed Under Authors, Newsies, Spirituality & Religion | 5 Comments 

Tony Hillerman, 1925-2008

Beloved mystery author Tony Hillerman passed away yesterday in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The 83-year-old writer had been in declining health for the last few years but said in 2002, “I’m getting old, but I still like to write.” After two heart attacks and surgeries for prostate and bladder cancer, he kept tapping at his keyboard even as his eyes began to dim, as his hearing faded, as rheumatoid arthritis turned his hands into claws, the Associated Press reported.

Hillerman left a rich literary legacy in the form of his two most famous characters, Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee. Both Leaphorn and Chee were Navajo police officers involved in labyrinthine criminal investigations, all the while trying to marry the ideals and traditions of their Indian customs with contemporary American culture. Hillerman’s first book, The Blessing Way, was a Leaphorn mystery published in 1970.

As a young man, Hillerman fought in World War II and was wounded and decorated. He eventually ended up in New Mexico, where he taught journalism from 1966-1987 at the University of New Mexico.

His books have won a number of awards. Dance Hall of the Dead (1973) received an an Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, and 1990’s Coyote Waits won a Nero Award. Hillerman also received the MWA’s Grand Master Award in 1991and the Navajo Tribe’s Special Friends of the Diné Award.

Tony Hillerman is survived by his wife, Marie, and six children.

Though a wildly successful and bestselling author, with five of his books made into films, Hillerman remained “a country boy…that’s always who he was,” said daughter Anne. ”I think that’s one reason why he really enjoyed and found so much inspiration in writing about the Navajo people.”

 

Story Source  AP, AFP, Wikipedia  |  Image Source  Laurie Roberts

October 27, 2008 | Filed Under Authors, Newsies | 6 Comments 

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      WHAT IS A SNARK?




      The Snark is a creature created by Lewis Carroll in his poem "The Hunting of the Snark". To give a proper description of Snarks, one must look no further than Carroll himself, who summed them up in one word: Unimaginable.

      But this much we do know: some have feathers, some have whiskers. Snarks sleep a lot, yet they are an ambitious lot -- with very little sense of humor. They love bathing-machines and tend to bring them wherever they go; they are also handy for striking a light. Snarks live on a far-off island, a place filled with chasms and crags, and are constantly on the lookout for Snark-hunters. Their mortal enemies are hope, care, thimbles and forks.

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