DYLAN THOMAS

I haven't studied Dylan Thomas enough to be able to quote his poetry by heart. I like what I've read of his writings so I hope in the future to have the time to learn more about him and be better acquainted with his material. I bring this up because in the last couple weeks, I've come across two different, and seemingly contradictory, pieces about him both of which I post below:

On the day he died, Dylan Thomas drank 18 Martinis. Just before lapsing into a coma he reportedly asked the nurse if that was a record. (That was from the 'Sinner's Date Book')

Now this which I found on http://www.moorishgirl.com

Giving New Meaning to 'Rage, rage against the dying of the light'
Dylan Thomas, long believed to have died from chronic alcoholism, may in fact have succumbed to a mistreated pneumonia, a new biography of the poet alleges. The Scotsman's Fiona McGregor reports that
Thomas had complained he could not breathe and was "suffocating", but he was not diagnosed with pneumonia until nearly 24 hours later. His personal physician, Dr Milton Feltenstein, initially decided he had delirium tremens and ignored the possibility of a chest infection. Feltenstein injected the poet with three doses of morphine, which the biographers say restricted his breathing. After the third dose, Thomas’s face turned blue and he sank into a coma. Feltenstein and all others who treated Thomas at New York's St. Vincent's hospital are now dead. The biography quoted in the article is Dylan Remembered 1935-1953 and came out in the States last summer.

Now I emailed moorishgirl (who seems like a nice person) the above since I was using one of her post and she wrote me back the following:

"Thanks for the note. If you read the article I linked to, you'll see that the theory about the 18 martinis was also discredited in the same book. The authors are saying that Dylan Thomas was just bragging, but his doctor took him seriously and ignored other symptoms..."

Now, what's telling about that is that the doctor totally believed Thomas would down 18 Martini's in a sitting.

FRENCH COURTS vs. HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

I envy French scriptwriters. They get to ignore a lot of the Hollywood formula and make their story rich and dramatic. I'm equally envious of the fact they're not bound by stupid happy endings. They can reflect life the way it is including tragic conclusions.

This past week what I suspect will be a landmark moment in the industry occurred in a French court. A couple years back, the country, feeling that bad Hollywood blockbusters were being jammed down their throat (don't we all share that feeling during a holiday weekend), passed a law saying that movies shot in France had to be in French and in order to be called a French film be controlled by a French outfit. This protected the quality of the movies, the use of the language, and also local labor. Let's face it, not to many actresses born in Nebraska are going to be speaking French.

This past week, a French court took this all-French stance a step further. A popular French film, (my French friends tell me it was the one everyone was waiting to see), directed by a famous French director and starring the French actress from Amelie - great film by the way - was ruled not to be French. The dialogue was in French, the cast was French, and most of the money was French.

I said "most". See, a major Hollywood studio put up a large hunk of the financing and on that basis the court ruled that the movie was American robbing the producers of possible French grants and tax breaks always an important feature when talking millions. Why should anyone care besides the studio and producers?

More and more movie productions are being shifted overseas. Partly due to cost and part to freedom to do the project the way you want too. It is also notable that on many projects over half the box office originates from foreign markets. Americans don't realize that the film industry is one of their biggest exports.

Maybe the French court ruled the way they did to protect the French culture or maybe it was more of the American-French tit for tat started by Jr. (Bush). But if countries start limiting American studio involvement, trust the studios to go where the money is and that means pulling up stakes and moving overseas. Oh, no one is going to leave their Beverly Hills mansion any time soon but you can look for active branches to start expanding in Europe and Asia and more importantly for independents to claim Paris, Rome, and Tokyo home as easily as NY or LA. Actually, this trend has been going on for a decade or better now but look for it to start accelerating. Both the political and economic climate is right for it to happen.

DEADLINES

Deadlines. The dread of many writers but for me the best weapon to get me off my ass to write. One of the first things I ask when making a writing deal is "when do you want it?". I know no matter how much I slack, I'll do my best to make sure I don't have to make a phone call to explain why the first 100 pages won't hit their desk on time. I have at least one deadline each week between now and the end of the year. That's ok. It'll keep me from watching to many bad holiday television specials (did that Seinfeld one suck Thursday night or what?) and hopefully let the brain burn off some of those extra calories I consumed this week.

A SYRIAN POEM

Here is a Syrian poem which I found on an Israeli blog: http://www.ontheface.blogspot.com
I just really liked it.

A Clarification to My Readers
by Nizar Qabbani

And the fools say of me:
I entered the lodges of women
And never left.
And they call for my hanging,
Because I write poems
about my beloved.
I never traded
like others
in Hashish,
never stole
never murdered,
I have loved in broad daylight.
Have I sinned?
And the fools say of me:
with my poems
I have violated the commands of heaven.
Who can say
love ravages the honor of heaven?
Heaven is my intimate.
It cries if I cry,
laughs if I laugh
and its stars
grow in brilliance
if one day I fall in love.
So what if I sing in the name of my beloved
And plant her like a chestnut tree
in every letter.
Fondness will remain my calling,
like all prophets.
And infancy, innocence
and purity.
I will write of my beloved
Till I melt her golden hair
In the heaven’s gold.
I am a child,
And hope I never change,
scribbling on the walls of the stars
as that child pleases,
till the value of love
in my homeland
matches that of the air,
and to dreamers of love I become
a dictionary,
and on their lips I become
an A
and a B.

WRITING ABOUT TEENAGERS

Have you ever written about teenagers? I'm having to write about a couple. Teenagers are interesting by their very nature. They make for good material. One of my favorite TV shows of all time is My So Called Life. (It's a good thing it isn't on after Buffy in the afternoons or I'd have to scratch the whole afternoon off my work schedule.) Teenagers always inject a bit of life into a story and are a good way to show how screwed up the adult world really is.

The challenge I've found is this. While teenagers are interesting, all teenagers are interesting so making the one you write about stick out from the crowd is the hurdle. Being interesting is not enough. There has to be something else in the teenagers make up, background, looks, or spirit to grab the reader/viewer. Now in my case, I've jumped that hurdle - until my bosses tell me different - but I just had never looked at it that way until the other day. Now that I have, I'll pause before I write them into existence and ask myself "what is there beyond interesting"?

ARTHUR HALLEY DIES

The man who gave us 'Airport' and inspired the spoof 'Airplane' from a different story has died.

From the AP Report:

NASSAU, Bahamas - Arthur Hailey, the best-selling author who plucked characters from ordinary life and threw them into extraordinary ordeals, died in his home in the Bahamas, his wife said Thursday. He was 84.

Hailey died in his sleep Wednesday a few hours after having dinner with two of his six children at his home in Lyford Cay on New Providence island, his wife, Sheila, said. She said doctors believe he had a stroke. The British-born writer's knack for turning the mundane into thrilling tales brought 11 books published in 40 countries and 38 languages, with 170 million copies in print.

TESS

I was thinking of Tess. Not the book 'Tess' or the really great movie version of it that Polanski directed which you should see if you haven't. Instead this is a friend of mine. She's an avid reader (thus my justification for putting this post on the books/arts site) and is hooked on Nora Roberts. That I can't justify but hey, we all have our own guilty pleasures. (My own afternoon fixation with reruns of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' come to mind.) She is actually open to reading other things too and we've had some pretty good discussions on books and movies.

Due to circumstances beyond my control - mainly the steel bars on her cell, barbwire fences, and a few hundred armed guards - I can't invite her over for Thanksgiving dinner this year. It's too bad. I'd much rather laugh and talk with her than the couple cousins that will be there who I can't stand and who need a Thanksgiving Feast the way Fat Albert needs a double whopper with cheese. Now that I think of it, they probably make Fat Albert look like he's been on the Atkins diet. Tess probably would make the day worth while because she's got a wicked wit about her and that usually gets me in trouble every time. I could use a holiday with some spice. Then again, I always did prefer naughty to nice.

I'll keep my promise to her that I would think of her while I fought for a piece of the dark meat, dug up some dressing, pretend to like the cranberries (the food not the group), and unable to decide between pumpkin pie and something chocolate, take a piece of both. Then I'll probably root for Chicago because I know a thousand miles away she'll be rooting for the Cowboys. (Being a Steelers fan, the outcome of the game doesn't matter.) As the day wears on and I start digging through the closet for those shotgun shells because the relatives have worn on my nerves, and my eyes burn from the glare of too much mindless TV, I'll excuse myself to the office where I suspect like other writers around the country I'll work some on my script, jot down some observations about the day in case I ever get signed to do a dark comedy, and then write Tess a letter letting her know that she was remembered and how the holiday went on my end. Yeah, she was remembered alright...and missed.

PASSWORDS ARE DEAD (Now if I just don't lose my smart card)

I found this on the net and found it interesting in regards to what we all can expect to have to deal with in the future when logging on to check our emails.

Speaking at Microsoft's annual IT Forum in Copenhagen on the 18/11/2004 Bill Gates announced that Smart cards and 64-bit computing are the future of IT.Among other news and interpetations of this news the most significant is the movment towards a password free world which will be replaced with other various means of identification such as smart cards, finger recognition and biometric means.IBM has recently released the first fully integrated biometric ThinkPad (notebook pc) offering high grade security by utilizing hardware and software based integration for a higher security level.The new system has already won many praises from key market and security figures.The fingerprint reader is built into select models of the ThinkPad T42. With the new reader, located on the wrist rest below the arrow keys, users swipe their finger across a small horizontally oriented sensor to log-on to their systems, software applications, web sites, or databases. The scanning process takes only seconds, combining convenience with the strongest notebook security available as a standard feature. This type of fingerprint reader captures more data than a traditional "picture" capture window because it scans more of the fingertip's surface area, helping to prevent misidentification.Prices for ThinkPad T42 models with a fingerprint reader start at $1,699.

RESEARCH TOOLS

The Yad Vashem has launched a web portal allowing anyone via the internet to search for victims of the Holocaust. The site also includes testimonials and detailed information. This of course is invaluable to relatives searching for information but it is also useful to researchers looking for specific individuals caught up in the horror of those years.

http://www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/!ut/p/.cmd/cl/.l/en


Google has launched the Google Scholar. This feature allows a researcher to type in a keyword and have it matched against thesis, academic papers, technical papers, and university websites. In other words, material that only shows up on page 150 on a regular search engine. Thank goodness the research is getting easier.

The Night Country

Here is a review of a book called The Night Country which I found on http://moorishgirl.com .
It made me want to buy the book so I thought I would share.

Hannah Tinti Recommends
"I just finished The Night Country by Stewart O’Nan," Tinti says. "It’s amazing—the best book I’ve read in a while. I heard O’Nan give a reading from it at the Brattleboro Literary Festival in October. Since The Night Country was one of the few books of O’Nan’s that I hadn’t picked up yet, I bought a copy to read when I got home. It turned out to be the perfect Halloween novel: A group of five teenagers are in a terrible car accident in a New England town. Three of them are killed. Two survive. Now here’s the cool part—the book is narrated from the point of view of the dead teenagers. It sounds impossible to pull off, but Stewart O’Nan handles it brilliantly. His writing is just plain beautiful, heartbreaking and threaded with sharp black humor. The story picks up year later—the first anniversary of the crash—Halloween, of course, and the ghosts are zipping in and out of people’s heads. Then it gets really exciting—one of the living teenagers, Tim, is planning on re-creating the crash, killing himself and the other survivor, a boy named Kyle who is now brain-damaged. Throw into the mix Officer Brooks, the policeman trying to stop it from happening again, and Kyle’s mom, whose life has been turned upside down by her son’s disability, and you have an emotionally gripping, white-knuckle countdown literary thriller."
Hannah Tinti grew up in Salem, Massachusetts. Her short story collection, Animal Crackers, was published by the Dial Press in March 2004. She is currently the editor of One Story magazine.

The Author & The Dead Pastor

As reported on http://moorishgirl.com & http://jettstream.blogspot.com, a pastor-relative of Edwidge Danticat died in Homeland Security Custody. He was arrested by Homeland Security when he applied for asylum even though he had the legal paperwork to be in the country. He was dead within a week and his family denied permission to give him his medication or visit him. Here is an updated report from moorishgirl.

Danticat Profile
Maya Jaggi's profile of Edwidge Danticat in this Saturday's Guardian is quite au point, considering the news that came to light on Friday, on this blog and elsewhere.
The official cause of [Danticat's uncle's] death was acute pancreatitis. Yet for his niece, who says she begged to be allowed to see him when he was taken from the detention centre to hospital on November 2, but was refused "for security reasons", he is a "casualty of both the conflict in Haiti and an inhumane and discriminatory US immigration system". There are, she says, "so many people caught in the crossfire; my uncle was driven out with the clothes on his back and a briefcase. But he fled the frying pan for the fire. Maybe if they'd considered his age instead of applying a blanket policy he might be alive today." Aristide was forced into exile by the combined effects of internal rebellion and US pressure. In Danticat's view, "at the same time as this administration is creating situations elsewhere in the world that cause people to flee, it's closing the doors even tighter against them". But the profile covers a lot of other territory--Danticat's fiction of course, but also her film work, her activism, her upbringing, politics in Haiti, writing in a third language, and much, much else. A must read

LAST OF THE MOHICANS

Somewhere in the early morning hours over the weekend I watched Daniel Day Lewis in 'Last of the Mohicans'. I'd never seen it before and sorta knew what the book was about but had never had the chance to read it. Not that I didn't think it would be a good read but rather because there are literally about 500 books ahead of it on my reading list. So this is a case where watching the movie substitutes for the book.

I found it interesting with some good camera work although my favorite movie of Daniel Day Lewis is still 'The Unbelievable Lightness of Being'. He's a great actor but I don't think he'll ever top that in my eyes. The film made me think though how the relationships between Indians and Whites- as they're portrayed - has changed over the decades and centuries. We tend to think of Indians and Settlers as pretty much dead set enemies from the start but that wasn't really the case. And it is often overlooked how just like warring Europeans, the Indians were often more consumed with fighting one another than anything else. In many ways we were much alike and our spirits akin to one another.

How we got here, how this continent was settled, isn't as simple as we often like to make it sound. Each day we learn new things. Now we know that the Indians weren't the first to settle the continent. Humans that we still no little about were here tens of thousands of years before them. The unearthing of early American history on the continent is really in it's early stages.
Still, as the dialogue said at the end of the movie - and I presume something close to the book - like the Mohicans time will also push us aside and a new breed of man will replace us. But we still have today and time will know we've been here.

Istanbul

A boyfriend of a friend of mine is on a business trip to Turkey for a couple weeks. That got me thinking a bit about locations. After all, I think locations can enhance a story...like a character's name...and that a writer or producer should carefully choose the location for the story.

What I was thinking though is how use of certain locations have changed. For instance, Istanbul which use to appear a lot in books and movies especially plots involving mystery and espionage. There was a Sydney Greenstreet movie in Istanbul that I remember and I think Peter Ustinov did a movie there also. Istanbul had that lure to it. Clash of cultures, open markets, ancient and new, narrow alleys where Kings once walked but now drug dealers stroll(how can you forget Midnight Express?) and other sordid characters. That's not saying only sordid characters live in Istanbul. I'm sure they are a minority. But average guys sipping little cups of Arabic coffee in the morning is not what most writers latch on too.

I haven't seen Istanbul in a book or movie in a long time. Maybe I missed it. I don't know. The book 'Snow' takes place in Turkey. See http://moorishgirl.com for a review. My question, observation, is why not? What has changed about Istanbul in the last 40 years to make it no longer appealing as a location? The same can be said of Lisbon which was notorious for spies during WWII and the Cold War. When was the last time you saw a story take place in Lisbon? The only one I can recall off the top of my head is 'Russia House'.

I'm not sure that the cities have changed as much as the writers. We like to write about what we know and over the years I would have to guess that fewer and fewer of us have reason to travel to Istanbul or Lisbon as compared to LA or London. We've allowed ourselves to be trapped by the limit of our knowledge and the mainstream of our business.

It wouldn't hurt for us to do more traveling to places off the normal flight path. Explore a culture or people we only see on CNN from time to time. Inject a little freshness into our settings. After all, most people reading the books or buying the movie ticket will never have the opportunity to travel. So as writers, it wouldn't hurt us to wove more of what they're missing into our stories. After all, it is what they paid for.

The Storyteller's Daughter

Well, I wrote a couple posts back about my friend Delphine and trying to chose a book for her sister...she picked one off my list: "The Storyteller's Daughter" by Sarah Shah. I'm a HUGE Sarah (Sarai) Shah fan. Her film documentaries are fantastic and this book just sucked me right in and I didn't want to put it down. When I finally did close the book, I felt like I had taken a crash course on Afghan culture and life inside Afghanistan before 2002. This is a good choice. I think Delphine's sister will like it. If you haven't read this book - I think it is in paperback now - I encourage you to do so. You won't be disappointed!

A MURDER- AN ARREST- A FALL GUY?

I have an autographed copy of Paul Klebnikov's book, 'Godfather of The Kremlin' thanks to my friend Kaile who attended a lecture by him. It was a good book exposing the inner-workings of the Oligarchs after the fall of the Soviets. It helped explain the corruption, greed, and why the people in Russia have gotten so screwed over by democratic reforms.

Klebnikov later became editor at Forbes in Moscow where he was gunned down presumably for his insistence on shedding light on a corrupt system. One thing his book and articles did was detail the co-operation between Russians and Chechens when it came to doing each other's dirty work. The price has to be right of course but you'd be surprised how many dealings go on between the two groups.

Today the Russians announced they arrested a Chechen in Klebnikov's murder. They also said they're letting two previously arrested Chechens go. You have to wonder if they really got the culprits or just the hitman doing some Russian's dirty work?

Here is part of the Reuters report:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police have arrested a third Chechen in their investigation into the murder of a U.S. reporter who wrote about the volatile region and charted the fortunes of the rich, local media reported Friday.
Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, was shot dead outside his Moscow office in July. Two Chechens were detained in September after experts said they had matched the pair's pistol with the one used to kill Klebnikov.
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a court spokesman as saying that a 40-year-old Chechen man had been arrested, and cited a police source as saying he had been detained as part of the investigation into Klebnikov's murder.
It was not clear what charge the man was facing.
"At this stage of the investigation the most dominant version of events in this murder in the so-called "Chechen trail," Interfax quoted the police source as saying.
While Klebnikov had written a book that heavily criticized Chechen separatists, commentators have said his murder was more likely a contract killing possibly linked to Forbes' publication of a list of Russia's 100 richest businessmen.
Chechens are often linked to major crimes in Russia, which has been fighting separatists in the Caucasus region for the past 10 years.

BOOKNOTES

Dec. 5th....that's the date C-Span's Booknotes broadcasts it's last show. For a couple decades now it has been the show to watch for indepth author interviews on non-fiction books. I've found myself over the years regularly tuning in because many of the books, often award winners, are books that don't get buzz until they air on the show. This show has introduced me to more writers than probably any other medium. I've always felt that if Shakespeare was around, he'd be a regular viewer just to keep up with the competition.

It's going to be weird with no Booknotes. No show to tune in to so I can mumble to myself, "That's an interesting topic, why didn't I think of that?" or marvel at the years of research the writers put into their work. When I hear a writer on the show explain how they spent 5 years researching a project, it is a little hard for me to complain - which I often do - to myself that I've spent 3 months on a rough draft or snipe at my bosses because they haven't yet read the copy I sent them last week. It is also inspirational in the sense that it reminds writers that yeah, the little guy does make it sometimes. We don't need to just hear it, we need to see it for ourselves from time to time.

I can't blame the host Brian Lamb for leaving. The whole C-Span thing was his conception anyway. He's earned the right to explore a new path. He use to teach at my High School and I remember passing him once in the hallway. He has that Dick Clark aura about him where the looks don't change from century to century. Mr. Lamb, thanks for making us smarter, brighter, and more determined.

Plug The Cuz

Back in September, in the remote hills of West Virginia, I made an interesting discover: A Cousin. In the last couple years I've been digging out the family tree which has been hard since when I started no one knew anything past my grandparents (and even that was sketchy) and then it was complicated by the fact my ancestors are from a previously unknown marriage. So it has been like unraveling a big mystery.

A part of this mystery that unexpectedly fell into place was this cousin Lynn. We're removed a couple times of course but she still lives on the property my ancestors settled back in the late 1700's. The old mansion they built in the 1800's sits empty on her farm...the inside burned out in the 1930's after a lightening strike.

The cousin and I chatted for an hour during my initial visit and she let me view the property. Since then we've emailed each other and have grown to know one another better thanks to the internet. Anyway, she's started a blog herself at mylynnside.blogspot.com ....Lynnside being the name of the farm. She's just getting it up but I hope you'll visit her site once in awhile. I know I plan too.

British Library Wireless

The British library and it's 150 million plus catalog has gone wireless!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4020241.stm

That Iranian-Girl Writer

It pays for a writer to peek up from the computer monitor once in a while and take in the world around him. I did that this past hour and found this really good blog. It is at http://iranian-girl.blogspot.com. The thing is, the girl is actually just a very good writer. You see really talented instincts all over her site. It is the kind of website that inspires you to sit down and start hammering out that next 50 pages. Just reading it gave me at least 2 new characters that I will be using soon. It is too bad that she is in Iran in the sense that I'd like to see her have the chance to put her skills to work. She's apparently a teacher. I'd say she'd make a good one. I emailed her...don't do that often...but she's in a tough place and maybe a small note of encouragement will help. You never know. Check out her site though.

Novels

My friend Delphine asked me yesterday to recommend some English novels for her sister. Novels are a dying art in the English language and I had a hard time thinking of anything off the top of my head. Of course Hemingway came to mind. So did the new Tom Wolfe book although I don't know if it is any good or not. Michael Chabon I highly recommend. Then I recalled 'To Kill A Mockingbird' which I had overlooked because it seems like it has been around forever. That's the one I recommended. You don't realize how difficult it is to come up with something like that until you start thinking about it. For a moment, I felt totally illiterate. :)

Crimes Against Nature

Crimes Against Nature is an environmental book written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who happens to be one of the top activists/lawyers in the country. I'd started reading it last month but have been too busy with the writing to finish it. Going to try today. What I have read is good and an eye-opener. I just have trouble reading when I'm writing. Sometimes it can be a distraction. On the other hand, if I read something unrelated to what I'm writing, it can be a way to give my brain a rest. So, since I've been dealing with character issues the past 24 hours I think I'll let the rainy afternoon give me an excuse to read.