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And a happy birthday to Max Brand. Many's the western written by Brand that found it's way onto my bookshelf. Imagine reading something so frivolous. With guilty pleasure I devoured them one after the other.

Max Brand
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Frederick Schiller Faust (May 29, 1892 - May 12, 1944) was an American western fiction author. Faust wrote mostly under five pseudonyms, though he is primarily known by one, Max Brand, today. Faust was born in Seattle and both his parents died soon after. He grew up in central California and later worked as a cowhand on one of the many ranches of the San Joaquin Valley. Faust attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he began to write frequently. He did not attain a degree, as he was deemed a troublemaker, and he began to travel extensively.

During the 1910s, Faust started to sell stories to the many emerging pulp magazines of the era. Faust attempted to enlist when the United States joined World War I in 1917, but was denied entry. In the 1920s, Faust wrote furiously, achieving success and fame. He soon became overworked and was diagnosed by a doctor with an undefined heart condition. Faust continued to travel and write a massive amount of material, working in many genres. He invented the western character "Destry" and the non-western character "Dr. Kildare," later a popular television series.

In the 1930s, Faust joined the literary trek to Hollywood and wrote scripts. When World War II broke out, Faust insisted on doing his part by becoming a front line correspondent. Faust was quite famous at this point and the soldiers enjoyed having this popular author among them. While traveling with American soldiers as they battled Germans in Italy, Faust was mortally wounded and died in a fox hole in 1944.

Faust wrote in many genres, though he is mainly known today for his thoughtful and literary westerns. Though Faust did work as a cowboy and did travel extensively throughout the west, the authenticity of his westerns is credited to the large amount of western lore he kept on file and to the depth he put in his characters.

Faust also managed a massive outpouring of fiction, rivaling Edgar Wallace and especially, Isaac Asimov as one of the most prolific authors of all time, and he may have published more than 500 books worth of novels and short stories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Brand

Faust was one of my early favorites. I particularly looked forward to the Silvertip stories.

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
___________________________________
Well then who is it about?

Hey, Bob. Welcome back. Don't think I've ever read any Max Brand, but I recall one of my Profs saying that all he read was pulp fiction since he became weary of heavy stuff due to his academic load. When I was a wee thing, I recall something by the name of The Haunted Mesa by Louis L'Amore? (sp)

Well, edgar, I don't think Carly meant James Taylor.<smile>

If Calamity Jane is still around, I would like for her to see the movie"Forgotten", she would definitely appreciate the idea of it.

Now I need to play a dixiland song for Walter in appreciation of his undying help to others:

When the Saints Go Marching In





1. I am just a lonesome traveller,
Through this big wide world of sin;
Want to join that grand procession,
When the saint go marchin´in.
|: Oh when the saint go marchin´in,
Lord I want to be in that number
When the saint go marchin´in.
2. All my folks have gone before me,
All my friends and all my kin;
But I'll meet with them up yonder,
When the saint go marchin´in.
|: Oh when the saint go marchin´in,
I will meet them all up in heaven,
When the saint go marchin´in.

3. Come and join me in my journey,
'cause it's time that we begin;
And we'll be there for that judgement,
When the saint go marchin´in.
|: Oh when the saint go marchin´in,
We will be in line for that judgement,
When the saint go marchin´in.
|: And when the stars begin to shine
Then Lord let me be in that number
And when the stars begin to shine
|: When Gabriel blows in his horn
Then Lord let me be in that number
When Gabriel blows in his horn

|: And when the sun refuse to shine
Then Lord let me be in that number
When the sun refuse to shine

|: And when the moon has turned the blood
Then Lord let me be in that number
When the moon has turned the blood

|: And when they crown him King of Kings
Then Lord let me be in that number
When they crown him King of Kings

|: And when they gather round the throne
Then Lord let me be in that number
When they gather round the throne

|: And on that halleluja day
Then Lord let me be in that number
On that halleluja day

|: And while the happy ages roll
Then Lord let me be in that number
While the happy ages roll.

Walter, you're not only an elf, you're a saint. Thanks again.

Oops, How did all those strange emoticons get in there?

Francis, I just checked out Annette Bening. She was fantastic in the movie, American Beauty. I was more interested in Kevin Spacy's performance, however. What an actor, listeners. Hmmmm, wonder when Beyond the Sea will be shown here, and I guess The Johnny Cash story starring Joaquin Phoenix will be delayed until the poor guy gets out of rehab.

I never heard of it. Should it tell me something Miss Letty?

C.J. Check it out. You would love it!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356618/

I rented the movie on a whim, and found the theme sooooo true.

Hey Miss Letty
A thread about poetry.

One thing I've noticed about Max Brand: He died in WWII, yet, yearly, never before published MB novels appear every year. There has to be a cottage industry of books in his name.

After 35 years, TV thief released
Raleigh News & Observer

RALEIGH, N.C. - Junior Allen, who spent 35 years in North Carolina prisons for stealing a $140 television, walked out of prison Friday a free man.

Allen, 65, will live with relatives in Georgia.

He was paroled on his 26th try after getting a life sentence in 1970 for second-degree burglary. Georgia authorities will supervise Allen's parole, which could last up to five years.

If Allen follows all laws, keeps a job and reports periodically to his parole officer there, he'll gain complete freedom by age 70.

Under an old law, the late Judge Pou Bailey sentenced Allen to life in prison for sneaking into an unlocked house and stealing a 19-inch black-and-white Motorola TV. Allen, a migrant farm worker, was 30.

edgar, thank you so much for directing me to Setanta's poetry thread.

Listeners, we are all blessed with loveliness in some ways. I guess all we have to do is look for it.

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
It's loveliness increases,
It will never pass into nothingness,
But still will keep a bower quiet for us,
Full of rest and dreams and quiet breathing."

I think I remember that line from Keats correctly.

Sounds interesting! I'll look for it - thank you Miss Letty!


Here are some nice tunes of Astrud Gilberto

Fly me to the moon
Let me sing among those stars
Let me see what spring is like
On jupiter and mars

In other words, hold my hand
In other words, baby kiss me

Fill my heart with song
Let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore

In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you

One of the pillars holding our site up to the scrutiny and therefore envy is our wonderful aggie. I was delighted that she mentioned Chesterton as he had such an influence on so many writers.

G. K. Chesterton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.



Gilbert Keith Chesterton (May 29, 1874 - June 14, 1936) was an English writer of the early 20th century. Chesterton was known as the "prince of paradox" because he communicated his conservative, often countercultural, ideas in an off-hand, whimsical prose studded with startling formulations. For example: "Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it." Many of Chesterton's works remain in print, including collections of his Father Brown detective stories, and Ignatius Press is presently undertaking the monumental task of publishing his complete works.


Life and career

Born in Campden Hill, Kensington, London, Chesterton was educated at St. Paul's School, and later went to the Slade School of Art in order to become an illustrator. In 1900, Chesterton was asked to write a few magazine articles on art criticism, which sparked his interest in writing. He went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. Chesterton's writings displayed a wit and sense of humour that is unusual even today, while often making extremely serious comments on the world, government, politics, economics, philosophy, theology and many other topics.

Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, 200 short stories, 4000 essays and a few plays. He was a columnist for the Daily News, Illustrated London News, and his own paper, G.K's Weekly. In the United States, his writings on distributism were popularized through The American Review, published by Seward Collins in New York. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic Christian theologian and apologist, debater, and mystery writer. His most well-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared only in short stories, while The Man Who Was Thursday is arguably his best-known novel. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1922. Christian themes and symbolism appear in much of his writing, and he often presented himself in the role of the Church's champion.

The British writer Hilaire Belloc is often associated with his friend Chesterton. Although very different men, they had in common their Catholic faith and a critical attitude to both capitalism and socialism. Both are figures likely to outlast many of their more celebrated literary contemporaries.

Chesterton was a large man, standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) and weighing around 21 stones (134 kg). Chesterton had a unique look, usually wearing a cape and a crumpled hat, with a swordstick in hand, and usually a cigar hanging out of his mouth. Chesterton rarely remembered where he was supposed to be going and would even miss the train that was supposed to take him there. It was not uncommon for Chesterton to send a telegram to his wife, Frances Blogg, whom he married in 1901, from some distant (and incorrect) location writing such things as, "Am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?" to which she would reply, "Home."

Chesterton loved to debate, often publicly debating with friends such as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, and Clarence Darrow. Chesterton was usually considered the winner. According to his autobiography, he and George Bernard Shaw played cowboys in a silent movie that, alas, was never released.

He is buried in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, in the Roman Catholic Cemetery.


Influence


* Chesterton's The Everlasting Man contributed to a young atheist named C. S. Lewis being converted to Christianity.
* Chesterton's biography of Charles Dickens was largely responsible for creating a popular revival for Dickens' work as well as a serious reconsideration of Dickens by scholars. Considered by T.S. Eliot, Peter Ackroyd, and others, to be the best book on Dickens ever written.
* Chesterton's Orthodoxy has become a religious classic.
* An essay that Chesterton wrote for the Illustrated London News inspired Mohandas Gandhi to lead the movement to end British colonial rule in India.
* Chesterton's novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill inspired Michael Collins to lead a movement for Irish independence. The same book inspired George Orwell for writing his Nineteen Eighty-Four, which has several implicit references to TNoNH.
* Chesterton's work has inspired lyricists like Daniel Amos's Terry Scott Taylor from the 1970s to the 2000s. Daniel Amos mentioned Chesterton by name in the title track from 2001's Mr. Buechner's Dream.
* His physical appearance and apparently some of his mannerisms were a direct inspiration for the character of Dr. Gideon Fell, a well-known fictional detective created in the early 1930s by the Anglo-American mystery writer John Dickson Carr.
* The character Gilbert in the comic book The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman, was based on Chesterton.

Some conservatives today have been influenced by his support for distributism. A. K. Chesterton, the right-wing journalist and the first chairman of the National Front, was a cousin.


Quotes

"The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up."

"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly."

"The rich are the scum of the earth in every country."

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead."

"Tea, although an Oriental, Is a gentleman at least; Cocoa is a cad and coward, Cocoa is a vulgar beast."

"Are they clinging to their crosses, F. E. Smith?"

(Although often attributed to Chesterton, the quote "When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything," resides nowhere in the writer's works, as such. However, it is certainly reflective of his philosophy and most likely comes roughly from a sketch written about Chesterton by another writer.)



Literature and biographies on Chesterton

* Gilbert - the Man Who Was G. K. Chesterton, by Michael Coren
* Marshall McLuhan wrote an article on G.K. Chesterton, titled "G.K. Chesterton: A Practical Mystic" (Dalhousie Review 15 (4), 1936).
* Chesterton's writings have been praised by such authors as Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, Frederick Buechner, Evelyn Waugh, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Karel Čapek, Paul Claudel, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Sigrid Undset, Ronald Knox, C. S. Lewis, Kingsley Amis, W. H. Auden, Anthony Burgess, E. F. Schumacher, Neil Gaiman, Orson Welles, Dorothy Day and others.

edgar, that news bit breaks my heart. Some justice system we have.

Ah, Astrud, C.J. what a fabulous voice and I love to hear her sing The Girl from Ipenema in Portuguese. Lovely sounding language.

Listeners and editors, if I have made an error in spelling or composition just blame it on my youth. <smile>

It looks as if many well known people chose May 29th to be born. T. H. White who penned The Once and Future King was among them.

T. H. White
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from T.H. White)

Terence Hanbury White (May 29, 1906 - January 17, 1964) was a writer. He was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India.

After graduating from Queens' College, Cambridge with a first-class degree in English, he spent some time teaching at Stowe, before becoming a full-time writer. He was interested in hunting, flying, hawking and fishing. He was an intensely-involved naturalist.

White is most famous for writing The Once and Future King, a sequence of novels that retell Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, reinterpreting the legend of King Arthur. The sequence includes:

* The Sword in the Stone (1938)
* The Queen of Air and Darkness, originally titled The Witch in the Wood (1939)
* The Ill-Made Knight (1940)
* The Candle in the Wind (1958)
* The Book of Merlyn (published separately and posthumously, 1977)

The Broadway musical Camelot was based on The Once and Future King.

White wrote many other books, some under a pseudonym. They include a children's book, Mistress Masham's Repose, in which a young girl discovers a group of Lilliputians (the tiny people in Swift's Gulliver's Travels) living near her house. Also for children was The Master, set on Rockall. Other works include The Goshawk, an account of White's ill-fated attempt to train a hawk in the traditional art of falconry; The Godstone and the Blackymor, a travel book set in Ireland; England Have My Bones, an account of a year spent in England; and The Age of Scandal and The Scandalmonger, collections of essays on 18th-century England.

He died aboard ship in Piraeus (Athens, Greece) while returning home from his American lecture tour.

More information can be found in Sylvia Townsend Warner's excellent biography, TH White.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.H._White

Interesting biographies.

Thanks, Bob. I was interested in the biography titled, CANDLE IN THE WIND. Don't tell me that Elton plagiarized that title!

What child hasn't read THE SWORD IN THE STONE. Wasn't there a movie whose entire purpose was to explain the true existence of King Arthur?

Well, listeners, We learn it all here on WA2K radio. Don't go away.

Elton John wrote the music - his lyrics are by Bernard Taupin.

Well, my goodness, Walter. Then we'll let T.H. White sue Taupin. <smile>

First for Marilyn, then for the princess:

Goodbye Norma Jean
Though I never knew you at all
You had the grace to uphold yourself
While those around you crawled

They crawled out of the woodwork
And they whispered into your brain
They set you on a treadmill
And they made you change your name

And it seems to me, you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in

And I would have liked to have known you
But I was just a kid
Your candle burned out long before
Your legend ever did

Loneliness was tough
The toughest role you ever played
Hollywood created a superstar
And pain was the price you paid

Even when you died
Oh, the press still hounded you
All the papers had to say
Was that Marilyn was found in the nude

And it seems to me, you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in

And I would have liked to have known you
But I was just a kid
Your candle burned out long before
Your legend ever did

Goodbye Norma Jean
Though I never knew you at all
Goodbye Norma Jean
From the young man in the twenty-second row
Who sees you as something more than sexual
More than just Marilyn Monroe

And it seems to me, you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in

And I would have liked to have known you
But I was just a kid
Your candle burned out long before
Your legend ever did.