The Mark Twain House is having a major league writers’ weekend on April 20-21, covering a wide array of subjects from an excellent parade of speakers. They even have me there, too. Here’s the Twain’s announcement:
It’s an event for novelists and would-be novelists; for those who need to tell the true story they may have never told anyone before; for the writers of non-fiction; for the the poets; for the inexperienced and the experienced — for all those who, like Mark
Twain, believe in the power of the right word over the weakness of the almost-right word.
With the major league baseball season underway, we are reminded that the major league goodness of people doesn’t require a mega-paycheck or super-celebrity status.
Quietly, the good guys in the West Hartford Youth Baseball world are donating some 200 sets of uniforms to the Baseball for Cuban Kids program Dick Foster and I run. More, the league is working to have its young athletes consider donating used baseball gear to the program at its big sign-up jamboree on April 29th.
Tonight, Dick and I will be going to talk up the effort to the coaches meeting of the JC TDBank League, the huge summer ball outfit where we hope to meet continued success in getting materials we can ship to Cuba to help the kids there.
Maybe you know of some coaches, leagues or programs that might have extra baseball supplies collecting dust — uniforms, bats, baseballs, gloves, hats, etc. Maybe you have something of your own up in the attic that could find a happy home with some poor Cuban kid. Send us a message (denis@bluefoot.tv).
What brilliance! What beauty! What talent.
Oh, yes, there is the washing, easy lull of Harry Connick Jr.’s soothing southern cadences; the evocative, reflective epiphany of generations together in a wondrous script; the majestic photography and editing, in the third dimension, of Timothy Horgan’s Bluefoot Masters’ mastery; the elegant message, the exquisite story-telling. Aye, there is that.
But that trifles past, importantly establishing the preface and prologue and introduction to the true capture of the world-shifting emergence of vast but subtle starshine, the amazing, haunting, exploding performance in the final dozen instants of a new galaxy of cinemographic presence and essence, acting skills such as defy precedent. Combining the raw power of the early Brando with the fawn-like prudence of a young Heburn, gold-spun Michael dazzles all while wisely allowing his awesome volcano of loveliness to largely rest in eclipse behind an older actor’s shielding head lest we be otherwise left blinded, like those poor Hottentots who were never told of the perils of staring deeply into the sun’s overwheleming force.
And what of the gazelle-grace of the perfect Jack’s lope across the screen, the deft encapsulating of youth’s pure,unbounded eagerness, the breath-taking athleticism guided effortlessly in perfect check to deliver in the slightest gesture, the turn and tilt of the head while bird-flutter hands define the more awesome enhancement of bold new silver to the once-weary screen, now invigorated and revitalized once more.
Twelve seconds, and the world of acting is renewed entirely.
Five stars for those final seconds — oh, and for the rest, too. Great job, Tim!
I appreciate the mail, since I get so little otherwise. As it is, even Spam is welcome. Mostly, I can figure out what to do with the Nigerians who wish to vacuum my bank accounts or the Viagra salespeople and the wristwatch salemen and the oilly like. But I confess to being baffled by Linked-In and Pinterest.
Somewhere along the line I became part of Linked-In and, more recently, Pinterest but I simply have no idea what I am supposed to do with them — even as I get dozens of messages every day from people who are following me on one and inviting me to hitch up on the other.
Being the chummy sort, I try tp connect up but nothing ever seems to happen except that even more e-mails arrive. Seeing that Pintertest might be a way to encourage people to look at my nifty books, I try to pin myself but nothing ever shows up. Imagining that all those folks want to Link Up for some actual reason, I happily e-welcome them yet nothing ever happens there either.
What, I wonder, is the point? Beyond seeding the system for some bloated IPO possibility, is there anything whatever that is supposed to be going on among all we linked-up pinteresters? As with so much in life, I just don’t get it. I get nagging messages wondering why I have failed to link up with someone who I hadn’t know was linkable. I am entreated to “follow” someone in Pinterest but I don’t know where it is supposed to take me. Or why.
I love the web and I like it so much that people are now connected and can chitchat and learn so much about one another. But should I be chasing after every mirage on the highway ahead? Maybe. But I am so busy spiking out all the messages urging me to do it that I don’t have time to do it — and do not even know what the “it” is.
Surely no one in the trigger-happy “Stand Your Ground” states would mind if the effort were expanded and intensified to make sure that each and every young black male in their communities is armed with a fully-loaded firearm. The law’s supporters claim the innocent civilians need the firepower to defend themselves against the bad guys.
Well, who’s most likely to need the defending?
As we see in lawless Florida, the black community especially needs to defend itself. Exercising their Second Amendment rights — and who would ever object to that — blacks in these these mostly southern states should be assisted to ensure that blacks are packing guns since blacks are mostly the ones likely to be set upon. They need to be able to stand their ground against the pistol-packin’ bad guys. Right?
So the whites who write such laws would hardly object and surely would join the effort to gun-register all the black males and arm them. That’s what they say the law is for; that’s what they say the Second Amendment is all about. Giving the weak a chance to protect themselves from the predators: giving the Trayvon Martins an equal chance just in case they are set upon for no reason by gun-carrying others. Right?
