Searching for Star Farmer
Posted by Stephen Hines on November 1st, 2008 filed in Uncategorized1 Comment »
On July 1, 1922, The Missouri Ruralist ran the following item:
“Mrs. A.J. Wilder [Laura Ingalls Wilder, author] of Rocky Ridge Farm, Mansfield, Mo. is the oldest member of The Missouri Ruralist editorial staff. She began work as a contributor to the Star Farmer some 15 years ago. Mrs. Wilder is curious to know if there still are friends reading the Ruralist who remember her contributions to the Star Farmer and would be glad to hear from them. Write her a friendly letter at Mansfield.”
These lost writings of popular children’s author Laura Ingalls Wilder have never been found. I’ve looked, I can’t find them. But if anyone can find these writings, I feel sure her many fans would be grateful for the service, and, who knows, there might be enough writing for a collection similar to what is in my Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist from the University of Missouri Press.
Good hunting to you hopeful prospectors!
The Poet C.S. Lewis Loved–Ruth Pitter
Posted by Stephen Hines on October 9th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedComment now »
Well, love may be a strong word for it. Lewis kept a discrete distance from women, at least until he married his wife Joy Davidman. But he is said to have remarked to a friend–before meeting Joy–that if he were the marrying kind, Ruth Pitter would have been a good choice.
Lewis admired Pitter for many things but especially for her poetry. Pitter eventually won the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry, the Hawthornden Prize and was named a Commander of the British Empire. She was also a member of the Royal Society of Literature.
Lewis came to know her through letters. She wrote to him first shortly after she experienced conversion by listening to Lewis’s war-time talks that later became the book Mere Christianity, astonishingly still a best-selling title today.
So far as I know, Pitter is utterly out of print in the United States, and it is very hard to find any of her poetry except for a couple of early pieces that are online. Lewis praised her highly.
What a service it would be to bring her back into print in the States! Harold Shaw Publishers would have been my nomination to bring her out, if they were still doing that kind of thing.
What do you say? Is there someone out there who is interested? Best of luck to you.
Love’s Passion Alight
Posted by Stephen Hines on July 19th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedComment now »
Ah, Bloggites, this is a copyrighted story from 1981, but if I am ever going to turn it into the comic novel I have always wanted it to be, I would like to find a writing partner with a wacko sense of humor who will work with me and will push me actually to complete it. Published author familiar with the romance genre strongly preferred.
Love’s Passion Alight
Sarah Samuels peered reflectively into her jewelry box. She was searching for earrings. —Where had she put them? It was hard to concentrate. She shook her head impatiently.
—I’ll be late if I don’t find them. —Why am I so nervous? These were not the first questions she had asked herself since coming to know Ransom Chutney, Chief of Surgery at General Hospital. But at last it looked as though she was going to get to the bottom of their very puzzling relationship. Almost from the time they had met, Dr. Chutney had seemed as though he were under a dark cloud, as though he could see some threatening storm on the horizon – a storm that threatened their growing affection for each other. How had this all come about? As she sat looking into the opacity of her fingernails, Sarah went back in her mind over the last few years of her brief, turbulent life.
A scene became vivid to her. It was her first day at General Hospital. She remembered how she had stood before the green baize door of her first clinical experience, considering in fear whether or not to run while there was still time or to stay. But even as she hesitated, Resolve entered her soul. No, she could not throw away the sacrifice of her youth on the altar of cowardice! In her epiphany of self-abasement, she realized she had nothing to fear but suffering, and, if that was to be her lot, why, she was ready. She knew the path to the top was not strewn with rose petals.
* * *
Sarah began to drift further in reverie. She recalled how she had been born to simple, brilliant, devout parents who had sacrificed to send her through college and nursing school so that she might fulfill her life-long ambition to become a nurse, meet a rich, handsome, mysterious, frightening doctor – and marry him. Sarah thought of how her mother had worked long hours as a dishwasher during the day, and how she had worked as a cleaning lady during the night to make Sarah’s career possible. Nurse Samuels reflected on the fact that the hardly knew her mother and wished there had been time to become better acquainted.
—Oh, the curse of poverty! She thought bitterly (if it were possible for bitter thoughts to cross this sweet woman’s pure mind).
Poverty had forced her father to supplement his meager income as a concert violinist by tuning pianos from early in the morning to late in the evening. At night he worked at a loathsome job, stuffing sausages in a local packing plant. Sarah’s cheeks flushed with shame as she remembered the coarsening effect this job had had on her father’s language. Then, too, because of her father’s work, there was the aroma of Stravinsky and the stockyard about him; it was an odor that pervaded the home. She remembered how it had embarrassed her to introduce Mom and Dad to her friends: very often her parents fell asleep during the introductions.
As one might guess, Sarah had been persecuted for coming from the wrong side of the tracks. High school had been a nightmare for her. So she had redoubled her scholastic efforts and decided on a career in nursing because it was a truly noble profession where one could serve others – and show creeps and snobs like her schoolmates what real, deserving virtue and humility was.
Of course, she never made less than an A in any of her courses in high school or college. She joined many organizations to show she was a joiner and did much church volunteer work to show that she was a volunteer. She made all of her own clothes and became an excellent gardener to supplement her meager diet with fresh vegetables. Sometimes she gave her folks left-over produce. She even learned how to raise chickens in the attic so they could enjoy fresh meat and eggs.
And her privations had not been in vain. They had won her a full-paid scholarship to State University. All she had to do to keep her scholarship was work from eight to five in the dorm cafeteria; then she could knock-off for half-an-hour before doing light, miscellaneous research from 5:30 to 10:00; then she could knock-off until midnight, when she went to work as a guard in the computer center.
Yes, all the years of privation and starvation had paid off. She had won her coveted cap and degree–with honors–and now stood before the green baize doors of General Hospital, wondering, wondering what she would find waiting for her behind them.
* * *
Sarah got up from the bed and stretched a bit. —What had she been looking for? What had she been looking for at General Hospital when she had first come to work several months ago?
She sat back down on the bed and let her mind wander, which it readily did.
—Yes, there had been adjustments to make, but she had been ready and willing to make them. She knew what to expect from the real world of nursing – her high school and college reading had prepared her for that. Still, there had been some surprises. For one thing, General Hospital had been so large. It was impossible to get acquainted with very many people. Everything was so efficient and functional.
Sarah’s thoughts flew to the one who had become her best friend. What a support she had been! From the very first day she had been taken under wing and shown the ropes by Darla Dunn. She couldn’t imagine how she could have survived otherwise. The two nurses had had an impressive mélange of experiences.
There had been that confrontation with head nurse Borden who had ordered Sarah to give enemas to everyone in intensive care. That had been the first time that she had stood up for what she thought was a preferable course of treatment: laxatives.
There had been the hospital itself to learn, with its multiple floors, dead ends, and corridors leading to who knows where. Where were the restrooms? It had all been so confusing.
Especially upsetting had been the strain of meeting all of those people! There was the peculiar fellow in Room 405 who kept proposing to her, and the funny old woman in 406 who kept tearing her bed sheets up and setting them on fire.
Then there were the doctors. They were the most perplexing group of all. Some were curt and dismissed you with a slap on the head, while others were just as nice as could be. Many of them seemed preoccupied with their specialties and somehow out of touch with reality. Doctor Adams in particular seemed a zombie until someone would mention yachting.
Most troubling of all had been her intense but confusing relationship with Dr. Ransom Chutney, Chief of Surgery. She remembered well (or was about to remember well) her first meeting with him. It had been, in fact, during her first day. . . .
Darla Dunn had set off at a break-neck pace, and they had covered floor after floor and mile after mile, stopping to greet a myriad of faces. There had been nurse Pursely and nurse Hanon, Drs. Wheately, Morris, and Joeblonowski. She had been told that she would work in each section of the hospital for a week to familiarize herself with procedures before being turned loose on her own. She would work a week in the surgery, a week in pediatrics, a week in dietetics, and a week in splenetics; she would also work a week in the kitchen and the laundry. No stone would be left unturned in her education.
For instance, there was this Borden woman.
When Darla first took Sarah to meet the head nurse, they found her sandpapering a hypodermic. She seemed perturbed at being interrupted. Darla had put on her cheeriest smile and made the introductions. “Nurse pig – I mean nurse Borden. I would like you to meet our new nurse, Sarah Samuels. Sarah, this is Elsie Borden. She is the head of nursing here. We couldn’t – uh – get along without her.”
Sarah looked at nurse Borden uncomfortably. In fact, she noticed the head nurse had taken out a magnifying glass and was looking at her through it.
“I think I see a bit of dust on your uniform, Miss Samuels. What have you been doing? Playing in the mud? We must do better than that around here. Ours is a life-and-death struggle against disease and despair. A person who brings dust into the hospital will, the next thing you know, be spreading infection to the patients. See that you are always clean, neatly attired, and wearing you cap. Now, where is it you’re supposed to be stationed after we teach you something? Speak child! Cat got your tongue?”
“I’ll be in p-pediatrics, sir. I just—I love children and–”
“Come, come, nurse Samuels. Surely you can use a better word than that. I hope we will not continue to hear such sentimental simpering from one of our own. We are professionals here. Our highest duty is to give every patient the kick in the rear he needs to get him out of here. Don’t talk to me of love. The little brats grow up, don’t they? No doubt we’ll whip you into shape in no time. They all come out of school muttering like you at first, but we set them straight. Now wipe those tears off your face and stop trembling; you’ll get used to me after a while and find me gruff, but kindly, with a heart of gold. Now beat it, the both of you.”
But before Sarah could leave General for the day, go home, and throw herself on her bed in anguish, they still had to visit the surgery. Darla and Sarah soon arrived at a green baize door marked “Surgery – Off Limits” and went in.
“This is surgery, Sarah, Darla began. Over there, sharpening a scalpel, is Dr. Lance Buboes, and there are Drs. Smithe and Wayne, (pointing) and nurse Murphy and nurse Simpson. Am I going too fast for you?”
As Sarah dried her eyes and tried to clear her head, she began to pay attention to what Darla was saying, and she noticed one of the surgeons had his back to them. “Who is that standing over in the corner with his back to us?”
“Oh, I’m glad you noticed him. That’s Dr. Chutney. Maybe you’ve heard of him – Dr. Ransom Chutney. He’s the strong, silent type. He often uses his eyebrows to browbeat the nurses. A real terror. Some of us think he is suffering from a secret sorrow. Let me introduce you to him. You’ll find him fascinating – if I can get him to open up.”
“Dr. Chutney, could you speak with us for a minute? I would like to introduce you to our new nurse.”
Dr. Chutney, who had not seen them approach, started as though shot, but regained his composure quickly and turned around.
“Dr. Chutney, this is Sarah Samuels, who will be in pediatrics. Sarah, this is Dr. Chutney, our Chief of Surgery.”
As Sarah gazed upon Dr. Chutney’s full visage, bells went off. She was utterly stunned by his dark, handsome masculinity. He was the spitting image of Mel Gibson, Hugh Grant, and Brad Pitt, depending on which mood he chose to be in. His mood changed several times while he stood there with them. It was as though he were Mt. Rushmore being swept by the seasons.
“How do you do, nurse Samuels? I hope you will like it here at General.”
Sarah regained her voice. “Yippee! I think I’ll like this place just – that is, I hope – I’m sure I will have a satisfactory adjustment here, Dr. Chutney. Nurse Dunn has been showing me around. I’m so excited that I shall at last be able to put the noble ideals I learned at school to work for the betterment of humankind.”
She noticed a sudden change sweep over the noble young doctor (for so she sensed him to be). He darkened visibly. “Yes. Noble ideals, noble ideals . . .” he murmured for several minutes.
Suddenly he came to himself. “Yes, nurse Samuels, noble ideals. Never forget them. Always live by them. I’m sure they will serve you in good stead.” He spoke with an odd intensity, as if his own ideals not only guided but also hounded him in some way. It was all such a mystery.
They bid each other goodbye, but as Sarah left, words could not express the strange, almost wonderful, emotions that coursed though her veins. Who was this man who had suddenly made her heart to pitty-pat in a drum solo? What did she know about him? What had he murmured about ideals? Why did he give the impression of being a driven, almost desperate, man? She could not say.
And so the mystery had become ever more of a preoccupation as the months gone by. She simply could not fathom Dr. Chutney’s behavior. At times he seemed almost suicidal. Once she caught him actually holding a scalpel to his throat, but he had gotten out of the situation by saying he was shaving. Another time she found him floating face down in the whirlpool. When she had revived him, he had said that he had “slipped.” And so it went, until the day she found a note in her mailbox. It read: Dear Sarah, I can’t stand it anymore. If you will come to a little informal gathering I’m having this evening, I will tell you all. I need your help. Desperately yours, Ransom Chutney, MD.
Her eyes bulged. So at last she was to know. She felt like flying, or at least like leaping a tall building with a single bound. He was going to take her into his confidence! She literally floated through the rest of that day. And now she lay on her bed, reflecting over the recent past. What would she find tonight? Would it be love? Or only More Mystery?
* * *
With the song “Tonight, Tonight” from West Side Story running though her head, Sarah rang Dr. Chutney’s doorbell. She had never seen his place before. —Not a bad looking pad, she thought, as she stepped back to admire the Greco-roman terra cotta frieze that bordered the driveway.
A butler opened the door. “Please come in, Miss Samuels. Dr. Chutney is expecting you. You will find the party on the patio, drinking. My name is Mackintosh. Could I get you something?”
Sarah hesitated. —How could she let him know she didn’t drink? “Why no, thank you, I don’t drink while I’m off-duty.”
She found the guests all cozily ensconced on the patio. There was an air of festivity about the gathering, but there was a note of uneasiness, too. She wondered if the others sensed the meaning of Dr. Chutney’s troubles. Was he going to confide in them, also? She decided to mingle with the gaily-strewn, Chinese lanterns and see if she could find out more of what was going on.
She had not mingled more than a moment when she realized there was something strange, all right. Where was Dr. Chutney? He was not on the patio. She sidled over to the patio doors and looked into the house itself.
At first, she couldn’t see anything. Then as her eyes become adjusted to the light, she noticed the solitary figure of the Chief of Surgery standing by the fireplace. She went in and stood beside him in a moment of silent vitality. Their eyes met, and for several sacred seconds they stared at one another – until their eyes watered. Finally, they averted their gaze and stared at the fireplace, which was unlit but interesting.
Sarah agonized in Dr. Chutney’s presence. He seemed so near, yet so far away. What she could do to break the spell she didn’t know. Then the phone rang.
Mackintosh answered it, and as he did so, his countenance changed. He hurried to his master’s side, and as he whispered in the doctor’s ear, she saw Ransom’s face go white. As she glanced down to be sure she wasn’t standing on his foot, she heard him croak in a whisper, “Yes, tell him to come over. It can’t be avoided any longer. His condition has reached a crisis. Tell him – midnight.”
As the butler returned to the phone, Sarah saw Dr. Chutney pass both hands over his face. He was dripping wet and trembling. She could stand it no longer. Deciding that the direct approach was best, she took both of his hands in her own and in her tenderest voice said, “Dr. Chutney, dear, sweet, Dr. Chutney, won’t you tell me what is the matter? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
Dr. Chutney allowed himself to be drawn away from the view of the patio doors, and they sat down together on a Love Seat. After a moment’s struggle, during which Dr. Chutney seemed to throw caution to the wind, he said, “I have seen a ghost, Sarah. My own! It is the ghost of a dreadful mistake I made that has haunted me relentlessly for some time now. I have committed a blunder, a surgical blunder, Miss Samuels. Yes – and now it has come back to haunt me! But before I go further with my confession, dear little one – for it is a confession I’m making – you must promise to help me.”
His voice rose. “You must promise to redeem me and my career from utter ruin!”
“But how can I do that, Rance? I don’t see–”
“It’s this way, Sarah – such a lovely name – such a dear, adorable name – that was Everett Buncombe on the phone. He was a former patient of mine and is soon to be again, although he doesn’t know it yet. Because the fact is, the truth is, he has never been quite well since I operated on him some months ago. Indeed, he’s been quite ill since that time, and it’s been puzzling him very much. He comes to me regularly with complaints, but I’ve been putting him off. You see, the truth is, Sarah, I know perfectly well what his problem is, but I can’t do anything about it. It’s been maddening. Now something simply must be done!”
Sarah’s head swirled with confusion. What could he be talking about?
But without giving her a chance to gather her thoughts, Dr. Chutney rushed on. His next words came almost as a convulsion: “Buncombe is not getting well because– because I–I left his stomach stapled shut when I operated on his ulcer. He’s got a backlog of food debris that is awful. Sarah – don’t look at me that way. Sarah–!”
Sarah was visibly shaken. She had always thought she could stand up to anything, but to find out that surgeons ever made such humdingers was almost too much. She looked into Dr. Chutney’s pleading eyes. As she did she did so, she nearly panicked, for she saw both love and torment there. Her heart went out to the young idiot.
Dr. Chutney was down on his knees as he burst forth again, “You’ve got to help me. I must operate again, before it is too late. Tonight! Will you help me? Say you will!”
Sarah thought feverishly. Could she return the love of this man? Wasn’t he an incompetent? She wondered. And then she wondered that she wondered; for after all, he was so compelling, so helpless, so handsome, so solemn, and so vulnerable. “Oh, Dr. Chutney – Rance. Don’t look at me that way! You’ll break my heart!”
“Sarah, don’t turn your face away!” he said commandingly, a new note of resolve in his voice. “Look at me. You can see that I love you, that I need you. Can you forgive a poor, but modestly wealthy, fool? I ask you again. Will you help me tonight?”
Sarah got up off of the Love Seat and stood for a moment in silent agony. Finally, she responded to his pleading. Her reserve collapsed like the melting of a great iceberg. “God help me!” she breathed. “I will!”
After the guests had all departed – ushered out by the butler well before midnight – all was in preparation. Then midnight came. As Mackintosh took old Buncombe’s coat and hat, the butler slugged the old man with a lead paperweight, rendering him senseless. Then the conspirators all gathered around and carried him to the kitchen, where the operation began immediately.
Sometime toward morning it was all over. Sarah asked breathlessly, “Will he be all right? Will he live? He’s lost so much blood, Rance.”
“Yes, he’ll be all right. His hematoma count is rising; that’s a good sign. And now with this new wonder drug I’m going to give him, he’ll never remember this happened at all – in fact, he might lose his memory altogether.” Dr. Chutney’s eyes brightened at the thought.
“But won’t he notice he’s been reoperated on? I don’t understand. How can we get away with this? The paring knives–ugh! It’s madness!”
“No, it isn’t. Listen! While he is under the influence of P-202, I will give him a postoperative suggestion – and he won’t remember anything that’s happened. Sarah, oh Sarah, you’ve been such a brick through all of this. Let’s get married and have three kids; two boys and a girl, and settle down.”
“Yes, Rance, I accept. Two girls and a boy would be fine, if we could have maybe a small dog and a canary.”
They clung to each other in a shy but vigorous embrace while Dr. Chutney, with his free arm, continued to pump the supine, insensible Everett Buncombe ever more full of P-202. Imagine the scene–dear reader!–and join with me in an earnest prayer for their happiness. May all of their dreams come true!
The C. S. Lewis Reading and Study Project
Posted by Stephen Hines on July 3rd, 2008 filed in Uncategorized1 Comment »
I once said (to myself) that if C. S. Lewis hadn’t lived God would have had to have invented him. No other thoughtful writer on Christian topics exceeded his influence in the twentieth century, and no one “succeeds” him now either.
Thus it is that I propose that some ambitious and determined soul start a society for the promulgation and study of C. S. Lewis’s thought not only through Lewis’s own writings but also through the writings of those who most influenced Lewis and can be said to have shaped his worldview.
Such writers would include but not be limited to: Father Walter Adams (his confessor), Dante Alighieri, Augustine, Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, George Berkley, Brother Lawrence, G. K. Chesterton, William Cowper, Thomas a Kempis, Andrew Lange, William Law, George MacDonald, Cardinal John Newman, Blaise Pascal, Sir William Temple, and many others.
Such a proposal would most likely work if cooperation could be gained from someone such as Armand Nicholi. Dr. Nicholi is the Harvard Professor of Psychiatry who is the author of the book The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life. Dr. Nicholi’s credentials are such that he could provide the media avenue through which such a series of books could come before the attention of a reading public that has tended, in the past, to rely on feelings rather than thinking when dealing with matters of faith.
Another source for support for such a project of books and discussion might be the C. S. Lewis Foundation. Its faculty forum has been an encouragement to academics for a number of years.
Such a reading and discussion program would be a major help to the Christian church in growing the healthy Christian person.
The Wives of the Apostles
Posted by Stephen Hines on June 12th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedComment now »
Recently, I rewatched the old movie “Ben Hur” on video. Whether or not you like Charlton Heston’s chew-up-the-scenery acting, the story itself is quite entertaining. Almost, but not always, faithful to the book. What with treatments of biblically themed fiction like The Robe and The Big Fisherman by Lloyd C. Douglas, you would think more people would have successfully mined this genre than have done so.
Particularly when there is one subject area that has been glaringly overlooked by both evangelical and nonevangelical writers alike. I am referring to the fascinating subject of what life must have been like for the wives of the apostles. There is but one solid reference to their existence by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, where he says: “Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?”
What about these “believing wives” and did they all believe? Paul, as a Pharisee might well have been married; yet he never refers to a wife, though one might well have left him since he would have been considered an apostate from her own religion of traditional Judaism.
Such a series as Wives of the Apostles would offer many avenues of exploration. How did each wife come to faith? Surely some of them must have been skeptical or even resistant at first. Did a number of them stay at home while their husbands traveled, as is often the case with the evangelists who still go out today? And why do we hear nothing of the children of the apostles? History is completely silent on this subject, and therefore offers a rich field for fictional speculation.
But back to the wives. Did any of them develop ministries of their own? It is certainly possible, and they may have been instrumental in establishing the office of deaconess for the early church. How did they handle such issues as submission to their husbands? The fear and loneliness of travel in strange lands? And how did they react as each of their husbands was martyred for his faith?
It amazes me that these women’s lives have not been treated before in historical fiction. Here is a case of a project just waiting to be put on paper.
Using Author Anniversaries for Financial Gain
Posted by Stephen Hines on May 30th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedComment now »
Last year was the 200th anniversary of the birth of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Frankly, it didn’t amount to much on the literary or publishing scene. However, this “failure” may prove the truth that anniversaries are a good opportunity to revive an author’s work; but the real question is, can the author be revived? An anniversary alone may not be enough to create the publicity and reader interest to bring someone or some book forth from the grave.
On the other hand, an anniversary can be used to remind us of the half-forgotten “old-favorite” author that needlessly went out of demand. We suddenly remember that Daisy Ashford is a great read, but where are her books: at Powells.Com or AbeBooks.Com? Maybe, maybe not.
In 2007, I used the fact that the year was the 140th anniversary of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birth and the 50th anniversary of her death to argue that the time was ripe for a complete collection of all her writings from the Missouri Ruralist newspaper. Whether or not it helped the University of Missouri Press to make up their minds about the book I don’t know. But I don’t think it hurt my presentation, and the book, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist, is doing well.
So, do whatever it takes to find out about the anniversaries of your favorite authors. Maybe they’ve been neglected or under appreciated, and you can begin a revival of interest. Personally, I don’t think it was any coincidence that the modern revival of appreciation for Moby Dick began about the time of the 100th anniversary of Herman Melville’s birth.
Buy that literary calendar, take note of anniversaries–and happy hunting to you!
From Girl to Woman with Trouble Along the Way
Posted by Stephen Hines on May 20th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedComment now »
From Girl to Woman with Trouble Along the Way
Or When Mom and Dad Decide to Make You a Star
Well, it started before Britney Spears ever came along, but she may be the prime example of what I call White Slavery: The Hollywood Story. The characters in this story change, but the basic plot does not vary much.
Here’s how this media driven narrative works. Take a pair of parents, or at least one ambitious parent and one talented or at least attractive young teen girl, and get her a gig on a TV show. Or, better, if she can sing and dance, get her a recording deal where the corporation becomes something close to a sponsoring pimp.
As the young teen star, rises through pubescence to womanhood, make all the money you can out of her as a Squeaky Clean Teen, an idol for millions of clean, and not so clean, teens to admire and buy products from. Then about the time the Teenage Thing wears out, make her a young sex goddess, with an already well-developed following.
This would seem a safe route to millions of dollars for the teen star, but the pressure of being always before the public, always trying to please Mom and Dad–who probably say they are doing this for You–and the pressure to please the big corporate sponsor seems to steal a certain amount of childhood/teenhood away; and at least some individuals who undergo the process turn into freaks, or they freak out.
Actress Kirsten Dunst has said that about the time she turned sixteen photographers were after her to bare her breasts, at least let them sneak a peek; and Drew Barrymore has made it plain that getting drugs at an early age was no big problem.
Yet with Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan in a semi-permanent state of rehab, the process continues unabated. Nobody ever seems to pick up on the dangers inherent in the system.
Miley Cyrus and her parents say they did know the camera was loaded when she posed for her naked back picture in Vogue. Disney claims concern, but we are talking about the new Disney, the corporate Disney, not the old Walt Disney Productions, where “Uncle Walt” advised a young Annette Funicello to keep her clothes on and her image clean.
If this process is a form of sexploitation, as I expect it is, we the public don’t seem to mind that much: We get a tremendous amount of entertainment not just out of these young women’s performances but also out of their misdeeds, reported in every tabloid at the grocer’s checkout stand. This is a huge business–pimping your daughter–make no mistake about it.
The examination of this process and what it says about us as a bored society in need of titillation would make a good book.
But, then, whoever wrote it might just be another exploiter too. High class pimping on all sides—a media pastime.
The Last White Man
Posted by Stephen Hines on May 14th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedComment now »
Anyone wanting to explore or write about this topic should have his or her head examined, but since the number of writers who do fit this category is large, let me explain “The Last White Man.”
Sometime back, while doing research on something else, I ran across that fact that there appears to be a bit of a racial divide in terms of sports achievement—in certain sports: namely, football, basketball, and sprinting. This performance disparity is hardly news, especially in football; but no one wants to take up a topic that, say, points out there hasn’t been a white running back to lead the NFL in rushing since Jim Taylor did it for Green Bay back in 1962. 1962!
A person who could not see possibilities in this topic—and dangers—“could not see the sun at high noon on a cloudless day.”
What to make of it? Beats me. Who was the last white guy to lead the NBA in scoring? No, it was not Larry Bird. Good guess, though. It was Pete Maravich way back in 1976-’77.
As for sprinting (and we are coming up on the Olympics) the Great White Sprinter is rarer than the Great White Shark. And as for the marathon, which is another race altogether, the fleet of foot have been eating Kenyan dust for decades.
So, there it is. Who’s got the nerve; who’s the sports nerd who will eat this topic up or get eaten up by it?
DANGER! But, oh, the talk shows should love it. And it is not as though race and ability are not being talked about. Barack and Hillary can hardly avoid the issue, nor can those in the sports world, where stereotyping is still an enormous problem.
The Little Minister
Posted by Stephen Hines on May 8th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedComment now »
The Little Minister
James M. Barrie, the playwright and author of Peter Pan, wrote this novel in 1891, and the book is now in the public domain in the United States.
It’s a wonderful story about a Scottish minister who falls in love with an impudent gypsy woman named Babbie. Complications ensue; let’s put it that way. But the greatest complication that hinders this book’s acceptance and appreciation is that the Scottish dialect is truly difficult to read.
Liz Curtis Higgs, who writes about things Scottish and has best-selling books of her own, feels that someone with a good Scottish dictionary could greatly improve this book for the modern reader. She is right. Still, the task remains undone.
It’s no good that the book is online at Gutenberg.com or that other people appreciate it; without revision this book has no chance for a wider audience; and it’s just waiting for someone to revise it.
If a prospector is going to revise this work, he or she could obtain an old copy, published before 1923, through interlibrary loan. This service of major libraries will send out an order, and you will get a loaner copy of the book in a matter of a few days. What you do from there is up to you, but be prepared for some jaw-breaking dialect! Hoot, Man, it’s worth the effort!
Victory Garden
Posted by Stephen Hines on May 1st, 2008 filed in Uncategorized1 Comment »
With the coming of the recent economic downturn–depression, recession, whatever it is–has come the need for people everywhere to economize. Obviously, here is an opportunity for books on economizing. You can get some great ideas on the subject from the government’s perspective by searching gpo.gov and ed.gov/pubs/index.html–or you can reach even further back to the old idea of “victory gardens” from WW II pamphets.
In order to save food for the use of servicemen, American patriots were asked to grow some of their own food; and the government issued instructions on how to do so in the form of victory garden pamphlets. The key merchandising and marketing phrase is “victory garden,” because, in a way, we are again at war. As a result of screamingly high gas prices, we need to reduce our consumption or increase our supply of what we need.
The need for food is not going away, so that is where the old concept of victory gardens comes in. A simple book derived from these old government booklets might find a brand new audience as the general public awakens to higher prices for practically all foods.
Someone will no doubt come along and explain why the price of everything is going up, but people will want solutions and that is where your book, derived from the old concept of victory gardens will fit in. Look on the Internet or in historic government repositories or even on e-Bay to find your source material, and then revise what needs updating. It’s an idea you can use–and the time is ripe and the topic is hot!