Tuesday

Oct. 23, 2012


Little White Truck

by Jessica Greenbaum

Because the white truck traveling the span of the Williamsburg Bridge
could be the white fastener traveling the top of a ziplock bag,
the East River and tugs might be contained without spilling
in today's October light, along with this new spray of trees and
picnic tables which appeared when the industrial tide of Williamsburg
went out. If these could be contained, then likewise the two cyclists,
now dismounted and steadying their bikes as they kiss, and surely
it could hold the music they heard last night eddying again
around their thoughts, and the memory of their first idea of the future
loosed when he held her in a doorway lit by cobwebs of spring rain.

"Little White Truck" by Jessica Greenbaum, from The Two Yvonnes: Poems. © Princeton University Press, 2012. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

It's the birthday of poet Robert Bridges (books by this author), born in Walmer, England (1844). He wanted to be a poet from the time he was young, but he decided that the sensible thing to do was to become a doctor and work at that until he was 40, and then spend his retirement writing. Instead, he retired at the age of 37 after a struggle with pneumonia and a lung disorder. He moved with his mother to a village in the Berkshires, where he met and married Monica Waterhouse, the daughter of a famous architect. Bridges began to publish poems, but he remained relatively obscure, even after he was made poet laureate in 1913. In 1929, he published The Testament of Beauty (1929), and it was wildly popular, selling tens of thousands of copies. He died six months later.

Bridges wrote in "I Love All Beauteous Things":
I love all beauteous things,
I seek and adore them;
God hath no better praise,
And man in his hasty days
Is honored for them.

It's the birthday of another doctor-cum-writer, Michael Crichton (books by this author), born in Chicago (1942). His novels include The Andromeda Strain (1969), Jurassic Park (1990), Disclosure (1994), and Next (2006). Crichton died in 2008 from complications of throat cancer.

He said, "I am certain there is too much certainty in the world."

It's the birthday of director Ang Lee, born in Chaojhou, Taiwan (1954). He failed the university entrance exam in Taiwan; he retook it and failed again. So he went to a three-year art college, which was a huge embarrassment for his family, especially his father. His father was the principal of one of the best high schools in Taiwan, and he believed in traditional education, rooted in the classics. Things got even worse when Lee was walking home from a play rehearsal in the rain one night and realized that art school was not just a way to fill the time — he wanted to be an artist. He said, "I felt this chill in my bones. I was lifted."

Lee went to the University of Illinois to study theater. He still wasn't fluent in English, so he decided to apply for graduate school in film, because he thought the language barrier would be less intense in film than in theater. After graduate school, he moved back to Taiwan, and he was able to make his first movies with help from the Taiwanese government.

His first Hollywood movie was his fourth film — it was an adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1995). He said: "I could hardly finish a fluent sentence in English. And this was Jane Austen, with a top-of-the-line English cast and crew. How did I do that? It's hard to explain. But that gave me faith in moviemaking, that it's a universal experience. It can penetrate cultural barriers, language barriers. There's something universal about sight and sound. It made me feel anything was doable. And like I belonged."

Lee has directed many films since then, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Hulk (2003), and Brokeback Mountain (2005). His newest film, Life of Pi, will be released next month.

It's the birthday of the satirist Alfred Matthew Yankovic, better known as "Weird Al" Yankovic, born in Downey, California (1959). Weird Al has made more than 10 studio albums, featuring original songs and parodies of hit singles, such as Madonna's "Like a Virgin," which he turned into "Like A Surgeon":

I finally made it through med school
Somehow I made it through
I'm just an intern
I still make a mistake or two

I was last in my class
Barely passed at the institute
Now I'm trying to avoid, yah I'm trying to avoid
A malpractice suit

Hey, like a surgeon
Cuttin' for the very first time
Like a surgeon
Organ transplants are my line

"American Pie," by Don McLean, became a parody about Star Wars, called "The Saga Begins":

Well, I know he built C-3PO
And I've heard how fast his pod can go
And we were broke, it's true
So we made a wager or two
He was a prepubescent flyin' ace
And the minute Jabba started off that race
Well, I knew who would win first place
Oh yes, it was our boy

We started singin' ...
My my this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"
"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

«

»

  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
  • “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
  • “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
  • “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
  • “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
Current Faves - Learn more about poets featured frequently on the show