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| Self Portrait ~ Time Flies ~ Frida Kahlo
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Looking through some old reading journals,
I recently came across this line from 1981:
"So many things to read!
Or, as my dear, wise friend Diane says,
'Oh time where are you?' "
Thanks to my readerly friends who sent me the following
selections, life stories from various times and places,
which have enriched the first quarter of 2021:
Shuggie Bain (2020)
by Douglas Stuart (b 1976)
" . . . every single one of her children was as observant and wary as a prison warden" (51).
"Now, as the taxi pulled out into the main road, Agnes made a show of looking back and waving mournfully through the rear window with a long, heavy blink. She thought it was a cinematic touch, like she was the star of her own matinee" (90).
" 'Why the f--k did you bring me here?'
'I had to see.'
'Had to see what? . . . I thought this is what you wanted.'
'I had to see if you would actually come.'
She had loved him, and he had needed to break her completely to leave her for good" (110).
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)
by Trevor Noah (b 1984)
" . . . Hitler is not the worst thing a black South African can imagine. Every country thinks their history is the most important, and that’s especially true in the West. But if black South Africans could go back in time and kill one person, Cecil Rhodes would come up before Hitler. If people in the Congo could go back in time and kill one person, Belgium’s King Leopold would come way before Hitler. If Native Americans could go back in time and kill one person, it would probably be Christopher Columbus or Andrew Jackson.
"I often meet people in the West who insist that the Holocaust was the worst atrocity in human history, without question. Yes, it was horrific. But I often wonder, with African atrocities like in the Congo, how horrific were they? The thing Africans don't have that the Jewish people do have is documentation. The Nazis kept meticulous records, took pictures, made films. And that's really what it comes down to. Holocaust victims count because Hitler counted them. Six million people killed. We can all look at that number and rightly be horrified. But when you read through the history of atrocities against Africans, there are no numbers, only guesses. It's harder to be horrified by a guess. When Portugal and Belgium were plundering Angola and the Congo, they weren't counting the black people they slaughtered. How many black people died harvesting rubber in the Congo? In the gold and diamond mines of the Transvaal?
"So in Europe and America, yes, Hitler is the Greatest Madman in History. In Africa he's just another strongman from the history books . . . (195 - 96).
George S. Kaufman [1889 - 1961]: An Intimate Portrait (1972)
by Howard Teichmann (1916 - 1987)
"Edna said she's rather work with George than anyone else . . . Later in their collaboration Miss Ferber acquired a country house, and for a while they worked there. Frequently, however, an impatient buzzer would sound; Edna would excuse herself and leave the room. A few minutes later, she'd return, work would resume, and then the buzzer would sound again.
"Infuriated by these interruptions, George demanded an explanation. 'Well, here in the country, help is so hard to get that I don't ring for the servants,' she said. 'When they want something, they send for me.'
"'They're acting like actors, Edna,' he bristled. 'Pretty soon they'll want their names above the title of this play'" (89).
"'Edna,' he once said, 'reminds me of a Confederate general. And I'm from Pittsburgh'" (90).
"Another time, when things weren't going too well with Strike Up the Band, Ira Gershwin saw two elegant Edwardian - looking gentlemen buying tickets at the box office.
"'That must be Gilbert and Sullivan coming to fix the show,' Gershwin quipped.
"'Why don't you put jokes like that in your lyrics?' Kaufman countered" (108).
"'You've heard of people living in a fool's paradise?' Kaufman inquired. 'Well, Leonora has a duplex there'" (125).
Five People in Heaven (2003)
by Mitch Albom (b 1958)
"Learn this from me. Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from the inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves. . . . You need to forgive" (141 - 42).
