Saturday, July 31, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Died too soon, needed now more than ever....
A brief mention by Edith Wharton in her autobiography "A Backward Glance" introduced me to the novelist and muckraker "David Graham Phillips. Mrs Wharton had mentioned "Susan Lenox, Her Fall and Rise" as a very fine work and I followed her opinion.
How right she was. I read it immediately ( along with all his other titles) It's a piece of work that's always stayed with me and pokes up in my psyche every now and then in the most interesting of situations.
David Graham Philips is perhaps best known for producing one of the most important investigations exposing details of the corruption by big businesses of the Senate, in particular, by the Standard Oil Company. His article in Cosmopolitan in March 1906, called "The Treason of the Senate", exposed campaign contributors being rewarded by certain members of the U. S. Senate. The story launched a scathing attack on Rhode Island senator Nelson W. Aldrich, and brought Phillips a great deal of national exposure. This and other similar articles helped lead to the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, initiating popular instead of state-legislature election of U. S. senators.
His own true story was no less interesting than his writing. Considered a progressive, a muckraker, a dandy and a ladies man, Phillips' reputation cost him his life in January 1911, when he was shot outside the Princeton Club at Gramercy Park in New York City. The killer was a Harvard-educated musician named Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, who came from a prominent Philadelphia family. Goldsborough believed that Phillips' novel The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig had cast literary aspersions on his family. (It has also been purported that Phillips was having an affair with Mrs Goldsborough, thus causing the shooting from jealous rage)
When confronting Phillips, Goldsborough yelled, "Here you go!" After Phillips collapsed, he yelled, "And here I go!", shooting himself in the head. Admitted to Bellevue Hospital, Phillips died there a day later.
Following Phillips' death, his sister Carolyn organized his final manuscript for posthumous publication as "Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise". In 1931, that book would be made into an MGM motion picture of the same name and starring Greta Garbo and Clark Gable.
The Madona Shrine
I grew up In east Boston, Orient Heights,to be exact. NOT a lot going on there. Back then it was basically an Italian-American neighborhood separated from the city by water and bounded on one side by the airport(Thanks Logan for all my current hearing problems)
One nice, and unusual point of interest was, and still is, The Madonna Shrine. A 35 foot statue of the original Madonna, (NO NOT THE POP ICON) surrounded by a large brick plaza which doubled as an outdoor chapel.
And offers very nice views of the neighborhood as well as the airport. Yes you can see the particular three decker I grew up in down there. Many a time I wandered up here, making use f the plaza to stage as a castle, fort, tower or spaceship. I was a bored well read child with an active imagination. the views of the airport beyond only further fueled my dreams of getting the hell out of Dodge.
And yet lately, I've been thinking of the old neighborhood with a lot more nostalgia and affection. maybe I'm just getting older and sappy...
Here's a little history, or herstory as the case may be, from the Shrine's site:
The 35-foot-high statue of the Blessed Mother was created by Italian-Jewish sculptor Arrigo Minerbi — free of charge. He had escaped Nazi persecution thanks to the protection of the Don Orione Fathers in Milan, and this statue was his way of thanking them. It stands across the street from the Don-Orione Retirement Home.
So the next time you're visiting Boston and a little fed up with the over touristy-ness of Fanuel Hall take a little side trip across the bay to Eastie and visit the old gal, she'd love to see you!
How I spent my Saturday mornings way back when...
And what I wouldn't give to spend a a Saturday morning in my pajamas sprawled on the living room floor eating fruit loops and hanging with my bother again! Hey hey hey! Gonna have a good time!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Spiders that crawl...and bats that fly...
....Silence my tongue if I'm telling a lie...Witches Honor!!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
I Have to do it the Hard Way
When someone like Hedy Lamarr
Steps into the swankiest bar,
All the fellas get up
Light her cigarette up.
Me, I'd have to smoke a cigar.
And then they call me a car.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Indicate choice (6+, 7+, 8+ 9+)
Yeah right. How much do you want to bet there's a warehouse bin chock full of 6+ medallions somewhere in Cooper Station....
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Still in it.
Having just landed my current library job after over a year of unemployment, the college I am now working for is announcing new lay offs. Lordy! Lordy! Lordy! How long will this rain of crap continue????
