PASTIME
Published by
GP Putnam's Sons
1991
From the dust jacket of the hardcover:
After the stellar success of Stardust, Robert B. Parker's sleuth
Spenser returns in a bittersweet thriller mixing memory, desire--and
danger.
The sequel to his acclaimed Early Autumn, Robert B. Parker's Pastime
tells a constantly surprising tale of past crimes and present perils.
Ten years ago, Paul Giacomin's corrupt father and loose mother used the
boy as a pawn in their violent divorce; only Spenser could call them off
and straighten out the troubled teen--almost getting killed in the
process.
Now Paul is twenty-five, and reconciled to his mother's wanton ways. But
when Patty Giacomin vanishes, Paul begs Spenser to help him rescue her
from the clutches of her boyfriend, a shady character who, he's sure,
coerced her into running off. As Spenser--accompanied by Paul, Susan
Silverman, and the redoubtable Hawk--follows Patty's trail to its
astonishing conclusion, he is led back, through Paul's own rites of
passage, along the lanes of his own memories. The boy Spenser was and
the man Paul must become race toward a confrontation that may break
their hearts--and threaten their lives....
Fast-paced and complex in emotion and suspense, Pastime is Parker and
Spenser at their most revealing and resonant.
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SPENSARIUM'S APHORISMS AND ALLUSIONS
"Never knew somebody knew more stuff that didn't matter."
Hawk to Spenser in Chapter 29 of Taming a Seahose
Dedication
"For my wife and sons--sine qua non"
sine qua non: \sin-ih-kwah-NON; -NOHN; sy-nih-kway-\, noun:
An essential condition or element; an indispensable thing; an absolute prerequisite.
Chapter 2
"She looked alot like Hedy Lamarr..."
Hedy Lamarr (1913-2000)
"The Beauty and the Brain"
Commonly referred to as the most beautiful woman in film,
Hedy Lamarr first gained noteriety when she shocked European society with a ten minute
nude swimming scene in the 1933 Austrian-Czech film Ecstasy (still
appearing in the credits as Hedy Kiesler). The attractive and highly
intelligent Lamarr, made her last film in 1958. Lamarr got her new
marquee name from MGM's Louis B. Mayer in remembrance of the beautiful
silent-film star Barbara La Marr, who had died of a drug overdose in
1926. Of particular interest is a portion of her off-screen life. Hedy
Lamarr shares the title to a 1942 patent, under her then legal name Hedy
Kiesler Markey, for a "secret communication system" intended for use as
a radio guidance device for U.S. torpedoes. Along with her co-inventor
and avant-garde musician George Antheil (1900-1959), Lamarr came up with
the idea of "frequency hopping" to quickly shift the radio signals of
control devices, making them invulnerable to radio interference or
jamming, a feat of technological prowess that was only formally
acknowledged by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in March 1997,
somewhat belatedly for Mr. Antheil, who died in 1959. But for the
83-year-old Lamarr, then a Florida retiree, "It was about time." This
invention eventually resulted in the development of the cell phone.
After peaking in the 1940s, the film career of "the most beautiful girl
in the world" and popular pinup model during the war started to decline,
partly because of some of her own decisions about the roles she would
take. For example, she turned down roles in Gaslight and Casablanca that
were later filled by Ingrid Bergman. Despite an occasional plum role,
such as her strong performance in The Strange Woman (1946) and her
sultry portrayal of Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah
(1949), Lamarr found herself in increasingly weaker films. The scandal
of her frequent trips to Reno didn't help matters, and an attempt to
revive her career in Italy in the early 1950s proved less than
successful. Her cinematic swan song was in 1958 in The Female Animal, a
movie that few critics rate very highly. Her part in Slaughter on 10th
Avenue a year earlier had ended up on the cutting room floor.
Quote: "Any girl can be glamorous.
All you have to do is stand still
and look stupid." - Hedy Lamarr
Chapter 3
"That brown liquor, which not women, not boys and children, but only hunters drank."
William Faulkner (1897-1962)
Short Story: The Bear
Faulkner's The Bear was originally published in 1942, both as a separate
short story in The Saturday Evening Post (without the fourth section)
and as one of the seven stories that compose the novel Go Down, Moses.
The first section begins, "There was a man and a dog too this time."
"This time" is 1883 and the main character is sixteen. The action will
move both backwards and forwards in time: noting the age of the
protagonist will help you keep track of when events are taking place.
Try making notes in the margins when time shifts. Some of the characters
and events mentioned go back in time to the founding of this particular
part of the world, Faulkner's imaginary county called Yoknapatawpha,
when the land w as sold by a Chicasaw chief, Ikkemotubbe, to Thomas
Sutpen.
The protagonist is usually just referred to as "he" or "the boy": when
you see the pronoun given as if you are expected to know who it belongs
to, you can probably assume it belongs to him, Isaac (Ike) McCaslin.
Ike's father is Theophilus McCaslin (Uncle Buck) who lived from
1799-1879. He and his twin, Uncle Buddy, are slaveowners. Cousin
McCaslin is McCaslin (Cass) Edmonds.
Sam Fathers' ancestors are Chicasaw, African American, and white. That
means that in the social order he must live as a Negro. After the last
surviving full-blooded Chickasaw dies, Sam Fathers goes out to live in
the woods.
Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. William
Faulkner was not particularly well-suited to public speaking. His short
stature, his shy demeanor, quiet voice and deep Southern dialect all
were factors which made it difficult at times for listeners to
understand, or even to hear, what he was saying. Nevertheless, he
sometimes struck gold, as his 1950 Nobel Prize speech demonstrates. A
reluctant prize recipient, who tried to find good cause not to go to
Sweden to accept the award, and a terrified speaker, his speech was
initially unintelligible to those in attendance. It was only the next
day, when the words of his speech were printed in the newspaper, that
commentators would recognize the quality of his speech.
Quote: "I decline to accept the end of man."
William Faulkner: Nobel Prize Speech
Stockholm, Sweden
December 10, 1950
Chapter 4
"Every Patriot's Day there was a big parade...""
The shot heard 'round the world continues to reverbate.
Each April, Massachusetts and Maine celebrate Patriots Day in honor of the battles
and skirmishes that began our fight for independence.
On Patriots Day, troops of Minutemen assemble at dawn in Concord and surrounding towns
to recreate the "line of march" to the Old North Bridge, Emerson's "rude bridge,"
where they face off in a gunbattle with a troop of Redcoats.
Technically, the events commemorated on April 19 or thereabouts actually
started the night before, around 10 p.m., to be exact. That's when that
famous light was set in Boston's Old North Church to signal to Paul
Revere and others that the British were on the move to capture an arms
cache in Concord, some 15 miles to the west.
At the center of much of the mythology surrounding Patriots Day, of
course, is Paul Revere who was immortalized by the Longfellow poem
(you know: "Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride
of Paul Revere ..."). I'm surprises Spenser missed this opportunity.
Chapter 5
"We agree that she's not Mother Courage," I said.
Mother Courage and Her Children, perhaps Bertolt Brecht's best-known
play after The Threepenny Opera, has already become a classic in the
repertory of the English-speaking theater. Written in response to the
outbreak of World War II, this "chronicle play" of the Thirty Years War
follows one of Brecht's most enduring creations back and forth across
Europe selling provisions and liquor from her canteen wagon. One by one
her children are devoured by war, but she will not give up her
livelihood-the wagon. Written in German as Mutter Courage und ihre
Kinder: Eine Chronik aus dem Dreissigjahrigen Krieg, produced in 1941
and published in 1949. Composed of 12 scenes, the work is a chronicle
play of the Thirty Years' War and is based on the picaresque novel
Simplicissimus (1669) by Hans Jakob Grimmelshausen. In 1949 Brecht
staged Mother Courage, with music by Paul Dessau, in the Soviet sector
of Berlin.
CLICK HERE for more details on this play.
Chapter 6
"The stuff that dreams are made of, sweetheart."
Shakespeare once again meets Bogart here. The last line from "The Maltese Falcon,"
it is also from Act IV of Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
See Also: Valediction, Stardust, Paper Doll
Chapter 6
"ancestral voices prophesying war."
Poem: Kubla Kahn
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834)
CLICK HERE for the complete text.
Chapter 6
"Cathexis," Paul said.
Definition: cathexis
n : (psychoanalysis) the investment of emotional significance in an
activity, object, or idea. 2. the charge of psychic energy so invested.
"Freud thought of cathexis as a psychic analog of an electrical charge"
Chapter 6
...the Wayside, the Alcott House...
History tells us that in the mid 1670's the David How's family bought
the land of the present day Wayside Inn, and that David himself obtained
a license to operate an INN in 1716! This means the present inn is now
almost 300 years old - providing rest and refreshment to travelers more
than 50 years before the American Revolution! Although are still the
oldest operating inn in America, the dates 1686 & 1683 on the sign out
front are not accurate. We do not know who added them or why. Henry
David Thoreau reported in his journal in 1853 that the earliest date on
the signboard of the Inn when he stopped there was 1716. This date would
make sense since it was the year that the inn was first open as a
tavern. Perhaps one of the later owners, not knowing the full history of
the How ownership of the inn, added those dates. The Alcott House was
known as Orchid House of the Hillside. It was also called The Wayside by
Nathaniel Hawthorne. It remains as a National Historic Landmark lived in
by three American Literary figures: Louisa May Alcott, Margaret Sidney
and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, The
House of the Seven Gables, and the short story collections; Mosses from
an Old Manse and Twice-Told Tales lived here from 1852 until 1870 and
gave it the name by which it is still known. While The Wayside is best
known as the only home Hawthorne ever owned and the place where he wrote
his last works, it has also been the home of several noteworthy women.
The Wayside, called "Hillside" by the Alcott family, was one the
childhood homes of Louisa May Alcott, the author of the 1868 classic
Little Women. Louisa lived here with her parents and three sisters from
April 1845 to November 1848 during her early teenage years. The Wayside
barn, which today serves as a Visitor Center and exhibit area, was used
by the Alcott girls to stage the plays that were created when they lived
at "Hillside"; including "Roderigo" from Little Women.
CLICK HERE to visit the Wayside on the web
CLICK HERE to visit the Alcott House on the web
Chapter 7
...the rude bridge that arched the flood...
Poem: The Concord Hymn (1837)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We place with joy a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free, ‹
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.
In 1837, this hymn was sung to the tune "Old Hundredth" during the 4th of July celebration of the town of Concord, Massachusetts, for the dedication of the Obelisk, a battle monument commemorating the battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, erected near the North Bridge where the initial battle took place. By 1837 the bridge had been lost to a flood.
The first stanza is inscribed on the base of Daniel Chester French's Minute Man Statue.
Chapter 7
"A hard man is good to find..."
Quote: Mae West
See also: Sudden Mischief
Chapter 8
"Me and MacBeth," I said.
"Not of woman born," Susan said.
Actually it is from the Shakespearian play Macbeth but references the character of McDuff
in Act IV, scene 1 where it is said, "MacDuff was from his mother¹s womb untimely ripp¹d".
Macbeth is the foucs of the prophecy though, "none of woman born shall harm MacBeth."
Chapter 8
"And all ye need to know."
"Not of woman born," Susan said.
Poem: Ode to a Grecian Urn.
by John Keats
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
CLICK HERE for the complete text
Chapter 8
"The small rain down can rain"
Poem: The Lover in Winter Plaineth for the Spring
Anonymous, c.1530
"O Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
and I in my bed again!"
Paraphrased in:
Ceremony: 'The small rain still fell."
Walking Shadow: " And the small rain down does fall."
All Our Yesterdays: "And the small rain down does fall."
CLICK HERE for more on this poem.
Chapter 9
"The small rain down can rain"
Paraphrased: Documented in Dr. Thomas Fuller's (1654-1734) Gnomologic (aka Gnomologia) (1732).
The actual saying as it originated is:
"More Flies are taken with a Drop of Honey than a Tun of Vinegar"
CLICK HERE for more on this saying.
Chapter 8
"...like the kid in Shane"
Movie: Shane (1953)
Joey (Brandon de Wilde) and the dog watch the saloon brawl fight from
under the saloon doors. Shane is a timeless, classic western tale - a
very familiar and highly regarded seminal western and the most
successful Western of the 1950s. The film's rich color cinematography
captures the beautiful environment of the legendary frontier, filmed in
Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with its gray-blue Grand Tetons as a backdrop.
The screenplay was based on Jack Schaefer's successful 1949 book of the
same name. The film received six Academy Awards nominations: Best
Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Brandon de Wilde), Best Supporting Actor
(Jack Palance), Best Director, Best Screenplay (by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.),
and Best Color Cinematography, and won its sole Oscar award for
photographer Loyal Griggs. Unbelievably, star Alan Ladd in probably his
best known and realized performance was un-nominated.
CLICK HERE for more on the book.
CLICK HERE for Shane on DVD
CLICK HERE for Shane on Video
Chapter 8
"To me? Uncle Remus, Winnie the Pooh, Joseph Altischeler, John R. Tunis. Stuff like that.
Book: Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris
Uncle Remus was a
character in several books by Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) As an
apprentice to the editor of the Countryman, a newspaper published on a
Southern plantation, Harris gained firsthand knowledge of black slaves
and their folklore. His stories and sketches of the South were
originally published in the Atlanta Constitution, with which he was
associated from 1876 to 1900. Harris's first collection, Uncle Remus:
His Songs and His Sayings (1881), brought him immediate fame. Featuring
as their narrator a lovable, shrewd former slave, the Uncle Remus
authentic life, character, and dialect of Southern blacks. The demand
for his stories and sketches was so great that Harris followed with nine
more books in a similar vein, including The Tar Baby (1904) and Uncle
Remus and Br'er Rabbit.
Book: Winnie The Pooh by AA Milne
More than seventy years ago, readers were first introduced to Edward
Bear ‹ better known as Winnie-the-Pooh ‹ and his beloved companions.
Alan Alexander Milne was an English humorist who joined the staff of
the British satire pubication Punch, writing humorous verse and
whimsical essays in a style that quickly dated. He achieved considerable
success with a series of light comedies such as Mr. Pim Passes By (1921)
and Michael and Mary (1930). Milne also wrote one memorable detective
novel, The Red House Mystery (1922); and a children's play, Make-Believe
(1918), before stumbling upon his true literary métier with some verses
written for his son Christopher Robin. These grew into the collections
When We Were Very Young (1924) and Now We Are Six (1927). His most
popular works were the two sets of stories about the adventures of
Christopher Robin and his toy animals--Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga, Roo,
Rabbit, Owl, and Eeyore--as told in Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House
at Pooh Corner (1928). Ernest Shepard's illustrations added to the
books' charm. Author: Altsheler, Joseph A (1862-1919)
Reporter
and western writer, son of Joseph and Louise (Snoddy) Altsheler, was
born at Three Springs, Kentucky, on April 29, 1862. He attended Liberty
College in Glasgow, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt University. In 1885 he
worked as a reporter and in various editorial positions at the
Louisville Courier-Journal. In 1892 he worked for the New York World and
in 1898 served as that paper's correspondent in Honolulu. Working as a
reporter, feature writer, and editor, he became a storywriter almost by
chance when he was unable to secure a desirable serial for boys and
decided to write one himself. This began a long list of juvenile
stories, grouped in six main series: the French and Indian War, Great
West, Young Trailers, Civil War, World War, and Texas. Altsheler was
interested in American history and took care to ensure authentic
historical facts in his books. On May 30, 1888, he married Sarah Boles;
they had one son, Sidney. The Altshelers were caught in Germany when
World War I broke out in 1914, and the hardships they endured in
returning to America broke Altsheler's health. He was a semi-invalid
until his death, in New York on June 5, 1919. His principal works on
Texas were The Border Watch (1912), The Texan Star (1912), Apache Gold
(1913), The Texan Triumph (1913), and The Texan Scouts
(1913).
Author: John Tunis
Tuni was one of the most prolific writers of high-quality juvenile sports
novels in the 20th century who produced a series of Brooklyn
Dodgers baseball novels including such titles as Highpockets, Keystone Kids,
The Kid From Tomkinsville, Rookie of the Year, Schoolboy Johnson, World Series and Young Razzle.
CLICK HERE for more on Uncle Remus.
CLICK HERE for more on Winnie The Pooh
CLICK HERE for more on Joseph Altsheler
CLICK HERE for more on John Tunis
Chapter 8
"He believed all of that Hub of the Universe stuff."
"Oliver Wendell Holmes (the writer and Renaissance man, not the Supreme
Court justice who was his son) is widely credited with coming up with
the phrase. In fact, Holmes said only that the State House 'is the hub
of the solar system.' But perhaps that was merely typical Boston
taciturnity, because Boston truly is the hub of the universe(1). You see
it most frequently in the local newspapers, which find "Hub" to be a
handy synonym for "Boston"
Chapter 11
"Brevity is the soul of wit."
Hamlet Act II: Scene 2: line 90
William Shakespeare
Chapter 11
"Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang."
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 72
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or
none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the
cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me
thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the
west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second
self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the flowing of
such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the
deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was
nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more
strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
See also: Early Autumn, Ceremony, Walking Shadow.
Chapter 12
"Dale, thy beauty is to me like those Nicean barks of yore...that kind of thing."
To Helen (1831)
Edgar Allen Poe
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of
yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary,
wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate
seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic
face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the
glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in
yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee
stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche,
from the regions which
Are Holy Land!
Chapter 12
"...like Doroty Collins on The Hit Parade."
Born Marjorie Chandler in Windsor, Ontario on November 18, 1926, Doroty
Collins began her professional singing career at age 14. Although she is
known primarily as the lead singer on the long-running 1950s NBC
television show "Your Hit Parade," Collins was also featured in "Candid
Camera," where she displayed a lively flair for comedy. Her first Top-20
single charted in 1955. She and first husband, Raymond Scott, had their
own record label; she surprised her fans with a number of critically
well-received jazz performances. She was also very successful with night
club engagements. Her work in various musical programs on television in
addition to "Your Hit Parade," including appearances with Bing Crosby,
Danny Kaye, and many others, showed her to be one of the finest
vocalists of her era. Her best work, however, may have been in the
musical theatre, where she starred in the original cast of the legendary
Broadway musical, Stephen Sondheim's "Follies." For her work, she was
nominated for a Best Actress in a Musical Tony Award in 1971. Dorothy
Collins passed away in.1994.
Chapter 12
"What if I had not panted after the sweet sorrow of renunciation?"
Most likey a reference to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
See Act 2: Scene 2.
"Parting is such sweet sorrow."
Chapter 15
"...like a jar in Tennessee."
Anecdote of the Jar (1923)
by Wallace Stevens
"I placed a jar in Tennessee
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made that slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill."
Chapter 15
"...like a jar in Tennessee."
Anecdote of the Jar (1923)
by Wallace Stevens
"I placed a jar in Tennessee
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made that slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill."
Chapter 15
"The great black hope..."
Movie: The Great White Hope (1970)
Cast: James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander, Chester Morris, Hal Holbrook,
Moses Gunn, Lou Gilbert, Joel Fluellen The first black heavyweight
boxing champion of the world is a man who bows before no man, in the
ring or out. After winning the title, his relationship with a white
woman and his outspoken ways terrify and enrage bigots and racists in
boxing and law enforcement who scheme to bring about his downfall.
Adapted for the screen by Howard Sackler, from his stage play. Academy
Award Nominations: Best Actor--James Earl Jones; Best Actress--Jane
Alexander.
Chapter 16
"We have fallen among barbarians."
Paraphrase of a phrase from the parable of the Good Samaritan
Luke 10:30
A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among
thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and
departed, leaving him half dead.
Chapter 16
"looked like in Squanto's Day."
SQUANTO (died 1622). Soon after the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts on
the Mayflower in 1620, they met an Indian of the Pawtuxet tribe named
Squanto. Squanto befriended them, taught them how to survive in their
new wilderness home, showed them how to plant crops, and acted as an
interpreter with the Wampanoag tribe and its chief, Massasoit. Squanto
probably was present at the first Thanksgiving celebration held by the
Pilgrims. The date of Squanto's birth is unknown. He was an adult by
1605 when, according to legend, he was taken to England by George
Weymouth. Nine years later he was taken back to North America by Captain
John Smith. Shortly afterward he was seized by an English ship captain,
along with other Indians, and sold into slavery in Málaga, Spain. He
eventually escaped, returned to England, and was taken back to New
England in 1619. There he learned that his tribe had died from an
epidemic, probably of smallpox brought by the English colonists. He
therefore went to live among the Wampanoag near present-day Plymouth,
Mass. Early in 1621 another Indian named Samoset introduced Squanto to
the Pilgrim settlers, and he became a member of their colony. Because
Squanto could speak English well, Governor William Bradford asked him to
serve as his ambassador to the Indian tribes. Late in 1622 he became ill
while guiding an expedition around Cape Cod. Squanto died in Chatham
Harbor in November 1622.
Chapter 17
"...the home for little wanderers."
The New England Home for Little Wanderers was founded in 1865 by ten
Boston area businessmen. Its original goal was to care for children who
had been orphaned and left homeless by the Civil War. NEHLW was not
meant to become a permanent residence for these children, but rather to
serve as a way-station where children could prepare for a new life.
Since its founding, NEHLW¹s programs have expanded beyond adoption
services, and have continued to change over time in response to the
needs of the community. During the early part of the century, NEHLW
opened branch offices in Maine and Western Massachusetts, acting as a
pioneer in bringing child welfare services to other parts of New
England. As other human service providers emerged, NEHLW closed these
branch offices knowing that the areas in question now had adequate
services. One highlight in the NEHLW¹s history was helping over 250 war
refugees during World War II. NEHLW coordinated with the U.S. Committee
for Care of European Children to shelter and place these children
throughout the War.
CLICK HERE to visit the Home for Little Wanderers on the web
Chapter 17
"She could run but she couldn't hide."
A turn of phrase coined by boxer Joe Louis (Joseph Louis Borrow,
1914-1981), who said, prior to a heavyweight title bout with Billy Conn
in June, 1946: "He can run, but he can't hide."
Chapter 21
"...replica Boston Braves hat that Susan had ordered for me through the catalogue from
Manny's Baseball Land"
Manny's Baseball Land ("The Official Catalog of Major League Baseball")
is located at 3000 SW 42nd Ave Palm City, FL 34990 and can be reached by
calling (800) 776-8326
Chapter 21
It made me look like Nanny Fernandez."
nanny Fernandex (Number 77) was a Boston Braves infielder in 1942, 1946 and 1947.
Chapter 21
"Takes a tough man to make a tender chicken."
This was a famous commercial line often used by Frank Purdue to sell
his chicken on television. On an amusing side note, a photo of Perdue with one
of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that
when translated read: "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."
See also: Crimson Joy
Chapter 22
"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee"
"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Rumble, young man, rumble.
Aaaaaaagh!"
Ali's favorite chant, created by cornerman Drew
"Bundini" Brown On February 25, 1964, a young Cassius Marcellus Clay
rocked the sports world when he defeated Sonny Liston in eight rounds to
become Heavyweight Champion of the World. Two days later, the world was
shocked again when the name Cassius Clay was no more; Muhammad Ali was
born. He became more than an embodiment of his sport. He embodied
political and social upheaval. Not only a champion in the ring, but a
champion for those who fought for the rights and freedoms that people
enjoy and still fight for today.
Chapter 22
"I'd neve heard anyone call anyone darling with out sounding like a fool, except Myrna Loy."
At the end of the silent era, Myrna Loy started her acting career as an
exotic, Theda Bara-like femme fatale. Fortunately, she was rescued by
the advent of the sound picture, where she was recast in the role of the
witty, urbane, professional woman. She is best remembered for her role
of Nora Charles opposite William Powell in six "Thin Man" movies based
upon he book by Dashiell Hammett. Born in Helena, Mont. Myrna was
educated in Los Angeles and Westlakd School for Girls. She had some
stage experience in stage prologues at Grauman's Theatre in Hollywood.
She was discovered by Mrs. Rudolph Valentino and given a part in
pictures. Her first film was "What Price Beauty." Loy passed away on
March 19th 1993.
Chapter 24
"I'm a good shot, but I'm not Annie Oakley."
Annie Oakley is a legend. America's greatest female sharpshooter,
Oakley triumphed in the masculine world of road shows and firearms
during the 1880s and 1890s. Despite her great fame, the popular image of
Oakley is more fiction than fact. The woman known as "Little Sure Shot"
was really Phoebe Moses and she was born in Darke County, Ohio in 1860
It is said that she could shoot the head off a running quail when she
was twelve years old. Once, at the invitation of Kaiser Wilhelm II of
Germany, she knocked the ashes off a cigaret he was holding in his
mouth. When she out-shot the great exhibition marksman, Frank Butler, he
fell in love with her and they were ideally happy the rest of their long
lives. She could handle a rifle or a six-gun with an artistry
unsurpassed by that of any human being before her time or, probably,
since. And when she appeared with Sitting Bull and other notables in
Colonel Cody's Wild West Show, she thrilled spectators, not
as Phoebe Anne Oakley Moses but as "Little Sure Shot."
Chapter 25
"It doesn't get much better than this Pearl."
Paraphrased from the 1970's himsical Miller Lite advertising campaigns
where they stated "It doesn't get any better than this."
Chapter 25
"Where was Jungle Jim when you needed him."
Johnny Weissmuller didn't waste any time finding a new film role after
his final Tarzan film. Shortly after the completion of Tarzan and the
Mermaids (1948), Weissmuller became Jungle Jim in the first of 16
low-budget, Sam Katzman-produced adventure films. Based on the popular
comic strip created in 1934 by Alex Raymond, Jungle Jim was an ideal
role for the aging Weissmuller. The plots are farfetched and often have
too many overlapping and confusing story threads. What they lack in
storytelling, they more than make up for with all-out action and
over-the-top heroics. There are enough spills and thrills in a typical
Jungle Jim movie to fill three regular jungle epics! Jungle Jim's first
screen appearance did not star Johnny Weissmuller. Grant Withers played
the famous adventurer in the 1937 Universal serial, Jungle Jim. The last
three Weissmuller films are not, strictly speaking, Jungle Jim films.
Katzman had turned the rights for Jungle Jim over to Screen Gems, so
they could begin work on the television series. Weissmuller still had
three films left on his contract, so they made them using his own name.
Chapter 26
"Nature never failed the heart that loved her."
Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
by William Wordsworth
and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts.
Chapter 27
"Only yesterday... when the world was young.."
Song: Ah, the Apple Trees
(aka When the World was Young)
Lyrics: Johnny Mercer & Angele Vannier
Music: Philippe Bloch
It isn't by chance I happen to be, a boulevardier, the toast of Paris.
For over the noise, the talk and the smoke, I'm good for a laugh, a drink or a joke.
I walk in a room, a party or ball, "Come sit over here" somebody will call.
"A drink for M'sieur, a drink for us all! But how many times I stop and recall.
Ah, the apple trees, Blossoms in the breeze, That we walked among,
Lying in the hay, Games we used to play, While the rounds were sung,
Only yesterday when the world was young.
Wherever I go they mention my name, and that in itself, is some sort of fame,
"Come by for a drink, we're having a game," wherever I go I'm glad that I came.
The talk is quite gay, the company fine, there's laughter and lights, and glamour and wine,
And beautiful girls and some of them mine, but often my eyes see a diff'rent shine.
Ah, the apple trees, Sunlit memories, Where the hammock swung,
On our backs we'd lie, Looking at the sky, Till the stars were strung,
Only last July when the world was young.
While sitting around, we often recall, The laugh of the year, the night of them all.
The blonde who was so attractive that year, Some opening night that made us all cheer.
Remember that time we all got so tight, And Jacques and Antoine got into a fight.
The gendarmes who came, passed out like a light, I laugh with the rest, it's all very bright.
Ah, the apple trees, And the hive of bees Where we once got stung,
Summers at Bordeaux, Rowing the bateau, Where the willow hung,
Just a dream ago, when the world was young.
See also: Looking For Rachel Wallace
Chapter 27
"Or see anything, except darkness visible."
Paradise Lost
by John Milton
As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Chapter 29
"Fit as a fiddle and ready for love...I could jump over the moon up above."
Song: Fit as a Fiddle
by Nacio Herb Brown
Fit as a fiddle, and ready for love
I can jump over the moon up
above
fit as a fiddle, and ready for love.
Haven't a worry,
haven't a care,
feel like a feather just floating on air,
fit as
a fiddle and ready for love.
Soon the church bells will be
ringin'
and we'll march with Ma and Pa.
How the church bells
will be ringin'
with a hey nonny nonny and a ha cha cha
Hi
diddle diddle, my baby's okay
ask me a riddle and what does she
say?
Fit as a fiddle and ready for love.
Note: From the Movie Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Chapter 29
"Dr. Good will be in to see you in a little while."
"Is his first name Feel?"
Song: Dr. Feel Good
Artist: Aretha Franklin
Chapter 29
"Pretty to think so."
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway.
In the final scene of the novel, he female protagonist starts says
that things might have been different this time, if onlyŠ.
In one of the most poignant endings in the English language, the wounded hero
Jake Barnes replies, "Isn¹t it pretty to think so?"
See also: Ceremony, Valediction, Crimson Joy, Double Deuce.
Chapter 30
"She'd read Invisible Man six times."
Book: Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
A classic from the moment it first appeared in 1952, Invisible Man
chronicles the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as
he moves through the hellish levels of American intolerance and cultural
blindness. Searching for a context in which to know himself, he exists
in a very peculiar state. "I am an invisible man," he says in his
prologue. "When they approach me they see only my surroundings,
themselves, or figments of their imagination--indeed, everything and
anything except me." But this is hard-won self-knowledge, earned over
the course of many years.
See also: Hush Money
CLICK HERE for more info on Invisible Man by Ellison
Chapter 31
"Happy as a fish with a new bicycle."
Paraphrase of a quote often attributed to famed feminist Gloria Steinem.
In fact, she once wote a letter to Time magazine sometime in September or October 2000
in which she says, "In your note on my new and happy marital partnership with David Bale,
you credit me with the witticism 'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.'
In fact, Irina Dunn, a distinguished Australian educator, journalist and politician,
coined the phrase back in 1970 when she was a student at the University of Sydney.
She paraphrased the philosopher who said, "Man needs God like fish needs a bicycle."
Dunn deserves credit for creating such a popular and durable spoof of the old idea
that women need men more than vice versa."
Chapter 33
"The truth will set you free."
Paraphrase of a Biblical quote from John 8:32
"The truth shall make you free."
Chapter 33
"Malt does more than Milton can, to justify God¹s ways to man."
Poem: A Shropshire Lad
Alfred Edward Housman
Chapter 33
"Malt does more than Milton can, to justify God¹s ways to man."
Poem: A Shropshire Lad
Alfred Edward Housman
Chapter 36
"Caffeine, like youth, is wasted on the young."
Paraphrase of the quote by George Bernard Shaw from Reader's Digest in 1940.
The actual quote is "Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children."
Reader's Digest Treasury of Modern Quotations, p.81 808.882 REA.
Spenser's Libations
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