Happy Birthday James Agee !

James Rufus Agee

Today is the birthday of an American author, poet, journalist, screenwriter and film critic James Rufus Agee (November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955). In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S. His autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (1957), won the author a posthumous 1958 Pulitzer Prize. Presenting some Quotations : Being Poet

• God doesn't believe in the easy way.
• This continent, an open palm spread frank before the sky.
• You must be in tune with the times and prepared to break with tradition.
• The mere attempt to examine my own confusion would consume volumes.
• We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.
• It is a peculiar part of the good photographer's adventure to know where luck is most likely to lie in the stream, to hook it, and to bring it in without unfair play and without too much subduing it. 

Happy Birthday Michael Crichton !

John Michael Crichton

Today is the birthday of an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter John Michael Crichton (October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008), best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted into films. In 1994, Crichton became the only creative artist ever to have works simultaneously charting at #1 in television, film, and book sales (with ER, Jurassic Park, and Disclosure, respectively). Michael Crichton's literary works are usually based on the action genre and heavily feature technology. His novels epitomize the techno-thriller genre of literature, often exploring technology and failures of human interaction with it, especially resulting in catastrophes with biotechnology. Many of his future history novels have medical or scientific underpinnings, reflecting his medical training and science background. He was the author of, among others, Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Travels, Sphere, Rising Sun, Disclosure, The Lost World, Airframe, Timeline, Prey, State of Fear, Next (the final book published before his death), Pirate Latitudes (published November 24, 2009), and a final unfinished techno-thriller, Micro, which was published in November 2011. Presenting some Quotations : Being Poet

• No one escapes from life alive.
• I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.
• It's better to die laughing than to live each moment in fear.
• The planet has survived everything, in its time. It will certainly survive us.
• Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.
• God creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, man kills God, man brings back dinosaurs.
• If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.
• Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.
• It's hard to decide who's truly brilliant; it's easier to see who's driven, which in the long run may be more important.
• Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

Happy Birthday Mario Puzo !

Mario Gianluigi Puzo

Today is the birthday of an Italian American author and screenwriter Mario Gianluigi Puzo (October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999), known for his novels about the Mafia, including The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film by Francis Ford Coppola. He won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in both 1972 and 1974. Presenting some Quotations : Being Poet

• Every family has bad memories.
• Friendship and money : oil and water.
• Even the strongest man needs friends.
• I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.
• I believe in America. America's made my fortune.
• Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.
• Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
• Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.
• I like to drink wine more than I used to. Anyway, I'm drinking more.
• I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a businessman. Blood is a big expense.
• A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.
• The only wealth in this world is children, more than all the money, power on earth.
• Certainly he can present a bill for such services. After all, we are not communists.
• Look, we are all reasonable men here. We don't have to give assurances, as if we were lawyers.
• I have always believed helping your fellow man is profitable in every sense, personally and bottom line.
• It doesn't make any difference to me what a man does for a living, you understand. But your business is a little dangerous.
• Give this to Clemenza. I want reliable people, people who won't get carried away. I mean, we're not murderers, in spite of what this undertaker says.
• Now, listen. I want somebody good, and I mean very good, to plant that gun. I don't want my brother coming out of that toilet with just his dick in his hand.
• What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.
• Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.
• Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.
• He was ... a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I'll show you a loser, show me a hero and I'll show you a corpse.

Happy Birthday Shel Silverstein !

Sheldon Allan ‘Shel’ Silverstein

Today is the birthday of an American poet Sheldon Allan ‘Shel’ Silverstein (September 25, 1930 – May 8/9, 1999). He was also a singer-songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter and author of children's books. He styled himself as Uncle Shelby in his children's books. Translated into more than 30 languages, his books have sold over 20 million copies. Presenting some poems : Being Poet

It's Dark in Here

I am writing these poems
From inside a lion,
And it's rather dark in here.
So please excuse the handwriting
Which may not be too clear.
But this afternoon by the lion's cage
I'm afraid I got too near.
And I'm writing these lines
From inside a lion,
And it's rather dark in here.

The Toucan

Tell me who can
Catch a toucan?
Lou can.

Just how few can
Ride the toucan?
Two can.

What kind of goo can
Stick you to the toucan?
Glue can.

Who can write some
More about the toucan?
You can!

Weird-Bird

Birds are flyin' south for winter.
Here's the Weird-Bird headin' north,
Wings a-flappin', beak a-chatterin',
Cold head bobbin' back 'n' forth.
He says, "It's not that I like ice
Or freezin' winds and snowy ground.
It's just sometimes it's kind of nice
To be the only bird in town."

Rain

I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can't do a handstand--
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said--
I'm just not the same since there's rain in my head.

Anteater

"A genuine anteater,"
The pet man told me dad.
Turned out, it was an aunt eater,
And now my uncle's mad!

God's Wheel by Shel Silverstein
GOD says to me with a kind
of smile, "Hey how would you like
to be God awhile And steer the world?"
"Okay," says I, "I'll give it a try.

Where do I set?
How much do I get?
What time is lunch?
When can I quit?"
"Gimme back that wheel," says GOD.
"I don't think you're quite ready YET."

Boa Constrictor

Oh, I'm being eaten
By a boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor,
And I don't like it--one bit.
Well, what do you know?
It's nibblin' my toe.
Oh, gee,
It's up to my knee.
Oh my,
It's up to my thigh.
Oh, fiddle,
It's up to my middle.
Oh, heck,
It's up to my neck.
Oh, dread,
It's upmmmmmmmmmmffffffffff . . .

Danny O'Dare

Danny O'Dare, the dancin' bear,
Ran away from the County Fair,
Ran right up to my back stair
And thought he'd do some dancin' there.
He started jumpin' and skippin' and kickin',
He did a dance called the Funky Chicken,
He did the Polka, he did the Twist,
He bent himself into a pretzel like this.
He did the Dog and the Jitterbug,
He did the Jerk and the Bunny Hug.
He did the Waltz and the Boogaloo,
He did the Hokey-Pokey too.
He did the Bop and the Mashed Potata,
He did the Split and the See Ya Later.
And now he's down upon one knee,
Bowin' oh so charmingly,
And winkin' and smilin'--it's easy to see
Danny O'Dare wants to dance with me.

Forgotten Language

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

Messy Room

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or--
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!

What if

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some What ifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old What if song:
What if I'm dumb in school?
What if they've closed the swimming pool?
What if I get beat up?
What if there's poison in my cup?
What if I start to cry?
What if I get sick and die?
What if I flunk that test?
What if green hair grows on my chest?
What if nobody likes me?
What if a bolt of lightning strikes me?
What if I don't grow talle?
What if my head starts getting smaller?
What if the fish won't bite?
What if the wind tears up my kite?
What if they start a war?
What if my parents get divorced?
What if the bus is late?
What if my teeth don't grow in straight?
What if I tear my pants?
What if I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!