My Journal
Confessions of St. Augustine (A 21st Century Outsider)
Remember The Outsiders? And that famous question? Who was the casting director for that one?... Let's see, you had Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, Diane Lane - all of whom were essentially unknown at...
Confessions of St. Augustine (a 21st Century Innocents Abroad) – second installment
Some say Don Quixote is the greatest novel ever written. Some say War and Peace, followed by Ulysses, Remembrance of Things Past, Brothers Karamazov, and I could go on and on, but regardless of what your opinion is, they all deal with perception, memory, and...
Confessions of St. Augustine (a 21st Century Rousseau)
Yes, we've explored this one a number of times, but now let's explore the results: In the foreground, as noted on previous occasions is a plastic Coors beer cup. To the left of it, a kerosene lantern. Between it and that rectangular looking box is a buffalo robe. The...
LXXI (71): Confessions of St. Augustine (a 21st Century Standing Woman)
Gaston's Standing woman, that paean to woman, is another example of a perhaps unconscious but subliminal reference: all of which our hero thinks is a way of life he has somehow missed, out there in Middle America, that is perhaps best represented in his favorite...
LXIX (70): Confessions of St. Augustine (a 21st Century Christina’s World)
Christina's World is probably the most iconic painting in American art, so when asked if one of his paintings on the cover of his novel was an intentional nod to Wyeth's Christina's World, the author's answer was - not consciously. However, one can't help but see...
Confessions of St. Augustine (a 21st Century Main Street II)
Not technically a Main Street, but every town (at least in the past) had its edge of the town (now they tend to all run together - e.g., Boshington - urban sprawl from Boston to Washington with hardly a break in between. And if nothing else, the railroad tracks at...
Confessions of St. Augustine (a 21st Century Main Street)
Unlike Sinclair Lewis's love-hate relationship with Main Street America, our hero waxes nostalgic on a Tom Sawyer's America that's as harmless as a Mayberry, R.F.D. Not out of naivete but more out of loss. Loss for an Eden haunts his art throughout the book. An...
Confessions of St Augustine (a 21st Century James Dean)
A special tribute to James Dean. In the history of film - who better than Dean typified the troubled teen? Certainly not Brando. In fact, in The Wild One - we don't see him as a teen. Or any of Newman's. Or Nicholson's. Granted there were a lot of good ones long after...
LXXXI (81): A 21st Century?
Okay, we've made a lot of outrageous claims here, so let's just examine them a little more closely. Let's take Daniel Burt's book The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of all Time. There are lots of lists, but this is as good as any, better than most, if not...
A voice of the 21st Century?
Art defines a people. Has any culture developed without its being defined by its art? Not only our conception of them - but their perception of themselves? Could the Greeks and the Romans have achieved what they did without the very art that defined them? Or has...
Lists
Interesting categorization. Top 10. Top 100. One of my son-in-laws said Rolling Stone peaked years ago, and all they're good for now is making lists. Top 100 songs, singers, albums, etc., you've heard them all - whether it's AFI or all the other credible institutions...
A 21st Century Holden Caulfield, Alexander Portnoy, Jimmy Porter?
When I read Catcher in the Rye, my life changed. From that point on, I had to read everything Salinger wrote and was not disappointed until Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour: an Introduction. But it was worth the journey, considering Fitzgerald led me...