giant james

Today was the day in 1955 that James Dean took his final road trip, leaving us with a few great movies and much speculation as to what his acting career would have been like had he lived to grow old. Or at least older. My favorite James Dean role is Jett Rink from Giant, particularly the scene where he has tea with Elizabeth Taylor in his little shack house. Click here to read an interview with Ivan Moffat, one of the writers who adapted Edna Ferber's novel for the screenplay -- he makes some interesting comments about James Dean and the film production itself.

I wrote a suite101 article on Edna Ferber because I was always intrigued by this feisty little woman from Wisconsin tackling such diverse subjects in her fiction. Apparently Edna thought Dean was an excellent choice to play Jett Rink, though I'm not sure if they ever met. And while Edna's portrayal of the Lone Star State angered some of the Texans she'd gotten to know while researching her novel, it seems that James Dean charmed many locals in Marfa, Texas where Giant was filmed. He hung around with them and asked all kinds of questions, as always immersing himself in his ranchhand role in classic Method actor fashion. But then again he'd been raised on an Indiana farm and despite his growing fame at the time, he still seemed to live along the emotional outskirts of life; I can't say Jett Rink came easily because I don't know that anything came easily to such a complex person, but he probably had something to draw on from within.

(image from www.dvdbeaver.com)

the great fitzgerald

Today's birthday belongs to F. Scott Fitzgerald (click for another post on FSF), distinctly American author. The first half of Fitzgerald's career and life was spectacular, following the upward trajectory of the 1920s, yet then post-1920s right along with the economy, Fitzgerald's path became rocky. He died far too young at the age of 44, and he once professed that there were no second acts in American lives. Now we know this isn't true, otherwise we would never have witnessed the return of John Travolta...but nonetheless, in Fitzgerald's case he did have that second act and achieved lasting fame, but unfortunately by that time he had already left the stage.

Click here to read a nice article by Garrison Keillor about Fitzgerald's early days and connection to St. Paul, Minnesota. In the 1990s Fitzgerald became a literary postage icon and received his own stamp, and one of his best known novels The Great Gatsby also inspired another stamp -- part of the Roaring Twenties series and pictured above. I was going to include the Fitzgerald portrait stamp instead, but it's how he looked when he was younger and I kind of prefer the more wise and worldly Fitzgerald's face.

I am not a great man, but sometimes I think the impersonal and objective equality of my talent and the sacrifices of it, in pieces, to preserve its essential value has some sort of epic grandeur.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1896-1944

wcw

Today would have been the birthday of the great William Carlos Williams (WCW) -- slight amount of bias there but I do love him. I also like how the first line of WCW's Brittanica entry reads:

U.S. poet who succeeded in making the ordinary appear extraordinary....

WCW was a doctor in the small city of Rutherford, New Jersey. His medical practice influenced his poetry and gave him a keener sense of humanity, and while Rutherford was close enough to Brooklyn and Manhattan to allow WCW to visit frequently and be part of the city's artistic energy, it was also still fairly rural at that time. This gave WCW some mental and physical breathing room, so that he could truly look at a patch of Queen Anne's lace or white chickens and red wheelbarrows and immortalize them in his own unique way. And even though if you note how WCW's place of birth and death are both Rutherford, New Jersey, he clearly traveled to many other places beyond through his work. And what he told us about his own small world was fascinating as well.

The rose is obsolete

but each petal ends in

an edge,

the double facet cementing the grooved

columns of air--

William Carlos Williams - b. September 17, 1883

d. March 4, 1963

Rutherford, New Jersey

days and moments

Poet, novelist, short story writer, critic and translator Cesare Pavese was born today in 1908 in Turin, Italy. Cesare's life was troubled due to romantic disappointments and he ultimately committed suicide, but his writings show a great love of life and nature beyond the pain and a wry sense of humor.

This is Cesare lighting his pipe--quite a lean, intriguing-looking fellow. The photo is from the official City of Turin website, which has more information on Cesare Pavese and clearly is very proud of him being one of Turin's native sons. I always think that not many people in the U.S. know about Pavese, but then I just noticed a picture of a little boy making his way through a hay bale maze in this month's issue of Country Living magazine with the quote:

We don't remember days,

we remember moments.

Cesare Pavese

mañana plus one

On September 5, 1957, Gilbert Millstein reviewed the new novel On the Road and declared author Jack Kerouac the "principal avatar" of The Beat Generation, and that this cross-country quest for adventure and meaning was a major work. Apparently he was right.

Gilbert Millstein wrote for the New York Times, and a positive or negative Times review in 1957 could make or break a book. There weren't as many public forums of opinion back then, nor did we have the freedom of speech via the internet to protest an overly subjective review. So naturally Kerouac was overwhelmed by the praise. Kerouac was then involved with a young writer named Joyce Johnson, and her memoir Minor Characters describes how she and Jack went out after midnight to a newstand at 66th and Broadway in Manhattan and bought a copy of the Times:

We saw the papers come off the truck. The old man at the stand cut the brown cord with a knife and we bought the one on top of the pile and stood under a streetlamp turning pages until we found "Books of the Times." I felt dizzy reading Millstein's first paragraph--like going up on a Ferris wheel too quickly and dangling out over space, laughing and gasping at the same time. Jack was silent. After he'd read the whole thing, he said, "It's good, isn't it?" "Yes," I said. "It's very, very good."

The Viking 40th anniversary edition of On the Road (1997) includes the full Gilbert Millstein review as it was originally printed, noting even the then $3.95 price of the book. This post title is mañana plus one because it's two days from the 50th anniversary of the publication and review, and also because of Kerouac's love of the word mañana in On the Road.

Guitars tinkled. Terry and I gazed at the stars together and kissed. "Mañana," she said. "Everything'll be all right tomorrow, don't you think, Sal-honey, man?"

...It was always mañana. For the next week that was all I heard--mañana, a lovely word and one that probably means heaven.

Well, we know it doesn't really mean heaven but we can understand why it might.