A Composer's Talent for Writing San Jose Mercury News Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Born Standing Up NPR Take a look at an interesting article we found.
The Real Business of Autobiography London Telegraph Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Thanksgiving is one of the few holidays that is purely American. No matter what the times are, we can always find a few things to be thankful about.
 by J. Peterman |
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 by Peter Lake |
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 by Doc Nolan |
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November 28, 2008
The title, "The Diary of a Nobody," one of my favorite British satires, is a bit of a misnomer. In many ways the hero of his own autobiography is not a nobody. He is an oaf, he is a clod who is consumed with his own self-importance.
Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see--because I do not happen to be a 'Somebody'--why my diary should not be interesting.
The humor comes from Charles Pooter's extreme egocentricity as he documents practically every mundane thought in his life. In fact, the book has spawned the word "Pooterish" to describe a tendency to take oneself excessively seriously.
The diary, which was first serialized in Punch in 1888-89, was written by George Grossmith and illustrated by his brother, Weedon. But the fictional author is Pooter himself, a modest clerk who lives with his wife, Carrie, in Brickfield Terrace, which could be any English suburb.
Pooter prefers to think he is in charge. In reality, he is the master of nothing.
Ordered a shoulder of mutton for to-morrow....Two shoulders of mutton arrived, Carrie having arranged with another butcher without consulting me...I am afraid we shall have to get some new stair-carpets after all. After dinner went to sleep.
But as life at the Pooter house unfolds, it is anything but dull. The Pooters are invited to dinner at Mansion House, the Lord Mayor's residence, and are quite proud of themselves. Then they find out everyone eventually gets invited to Mansion House, even some of their lowly neighbors. Despite this, Pooter is quite taken aback when his name is first omitted from the guest list, and then misspelled in subsequent addendums. After two letters to the local paper, he still doesn't get any satisfaction.
Absolutely disgusted on opening the Blackfriars Bi-weekly News of to-day, to find the following paragraph: "We have received two letters from Mr. and Mrs. Charles Pewter, requesting us to announce the important fact that they were at the Mansion House Ball." .
Pooter's son is William Lupin Pooter and he's a bit of a rogue who causes Pooter more grief than anything and becomes engaged to a woman his parents don't quite approve. He's forever quitting perfectly good jobs. Of course, all turns out well in the end. Pooter gets a raise greater than he'd expected and Lupin finds the right job and the right girl. All is as it should be in the Pooter household.
And life goes on and on and...
August 1.- Ordered a new pair of trousers at Edwards's, and told them not to cut them so loose over the boot; the last pair being so loose and also tight at the knee, looked like a sailor's, and I heard Pitt, that objectionable youth at the office, call out "Hornpipe" as I passed his desk."
The enduring affection for Charles Pooter is that he may be a "nobody" but he is also everybody. No matter our lives, we are important, at least to ourselves. And that's as it should be.
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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin earlyamerica.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
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Last summer, I took a "Memoirs" course,given by a prominent woman, at a prominent Women's Club, i...
Nov. 28, 2008 11:06 AM
Whose autobiography would you like to read?
0% 25% 8% 67%
Ignatian said...
I have kept a journal for 38 years and suspect that it would bore the populace should it ever be distributed. Not to mention the embarassment. However it is fun to read the old stuff .Who was that guy ?
This morning at five forty seven, or maybe eight, I stubbed my toe in the dark.
Left foot, middle toe.
My wife awakened by a comment I may or may not have made, was very kind.
I blotted it with tissue in the bathroom then put on shoes, socks and came down to make coffee.
Ignatian said...
did you call a toe truck ?
Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Made my way downstairs and drank a cup,
etc etc etc....
and so to bed
(it's all in the editing, I reckon.)
I trust everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day (full tummy's and left unscathed by any family trauma). I cooked and cleaned for a total of 20 hours in two days and it took about 15 minutes to eat. What was I thinking? Someone please sit me down and help me re-think my entertaining rituals. Anyway...back to the subject at hand. I, like Ignatian, keep a personal journal. For the most part it would put a reader to sleep, however, there would be a couple of posts that would certainly get a "What in the hell...NO WAY" response. But as far as reading anyone else's autobiography it would probably be my husbands. He has lived a very interesting life (to me). He has been through everthing from child abuse to being an active participant in the Palm Beach mafia (yes...Palm Beach) as a young man. He was a BIG womanizer, and gambler. Then, he met me! Hmmmmm. He robbed the cradle. But so not to bore you he is now the best husband and Grandfather there could be. His autobiography would certainly be a best seller. Of. course there are many twists and turns that I won't go into. But...my vote would be my husband.
Mackdaddy reserve me 2 copies of that autobiography please. You are the party queen, if you write your autobiogrphy make sure to include decorating tips and recipes.
Suzanne's Journal enter for 28.11.2008
Dear Diary,
Woke up, put on capote and followed Molly around the yard for 20 minutes waiting for her to find her spot. Went back to bed. Woke, got dressed, grabbed breakfast to go out of fridge. Ran to truck, slipped on ice, frantic cartoon character arm waving and foot scurrying to keep balance, fell on keister anyway. Sir Boyscout laughed at me from our second story window. New neighbors (they are moving into tattooed misery's old house) saw everything while unloading couch, man ran over to help...he slipped and performed cartoon character arm waving and foot scurrying as well, he remained up right. Have wet backside and had to explain "no I didn't pee my pants" when I got to work. It is now 8:54am and I am watching the clock, 5pm is never going to get here.
PS-Sir Boyscout is totally hot, I think he like, really Really likes me, will pass him a note at lunch. Hope he sends one back. Boys are so gross, but he's like totally different, n' stuff.
William S. Gilbert was right when he said, "When everybody is somebody, then nobody is anybody." I imagine Fidel Castro's autobiography would be an interesting read. His take on surviving the fall of Communism, and thumbing his nose at the US since the Kennedy administration would be fascinating.
I tried to keep a journal as a kid and it mostly went: Went to school, cafeteria had corndogs for lunch so I just ate the tater tots. Came home, cleaned my room. Went to Bed.
Yeah its a real page turner.
Last summer, I took a "Memoirs" course,given by a prominent woman, at a prominent Women's Club, in a prominent part of our city. It basically was the "Importance of being Us". The casts of characters were mostly older women, an aged disgruntled former priest who then went to "HAAAVARD", and one Aspie (me). All had stories to tell, which in our minds, would enlightened the confused, give heart to downtroddened,and inspiration to the hopeless. At the end, many of the women felt as if their lives had meaning, and their aged souls were rising from the ashes,but the one bull in the herd of heffers remained disgruntled, dissatisfied, and shortchanged, by the world, even though he wrote volumes of his great intellect, heroism, suffering which went unnoticed, until he pointed it out to them directly in his memoirs. In the end, we all learned to become a Pooter.
more on the honor rollThe Pooter Connection: To use Gertrude Steins Cubistic writing "A pooter is a pooter is a pooter is a pooter!
Everytime I have had constipation on the "John", My mind goes back to how Elvis must have felt during his last moments of life on the thrown, at Graceland.
A few years ago, they discovered the hand made toilet upon which sat Martin Luther's cheeky dispostion, where, hundreds of years ago ,he wrote some of his most influential works. They had built a storage hut, which served as such throughout time, until its discovery now. The Pooter connection travels through time and Geography.
Seeing the communial 'potties' in Pompeii I realized how communal sharing is important during those thought provoking moments. Its not only important to knock our heads together for ideas, but we sing in harmony cheek to cheek.
This culminates with my having to leave for the ranch now, after a wonderful Thanksgiving, and having our workman create my own designed masterpiece of an outhouse near my studio, when inspiration just cannot wait!...It is a little Green building with natural skylight, solar lighting for night runs, with a soft cushy seat with a solar panel that warms it for the winter, and when you close the door, a mechanical chime rings "Melancholy Baby"! I have decided this is where my Pooters memoirs will be written.
Hi Nachista: I love the photo by the way and I have two copies on reserve for you. It will be titled: "The Bigger They Are The Harder They Fall" (I will explain someday).
As far as the recipes and tips...I have seriously thought of penning my party strategies and have often been prompted by others. But I think Martha, Paula, Sandra, and Rachel have all beaten me to the punch. However... mine would have a sorta' Erma Bombeck approach. My love of party planning has prompted me to seriously consider it as a means of financial assistance and have actually been compensated to plan several weddings and large parties. However, the financial gains were minimal compared to the work involved. But thanks for the kudos.
Remember...if you are staring at a sky-high pile of dishes and an inch of crumbs on your floor, be thankful...you have probably been surrounded by family and friends. Someone (?) quoted something similar many years ago.
Not an original thought left in my head today however I do remember a song entitled "Dear Diary" by the Moody Blues from back in the days of my then late teenage angst. It just seems to fit in nicely with today's sojourn. A one, a two, a three.........
I kept a diary throughout my first year of high school, chronicling my romantic attempts (e.g. "Today I wore lipstick. I think it's working. Should I stick with it or try something darker?") and then decided that it was much more diverting to delve into the minds of fictional characters and write their journals. Whether they are "Pooters" or not remains to be seen.
I don't know if it really counts as a journal, but I've been doing a personal blog for almost 4 years, sometimes everyday, sometimes twice a month, but it has been a continual record of my life, my thoughts, all sorts of things for the past few years.
Now if you would like an interesting diary read, there is a Bed and Breakfast in Laguna Beach called Eiler's Inn (Faulty Towers like) where they keep a living diary in each room on the bed stand for their guests to chronicle their day's activity for the reading enjoyment of those who follow.
No word from Miss Ive! I hope she didn't get eaten up by bear.
malegc said...
If I may, I'd share my preference for a more modern, more focused, and completely real journalist. The Kentuckian Harlan Hubbard.
Dear Diary,
Is now 3:37pm and everyone has left early, it is me and Deon and jim here, pretending to work, and my nieces and nephews left me with the office tree half decorated. Stupid, Freaking, Christmas Tree. I swear, next year I am actually going to hire someone taller than 4 feet and someone who has an attention span longer than 5 minutes...children are the worst laborers in the world, I dont' care if they are small enough to crawl all the way under the tree to plug in the timer. Am totally calling in sick next year and making someone else wrestle all the lights on the 10 ft. tree only to find out that one of the bulbs has jiggled loose and the whole tree is dark. I do not get paid enough. Still it beats being run over by a shopping cart full of tvs at Wal-mart.
Touche' Nachista: My 30 year old daughter wanted me to go with her shopping at 4 am this morning. I responded "quite happily"...sorry honey but I have to work. The mere thought of being in a Lucy Ricardo tug of war with some irrational, crazed, knock you down, screaming looney tune just wasn't my idea of fun. My daughter can hold her own and Old Mom could have hung in there with the looniest about 20 years ago. But for now I much prefer the solace, empty offices of work. All kidding aside, it isn't fun when people really do get hurt or even killed like the worker in New York today. Was that worth saving $15.00 on some useless toy? Unbelievable!!!!!! This economic crisis has hit me and my family really hard... not much call for multi-milion dollar race horses right now) but saving a few dollars isn't going to change our situation. Instead of buying a $100 gift that I saved $15.00 on...I just won't be spending at all. No the situation hasn't dampened my Christmas spirit. I will just be concentrating and celebrating the true meaning of the season. I have already got my 2-8 foot trees up and most of the Thanksgiving decorations have been put away. My wreath and other Christmas decor will be completed on Sunday. I even have a little 2.5 foot tree for my work desk. I love the season but not all of this craziness!
Merry Christmas, Happy Hannuka, Happy Kwanza etc...
Hannachristmanzayule.
HAH-na-kris-MAN-za-yule
The Didactylic Holiday?
What's all this fuss about dairys and nobodies? I for one don't give a tinker's dam who produces the milk, you just have to practice moderation and not worry so much about means of production or who done it, as long as they washed their hands and stuff. Now, I am partial to good cheese, and of course they need their names on them so you know what you're getting, but I really don't think we ought to go to all the trouble of keeping a journal about it. And as for keeping a DAIRY, now you're talking some real money, there! My Pappy did some of that, and it was hard work and very little money. I mean he eked it out but I saw him near get squshed by a big ol' heifer one time, so I recommend you all just set a spell and think twice about this whole keeping a dairy fad. Just think about it awhile. Maybe take up video games instead.
Suzanne, your Dear Diary's a HOOT! Still giggling...
Welcome to the party TheRose2272!
I am a nobody to most but to my Grandsons...I am the BEST!!! So they proclaim right now. I may be the "old batty Grandmom" in a few years when they grow up but for now I am content journaling their wonderful accomplishments, great and small. I have a Grandmothers Love Journal and someday they will enjoy the memories that Mimi has written down for them. It certainly is nothing (as The Rose2272 would say) PROFOUND, but the importance is great to me. I will leave the scrapbooking to my daughter and I will leave my Grandsons with loving words.
Good Night All!
Hannuchristwanzayule. That's it. I'm done.
The Rose----
You're right. I discovered a few pages of notes by our late mother in a book and my brothers and I were fascinated for a year or two.
And welcome aboard!
Jonathan Isles: Your quick wit has put a big smile on my face this eveing. Thanks!
Jonathan,
Whenever you write the name of your all inclusive holiday season I feel the urge to say gesundheit.
Nachista,
You write such a totally-like awesome diary! Great photo too.
Olivia,
Since ya came to "a fork in the road and took it" and ended up in here in Dairyland, it should be noted that up north its a good ideer to make sure that yur hands r all nice'n warm befur ye start milkin' those heifers. Red tha'tun in a diary and do swear buyit.
Happy Holidays to all in Peterman's 'Pupil'. . . ! I haven't been logged on here since mid-October I think, so I thought it would be nice to take time tonight and log on to say HAPPY HOLIDAYS to this colorful cast of CHARACTERS! I finally ended up actually taking what is only a part-time Seasonal position typing mail-in customer orders into the system, and I really like it! I even noticed JPeterman had a Customer Service position open while I was job hunting here in Omaha, Nebraska, where I live, but Kentucky is quite the long commute and unlike the CEOs of the car companies I do not have a private jet at beck and call. . . . As much as I love (most of) the clothing, I think I would have loved taking people's orders for it, too! . . . Truly I really only wish to be an industrious Homemaker but as I have not even dated for the last decade by choice/pickiness/becoming set in my ways (as pre-rigor mortis sets in!). . . that does not seem likely to happen. . . . NOTE TO JPETERMAN, in case you do actually read all this: I was encouraged by seeing the pair of DENIM wide legs (No. 3089) in the Holidays 2008 Owner's Manual No. 64, but (even though I currently remain literally poverty-level and unable to BUY any of these things I have dreamed of having for years, now) what I have been waiting or you to do is a full-length, non-wrinkling, flowing, substantial-but-soft kind of velvetized regular dark blue DENIM SKIRT with side-seam pockets that is most like the formal evening skirts of french designer DIOR'S couture "New Look" design. . . . I googled about this, as it is something I personally am not finding ANYWHERE and think it really SHOULD be. . . . It could go with lots of top options but my favorite would be a vintage look Vogue blouse, or even a dramatic, daring blouse that somehow incorporates the very high lace back collaring of queenly British past to be worn encircling a feminine updo hairstyle. . . . The denim skirt I see in my longings and imagination and research online would be "gown length" absolutely; past ankle, nearly to the floor. . . . with a 'pinched' waist and a full, gathered skirt. . . . something with reminiscenses of the 30s, mostly the 40s, no later than the 50s. This idea in my head would even go with offerings already in your catalogs, depending on if dressing it up or down, as denim since the late 1970s (when it first went feminine and glam when accessorized and was not just for farming or yard work so much anymore) can GO EITHER WAY--- from casual to even sophisticated in a sense, but definitely FEMININE, too, so I dream of this skirt to take it the whole way THERE but nobody MAKES it, that I have found, so far. . . unless they read this and take me up on my idea on it. . . . At least then it may be POSSIBLE for me to HAVE one, as I haven't had the time and/or desire to sit and sew my own clothes since I was in high school and would start sewing a new (maxi) dress Friday night and wear it to school the next Monday morning. Omaha just had its annual Holiday Lights Festival downtown here in the park Thanksgiving night, where the entire community comes out and watches the lights go on all over like a winter wonderland and then drink hot chocolate and listen to carolers and ride in horse drawn carriages sitting under think lap quilts, etc. I would have worn this DENIM DIOR COUTURE SKIRT I am imagining to that event, for sure, with either warm leggings and tights hidden underneath, or even some kind of a plaid-or-such FLANNELIZED PETTICOAT with black lace on the hem that could be an option to go with it during colder weather (which you could also make). . . . For myself, at 5'9", I would have finished MY look with low-heeled riding boots and a soft, scrunched turtleneck under a blazer (such as your black velvet one) or flowing, perhaps cape-like cover up (even of matching, warm-lined denim!). This skirt could go LOTS of places! Will you make them? I think it is of the JPeterman 'essence' that I so love in wearable but striking (a mood) clothing. . . . of a 'Time'. . . .
Yesterday on the 700 Club on TV, they told of a man living in LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY, now, that for like 30 years has played this GREAT game with his family, and it is now a BOXED GAME you can BUY in a FEW places (like Amazon.com and some retail stores and Christian bookstores, they said). It is called THE THANKSGIVING GAME, and it seems GREAT! I wish you also carried that as a Holiday add-on item since he is from your town. His wife says she has saved all the guests responses from the Thanksgivings over the years, and loves to look back through what everone present wrote down they are (currently) MOST GRATEFUL FOR each year. The game has that aspect but others as well. . . . I wanted to log on tonight just to mention that in particular. . . ., I had never HEARD if it before yesterday afternoon, but think it would be GREAT to HAVE and to DO with loved ones on the Holiday or at ANY special get-together.
I am growing weary and have alot to do this weekend, like (let me make this sound like a JOURNAL ENTRY, in keeping with this day's Forum topic I happened in on) "I must do somehing about my brunette roots IMMEDIATELY, as they are UNDERMINING my blonded hair (of these last 16 months now). I must also do whatever humble Christmas decorating in my apartment that I am going to do this year (such as put out our little artificial 'Charlie Brown' tree because CeeBee--- my bird 'baby'--- LOVES IT SO MUCH, enjoying its soft, pretty lights in the dark livingroom before he goes in to bed at night. I will close now. Oh, yes, and the REALLY exciting things like doing laundry and weekly cleaning chores." Nite!