-
Anne Baxter in DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments”: “Moses…Moses.”
I just finished Freud’s Moses and Monotheism for about the third or fourth time in my life. At times it is like cracking walnuts in your mouth; it is the kind of book that tells you how uninformed you are are about most things, including yourself; of course, that is the part of us we know the least. The skinny on the book is that considering it was written about 72 years ago –it was published in 1939, Freud having published sections earlier — is that the archaeological and sociological information Freud drew upon is no longer valid as good science.…
-
Third Book
Working with the editors at Wheatmark we have finally reached the point after some 50 minor emendations and corrections and rephrasings and deletions and capitalizations and word choice that “This Mobius Strip of Ifs” is close to publication — perhaps the third week of January. In the meantime I am compiling lists of bloggers, personal friends and acquaintances, Amazon reviewers, and giveaways just for the heck of it in preparation for the birth of my third book in five years. The cover (a mobius strip) is striking and we have the rights to this stunning drawing of a mobius strip, using the…
-
Pastiche and that Mormon Thing
Since my last blog I’ve been preoccupied with editing This Mobius Strip of Ifs, which is a mixture of essays and memoirs on education, Existentialism, writing, family, movies, death, living, separation, attachment and psychological abandonment as well as societal conditioning. Whew! After pretty well “scrubbing” the text, Jane and I still found about 50 corrections to make, some requiring re-phrasing, others making the text more felicitous. All tedious and necessary. It is a sturdy book; if better than that, I leave it to reviewers. I have sent out a copy to a contest as well as other work as well. I…
-
Dear Mr. Brooks
David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times.I answered his request in his column, “The Life Report.” I am quoting from his opening remarks. “If you are over 70, I’d like to ask for a gift. I’d like you to write a brief report on your life so far, an evaluation of what you did well, of what you did not so well and what you learned along the way. You can write this as a brief essay or divide your life into categories — career, family, faith, community, and self-knowledge –and give yourself a grade in each…