I looked up this quote to be certain I quoted it with accuracy and low and behold! Today is the day that Winston Churchill (you all know how much I love him) and Charles Bukowski (you know I am obsessed with him) meet. Considering it’s my blog I guess it was inevitable.
Winston Churchill was one of the greatest ‘coiner of phrases’ that the world has ever seen. He said, ‘those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it’ back in the early 1900’s. Not much has changed and it seems that we are, indeed, doomed to repeat and repeat.
Ironically, Bukowski wrote this prose back in the early 1950’s. It could have been written yesterday; we’re still at war, the politicians still suffer from the malady of greed and power. Government still disregards the weak, the old, the impoverished, the helpless……..
putrefaction © (Bukowski)
of late
I’ve had this thought
that this country
has gone backwards
4 or 5 decades
and that all the
social advancement
the good feeling of
person toward
person
has been washed
away
and replaced by the same
old
bigotries.
we have
more than ever
the selfish wants of power
the disregard for the
weak
the old
the impoverished
the
helpless.
we are replacing want with
war
salvation with
slavery.
we have wasted the
gains
we have become
rapidly
less.
we have our Bomb
it is our fear
our damnation
and our
shame.
now
something so sad
has hold of us
that
the breath
leaves
and we can’t even
cry.
‘Oh no!’ you cry, ‘Trish is going all political on us’. Not at all. It’s still about the writing and the wordsmiths of our time.
I just found it so poignant that these two great men, so very different in their calling and their craft would come to the same philosophical place decades apart. One man was a great statesman, a world leader and a wordmaster at the highest level. The other man, a dissolute, drunken, promiscuous, wild genius of a writer. One pronounced wisdom in a pedantic, clear statement, leaving nothing to interpretation or misunderstanding. The other’s rantings makes you see it, breath it, taste it, feel it.
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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! “The Writer’s Corner”
In addition to my twice weekly blog I will also feature an interview with another author once a month. These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Karen Robards, Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Tasha Alexander, Patrick Taylor, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Cathy Lamb, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Raymond Benson, Andrew Grant, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, and many others.
So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create! Jeffrey Deaver was October’s author and Patrick Taylor will join us in November. Slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year. Raymond Benson is my January author.
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Playwright, author, Trisha Sugarek celebrated Black History Month with a musical, staged reading of her one woman show, “Scent of Magnolia”, A Tribute to the Life and Music of Billie Holiday. Playing to a sold out house, the reading featured Krystle Pitts (as jazz singer, Billie Holiday) and Ben Rafuse (as Billie’s ‘piano man) on keyboard’. ‘God Bless the Child’ video from the show, click here: https://www.facebook.com/writeratplay
Billie tells us not only her story, but the nation’s story. She interjects her tale with her most famous music as well as some of her more obscure songs. In her own words, she talks about her struggle to succeed in spite of the segregation of that time and the difficulties she experienced singing with the great bands, most of which were white men. Without self pity , she talks about the daily slings and arrows that are a part of bigotry. Billie takes complete responsibility for her life, her choices, and her actions. Her triumph was her music and her songs that will live on forever.
