Bøker av David Bruce

This is a short, quick, and easy read.Most of these anecdotes are probably just OK (humor is hard!), but there should be at least one or two that you will want to tell your friends.Anecdotes are retold in my own words to avoid plagiarism.Most of these anecdotes are meant to be funny, but some are meant to be thought-provoking.Some Samples:¿ Johnny Brewton is the creator behind the zine X-Ray, each issue of which consists of 226 copies, each one at least slightly different. It was definitely an artistic project, and lifetime subscribers included the J. Paul Getty Museum, the rare book department of S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo, and the University of Wisconsin. One contributor was Hunter S. Thompson, who helped create the cover of X-Ray #4 by putting on lipstick and kissing a few copies and by shooting a bullet through every copy. (The cover was a photograph of Marilyn Chambers holding a box of Ivory Snow.) Another contributor to X-Ray was Charles Bukowski, who impressed Mr. Brewton with his work ethic: Mr. Brewton wrote Mr. Bukowski on a Monday requesting some poems, and by that Saturday - not even a week later - he received an envelope containing some poems. Mr. Brewton says about Mr. Bukowski, "I was amazed at how generous he was - he really gave back a lot and supported small presses; he taught me a lot about professionalism and deadlines. He was always on time." Yet another contributor was Timothy Leary. Mr. Leary's publicist, however, in a phone conversation told Mr. Brewton, "Mr. Leary has to charge one dollar per word for articles and stories. Are you sure you want to do this?" Because the zine made basically zero money, Mr. Brewton sarcastically replied, "That fits my budget perfectly! I'll buy one word." The publicist asked, "Which word do you want?" Mr. Brewton replied, "I don't know. Have Mr. Leary decide." The publicist spoke to Mr. Leary, and Mr. Brewton overheard Mr. Leary say, "That's great! Yes! I pick the word 'Chaos' - that's my piece!" Mr. Brewton titled the work "A One Word Dosage from Dr. Timothy Leary" and put a card saying "Chaos" inside a pill envelope - each of the 226 copies of the issue contained the one-word contribution.¿ In her autobiography, I'm Not Making This Up, You Know, Anna Russell writes that sometimes during performances she used to wear a gown that had "a big pouffe of tulle at the back of the skirt, making a little train." During an appearance in San Francisco, her accompanist accidentally stepped on the train, pulling out the long length of tulle. Much later, during an appearance in London, Ms. Russell was wearing the same dress, but she had a new accompanist, whom she forgot to warn about her train. Once again, her accompanist accidentally stepped on her train, pulling out the long length of tulle. After the performance, an American sailor came backstage and said that he enjoyed her work, but he especially enjoyed the part at the end, when her accompanist stepped on her train. Ms. Russell explained that that had been an accident, not part of the show, but the sailor replied, "The h*ll it was an accident. I saw you do it in San Francisco."¿ American dance pioneer Ted Shawn came up with an original way to stop obesity in the United States. Simply require everyone to stand for one hour per year naked in public - vanity would soon make obesity vanish.

This book contains 250 anecdotes, including these:¿ George Jessel was known as the Toastmaster of the United States because he spoke at so many dinners and gave so many elegies at funerals. He once observed a number of veterans at a dining room in a hotel. They had fought together, and some had been injured in battle, including a man who could no longer speak. At the table was an empty chair for one of their fellows who had been killed in battle. One by one they made a toast to their fallen comrade and drank. When it was his turn to make a toast, the veteran who could not speak stood up, raised a glass to the empty chair, then sat down, and all drank. Mr. Jessel says, "It was the most eloquent toast I've ever witnessed."¿ Syndicated columnist Connie Schultz, who lives in Ohio, remembers a group of children who attended a school near where she then lived. Each day after school they visited an orange cat named Tim-Tom. One day, Tim-Tom was not in his owners' driveway - he had died. His owners, Marianne and Paul Carey, saw the children looking for Tim-Tom, and so they posted his picture and obituary on a lamppost: "We would sadly like to let the neighborhood know that our dutiful Tim-Tom passed away on Sat. at age 18 years and 2 months. He is peacefully resting in our garden." The children wrote letters of condolence and left them under the lamppost.When Sam Kinison died, lots of comedians showed up at his funeral and talked about him. Richard Belzer emceed, and Pauly Shore talked about how Sam used to be his babysitter. Comedian (and Sam's best friend) Carl Labove had been with Sam when he died, and he spoke-but briefly, as he started to cry. Mr. Belzer helped him from the podium and led him to a chair, but suddenly Mr. Labove broke away from Mr. Belzer, ran back to the podium, and announced, "By the way, I'll be at Iggy's all week! Two shows Friday, three Saturday!" I'm sure that Sam would have loved it.Donald Ogden Stewart once told a harrowing story to a society lady about how his sloop had been capsized and he had to struggle for his life and was in danger of drowning near the Clews' house-at this point the society lady interrupted by asking, "How are the Clews?"

This is a short, quick, and easy read.Some samples:1) Blues singer Muddy Waters first heard his voice on a recording in the early 1940s. His impression of his voice was positive; afterward, he said, "I thought, man, this boy can sing the blues. And I was surprised because I didn't know I sang like that."2)At age 13, William F. Buckley was sent to an English boarding school, where his piano teacher offered to teach him the first movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." However, William's old piano teacher had warned him that playing the "Moonlight Sonata" before one was ready was simply wrong; therefore, he wrote her for permission to learn to play its first movement. Quickly, he received a letter from her in reply, and she did not give him permission to learn the first movement. She explained that if one was unable to learn the third and difficult movement, then one should not learn the first movement. She also explained that the first movement required a "maturity" that William was too young to have acquired. Mr. Buckley writes that this letter helped teach him that "good music is a very serious business."3) Herman's Hermits was a very popular pop group in the 1960s, recording such hits as "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter," "Dandy," and "I'm Henry VIII, I Am." These days, they perform before nostalgic audiences often consisting of women in their 40s and 50s. According to lead singer Peter Noone, "Girls used to throw underwear at us. We still get some, but it's bigger than it used to be." 4) World-renowned conductor Pierre Monteux was once denied a room at a hotel, but when the manager discovered that Mr. Monteux was famous, he said that he could arrange a room for him because Mr. Monteux was "somebody." Mr. Monteux refused the room and departed, saying, "Everybody is somebody."

This is a short, quick, and easy read.Most of these anecdotes are probably just OK (humor is hard!), but there should be at least one or two that you will want to tell your friends.This book contains 250 anecdotes, including these:Starting out as a stand-up comedian can be tough. Dallas comedian Sherry Belle remembers getting laughs her first time on stage; unfortunately, the audience was laughing at all the wrong places. For example, she finished a joke, but the audience didn't laugh, so she said, "That was the punch line." That made the audience laugh.¿ While working at Darmstadt, Rudolf Bing knew a comedian who was completely bald, but had three wigs with different lengths of hair. The comedian would wear the short-haired wig for a while, then the medium-haired wig. When he finally put on the long-haired wig, he would tell everyone he needed a haircut. Whenever the comedian began to wear the short-haired wig again, everyone complimented him on his haircut.¿ Between 1935 and 1940, Buster Keaton was making films in foreign countries. Movies had sound then, so he recorded the movies in various languages, learning a sentence in one language and recording it, and then learning that sentence in another language and recording it, and so on. For one movie, he recorded the dialogue in French and in Spanish, and he did OK. But his German language instructor noticed a problem with his German: "Oh, I understand him very well, only he's speaking with a French-Spanish accent."¿ As a boy, W.C. Fields had a unique way of peddling newspapers. He juggled the folded newspapers, and he yelled out teasers about the stories inside the newspapers. However, he ignored regular news stories and instead boosted unusual stories, such as "Bronislaw Gimp acquires license for two-year-old sheepdog. Details on page 26."

This is a short, quick, and easy read.Most of these anecdotes are probably just OK (humor is hard!), but there should be at least one or two that you will want to tell your friends.Anecdotes are retold in my own words to avoid plagiarism.Most of these anecdotes are meant to be funny, but some are meant to be thought-provoking.This book contains 250 anecdotes, including this one:¿ David Foster Wallace's mother was an English teacher at a community college. She had an interesting way of teaching David and Amy, his sister, proper grammar. If either of them made an error in usage during conversation at the supper table, she would pretend to have a coughing fit until the child acknowledged his or her error and corrected it.¿ Philip Pullman, author of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, is a wonderful storyteller-not just when he writes his novels, but also when he tells out loud the stories of classic literature. For example, when he and his family were on vacation, Tom, his young son, found it difficult to stay still while they waited for their food in a restaurant. Therefore, Mr. Pullman started telling him the story of Odysseus, hero of Homer's "Odyssey," who spent 10 years at Troy in the Trojan War, and who spent another 10 years returning back home to his home island, Ithaca. Although Odysseus was the King of Ithaca, he returned home without any of his men or ships. Ever cautious, he disguised himself as a beggar, and then he set out to see if he had any friends left on the island. He found that a gang of young men who thought he was dead had overtaken his palace. They wanted to kill his son and to force his wife, Penelope, to choose one of them to marry. Eventually, Mr. Pullman reached the point in the story where Odysseus gets his great bow in his hands and strings the bow. After stringing the bow, he plucks the string on the bow just like a harp player plucks a string on a harp. Immediately, the suitors besieging Penelope feel dread because they know that Odysseus is going to try to kill all of them. At this point, Tom, who was holding a drink in his hands, was so excited that he bit a chunk out of his glass. Their waitress saw him do that, and she was so shocked that she dropped the tray with all their food on the floor. Mr. Pullman ends his story by writing, "And I sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Homer."

This book contains 250 anecdotes about movies, including this one: Late in Peter Lorre's career, after he had begun to make bad films, a fan wrote him, "I would love to be tortured by you." Mr. Lorre wrote back, "You have been tortured enough by going to my pictures."This is a short, quick, and easy read.Most of these anecdotes are probably just OK, but there should be at least one or two that you will want to tell your friends.Anecdotes are retold in my own words to avoid plagiarism.Most of these anecdotes are meant to be funny, but some are meant to be thought-provoking.¿ In 1988, Jodie Foster won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Accused. Following her acceptance speech, she joked backstage that she would immediately put the Oscar to good use: "I rented three videos last night ... and they said if I brought this in I would get them free."¿ Craig Russell, a Canadian female impersonator of genius, wrote and starred in the cult classic movie Outrageous. When the film was shown at the Virgin Islands Film Festival, Mr. Russell had the pleasure of winning awards for both Best Actor and Best Actress. A comedian, Mr. Russell used to say, "I'm a drag queen. I'm a transvestite. I'm a drug addict. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a homosexual. Other than that, I'm perfectly normal." He died of AIDS at the age of 42 on Oct. 30, 1990.¿ Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce and their families once ate breakfast together while traveling on a train. Mr. Rathbone excused himself from the table, picked up the morning paper, then began to leave the dining car. Ever-mischievous Mr. Bruce asked Cynthia, Mr. Rathbone's young daughter, "Darling, where's Daddy going?" Cynthia's answer filled the crowded dining car: "Daddy's going to do after-breakfast plop-plops."¿ Jack Palence excellently played a bad guy in the 1953 movie classic Shane. However, he was a bad horseman. After several tries, he made a perfect dismount, so director George Stevens used that shot in the movie every time Mr. Palence dismounted - and, by running the film backward, every time Mr. Palence mounted. In addition, in one scene Mr. Palence was supposed to gallop into town. But Mr. Palence was such a poor horseman, he finally was told to walk the horse into town. (This scene works very well in the movie.)

This is a short, quick, and easy read. Most of these anecdotes are probably just OK, but there should be at least one or two that you will want to tell your friends. Anecdotes are retold in my own words to avoid plagiarism. Most of these anecdotes are meant to be funny, but some are meant to be thought-provoking. ¿ In 2006, South Dakota instituted almost a total ban on abortions. Bill Napoli, a South Dakota State Senator, supported this ban, saying that women should not be allowed to have abortions even if they get pregnant for "simple rape." (He did say that he would make an exception for a religious virgin who gets pregnant from a brutalizing rape.) Cartoonist Stephanie McMillan saw Mr. Napoli's words as expressing a belief that women shouldn't be allowed to make decisions for themselves, so she created a cartoon in which a woman character telephones Mr. Napoli when she is asked to make a decision about which salad dressing to use - the character asks Mr. Napoli, "Roasted pepper vinaigrette or honey mustard?" The cartoon included Mr. Napoli's work and home telephone numbers, which many other women used to call him. One woman asked him whether her bra and panties should match; another woman asked him whether she should use tampons or pads. ¿ After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which destroyed most of the city, architect Julia Morgan was hired to rebuild the Fairmont Hotel, in part because of her expertise in reinforced concrete, which was at that time a new material. Women architects were rare, so a woman reporter inspected the Fairmont Hotel, then asked the foreman, "Is the building really in the charge of a woman architect?" The foreman replied, "This building is in [the] charge of a real architect, and her name happens to be Julia Morgan." After the building was completed, another woman reporter came to see it. Standing in the dining room, which was decorated with gold, gray, ivory, and scarlet, she said to Ms. Morgan, "How you must have reveled in this chance to squeeze dry the loveliest tubes in the whole world of color!" Ms. Morgan replied, "I don't think you understand just what my work here has been. The decorative part was done by a New York firm. My work has all been structural." ¿ One of the ways that comedian Whoopi Goldberg knew that she was beginning to make it big was that caricaturist Harry Hirschfeld worked his art on her in The New York Times while she was appearing on a one-woman show on Broadway. Mr. Hirschfeld traditionally hides his daughter's name - Nina - in his caricatures, and in his caricature of Ms. Goldberg he wrote "Nina" 40 times. Ms. Goldberg was so pleased with Mr. Hirschfeld's caricature that she sent him flowers.

This is a short, quick, and easy read. Anecdotes are retold in my own words to avoid plagiarism. Most of these anecdotes are meant to be funny, but some are meant to be thought-provoking. ¿ In Bikini Kill's early songs, vocalist Kathleen Hanna tends to repeat lines many times. She had a reason for doing this. The sound equipment Bikini Kill played live with was very bad, and she worried that no one would understand the words, and so she repeated them over and over so that the audience would hear them. Some of the lyrics deserve to be heard over and over - for example, she repeated these lines from the song "Resist Psychic Death" over and over: "I resist with every inch and every breath / I resist this psychic death." By the way, near the end of his life, the heart of Mexican artist José Clemente Orozco grew weaker, and his cardiologist, Dr. Ignacio Chávez, recommended that he stop the strenuous work of painting huge murals and instead concentrate on the less strenuous work of creating easel paintings. However, Mr. Orozco refused to take this advice. Instead, he remarked to his wife, "I'm not going to do as the doctor says and abandon mural painting. I prefer physical death to the moral death that would be the equivalent of giving up mural painting." So how does one resist psychic death? Some ways include practicing an art, doing good deeds, paying attention to your soul as well as your body, staying angry at the things that should anger us, and being aware of the fabulous realities that surround us despite the presence of evil in the world. ¿ In 2007, while standing in line in Victoria station in London, a man named Gareth Edwards, who describes himself as a "big, stocky bloke with a shaven head," noticed a well-dressed businessman cutting in line behind him. (Apparently, Mr. Edwards is so big that the businessman did not want to cut in line ahead of him.) Some people politely remonstrated with the businessman, but the businessman ignored the protests. So Mr. Edwards asked the elderly woman who was behind the businessman line-cutter-in, "Do you want to go in front of me?" She did, and Mr. Edwards then asked the new person standing behind the businessman line-cutter-in, "Do you want to go in front of me?" Mr. Edwards did this 60 or 70 times, so he and the businessman kept moving further back in line. Finally, just as the bus pulled up, the elderly woman whom he had first allowed to go ahead in line, yelled back to him, "Young man! Do you want to go in front of me?"

This is a short, quick, and easy read.Most of these anecdotes are probably just OK, but there should be at least one or two that you will want to tell your friends.Anecdotes are retold in my own words to avoid plagiarism.Most of these anecdotes are meant to be funny, but some are meant to be thought-provoking.¿ Star Trek: The Experience can be seen at the Las Vegas Hilton. Among other attractions are actors portraying characters from the various Star Trek series. Many of the actors are very good, and they stay in character. For example, a famous Ferengi is Quark. When a fan yelled "Quark!" at an actor in a Ferengi costume, the actor sighed and said, "Billions of Ferengi in the Universe, and they [Hu-Mans] all think we are Quark!" The Ferengi are a notoriously acquisitive species, and Star Trek fan Kevin Wagner was shocked that an actor playing a Ferengi agreed to pose for free for a photograph with a fan. Therefore, Kevin quoted the 13th Rule of Acquisition to the Ferengi: "Anything worth doing is worth doing for money." However, the actor playing the Ferengi knew his stuff: "Don't quote the Rules of Acquisition to me, Hu-Man. Free publicity!"¿ George Burns and Gracie Allen had years of experience performing in vaudeville before they started doing their radio show. This long experience came in handy when mishaps occurred on their show. One day, the lights in the studio went out, and no one could read the script. On another occasion, Gracie accidentally dropped her script, and the pages scattered everywhere. Both times, they ignored the script. George simply asked, "Gracie, how's your brother?" - and Gracie started one of their well-memorized and very funny vaudeville routines.¿ Comedian Soupy Sales used to collect portraits of United States Presidents and American founding fathers. On his TV show for children, he once told his young viewers to go through Mommy's purse and Daddy's wallet and mail him "the little green pieces of paper with pictures of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Lincoln, and Jefferson on them." In return, he promised to send the children a postcard from Puerto Rico.

This is a short, quick, and easy read. ¿ While on tour, Merce Cunningham and his dance troupe stopped at the Brownsville Eat-All-You-Want Restaurant, where they wolfed down food in huge quantities. (Dancer Steve Paxton ate five pieces of pie for dessert!) Mr. Cunningham asked the cashier how the restaurant managed to stay open, and she replied, "Most people don't eat as much as you people." On another tour, they stopped at a restaurant that advertised homemade pies. Before the dance troupe left the restaurant, they heard the servers tell the regular pie-eating customers, "I'm sorry - we don't have any more." ¿ When the young ballerina Maria Tallchief was married to choreographer George Balanchine, they hosted a dinner for composer Igor Stravinsky. Mr. Balanchine liked to cook, but he couldn't physically be at home to prepare the food, so he left instructions for Ms. Tallchief, telling her when to start cooking the potatoes, etc. Unfortunately, Ms. Tallchief was so nervous that she dropped the potatoes on the floor, where they rolled everywhere, and when Mr. Stravinsky arrived, she was picking up the potatoes, washing them off, and putting them in a pot. A very embarrassed Ms. Tallchief explained what had happened, and a very polite Mr. Stravinsky said, "The potatoes will taste better."

This is a short, quick, and easy read. Most of these anecdotes are probably just OK (comedy is hard!), but there should be at least one or two that you will want to tell your friends. ¿ Maurice Sendak, author/illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are, was a sickly child. His father once told him that he might see an angel outside his window, and if he did see an angel, then his illness would be over quickly. However, his father also said that angels were quick and therefore were hard to see: "If you blink, you'll miss it." After his father left the room, young Maurice looked out the window. Then he started shouting, "I saw it! I saw it! I saw the angel!" Mr. Sendak says about his father, "He was as thrilled as I was." ¿ Musician Laurie Anderson and comedian Andy Kaufman seem like an unlikely team, but they used to do put-ons together. They would go to a place that had a Test-Your-Strength machine. Mr. Kaufman would try but fail to win a stuffed rabbit for Ms. Anderson. Then Mr. Kaufman would angrily denounce the machine, yelling that it was rigged, and Ms. Anderson would angrily demand the stuffed rabbit that Mr. Kaufman would have won for her if the machine had not been rigged. By the way, Ms. Anderson has some advice for people who would like to be creative: "My approach as an artist has been to always remember that I'm free. That's what I tell young artists. You hear them say, 'I can't be an artist! Michelangelo was an artist! What would people say?' Well, most people don't care about what you do. So knock yourself out. You're free." ¿ When the marriage of Emerald, the younger sister of African-American artist Ashley Bryan, ended, she had five children to provide for. Her parents took her and her family in, and Ashley helped her out financially. Some of his salary as an art teacher and his income as an artist went to raise her children until they were grown. The children helped him out by posing for him, although since they were young, occasionally he had trouble getting them to stand still for the pose: "Come back! Come back! Come back to the pose!" In his life, Mr. Bryan has tried to do what the members of his church told him when they gave him a room and art supplies so he could teach art to children: "You have a talent. Share your gifts with others." By the way, children sometimes ask him if he is rich. He replies, "Am I rich? Oh, I am SO rich! I have the blue sky overhead, the green grass underfoot, the clouds, the trees, the flowers!" African-American author Walter Dean Myers learned from Mr. Bryan, "It's about the art." ¿ Before World War II, Lucy Carrington Wertheimer ran an art gallery that championed the work of modern artists; however, earlier in her life, she knew little about the work of modern artists. In her home, she owned and hung paintings by such artists as Zoffaney, Géricault, and Sickert. Her younger sister, Fanny Wadsworth, who was married to a cousin of modern artist Edward Wadsworth, looked at her collection, then asked, "Lucy, have you never heard of Picasso?"

This book is an easy-to-read retelling of George Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston's EASTWARD HO! A Retelling. Reading this retelling will help you to read and understand the original play. In this retelling, as in all my retellings, I have tried to make the work of literature accessible to modern readers who may lack the knowledge about mythology, religion, and history that the literary work's contemporary audience had. Do you know a language other than English? If you do, I give you permission to translate this book, copyright your translation, publish or self-publish it, and keep all the royalties for yourself. (Do give me credit, of course, for the original retelling.) I would like to see my retellings of classic literature used in schools, so I give permission to the country of Finland (and all other countries) to give copies of this book to all students forever. I also give permission to the state of Texas (and all other states) to give copies of this book to all students forever. I also give permission to all teachers to give copies of this book to all students forever. Teachers need not actually teach my retellings. Teachers are welcome to give students copies of my eBooks as background material. For example, if they are teaching Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, teachers are welcome to give students copies of my Virgil's Aeneid: A Retelling in Prose and tell students, "Here's another ancient epic you may want to read in your spare time."

This book is a short, quick, and easy read. It contains 250 music anecdotes, including these:1) Hardcore group Black Flag sometimes played shows for very few people. In 1982, Black Flag played a show in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for two, or at most five people, who sat far away, in the back. Henry Rollins, lead singer, was mad, and he complained about the lack of audience just before Black Flag went on stage to perform. Fortunately, Black Flag bassist Chuck Dukowski talked to him, and in Mr. Rollins' words, "straightened me out on a few things." Mr. Dukowski taught him "that even though there were only a few people there, it didn't matter. They were there to see us, and that was good enough." Mr. Rollins, adds, "He said that you never pull a bullsh*t attitude on stage, and you always play your *ss off or don't play at all." Mr. Rollins remembers the show that Black Flag played that night. He says, "I played my *ss off that night." Mr. Rollins sings, performs spoken-word concerts, and writes. He says, "I am a guy who used to work at an ice cream store in Washington, D.C. I am of average intelligence. There's nothing special about me. If I can get this far, I would be very surprised if you couldn't get at least twice as far. F**k them. Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp."2) One of the things that David Amram learned from fellow musician Miles Davis is that in jazz there are no wrong notes. Mr. Ashram explains, "By that he did not mean to play anything - he had the most beautiful selection of notes imaginable. But he meant anything that you have can move to something else if you have a right path." For example, early in Mr. Amram's career he was playing French horn with Charlie Mingus, and the cash register went off while he was playing and it bothered him. Mr. Mingus said, "Next time that happens, play off the cash register. Use that as part of the music. If you're playing, the piano player is going blockity-block, the drum is going buckita-bucka-ding. Put that into the music and answer it. Go bita-boo-boo-bum and answer the cash register. Make that part of the whole experience."3) Leonard Bernstein and his family spoke a language that he helped to create with a childhood friend named Eddie Ryback. They named the language with an amalgamation of their names: Ryback plus Bernstein equals Rybernian. Nina, Mr. Bernstein's daughter, explains, "It's basically a way of mispronouncing things - Yiddish words as well as people who just talk funny." A London Times article explains that "I love you" becomes "Mu-la-du," and the appropriate response is "Mu-la-dumus" ("I love you more"). Sometimes, Mr. Bernstein would put on what his children considered to be airs, and they would tell him in Rybernian, "La-lutt" ("Shut up"). Nina says, "[T]hat would bring him right down to earth."4) All copies of the December 1989 issue of Sassy, a magazine for North American teenage girls, contained a flexidisc of R.E.M. covering the song "Dark Globe" by Syd Barrett. Sassy editor Jane Pratt walked by Tower Records and was happy to see that every copy of Sassy had been sold - until she noticed a trashcan filled with copies of Sassy. R.E.M. fans had bought Sassy, thrown away the magazine, and kept the flexidisc.

This book contains 250 anecdotes about opera, including these anecdotes: 1) When Pierre Monteux started working at the Metropolitan Opera, he decided to buy a shiny Ford touring-car. He paid $300 for the car, which he was proud of at first, although it looked modest when parked beside the luxurious cars of the stars of the Met. However, the car did give Mr. Monteux trouble. One day, as he was driving it, the car developed engine trouble and stopped. Mr. Monteux got out of the car, tipped his hat to it, and walked away, never to return. 2) When Canadian figure skater Toller Cranston served as a judge at a Miss USA beauty pageant, the contestant from New York told him that she loved opera. However, in conversation, he found out that she had never been to the Met and that her favorite opera was "Phantom of the Opera," so he told her, "My dear, don't even think about going to 'La Traviata.' You would hate it." 3) Enrico Caruso was quite a practical joker off stage and on. Nellie Melba used to chew evergreen gum from Australia to keep her throat moist, chewing it before going on stage and then depositing it in a cup in the wings where she could use it to moisten her throat when she was once more off stage. Mr. Caruso once substituted chewing tobacco for the gum when Ms. Melba was on stage. On another occasion, in the last act of La Bohème, Ms. Melba, who was performing the role of the dying Mimi, was carefully lifted and placed on a bed. However, when the sheets of the bed were lifted so Mimi could be covered, the audience laughed - under the bed Mr. Caruso had ordered a stagehand to place a large object: a chamberpot. 4) Opera tenor Luciana Pavarotti made an unsuccessful movie titled Yes, Giorgio. Perhaps it was unsuccessful because Mr. Pavarotti was known for his voice (and his weight), not for his acting. According to Hollywood lore, Kate Jackson of Charlie's Angels fame almost signed up to co-star with Mr. Pavarotti, but singer/actress Cher advised her, "Never, never, ever do a movie where you can't get your arms around your romantic lead."

his book is an easy-to-read retelling of William Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT. Viola is shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, and she disguises herself in men's clothing and begins to work for Duke Orsino. Although she falls in love with him, her main job is to carry love messages from him to Countess Olivia, who falls in love with Viola, whom Olivia thinks is a man. ***In this retelling, as in all my retellings, I have tried to make the work of literature accessible to modern readers who may lack the knowledge about mythology, religion, and history that the literary work's contemporary audience had. Do you know a language other than English? If you do, I give you permission to translate this book, copyright your translation, publish or self-publish it, and keep all the royalties for yourself. (Do give me credit, of course, for the original retelling.) I would like to see my retellings of classic literature used in schools, so I give permission to the country of Finland (and all other countries) to give copies of this book to all students forever. I also give permission to the state of Texas (and all other states) to give copies of this book to all students forever. I also give permission to all teachers to give copies of this book to all students forever. Teachers need not actually teach my retellings. Teachers are welcome to give students copies of my eBooks as background material. For example, if they are teaching Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, teachers are welcome to give students copies of my Virgil's Aeneid: A Retelling in Prose and tell students, "Here's another ancient epic you may want to read in your spare time."

For Adults Only. Erotic Satire. This is an erotic version of Voltaire's satiric masterpiece with additional satire for our times. Do you know a language other than English? If you do, I give you permission to translate this book, copyright your translation, publish or self-publish it, and keep all the royalties for yourself. (Do give me credit, of course, for the original retelling.) I would like to see my retellings of classic literature used in schools, so I give permission to the country of Finland (and all other countries) to give copies of this book to all students forever. I also give permission to the state of Texas (and all other states) to give copies of this book to all students forever. I also give permission to all teachers to give copies of this book to all students forever. Teachers need not actually teach my retellings. Teachers are welcome to give students copies of my eBooks as background material. For example, if they are teaching Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, teachers are welcome to give students copies of my Virgil's Aeneid: A Retelling in Prose and tell students, "Here's another ancient epic you may want to read in your spare time."

This is an easy-to-read version of William Shakespeare's romance THE WINTER'S TALE. People who read this retelling first will find Shakespeare's play easier to read and understand. In this retelling, as in all my retellings, I have tried to make the work of literature accessible to modern readers who may lack the knowledge about mythology, religion, and history that the literary work's contemporary audience had.Do you know a language other than English? If you do, I give you permission to translate this book, copyright your translation, publish or self-publish it, and keep all the royalties for yourself. (Do give me credit, of course, for the original retelling.) I would like to see my retellings of classic literature used in schools, so I give permission to the country of Finland (and all other countries) to give copies of this book to all students forever. I also give permission to the state of Texas (and all other states) to give copies of this book to all students forever. I also give permission to all teachers to give copies of this book to all students forever. Teachers need not actually teach my retellings. Teachers are welcome to give students copies of my eBooks as background material. For example, if they are teaching Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, teachers are welcome to give students copies of my Virgil's Aeneid: A Retelling in Prose and tell students, "Here's another ancient epic you may want to read in your spare time."