tagged w/ Writers
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The death of Christopher Hitchens on Thursday night, of complications from esophageal cancer at the age of 62, ended one of the greater intellectual careers of the last 40 years. Born in Portsmouth, England, and educated at Balliol College, Oxford, Hitchens started his career as a Trotskyite at “The New Statesman,” working along with noted authors, Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, who would become his lifelong friends. In the early 1980s, he moved to the United States, becoming a citizen in 2007, and began working for liberal magazine “The Nation,” writing some of his earliest attacks on the conservative government and American foreign policy.
A prolific author, Hitchens left behind a massive body of critical writing, with more than a dozen books and hundreds of essays targeting everyone from the British Monarchy to Bill Clinton to George Orwell to God, usually with wit and more often than not, vicious and cutting remarks. Even those who hated his politics could not help but admire his skill as a writer and ability to craft a sharp turn of phrase, and many called him a friend.
Perhaps his most famous book was “The Missionary Position,” a scathing attack on Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity church, an organization that he called a cult. Hitchens described Mother Teresa as a “fraud” and accused her of glorifying poverty to enrich herself and the Catholic church, rather than truly helping the poor. The book infuriated Roman Catholics around the world, as well as politicians and celebrities who he claimed had used the charity and her reputation to mask their own evil deeds.
A later work, “The Trial of Henry Kissinger,” accused the former Secretary of State of “war crimes,” and argued that Kissinger should be prosecuted for “crimes against humanity, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture” for his involvement in atrocities in Southeast Asia and Central America. As a critic of the Bush administration’s use of torture, Hitchens filmed himself being waterboarded to demonstrate the cruelty of the practice. Hitchens claimed that, “The official lie about this treatment … is that it 'simulates' the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning.”
Hitchens had an enviable career arc that began with his own brand of fiery journalism at Britain’s “New Statesman” and then made its way to America, where he wrote for everyone from “The Atlantic” and “Harper’s” to “Slate and “The New York Times Book Review.” He was a legend on the speakers’ circuit, could debate just about anyone on anything and won innumerable awards.
Christopher Hitchens was a wit, a charmer, a troublemaker and was a gift, if it dare be said, from God.
This piece includes color photographs, a photo-gallery and two documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/remembering-christopher-hitchens-1949-2011/The death of Christopher Hitchens on Thursday night, of complications from... more
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Washington Post...
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Christopher Hitchens dies; Vanity Fair writer was a religious skeptic, master of the contrarian essay
PHOTO:
(MARVIN JOSEPH/WASHINGTON POST)
- Christopher Hitchens in May 2010.
By Matt Schudel, Updated: Thursday, December 15, 9:15 PM
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Christopher Hitchens, a sharp-witted provocateur who used his formidable learning, biting wit and muscular prose style to skewer what he considered high-placed hypocrites, craven lackeys of the right and left, “Islamic fascists” and religious faith of any kind, died. He was 62. He had cancer of the esophagus.
Vanity Fair, the magazine for which Mr. Hitchens worked, confirmed his death.
Mr. Hitchens, an English-born writer who had lived in Washington since 1982, was a tireless master of the persuasive essay, which he wrote with an indefatigable energy and venomous glee. He often wrote about the masters of English literature, but he was better known for his lifelong engagement with politics, with subtly nuanced views that did not fit comfortably with the conventional right or left.
In his tartly worded essays, books and television appearances, Mr. Hitchens was a self-styled contrarian who often challenged political and moral orthodoxy. He called Henry Kissinger a war criminal, savaged Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, ridiculed both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, then became an outspoken opponent of terrorism against the West from the Muslim world.
In 2007, Mr. Hitchens aimed his vitriol even higher, writing a best-selling book that disputed the existence of God, then enthusiastically took on anyone — including his own brother — who wanted to argue the matter.
His supporters praised Mr. Hitchens as a truth-telling literary master who, in the words of the Village Voice, was “America’s foremost rhetorical pugilist.” Writer Christopher Buckley has called him “the greatest living essayist in the English language.”
Enemies vilified Mr. Hitchens as a godless malcontent. His onetime colleague at the Nation, Alexander Cockburn, called him “lying, self-serving, fat-assed, chain-smoking, drunken, opportunistic [and] cynical.”
Mr. Hitchens was a raffish character who constantly smoked and drank, yet managed to meet every obligation of a frenetic professional and social schedule. A writer for the Observer newspaper in Britain described him as “at once resolute and dissolute.”
Friends and enemies alike marveled at how the hedonistic Mr. Hitchens, after a full evening of drinking and talking, could then sit down and casually produce sparkling essays for Vanity Fair, the Nation, the Atlantic, Slate.com and many other publications without missing a deadline.
“Writing is recreational for me,” he said in 2002. “I’m unhappy when I’m not doing it.”
He seldom produced an uninteresting sentence while writing with authority on a dizzying array of subjects, including books on Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and the Elgin Marbles. Besides his political essays — usually about international affairs, seldom about domestic U.S. policy — Mr. Hitchens also wrote about strictly literary subjects, including authors Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, P.G. Wodehouse and Philip Roth.
The writer he was most identified with, though, was George Orwell, the British essayist and author of “1984.” His bracing moral courage and brisk prose were among Mr. Hitchens’s ideal models.
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Christopher Hitchens dies; Vanity Fair writer was a... more
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Salman Rushdie fought, once again, to reclaim his name. This time on Facebook. The venerable author on Monday night complained on Twitter that his account has been "deactivated" by FacebookSalman Rushdie fought, once again, to reclaim his name. This time on Facebook. The... more
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User Generated Challenge Winners:
1st Place: $1,000 • 2nd Place: $500 • 3rd Place: $250User Generated Challenge Winners:
1st Place: $1,000 • 2nd Place: $500 •... more
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Author Mitzi Szereto chats with Talk Radio Europe about the publishing business as well as her recent releases, including the controversial "Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts" and the Gothic-themed anthology "Red Velvet and Absinthe: Paranormal Erotic Romance."
http://mitziszereto.com/blog/talk-radio-europe-interview-with-mitzi-szereto/Author Mitzi Szereto chats with Talk Radio Europe about the publishing business as... more
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Brin's 2 bits starts - - -
[ One aspect of our re-ignited American Civil War is getting a lot of air-play. It is so-called “class war.”
That's the tag-line ordered up by Roger Ailes. The notion: that any talk of returning to 1990s tax rates - way back when the U.S. was healthy. wealthy, vibrantly entrepreneurial and world-competitive, generating millionaires at the fastest pace in human history - is somehow akin to Robespierre chopping heads in the French Revolution's reign of terror.
That parallel is actually rather thought-provoking! Indeed, can you hang with me for a few minutes? After setting the stage with some American history, I want to get back to the way things got out of hand during that earlier 1793 class war in France. There are some really interesting aspects I'll bet you never knew.
But in fact, "class war" has always been with us. If you ever actually sit down to read what people wrote in times past - for example Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations, or even the Bible - then you know struggle and resentment between social castes was the normal state of human affairs for 6000 years, or much longer. Seriously, randomly choose (or "roll-up") a decade and locale from across the last few millenia! Tell me who oppressed freedom and competitive markets in that time and place. I'll wait.
In fact, today's American perspective that there is no-such-thing as class - so blithely exploited by Fox - seems rather quirky and charmingly innocent. ]
David Brin is a brilliant bad-ass,...and any 2 bits of his is worth 1000 words ; you get the picture.
If you don't know who David Brin is,.....well,.....you really need to read more science fiction !
this IS continued, at the
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http://open.salon.com/blog/david_brin/2011/09/23/class_war_and_the_lessons_of_historyBrin's 2 bits starts - - -
[ One aspect of our re-ignited American Civil... more
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It’s a pretty rough time for journalism, as the phone hacking scandal rumbles on, so why not look for some escapism in this list?
We’re looking for escapism (so no documentaries) and films where the reporter is the hero (so nothing like Shattered Glass, about a reporter who made up his sources, or The Sweet Smell of Success, in which Burt Lancaster plays a crooked columnist.)It’s a pretty rough time for journalism, as the phone hacking scandal rumbles... more
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The Jane Austen/Pride and Prejudice controversy continues. Authors have forever adapted and borrowed from literary classics, so why all the vitriol with this latest (and very raunchy) adaptation/re-imagining?
http://mitziszereto.com/blog/pitchforks-jane-austen-and-me/The Jane Austen/Pride and Prejudice controversy continues. Authors have forever... more
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http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/the_history_and_meaning_of_copyright_20110831/
Posted on Aug 31, 2011
C.G.P. Grey
Copyright originated in early 1700s England as a contract between authors and society, “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times [28 years] to Authors … the exclusive right to their respective Writings.” After that point, the public was free to mix, remake and build upon an author’s creative idea. In short, to evolve culture.
For a time, that scheme functioned well for members of the art-making and -appreciating public on both sides of the Atlantic, including Walt Disney, who built his animation empire with stories that had entered the public domain. But then, corporations seeking greater profits lobbied for the extension of copyright life far beyond the original length of three decades, and cultural evolution was stymied for their financial benefit.
As C.G.P. Grey, author of the video below argues: “This near-infinite control subverts the whole purpose of copyright which is to promote the creation of more books and movies, not to give companies the power to stop people making new creative works based on the efforts of their long-dead founders. New directors and authors need the freedom to take what came before to remake and remix. And they should be able to use creative material from their own lifetimes to do so, not just be limited to the work of previous generations. —ARKhttp://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/the_history_and_meaning_of_copyright_20110831/... more
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At the time of her death in 2005 Dahlia Ravikovitch was Israel's second best loved poet after Yehuda Amichai. She was also a committed peace activist, yet her readers included Israelis from all points on the political spectrum. Two years ago a new translation of her complete poetry was published by New York publisher W.W. Norton, and last week a paperback edition of Hovering at a Low Altitude: The Complete Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch was released (perfect for poetry loving commuters). In my New York Journal of Books review of the book I describe Ms. Ravikovitch's work as "sophisticated, intelligent, conscientious, and empathic," and Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld's translations as "strong and moving English poems in their own right." My review includes biographical background with references to her feminism, her political activism, her secularism, her mental health issues, and excerpts from her poems.At the time of her death in 2005 Dahlia Ravikovitch was Israel's second best... more
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The Best Poems Encyclopedia would like to call for submissions for its second annual Poetry print Anthology for the best 303 creative works and poems written during the year and develop a new collection dedicated to discover young emerging poets and creative writers among the social poetry and academic diaspora. The deadline for submission is 30 June 2011. All current members and those who join in advance of the deadline are eligible. Submission is free and informations on how to submit directly via the online form can be found on the website http://www.best-poems.net
We hope to receive your best poems and works that deal in some way with these themes: the focus may be on issues of modern life daily experiences in poetry of any genre. What we want are submissions that address the theme(s) of Human Relationships, Borders, Identity, War and Peace, Love, Life and Death, Inspirational, Politics, Women, etc... in new and exciting ways that allow our readers to see the multiplicity of angles and issues these broad headings generate.
Submissions are open to any poet from confirmed to new emerging ones and all creative writers in academic scholarship cycles (students, professors, etc...).The Best Poems Encyclopedia would like to call for submissions for its second annual... more
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EvaRey
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We hear that ebooks are outselling paper all the time but can a author with a common name really get noticed? What if we rethink this? It must still take a lot of money for advertising to make it. So, here we are on current, do any of you really click the links? Do any of you read on a Kindle? This is an experiment. We shall see what happens.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Peggy-Lee-Johnsons-ebooks-and-book-trailers/110733699000412We hear that ebooks are outselling paper all the time but can a author with a common... more
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Neely Swanson, former SVP of Development for David E. Kelley, explains how the situation for women TV pilot writers is much improved in 2011 vs. 2010.Neely Swanson, former SVP of Development for David E. Kelley, explains how the... more
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