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Author Archives: JAMES F. O'NEIL

APRIL 23 1564-1616

April 22, 2016
PEOPLE
4 Comments

“Are there any dates that are important to remember?” “Well, your birthday, your wife’s birthday, your mother’s birthday for sure, and Shakespeare’s birthday. NEVER forget your wedding anniversary.”

. . .

On April 23, 1616, many will be celebrating the life and works of William Shakespeare, though it is the 400th anniversary of his death on that day. (Some speculate he may also have been born on the 23rd in 1564). Death is certainly part of many of his plays: dead bodies in Romeo and Juliet, bodies lying about in Hamlet, bloodied messes in Macbeth.

Yet there is also joy and happiness, and love and justice, friendship and mercy, drunken silliness, and even magic, sprites, ghosts, and witches writ large in his story telling.

And some good history, some bad history, some sad history–war, defeat, executions, conspiracy, deceit. Good rulers, bad rulers. (Alas, even some made-up history.)
So this is a time of remembering, for some reason, any reason, no reason. Some of what he wrote might just be worth remembering. “This above all: to thine own self be true.” (Hamlet 1.3)

. . .

*“He jests at scars that never felt a wound.” (Romeo and Juliet 2.2 1.)

*“We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.” (The Tempest 4.1.156-158)

*“O, I am Fortune’s fool!” (Romeo and Juliet 3.1)

*“The fault, dear Brutus, is not with our stars / But in ourselves that we are underlings.” (Julius Caesar 1.2)

*“But I do think it is their husbands’ faults / If wives do fall.” (Othello 4.3.87-88)

*“It is excellent / To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous / To use it like a giant.” (Measure for Measure 2.2)

*“The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” (The Merchant of Venice 1.3.99)

*“Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy. / It is the green-eyed monster. . . .” (Othello 3.3.165-66)

*“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” (Romeo and Juliet 2.2.43-44)

*“Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” (Macbeth 5.5.23-28)

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21 APRIL 2016 “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOUR MAJESTY!”

April 20, 2016
EVENTS, PEOPLE
7 Comments

BY: JAMES F. O’NEIL

Taurus Astrology: April 20–May 20: Dependable, Persistent, Loyal, Patient, Generous.  Perfectly fine on being alone; this way things are done the way they want them to be done.  Fiercely loyal to friends and family–and dependable, but deeply sensitive.  They do not express their feelings openly.  Have immense perseverance, even when others have given up.  Very responsive to their surroundings.  They like decorations, color, or anything that appeals to all the senses. 

Taurus like possessions, with the Taurus home nicely decorated with lots of things. Taurus are down to earth, do not like gaudy, flashy or over- the-top-things.  They prefer comfortable and creative settings and objects.

. . .

When Princess Elizabeth of England became queen in 1952

elizabeth in 1952-estate-of-dorothy-wilding letthemgrumble blog

[Credit: Dorothy Wilding Estate. lethtemgrumble blog]

I was a paperboy delivering newspapers on the South Side for the Chicago Herald American.

herald american

I do have memories of folding papers for my route in February 1952.  I do remember those headlines,

king george dies 09iht-retrospective-Dead-King-credit IHT archive

[Credit: IHT Archive]

though I hardly knew her, and knew but a little more about Great Britain.  Yet I soon learned that she and I were related–both born under the sign of Taurus!  I was smitten. 

I began clipping newspaper articles, pictures of her, and reading of her in TIME.  I was a loyal subject, following her LIFE events–that is until high school, when I supplanted her with a new queen, Kim Novak.

Always, though, to this day, the occasion of her and my birthday brings a smile and a thought of her, and maybe something memorable.  This year our birthdays are special: a big one for me: 

number interstate 75

but a bigger one for her: number 90.png So, here’s a shout out HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  to two special people born on 21 April.

baby jimmy cummings 8-3-1941 Baby Jimmy in Carriage [8-6-41]

 

elizabeth II 2016ELIZABETH II 2016 APRIL 21

 ©   James F. O’Neil  2016

2016-Queens-90th-birthday-coin-620x350

 

 

 

 

 

 

“QUOTE” OR “QUOTATION”: WHICH IS IT?

April 17, 2016
THINKING AND THOUGHT, WRITING/BLOGGING
2 Comments

Quote properly the quotation.  So, to be proper, quote is the verb; the words spoken or written constitute the quotation (a noun).  And yet, however, we do have misquotes and misquote–and a researcher just might find three or four really good quotes to bolster the argument.  Thus, the living English language will accept the verb becoming the noun, no matter how many howl “Quothe? Never!”; for it shall be “Nevermore!”

THE QUOTE CHALLENGE: A BLOGGER’S ACTIVITY

Bloggers write.  Bloggers come up with ideas to write about.  Bloggers write about loss, grief, illness, addiction, disappointment, failure.  Also about humor, happiness, geography, history, fishing, travel, truth, parents.  Real things.  Made up things.  Any thing.  Every thing.

Quotations are great sources of inspiration and great sources for topics for bloggers’ writing.  Quotations are like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get until you bite into a piece (unless you cheat with the inside cover of a Whitman Sampler).  [The old Latin psychology phrase–not quoted here–says that whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.  Feeling crappy?  Most of what happens then throughout the day feels crappy.  And maybe it was that flat tire in the morning before work, or the kids, or the unfinished report.  So a quotation that is supposed to be uplifting then feels crappy.]

So there is this kind of challenge going around Bloggerville: “The Quote Challenge”: Here’s how it works.  A blogger posts 1-3 quotes [obviously something significant to the blogger-author] for three days.  Then the blogger nominates three other bloggers to do the same.  Simple?  The payoff?  Possibly nine names of bloggers for all others to see; maybe nine quotes/quotations of importance to someone “out there.”  AND–NO TEST ON MONDAY!  What’s more?  No pressure to participate.  No hurt feelings.  No non-smiley face posted on a blogger’s home page: BAD BLOGGER.

The work will be finding a quotation…

 oxford quotations

And that is all.  However, if a blogger non-participates, well then John Milton covered that: “They also serve who only stand and wait.”  Something will come along–to make something different a better thing to do.

So it goes.

KURT VONNEGUT Kurt Vonnegut

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“WHO IS WILLIAM ZINSSER?” “SHOULD I CARE?” WRITERS [OF NONFICTION] MUST CARE

April 14, 2016
WRITING PHILOSOPHY, WRITING/BLOGGING

“I have four principles of writing good English.  They are Clarity, Simplicity, Brevity, and Humanity.”  –William Zinsser

ON WRITING WELL PIC

William Knowlton Zinsser: October 7, 1922 – May 12, 2015: American writer, editor, literary critic, and teacher.

On Writing Well, 1976: “…along with Strunk and White’s Elements of Style…a copy of this latest book by William Zinsser should be shelved in every library that houses ‘how-to’ books on non-fiction.  [He] is an expert, a practitioner, with ‘one lesson that writers must learn’: how to control their material.  And he does it well.  Simple.  Direct.  Uncluttered.  His purpose ‘is not to teach good nonfiction, or good journalism, but to teach good English that can be put to those uses.’  Recommended as a good textbook too.”  [from a CHOICE review, June ’76 by James F. O’Neil]

Zinsser was a graduate of Princeton University.

His 18 books include On Writing Well, which is in the seventh edition, revised and updated (2006), the “30th anniversary edition” which includes “Writing About Yourself: The Memoir” and “Writing Family History and Memoir.”   

Throughout the 1970s, Zinsser taught writing at Yale University.

“On Writing Well is full of what might be called tips.  But that’s not the point of the book.  It’s a book of craft principles that add up to what it means to be a writer.”

“I always write to affirm–or, if I start negatively, deploring some situation or trend that strikes me as injurious, my goal is to arrive at a constructive point.”

“One of the saddest sentences I know is ‘I wish I had asked my mother about that.’”

Executive editor, Book-of-the-Month Club: 1979-1987.

“Writers are the custodians of memory.”

“Humanity.  Be yourself.  Never try in your writing to be someone you’re not.  Your product, finally, is you.  Don’t lose that person by putting on airs, trying to sound superior.”

“Re-writing is the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost.”

“…the storytelling business…is the oldest of narrative forms, going back to the caveman and the crib, endlessly riveting…all you have to do is tell a story, using the simple tools of the English language, and never losing your own humanity.”

“Repeat after me:
Short is better than long.
Simple is good.
Long Latin nouns are the enemy.
Anglo-Saxon active verbs are your best friend.
One thought per sentence.”

 * * *

william zinsser r. i. p. 5-12-2015

William Zinsser