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I know about Actors Studio from reading biographies about Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Al Pacino. In the fifties, Marilyn’s greatest fame as an actor became her greatest disappointment. She was so beautiful that she couldn’t land serious roles. At a certain point, Marilyn left Hollywood to spend a year training with the world's…
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To introduce my SUMMER 2025 students to their assigned novel, Paradise Travel. I ask them to use their research skills to familiarize themselves with the setting of New York City. Of course, few of us will have little understanding for NYC, but that's why we want to dig in before we start the serious…
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I’m not sure WHEN or HOW it happened, but at early age, I became drawn in, sucked in, to the books written by boozy, drug-addled authors. For me, this may have been in high school, and I didn’t even drink or smoke. At age 16-17, I probably got turned on by Stephen King’s strange,…
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Recently, I read a novel based on Ernest Hemingway's final days, Adios Hemingway by Cuban writer Leonardo Padura. Near the end, the famous writer suffered extreme bouts of depression. Back then, the doctors prescribed electroconvulsive therapy. This is 1961. I'm not sure if these sessions gave him any relief, but I believe they severely hampered…
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I know Doris Day from my mother. Doris Day began her career as a teen-age torch singer in front of a traveling orchestra. Later, in the fifties and sixties, she became a force on the big screen. My mother used to sing her big hit "Que Sera, Sera" around the house. When I was older, I…
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This semester we read a sixties novel and developed sixties research papers. I've asked my students to share their thoughts and experiences for their researching topics as diverse as the Women's Movement, the Black Panther Party, the Manson Murders, the Space Race, JFK, MLK, Marilyn Monroe, Muhammed Ali. At…
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Patricia Highsmith has always been one of my favorite novelists. I count more than 12-15 of her books on my shelves: novels, short-story collections, biographies. I began with her novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, maybe forty years ago. I can’t remember if I read it in college or after, but it just may be…
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I wish this wasn’t the case, but I found it nearly impossible to write about T.J. English’s historic account of Havana in the 1950s without mentioning Godfather 2. I mean T.J. certainly does. I’m talking about Mafiso Meyer Lansky’s birthday party atop the Hotel Nacional, the most prestigious hotel in all Havana. This actually happened,…
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If someone asked me how I would classify Rachel Kushner’s novel The Flamethrowers, I just wouldn’t know what to say. It’s not the kind of book I can easily group with other books on my shelves here in Mexicali. I mean Rachel K is all over the place with this one. From the beginning…
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Last week, I read a book called Giant Love. Giant, as in James Dean's last movie. On the bookcover, Jimmy D is seated in the backseat of a vintage car in the middle of a barren cotton field. In this movie, he plays Jett Rink, a poverty-stricken farmhand, who works for an arrogant Texas…