Our Daily Dead

Rented a tent, Rented a tent. Rented a, Rented a tent…

“I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
Carried along by their call
Seeking for a way to enlighten
Searching for the sense of it all
Like a kiss on the wind I was thrown to the stars
Captured and oredered in the army of Mars
Marching to the sound of the drum in my head
I followed the call

Only to be Malachi Constant
I thought I came to this earth
Living in the heart of the moment
With the riches I gained at my birth
But here in the yellow and blue of my days
I wander the endless Mercurian caves
Watching for the signs the harmoniums make
The words on the walls

I was drawn by the sirens of Titan
And so I came in the end
Under the shadow of Saturn
With statues and birds for my friends
Finding a home at the end of my days
Looking around I’ve only to say
I was the victim of a series of accidents
As are we all”

~~ “Sirens of Titan”, Modern Times, Al Stewart

See also: Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

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By way of the Toronto Star…Sidney Sheldon, best-selling author, dead at 89.

Sydney Sheldon had a prolific and award-winning career writing for theatre, movies and television, but he often proclaimed his greatest love for another creative outlet.

“Writing novels is the most fun I’ve ever had,” Sheldon once said.

The best-selling author died Tuesday at 89 of complications from pneumonia at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage. His wife Alexandra was by his side.

“I try to write my books so the reader can’t put them down,'’ Sheldon explained in a 1982 interview. “I try to construct them so when the reader gets to the end of a chapter, he or she has to read just one more chapter. It’s the technique of the old Saturday afternoon serial: leave the guy hanging on the edge of the cliff at the end of the chapter.'’

Sheldon mostly wrote about stalwart women who triumph in a hostile world of ruthless men. His notable novels included Rage of Angels, The Other Side of Midnight, and If Tomorrow Comes.

“I like to write about women who are talented and capable, but most important, retain their femininity,” he said. “Women have tremendous power – their femininity, because men can’t do without it.'’

Before turning to novels at the age of 50, Sheldon had a successful career writing Broadway plays and films. He won an Academy Award in 1948 for The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, starring Cary Grant, and created long-running TV series Hart to Hart.

Speaking in 1982, Sheldon likened his writing style to that of “the old Saturday afternoon serial”.

“I try to write my books so the reader can’t put them down,” he wrote.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Sidney Sheldon, dead, Rage of Angels, The Other Side of Midnight, If Tomorrow Comes, Academy Award, Cary Grant

From the Houston Chronicle comes this chronicle about writer Daniel Stern, whose “…witty fiction plumbed the vagaries of the human heart, died Wednesday in Houston after a short illness.” He was 78. Since 1992 Stern had taught in the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program, where he was a Cullen Distinguished Professor of English.

In an era when literary writers typically emerged from academia, Stern enjoyed a varied career. Born into a poor Jewish family in 1928, he grew up on New York City’s Lower East Side. At the age of 10 or 11 he discovered the cello and seemed headed for a life of music. At 17 he skipped his high school graduation to go on the road behind jazzman Charlie Parker.

“He spent a year playing with the Indianapolis Symphony, during which time he began writing stories. Although he studied at various institutions, including Columbia University and the Juilliard School, he never earned a college degree.”

“In 1953 he published The Girl With the Glass Heart, the first of his nine novels. His most important novels include Who Shall Live, Who Shall Die? (1963), an early contribution to literature of the Holocaust, and After the War (1965), which focuses on postwar experimentation by young people trying to make up for lost time.”

“The late 1980s marked a watershed in Stern’s writing. He published Twice Told Tales, stories organized in a fresh, imaginative way. Stern took famous works like Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener or Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams and wove their themes into a new context. ‘What got my pulses racing,” he wrote, “was this idea: that a text by a writer of the past whom I loved, even a nonfiction work, could be basic to fiction; as basic as a love affair, a trauma, a house, a mother, a landscape, a lover, a job or a sexual passion.’”

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Daniel Stern, died