Dale Estey's Blog
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May.24.2013
Kafka famously wrote this Letter To His Father as a denouncement of his father's parenting abilities and an explanation of how he turned out the way he did. The letter -also famously- never reached his father because Kafka did not send it to him. He gave it - which is so typically...
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May.23.2013
Kafka is open - God knows - to interpretation. Here are a series of cartoons which are currently being exhibited in Cairo. Jiri Sliva has adapted some of Kafka's work visually - and why not?Kafka himself adorned his manuscripts with many cartoon drawings - literally often just stick figures. Kafka...
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May.22.2013
As I tended to my creative chores by the window, a mercantile bubble exploded outside on the city street. I paused to watch.
A huge delivery van pulled up in front of the building. Two beefy gentleman exited the cab and came around to the back of the truck. With the twist of a lever and the...
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May.20.2013
Admittedly, it was none too early this morning when I saw a sight that I believe I have actually never seen, though it is fabled the world over.
Standing on the front stoop to test the air (and the air failed with its chill demeanour - it is a nice November day out there and not mid-May) I...
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May.19.2013
I have not, both to my credit and - obviously - to my never ending joy, seen any of these movies. [DE]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
10 Biggest Book Adaptation Flops
by Gabe Habash
For this list, we didn’t just want book adaptations that were a critical/audience failure or a box...
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May.18.2013
I have envy for writers who fill hundreds of filing cards to take notes for their novels. I imagine them shuffling the deck and doing marvellous tricks. And I find it impressive when authors have sheets of paper filling their walls, sticky notes posted all over, with lines and arrows and question...
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May.17.2013
A couple of days ago there was a crime contest on Twitter. Tweets were requested to describe Lawmakers/Lawbreakers. I decided to expose my memorable villain - Norman. Here are my tweets describing my none-too-friendly protagonist. Any (or all - how fast can I talk) ready for that mythical elevator...
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May.16.2013
OK, there were no cameras, but one of the most endearing and lasting "celebrity" encounters happened 250 years ago in London. James Boswell met Samuel Johnson and dogged his tracks for over twenty years. His reports have made them both famous. [DE]
Samuel Johnson and James Boswell at the Club in...
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May.15.2013
As far as is known, the plays we watch penned by Shakespeare do not have the titles which Shakespeare gave them. In fact, Shakespeare might not have had any titles for his plays.
The titles we are used to are often bluntly straight forward: Hamlet; Macbeth; Henry Six Part Two; Henry Six Part Three...
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May.14.2013
@KafkaF It is not the unknown world, it is the unknown self.
@ElephantTailTale Is that corn which stops me seeing further?
@BardBillS If to the stage a host is thrust / Make each mouthful choice and just.
@OnionGrow Sett me right and sett me deep.
@TockTimeTick Mindful of...
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May.13.2013
My own mother has long gone to her reward (and if heaven is what we most enjoyed in life, there is a flower garden involved). I have created (I just realised) few mothers for my novels (or might a Mother Superior count). I have met and known some truly horrible mothers, but am more acquainted...
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May.12.2013
There seem to be a lot of negative - even hostile - reviews about the movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby byBaz Luhrmann. I'll make no comment on the movie as I have not seen it. I will say that I have enjoyed and appreciated any other movie by Mr. Luhrmann, and admit his interpretations can be...
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May.10.2013
And let us not forget the birds: "After Grip died, Dickens had him taxidermied. Literary historians believe the bird inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven,” written shortly after Poe reviewed Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge, which features a talkative raven. Grip now lives in the Rare Books...
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May.09.2013
I do fit into this category (looks across desk of things which were to be tackled last week). And Leonard Cohen has most recently written about himself that he is "... a lazy bastard, living in a suit."
So, let the procrastination continue. [DE]
...
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May.08.2013
Anne Frank, in a diary entry, describes her sexual region with a degree of clinical detail. An American mother says her teen-age daughter felt "uncomfortable" with such a description. The mother wants the book removed from a school's reading list in Michigan.
The historical aspect of Anne Frank's...
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About Dale
I owe my life to Hitler, though I never met the man. My father was paid to stop Hitler, so there is no conflict of interest. I was given a thunk on the back o' the head by God when I was fifteen, and within a week began to write. I haven't stopped. My first...
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