The Word Cloud

When we think of Frank Capra films we inevitably think of It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It Happened One Night or Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and why not? They're all classics. But they all draw  to some extent on an earlier Capra film, 'American Madness' (1932).

American Madness features as it's centrepiece a run on a bank, almost 15 years before Capra made Wonderful Life. It champions the little man against the big corporate machine and espouses small town values as superior to corrupt big city dealing. It's hero contemplates suicide, genuine drama underscoring it's crafted comedy. It's classic Capra.

And that's not surprising, it was scripted by Robert Riskin, who scripted many of Capra's triumphs. When we think of Capra's values we are usually thinking of Riskin's; it is he, not Capra, who is the liberal, Capra was a lifelong Republican. This odd teaming of ideological opposition is arguably what made their films so good. So good in fact that when Capra was making his first post war project, without Riskin, he resorted to many of his old collaborator's ideas and made It's a Wonderful Life, the film that has come to define him.

Even at the time there was a conflict in ownership over the Capra/Riskin collaborations, with Capra appealing to the Writer's Guild to get co-author credit on his films. Capra was an insecure man, genuinely afraid that his contribution would be overlooked (or perhaps afraid that he had made no real contribution). And with good reason; the script for American Madness is very detailed, superlative sequences such as the spread of the rumour and the run on the bank are laid out there almost exactly as they appear on the screen.

But that should take nothing away from Capra; he recognised what a good thing he had and was smart enough not to change things for change's sake. He also executed the sequences flawlessly. The run is a masterpiece of a scene, from silence to chaos in seconds flat, while the spread of the rumour bears testament to Capra's time as a silent film director; superb visual storytelling.  The bank robbery early in the story is another masterful peice of direction, again almost silent, dark and dramatic, Capra's films were never less than black comedies (despite his reputation for cornball humour). And in this scene credit goes solely to Capra, it is one of the few additions the director is known to have made to Riskin's script, and it's a very important one.

I can't sell American Madness as the equal of Capra's other triumphs, but it is still a great film, and an often overlooked one.

In other news, the film Papillon is on Friday at 10.30 on BBC2. Its slow paced and McQueen maybe a bit out of it's depth, but it's better than it's reputation suggests. Give it a try.

OK I am going to use this space to reflect, dream, plan - and all the other totally banal activities that will be me as a writer. This is my life dream, always has been, since I was a little girl writing about horses and boarding schools, but now I have no excuse! Children at school, 3 days to write, so here we go! 

Pretty much sums up how I feel right now.....

Although I desperately try to count my blessings each and every day, why oh why oh why do I struggle to find the answer to EVERYTHING, when in fact in most cases....there isn't one?!?! 

Just when you think you're getting somewhere, something or someone stands in your way like a brick wall, or a door is blatantly slammed in your face.  I have to admit that much of this is due to my own procrastination and lack of will, excuse making, you name it I'm doing it at the moment.

The book is nagging at the back of my brain endlessly, like a little voice whispering irritatingly "come on, you know you wanna pick me back up and finish me" then I get the other evil little voice saying "nah, not enough time, LOSERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.....you have no decent ideas left".....I battle with the ideas, witty one-liners, plot-lines etc etc, then just when I think I should write them down, just like a puff of smoke they're gone and I begin again to beat myself up at not doing things sooner.

Frustrated????...YES I AM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Abraham Lincoln—a great reader

He became a great reader. He read every book and newspaper he could get hold of, and if he came across anything in his reading that he wished to remember he would buy wow gold copy it on a shingle, because writing paper was scarce, and either learn it by heart or hide the shingle away until he could get some paper to copy it on. His father thought he read too much. "It will spile him for work," he said. "He don't do half enough about the place, as it is, now, and books and papers ain't no good." But Abraham, with all his reading, did more work than his father any day; his stepmother, dvd copy too, took his side and at last got her husband to let the boy read and study at home. "Abe was a good son to me," she said, many many years after, "and we took particular care when he was reading not to disturb him. We would just let him read on and on till he quit of his own accord." The boy kept a sort of shingle scrap-book; he kept a paper scrap-book, too. Into these he would put whatever he cared to keep—poetry, history, funny sayings, fine passages. dvd copy He had a scrap-book for his arithmetic "sums," too, and one of these is still in existence with this boyish rhyme in a boyish scrawl, underneath one of his tables of weights and measures: Abraham Lincoln God did know when; and that boy, all unconsciously, was working toward the day when his hand and pen were to do more for humanity than any other hand or pen of modern times. dvd ripper Lamps and candles were almost unknown in his home, and Abraham, flat on his stomach, would often do his reading, writing, and ciphering in the firelight, as it flashed and flickered on the big hearth of his log-cabin home. An older cousin, buy wow gold John Hanks, who lived for a while with the Lincolns, says that when "Abe," as he always called the great President, would come home, as a boy, from his work, he would go to the cupboard, take a piece of corn bread for his supper, sit down on a chair, stretch out his long legs until they were higher than his head—and read, and read, and read. "Abe and I," said John Hanks, "worked barefoot; grubbed it, ploughed it, mowed and cradled it; ploughed corn, gathered corn, and shucked corn, and Abe read constantly whenever he could get a chance." video converter One day Abraham found that a man for whom he sometimes worked owned a copy of Weems's "Life of Washington." This was a famous book in its day. Abraham borrowed it at once. When he was not reading it, he put it away on a shelf—a clapboard resting on wooden pins.wedding dress There was a big crack between the logs, behind the shelf, and one rainy day the "Life of Washington" fell into the crack and was soaked almost into pulp. wedding dress Old Mr. Crawford, from whom Abraham borrowed the book, was a cross, cranky, and sour old fellow, and when the boy told him of the accident he said Abraham must "work the book out." wedding dress The boy agreed, and the old farmer kept him so strictly to his promise that he made him "pull fodder" for the cattle three days, as payment for the book! And that is the way that Abraham Lincoln bought his first book. For he dried the copy of Weems's "Life of Washington" and put it in his "library." But what boy or girl of today would like to buy books at such a price?

Rabindranath Tagore

Mystic, painter and Nobel laureate for literature, Rabindranath Tagore was a prolific writer (3,000 poems, 2,000 songs, 8 novels, 40 volumes of essays and short stories,Replica handbags 50 plays), who drew inspiration both from his native Bengal and from English literary tradition. wedding dress His major theme was humanity's search for God and truth. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his collection of well-known poems Gitanjali (Song Offerings). wedding dress Born in Calcutta on May 7, 1861, Rabindranath was the youngest of fourteen children.buy wow gold His father, Debendranath Tagore, was a Sanskrit scholar and a leading member of the Brahmo Samaj. Rabindranath's early education was imparted at home. In school, while others use tobuy wow gold learn their lessons, he would slip into more exciting world of dreams. Inspired by his older nephew, he wrote his first poem when he was hardly seven. At the age of seventeen, his first book of poems was published. From 1878 to 1880 Tagore studied law in England, and in 1890, having returned to India,Jordan shoes he took charge of his father's estates, where he saw firsthand the suffering and backwardness of India's rural poor and grew to love the serenity of the Indian countryside. Devoting himself to the agricultural development of the land and the health and education of the people, he founded, in 1901, Santiniketan ("Abode of Peace"), which became an international university with a wide-ranging curriculum. He was knighted in 1915, an honor he renounced four years later as a protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by the British in India. Tagore was keenly aware of India's socio-political condition under British rule. He supported the Swadeshi movement and had been deeply influenced by the religious renaissance of 19th century India. Coming out strongly against orthodox rituals he wrote, "Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! jordan shoes Whom dost than worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!" (Verse 11, Gitanjali) Tragically, between 1902 and 1907, Tagore lost his wife, son and daughter. But out of his pain emerged some of his most tender work, including Gitanjali, published in 1910. Tagore remained a true patriot, supporting the national movement and writing the lyrics of the "Jana Gana Mana", which is India's national anthem. jordan shoes Between 1916 and 1941, Tagore published 21 collections of songs and poems and held lecture tours across Europe, the Americas, China, Japan, Malaya and Indonesia. In 1924, he inaugurated the Viswa Bharati University at Santiniketan, an All India Centre for culture. Tagore died in Calcutta on 7th August 1941.

A Hard Lesson

Benjamin Franklin is remembered as an inventor, author, statesman, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. But all great people were kids once and got into mischief. wow account In writing about his life, Franklin recalled a youthful event that he later regretted. Franklin was born in Boston in 1706. wow account His father, whom Ben admired and respected, was a soapmaker and candlemaker with a large family. At the age of ten, Ben was taken out of school and put to work in the shop.cheap wow gold Ben described his duties as “cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going on errands, etc.” But of course he preferred playing outdoors with his friends. cheap wow gold The Franklin family lived near the water, so Ben learned to swim well and to handle small boats. replica Louis Vuitton handbags He wrote that he was a leader among the boys in his neighborhood and “sometimes led them into scrapes.” One such episode is told here in his own words. Jordan shoes “There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on the edge of which, at high water, jordan shoes we used to stand to fish for minnows. By much trampling, we had made it a mere quagmire. My proposal was to build a wharf there fit for us to stand upon, and I showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were intended for a new house near the marsh, jordan shoes and which would very well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were gone, wedding dresses I assembled a number of my play-fellows, and working with them diligently like so many emmets [ants], sometimes two or three to a stone, we brought them all away and built our little wharf. The next morning the workmen were surprised at missing the stones, which were found in our wharf. Inquiry was made after the removers; we were discovered and complained of; several of us were corrected by our fathers; wedding dresses and, though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Married by arrangement at 13, Gandhi went to London to study law when he was 18. He was admitted to the bar in 1891 and for a while practiced law in Bombay. From 1893 seo services to 1914 he worked for an Indian firm in South Africa. During these years Gandhi's humiliating experiences of overt racial discrimination propelled him into agitation on behalf of the Indian community of South Africa. He assumed leadership of protest campaigns and gradually developed his techniques and tenets of nonviolent resistance known as Satyagraha (literally, "steadfastness in truth"). wow account Returning to India in January 1915, Gandhi soon became involved in labor organizing. seo company The Jallianwala Bagh massacre of Amritsar (1919), in which troops fired on and killed hundreds of nationalist demonstrators, turned him to direct political protest. Within a year he was the dominant figure in the Indian National Congress, which he launched on a policyLouis Vuitton handbags of noncooperation with the British in 1920-22. Although total noncooperation was abandoned, Gandhi continued civil disobedience, organizing protest marches against unpopular British measures, such as the salt tax (1930), and boycotts of British goods. Gandhi was repeatedly imprisoned by the British and resorted to hunger strikes wow account as part of his civil disobedience. His final imprisonment came in 1942-44, after he had demanded total withdrawal of the British (the "Quit India" movement) during World War II. wedding dresses Gandhi also fought to improve the status of the lowest classes of society, the ‘Untouchables’, whom he called harijans ("children of God"). He believed in manual labor and simple living; he spun thread and wove cloth for his own garments and insisted that his followers do so, too. He disagreed with those who wanted India to industrialize. wedding dresses Gandhi was also tireless in trying to forge closer bonds between the Hindu majority and the numerous minorities of India, particularly the Muslims. His greatest failure, cheap wow gold in fact, was his inability to dissuade Indian Muslims, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, from creating a separate state, Pakistan. When India gained independence in 1947, after negotiations in which he was a principal participant, Gandhi opposed the partition of the subcontinent with such intensity that he launched a mass movement against it. Ironically, he was assassinated in Delhi on January 30, 1948, cheap wow gold by a Hindu fanatic who mistakenly thought Gandhi's anti-partition sentiment were both pro-Muslim and pro-Pakistan.

A Prodigy's Early Years

As a boy growing up in Shenyang, China, I practiced the piano six hours a day. I loved the instrument. My mother, Xiu-lan Zhou, taught me to read notes, and my father, Guo-ren Lang, concertmaster（首席小提琴手） of a local folk orchestra（管弦乐队）, google seo showed me how to control the keys. At first I played on clunky（难听的） Chinese keyboards -- cheap, but the best we could afford. Later my parents bought me a Swedish piano, but I broke half the strings on it playing Tchaikovsky（柴可夫斯基）. That's when my parents and my teacher decided I was too much for such an instrument -- and for our hometown.wow power leveling To be a serious musician, I would have to move to Beijing, one of our cultural capitals. I was just eight years old. wow power leveling My father, who played the erhu, a two-stringed instrument, knew that life wouldn't be easy. Millions of pianists in China were vying（竞争） for fame. You need fortune, my father said. If you don't work, no fortune comes. But music is still music, he added, and it exists to make us happy. wow power leveling To relocate to Beijing with me, he made a great sacrifice. He quit his concertmaster's job, which he loved, and my mother stayed behind in Shenyang to keep working at her job at the science institute to support us. They both warned me, "Being a pianist is hard. Can you live without your mother?" I said, "I want my mother!" But I knew I needed to be in Beijing. In America, people often move and start over. But not in China, not in those days. wow power leveling Suddenly my father and I were newcomers -- outsiders. To the others around us, we spoke with funny northern accents. The only apartment we could find for the money we had was in an unheated building, with five families sharing one bathroom. My father cooked, cleaned and looked after me. He became a housewife, basically. We lived far from my school, and since the bus was too expensive, my father would "drive" me on his bicycle every day. It was an hour-and-a-half trip each way,wedding gowns and I was a heavy boy, much heavier than I am as an adult. He did this in winter too. Imagine! During the coldest nights, while I practiced piano, my father would lie in my bed so it would be warm when I was tired. I was miserable, but not from the poverty or pressure. My new teacher in Beijing didn't like me. "You have no talent," she often told me. "You will never be a pianist." And one day, she "fired" me. wedding gowns I was just nine years old. I was devastated. I didn't want to be a pianist anymore, I decided. I wanted to go home to my mother. For the next two weeks I didn't touch the piano. Wisely, my father didn't push. He just waited. Sure enough, the day came at school when my teacher asked me to play some holiday songs. I didn't want to, but as I placed my fingers on the piano's keys, I realized I could show other people that I had talent after all. wedding gowns That day I told my father what he'd been waiting to hear -- that I wanted to study with a new teacher. From that point on, everything turned around.

When Fortune Spots You

I started winning competitions. We still had very little money -- my father had to borrow $5,000 to pay for a trip to the International Young Pianists Competition in Ettlingen, Germany, world of warcraft gold in 1994, when I was 12. I realized later how much pressure he was under as I watched footage of the contest. Tears streamed down his face when it was announced that I'd won -- earning enough money to pay back our loan. It was soon clear I couldn't stay in China forever. To become a world-class musician, I had to play on the world's big stages. So in 1997, my father and I moved again, world of warcraft gold this time to Philadelphia, so I could attend The Curtis Institute of Music. Finally our money worries were easing. The school paid for an apartment and even lent me a Steinway（斯坦威钢琴）. At night, I would sneak into the living room just to touch the keys.world of warcraft gold Now that I was in America, I wanted to become famous, but my new teachers reminded me that I had a lot to learn. I spent two years practicing, and by 1999 world of warcraft gold I had worked hard enough for fortune to take over. The Chicago Symphony orchestra heard me play and liked me, but orchestra schedules were set far in advance. I thought I might join them in a few years.world of warcraft gold The next morning, nike shoes I got a call. The great pianist Andre Watts, who was to play the "Gala Benefit Evening" at Chicago's Ravinia Festival, had become ill. I was asked to substitute（代替）. That performance was, for me, the moment. After violinist Isaac Stern introduced me, I played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. My father's mouth hung open throughout the entire song.nike shoes Afterward, people celebrated -- maybe they were a bit drunk -- and asked me to play Bach's Goldberg Variations. nike shoes So I played until 3:30 a.m. I felt something happening. Sure enough, gigs started pouring in（大量涌入）. Lincoln Center. Carnegie Hall. Still, my father kept telling me, "You'd better practice!" But living in America with me was beginning to relax him. In Beijing I'd been fat -- he made sure I ate -- and he'd been skinny. Now I was getting thin. He wasn't. wow power leveling I wanted to do something special for him for all he had done for me. So when I made my Carnegie Hall solo recital（独奏） debut in 2003 at age 21, I included Chinese music. I wanted to revive our family's Shenyang tradition of playing together. My father and I had often practiced a piece called "Horses," a fun version for piano and erhu. That night in Carnegie Hall, after I played Chopin and Liszt, I brought Dad out on the stage, and we played our duet（二重奏）. People went crazy -- they loved it. My father couldn't sleep for days. He was too happy to sleep.wow power leveling There have been lots of concerts in Carnegie Hall, but for me playing there was especially sweet when I remember the cold days in Beijing. Together, my father and I worked to reach the lucky place where fortune spots you, and lets you shine.

Teen Entrepreneurs

Like a lot of college freshmen,wow gold Sean Belnick has a job. He works for a company that brings in more than $20 million dollars a year. wow gold But Belnick is not just another employee; he is also the company’s owner. “We started off with a couple of orders a day and it just mushroomed迅速成长 from there,” Belnick says. Belnick’s company sells office chairs online, and maintains a huge warehouse仓库，货栈 of inventory存货，详细目录. But it all started in his bedroom, when he was 15 years old. rip dvd “I always had an entrepreneurial企业家的，创业者的 spirit,” says Belnick. In fact, more teens than ever are tapping into their entrepreneurial spirit. According to a new Junior Achievement survey of more than 1,400 teenagers, 71 percent said they would like to be self-employed one day.convert video What’s more, experts say, kids have a huge advantage as entrepreneurs because they know the web, and understand the workings of network sites such as Facebook and Myspace. blu ray ripper “[Teenagers] intuitively直观地，直觉地 understand the power and potential of using web-based services for distribution, for marketing, for outreach延伸，拓广 -- for connections,” says Andrea Hershatter, Emory University. “They are incredible networkers who have a very large number of human resources in terms of依据，按照 their peers at their disposal.” blu ray ripper “That’s the whole thing with the Internet really,” says Belnick. “Anyone can put a web site up, and it looks professional. But there’s nothing saying that there’s a 20-year-old kid behind it. wedding gownsWhich is the biggest thing about the Internet … you can create your own credibility.” Experts say parents should encourage entrepreneurship in their kids, whether it’s mowing lawns or running an online business. They may not make millions, but they will learn a lot about managing a business and what it takes to turn a profit.Wedding gowns “I think they learn, they grow, they mature,” says Hershatter. “If they are not enriched financially, then at least they [will be] enriched in terms of life experiences that will serve them forever,” says Hershatter.