“I’ve been shooting pool since I was four years old. No con. By the time I was six I was playing for stakes. My first sucker was a neighborhood kid in Washington Heights. I spotted him coming out of a candy store with an enormous bag of gumdrops. He was about five years older than me but I shot him straight pool and I won every last one of his gumdrops. He went home crying. When I was ten I started playing for cash” (Minnesota Fats, The Bank Shot and Other Robberies).My introduction to Minnesota Fats, legendary pool hustler: It’s...
London Review of Books Personal Ads, Redux: The Hits Just Keep On Comin’!
It’s September and, apparently, the season in Great Britain for love-lorn book lovers to sharpen their pencils and post some of the wittiest, most imaginative personal ads yet seen in a single issue of the London Review of Books:Without my grandfather’s contribution to agricultural reforms in 1912, this nation would currently have to import its turnips. While you think about that I shall remove my clothes. Man. 55.I have a dream. And that dream is to try on every pair of shoes in the world. That’s where you come in: brusque, butch fem cobbler to 55 with expansive collection of...
What Books Are The Denver Broncos’ Cheerleaders Currently Reading?
Yes, I’ve been wondering, too, and it’s been keeping me up at night: Just what are the ladies of the 2009 Denver Broncos Cheerleading squad reading these days? What books inspire somersaults, leaps, fight songs, and heavy pom-pom action?Thanks to the Denver Broncos Cheerleaders website, we know.Serita Archuleta: I am reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I admire the fact that she followed her heart and took a risk in life to find happiness. It has inspired me to get out of my comfort zone more often.Brianne Bateman: Twilight Series [by Stephanie Meyer]....Edward Cullen and I are buddies!Tara Battiato:...
Norman Mailer By Norman Mailer And Other Author Self-Portraits
One night in the mid-1960s, while working as a bartender at the Village Vanguard, the storied New York City jazz club, Burt Britton found himself all alone with Norman Mailer at last call.“What do you want from me, Kid,” Mailer inquired. Screwing up his courage, Britton blurted out, “draw me your self-portrait.” MailerNow, over forty years later, that self-portrait by Mailer is one of 213 self-portraits of writers, photographers, musicians, and athletes that Britton solicited. His collection is now being offered at auction byBloomsbury – New York on September 24, 2009: Arthur MillerPortrait of the Artist: The Burt Britton CollectionBritton...
Philippines Thanks USAID For 70,000 Books While Book Fair Tanks In U.S.
36,000 books were distributed last week to 50 school libraries in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and the City of General Santos in the Philippines.As reported by Mindanao Magazine’s blogster, Mindanao Bob, book distribution was implemented by USAID’s Growth with Equity In Mindanao (GEM) in partnership with U.S.-based Children International Foundation. Through its Education Awareness Support Effort (EASE), the GEM Program has awarded 777 education matching grants, valued at more than $820,000, to the PTAs of schools in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and other conflict-affected areas in the island-region, and PTAs have contributed the same amount.As...