Book-Banning Is Alive And Well

The National Coalition Against Censorship last week issued a letter to the Burbank School District in California, which apparently violated its own policy by instructing teachers to stop teaching challenged books while those challenges are assessed. [The District’s policy states that if a book is challenged, it should remain in the curriculum until a decision is reached; parents who have issued the challenge are allowed to ask for alternatives for their own children.] Books that continue to be challenged in American schools include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; The Cay; and To Kill A Mockingbird. “It’s important to remember that, while parents can opt their students out of reading these books, students who are prevented from reading classic texts with the benefit of guided analysis by professional educators can never opt in,” the NCAC says in its letter.

Hide And Seek: How Easy

Is It To Disappear?

Admit it: sometimes during a major challenge, or just after a bad day, you just feel like disappearing. Running away. Never to be found again – at least until you run out of money or get lonely. Agatha Christie did it for 11 days, and Whitey Bulger managed to hide for 16 years before being captured by the FBI. Fact is, it’s not illegal to disappear if you’re a mentally-sound individual, not running from the law, and not looking to cheat insurance companies or debt-collectors. As novelist Rachel Howzell Hall says in this CrimeReads post, “Our smart phones track our locations with satellites, and there’s nothing you can do about that. We tag ourselves in social media posts, we receive discounts on tapas or tires because we checked in on Yelp; and we tell people all the time ‘I am here.’” Still, as long as you keep your head down, pay cash, and don’t show ID to anyone, you should be able to escape indefinitely. Or not: In 2009 Wired writer Evan Ratliff attempted to disappear for a story, leaving San Francisco with just two business cards, a burner phone, and $477 in his pocket. Wired agreed to pay a $5000 bounty to whomever found him; he was found 16 days later in New Orleans.

Favorite Drinks Of The

(Once) Rich And Famous

The other day I stumbled across a link titled “11 Drinks and the Famous People Known to Drink Them” – which, after wondering how much research actually had gone into the article, piqued my curiosity. Specifically, I’d been Googling famous sleuths and what they drank, but this post included notables from Picasso to Churchill to Kerouac—including their favorite drink recipes—and I couldn’t resist a look. Now, I have no idea if Benjamin Franklin actually quaffed Madeira, but I could imagine Ernest Hemingway lounging in Key West with a mojito, or F. Scott Fitzgerald pounding a gin rickey at his seat at the roundtable at the Algonquin. As Patrick Cain says in this Mentalfloss story, “Fitzgerald made no secret of his love affair with drinking, once saying, ‘First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.’” Many times a gin rickey took him, and was forever immortalized in The Great Gatsby.

DOJ Tried To Stop Another Trump Book

The Department of Justice had a busy summer trying to block the publication of tell-all books written by former White House employees or First Family confidants. The latest to come to light was the memoir written by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff titled Melania & Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady. According to The Daily Beast, Wolkoff – who played a key role in planning the 2017 inauguration and is now assisting a federal probe into it – revealed in early July that Simon & Schuster was publishing a volume about her relationship with Mrs. Trump. Upon hearing the news, the DOJ sent a cease-and-desist letter to both parties, saying the book was in breach of a Gratuitous Services Agreement. Wolkoff’s attorneys replied that the claims were “unfounded and meritless,” and argued that the GSA clause did not apply and was unenforceable as it was terminated more than two years ago. The book was released September 1.

How The NYT Compiles

Its Bestseller Lists

Every writer’s dream is to hit the New York Times Bestseller List, and my agent and publishers assure me that—with a lot of perseverance and a little luck—my version of that dream one day might come true. While I believe them implicitly, an article published by NYT last week revealed some of the truths of the bestseller process, confirming that there is neither an automated data spigot fed by a secret algorithm, nor an editor throwing darts at the wall. In fact, while the lists are data-driven—with sales info coming from giant, tiny, and in-between—the job of compiling the lists requires the full-time efforts of a three-member team. “We want the lists to reflect what individual consumers are buying across the country, instead of what is being bought in bulk by individuals or associated groups,” the Times insists.

Artist Relief Extends Grants Through 2020

Publishers Weekly reports that Artist Relief, a funding initiative that has distributed more than $13.5 million in emergency grants to more than 2,700 individuals during the pandemic, will extend grant distribution through the end of the year. The fund has raised nearly $20 million since its launch, and has received funding from a wide range of partners, including the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Herb Alpert Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and nearly a $1 million in donations from individuals. The organization has awarded unrestricted grants of $5,000 to artists at the rate of about 100 per week, across all creative disciplines including writing, film, music, theater and performance, and visual arts. Jennifer Benka, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets, said, “It has become clear that there is no real safety net for artists. Musicians have seen their gigs vanish, and poets and writers who lack health care find themselves more vulnerable than ever before.”

OPINION

Echoes Of Cabaret Here In America?

The other night I was watching the evening news and saw a shot of protesters proudly waving a Nazi flag. My first thought was, “This is America...how can anyone support that sort of thing here?” Then my memory flashed on the beer garden scene in the Bob Fosse classic Cabaret, and a river of ice flowed through my veins (a cliché we suspense writers use way too often). I began thinking about the chills I felt when I sat glued to the screen back in 1972, as Liza Minelli, Joel Grey, and Michael York revealed the intimate secrets of their private lives during the final days of the Weimar Republic. The primary setting of the Kit-Kat Club provided a bohemian backdrop to changes that were occurring inside its walls, as well as out on the streets of Berlin. The steady rise of fascism served as a strong undercurrent throughout the film, as we—the audience—knew from history the horrific events that were about to transform the continent. Cabaret is loosely based on the 1966 Broadway musical of the same name which, in turn, was adapted from Christopher Isherwood's semi-autobiographical novel The Berlin Stories (1945) and the 1951 play I Am a Camera. Bottom line: Cabaret is without question the finest musical I have ever seen, and its eight Academy Awards (it lost Best Picture to The Godfather) confirm its status as a cinematic masterpiece.

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