GLOSSORY
Poetic Styles to avoid:
- didacticism
- sentimentality
- condescension....etc
quick temper/furious temper 壞脾氣
pediatrics 小兒科
KK[͵pidɪˋætrɪks]
- KK[əbˋstɛtrɪks]
- DJ[əbˋstetriks]
Saving Mr. Banks
Saving Mr. Banks is a 2013 period drama film directed by John Lee Hancock from a screenplay written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith. Centered on the development of the 1964 film Mary Poppins, the film stars Emma Thompson as author P. L. Travers and Tom Hanks as filmmaker Walt Disney, with supporting performances by Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, and Colin Farrell. Named after the father in Travers' story, Saving Mr. Banks depicts the author's fortnight-long meetings during 1961 in Los Angeles, during which Disney attempts to obtain the screen rights to her novels.[4]
Plot[edit]
In 1961, the financially strapped author Pamela "P. L." Travers reluctantly travels from her home in London to Los Angeles to work with Walt Disney at the urging of her agent, Diarmuid Russell. Disney has pursued the film rights to her Mary Poppins stories for twenty years, having promised his daughters that he would produce a film based on them. Travers has steadfastly resisted Disney's efforts because she fears what he would do to her character. However, she has not written anything in a while and her book royalties have dwindled to nothing, so she risks losing her house. Still, Russell has to remind her that Disney has agreed to two major stipulations—no animation and unprecedented script approval—before she agrees to go.
Travers' difficult childhood in Allora, Queensland, Australia, is depicted through flashbacks, and is the inspiration for much of Mary Poppins. Travers idolized her loving, imaginative father, Travers Robert Goff, but his chronic alcoholism resulted in his repeated firings, strained her parents' marriage, and caused her distressed mother to attempt suicide. Goff died at an early age from tuberculosis when Travers was seven years old.
In Los Angeles, Travers is irritated by what she perceives as the city's unreality and the inhabitants' intrusive friendliness, personified by her limousine driver, Ralph. At the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Travers meets the creative team that are developing Mary Poppins for the screen: screenwriter Don DaGradi, and music composers Richard and Robert Sherman. She finds their presumptions and casual manners highly improper, a view she also holds of the jocular Disney.
Travers' working relationship with Disney and his team is difficult from the outset, with her insistence that Mary Poppins is the enemy of sentiment and whimsy. Disney and his people are puzzled by Travers' disdain for fantasy, given the nature of the Mary Poppins story, as well as Travers' own rich imagination. She particularly objects to how the character George Banks, the estranged father of the children in Mary Poppins' charge, is depicted, insisting that he is neither cold nor cruel. Gradually, they grasp how deeply personal the Mary Poppins stories are to her and how many of the characters were inspired by her past.
The team realize Travers has valid criticisms and make changes, though she becomes increasingly disengaged as painful childhood memories resurface. Seeking to understand what troubles her, Disney invites Travers to Disneyland, which, along with her developing friendship with Ralph, the creative team's revisions to the George Banks character, and the addition of a new song and a different ending, help dissolve Travers' opposition. Her creativity reawakens, and she begins working with the team; however, when Travers discovers that there is to be an animation sequence, she confronts Disney over his broken promise and returns home.
Disney learns that Travers is actually her pen name, taken from her father's given name. Her real name is Helen Goff, and she's actually Australian, not British. This gives Disney new insight into Travers, and he follows her to London. Arriving unexpectedly at her door, Disney tells her that he also had a less-than-ideal childhood, but stresses the healing value of his art. He urges Travers to not let deeply-rooted past disappointments dictate the present. Travers relents and grants Disney the film rights.
Three years later, in 1964, Mary Poppins is to have its world premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Disney has not invited Travers, fearing how she might react with the press watching. Prompted by Russell, Travers shows up unannounced at Disney's office; he reluctantly issues her an invitation. Initially, she watches Mary Poppins with a lack of enthusiasm, particularly during the animated sequences. She gradually warms to the rest of the film; however, becoming deeply moved by the depiction of George Banks' personal crisis and redemption.
Nanny McPhee
Nanny McPhee is a 2005 family comedy fantasy film based on Nurse Matilda by Christianna Brand. It was directed by Kirk Jones, co-produced by StudioCanal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Working Title Films, Three Strange Angels and Nanny McPhee Productions with music by Patrick Doyle and produced by Lindsay Doran, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. The film stars Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Angela Lansbury and Thomas Sangster.
The film was theatrically released on 28 October 2005 in the UK and on 27 January 2006 in the USA by Universal Pictures. Thompson also scripted the film, which is adapted from Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda books. A sequel was released in 2010, titled Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. The filming location is Penn House Estate, Penn Street, Buckinghamshire, England.
Plot[edit]
In Victorian England, widowed undertaker Cedric Brown has seven unruly children. He is clumsy and loves his children but spends little time with them and cannot handle them. The children have had a series of nannies, which they systematically drive out by their bad behaviour. They also terrorize the cook, Mrs. Blatherwick.
One day, Cedric discovers throughout the home references for a "Nanny McPhee". That stormy night, the children cause havoc in the kitchen. Cedric sees a shadow behind the door and opens it to reveal a frighteningly hideous woman, who states that she is Nanny McPhee and is a "government nanny". With discipline and a little magic, she transforms the family's lives. In the process, she changes from ugly to beautiful, her warts and unibrow disappearing. The children, led by the eldest son Simon, try to play their tricks on her, but gradually start to respect her and ask her for advice. They change to responsible people helping their clumsy father in solving the family problems, making Nanny McPhee less and less needed.
The family is financially supported by Cedric's late wife's domineering and nearsighted aunt Lady Adelaide Stitch, who demands custody over one of the children. She first wants Christiana (Chrissie), one of the daughters, but Evangeline, Cedric's uneducated scullery maid, volunteers and Adelaide agrees, assuming she is one of the daughters. She also threatens to reduce the family to poverty unless Cedric remarries within the month; the family would lose the house, and they would not be able to stay together. Desperate, Cedric turns to a vile and frequent widow, Mrs. Selma Quickly. The children assume from books that stepmothers are terrible; therefore they sabotage a visit of Mrs. Quickly, who leaves, angry at Cedric. After the financial rationale for the marriage is explained to the children, they agree to the marriage, and appease Mrs. Quickly by confessing they were to blame for the disturbance of her visit, luring her back to their father with tales of their Great Aunt Adelaide's wealth.
The children discover that Mrs. Quickly is just as cruel as they suspected when she breaks their real mother's rattle (the only thing they had left of her). When everybody is gathered for the marriage ceremony, they disturb the ceremony by pretending there are bees (mimicking the way Quickly told them to "be-have"), chasing the guests, and throwing the pastries intended for the banquet at everyone present. Cedric understands they do not like the bride and, recognising that he does not like her either, joins in the commotion himself. Mrs. Quickly cancels the marriage and storms off in anger. This seems to mean that Adelaide's marriage deadline is missed, but Lily asks Evangeline whether she loves Cedric. She first denies, explaining that it would be inappropriate because of her station as maidservant, but then confirms she does. Cedric marries Evangeline the same day, satisfying Aunt Adelaide's conditions for maintaining his allowance; and Nanny McPhee (who is now beautiful), magically makes it snow, which transforms the wedding scene, and restores the children's real mother's rattle for them.
Nanny McPhee leaves surreptitiously, in accordance with what she told the children before on her first night: "When you need me, but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me, but no longer need me, then I have to go".
Mary Poppins (film)
Mary Poppins is a 1964 American musical fantasy comedy film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney, with songs written and composed by the Sherman Brothers. The screenplay is by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, loosely based on P. L. Travers' book series Mary Poppins. The film, which combines live-action and animation, stars Julie Andrews in the role of Mary Poppins who visits a dysfunctional family in London and employs her unique brand of lifestyle to improve the family's dynamic. Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson, and Glynis Johns are featured in supporting roles. The film was shot entirely at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California using painted London background scenes.[4]
Mary Poppins was released on August 27, 1964, to universal acclaim, receiving a total of thirteen Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture—an unsurpassed record for any other film released by Walt Disney Studios—and won five; Best Actress for Andrews, Best Film Editing, Best Original Music Score, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Song for "Chim Chim Cher-ee". In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[5] Mary Poppins is widely considered to be Walt Disney's "crowning achievement", being his only film to garner a "Best Picture" nomination at the Oscars in his lifetime.[4]
Plot[edit]
In Edwardian London, 1910, Cockney one-man band Bert is entertaining a crowd when he senses a change in the wind. Afterwards, he directly addresses the audience and gives them a tour of Cherry Tree Lane, stopping outside the home of the Banks family. George Banks returns home from his job at the bank to learn from his wife Winifred that their hired nanny, Katie Nanna, has left their service after his children, Jane and Michael, ran away "again". They are returned shortly after by the local constable, who reveals that the children were chasing a lost kite. The children ask their father to help build a better kite, but he dismisses them. Taking it upon himself to hire a nanny, George advertises for a stern, no-nonsense nanny. Instead, Jane and Michael present their own advertisement for a kinder, sweeter nanny, but when George rips up the letter and throws the scraps in the fireplace, the remains of the advertisement magically float up and out into the air.
The next day, a queue of elderly, sour-faced nannies appear outside. However, a strong gust of wind blows the nannies away, and Jane and Michael witness a young nanny descend from the sky using her umbrella. Presenting herself to George, Mary Poppins calmly produces the children’s now restored advertisement and agrees with its requests, but promises the astonished banker she will be firm with his children. As George puzzles over the return of the advertisement, Mary is forced to hire herself and meets the children, baffling them with her behavior and bottomless carpet bag. She helps the children to tidy their nursery through song, before heading out for a walk in the park.
Outside, they meet Bert who now works as a screever, drawing chalk sketches on the pavement. Mary uses her magic to transport the group into one of the drawings, which becomes an animated countryside setting. While the children ride on a nearby carousel, Mary Poppins and Bert go on a leisurely stroll and are served tea by a quartet of penguin waiters. Mary enchants the carousel horses and participates in a horse race which she wins. While being asked to describe her victory, Mary announces the nonsense word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". However, the outing is ruined when a thunderstorm demolishes Bert's drawings, returning the group back to London. On another outing, the four meet Mary's jovial Uncle Albert who has floated up in the air due to his uncontrollable laughter. They join him for a tea party on the ceiling, telling jokes.
George becomes increasingly annoyed by the cheery atmosphere of his family and threatens to fire Mary. Instead, Mary inverts his attempt by convincing him to take the children to the bank for a day. George takes Jane and Michael to the bank, where they meet his employers, Mr. Dawes Sr. and his son. Dawes aggressively attempts to have Michael invest his tuppence in the bank, snatching the money from him. Michael demands it back, causing other customers to misinterpret and all demand their money back, causing a bank run. Jane and Michael flee the bank, getting lost in the East End until they run into Bert, who is now a chimney sweep. He escorts them home, suggesting their father does not hate them but has his own troubles to deal with. The three and Mary venture onto the rooftops where they have a song-and-dance number with other chimney sweeps until George returns home. George receives a phone call from his employers, telling him to meet them later for disciplinary action. George speaks with Bert who tells him that while he needs to work, he should spend more time with his children before they grow up. Jane and Michael give their father Michael’s tuppence in the hope to make amends.
George walks through London to the bank, where he is given a humiliating cashiering and is dismissed. Looking to the tuppence for words, he raucously blurts out, "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!", tells one of Uncle Albert's jokes the children originally told him, and happily heads home. Dawes mulls over the joke, but finally "gets" it, and floats up into the air, laughing. The next day, the wind changes, which means that Mary must leave. A happier George is found at home, having fixed his children’s kite, and takes the family out to fly it. In the park, the Banks meet Mr. Dawes Jr, who reveals that his father died happily laughing from the joke and re-employs George as a junior partner. With her work done, Mary flies away with Bert bidding her farewell, telling her not to stay away too long.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was first published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1964 and in the United Kingdom by George Allen & Unwin, later that same year. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka.
The story was originally inspired by Roald Dahl's experience of chocolate companies during his schooldays. Cadbury would often send test packages to the schoolchildren in exchange for their opinions on the new products.[2] At that time (around the 1920s), Cadbury and Rowntree's were England's two largest chocolate makers and they each often tried to steal trade secrets by sending spies, posing as employees, into the other's factory. Because of this, both companies became highly protective of their chocolate-making processes. It was a combination of this secrecy and the elaborate, often gigantic, machines in the factory that inspired Dahl to write the story.[3]
Plot[edit]
An 11-year-old boy named Charlie Bucket lives in poverty in a tiny house with his parents and four grandparents. His grandparents share the only bed in the house, located in the only bedroom. Charlie and his parents sleep on a mattress on the floor. Once a year, on his birthday, Charlie gets one Wonka Bar, which he keeps for many months.
Willy Wonka, the owner of the Wonka chocolate factory, has suddenly decided to open the doors of his factory to five children and their parents after 10 years of keeping it sealed because his rivals were stealing his recipes. In order to choose who will enter the factory and also receive a lifetime supply of chocolate, Mr. Wonka hides five golden tickets in the wrappers of his Wonka chocolate bars. The search for the five golden tickets is fast and furious. Each ticket find is a media sensation and each finder becomes a celebrity. The first four golden tickets are found by the gluttonous Augustus Gloop, the spoiled and petulant Veruca Salt, the gum-addicted Violet Beauregarde, and the TV-obsessed Mike Teavee.
One day, Charlie sees a fifty-pence coin (dollar bill in the US version) buried in the snow. He decides to use a little of the money to buy himself some chocolate before turning the rest over to his mother. He buys two bars, and after unwrapping the second chocolate bar, Charlie finds the fifth golden ticket. The next day is the date that Mr. Wonka has set for his guests to enter the factory.
In the factory, Charlie and Grandpa Joe enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of the factory, and also encounter the Oompa Loompas who have been helping Wonka operate the factory since he found them living in their own poverty and fear in Loompaland, as well as their strong desire for Cocoa beans. The other kids are ejected from the factory in comical, mysterious and painful fashions. Augustus Gloop falls into the Chocolate River when he wants to drink it, and he is sucked up by one of the pipes. Violet Beauregarde impetuously grabs an experimental piece of gum and chews herself into a giant blueberry. Veruca Salt is determined to be a "bad nut" by nut-judging squirrels who throw her out with the trash. Lastly, the television lover, Mike Teavee, shrinks himself into a tiny size. The children go home as follows: Augustus squeezed thin by the pipe; Violet purple all over; Veruca covered in trash; and Mike 10 feet tall and thin as a wire after efforts to restore his proper size went wrong.
With only Charlie remaining, Willy Wonka congratulates him for "winning" the factory and after explaining his true age and the reason behind his golden tickets, names Charlie his successor. They ride the great glass elevator to Charlie's house and bring the rest of Charlie's family to the factory.
Continued in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (/ˈɛlᵻnɔːr ˈroʊzəvɛlt/; October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962) was an American politician, diplomat, and activist.[1] She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, having held the post from March 1933 to April 1945 during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office,[1] and served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952.[2][3] President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.[4]
Roosevelt was a member of the prominent American Roosevelt and Livingston families and a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt's.[3] She had an unhappy childhood, having suffered the deaths of both parents and one of her brothers at a young age. At 15, she attended Allenwood Academy in London and was deeply influenced by its feminist headmistress Marie Souvestre. Returning to the U.S., she married her fifth cousin once removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1905. The Roosevelts' marriage was complicated from the beginning by Franklin's controlling mother, Sara, and after discovering an affair of her husband's with Lucy Mercer in 1918, Roosevelt resolved to seek fulfillment in a public life of her own. She persuaded Franklin to stay in politics after he was stricken with debilitating polio in 1921, which cost him the use of his legs, and Roosevelt began giving speeches and appearing at campaign events in his place. Following Franklin's election as Governor of New York in 1928, and throughout the remainder of Franklin's public career in government, Roosevelt regularly made public appearances on his behalf, and as First Lady while her husband served as President, she significantly reshaped and redefined the role of that office during her own tenure and beyond, for future First Ladies.
Though widely respected in her later years, Roosevelt was a controversial First Lady at the time for her outspokenness, particularly her stance on racial issues. She was the first presidential spouse to hold regular press conferences, write a daily newspaper column, write a monthly magazine column, host a weekly radio show, and speak at a national party convention. On a few occasions, she publicly disagreed with her husband's policies. She launched an experimental community at Arthurdale, West Virginia, for the families of unemployed miners, later widely regarded as a failure. She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace, the civil rights of African Americans and Asian Americans, and the rights of World War II refugees.
Following her husband's death, Roosevelt remained active in politics for the rest of her life. She pressed the United States to join and support the United Nations and became its first delegate. She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Later she chaired the John F. Kennedy administration's Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. By the time of her death, Roosevelt was regarded as "one of the most esteemed women in the world"; she was called "the object of almost universal respect" in her New York Times obituary.[5] In 1999, she was ranked ninth in the top ten of Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.[6]
First Lady of the United States (1933–1945)
Upon FDR's inauguration on March 4, 1933, Eleanor became First Lady of the United States. Having known all of the twentieth century's previous First Ladies, she was seriously depressed at having to assume the role, which had traditionally been restricted to domesticity and hostessing.[80] Her immediate predecessor, Lou Henry Hoover, had ended her feminist activism on becoming First Lady, stating her intention to be only a "backdrop for Bertie."[81] Eleanor's distress at these precedents was severe enough that Hickok subtitled her biography of Roosevelt "Reluctant First Lady".[82]
With support from Howe and Hickok, Roosevelt set out to redefine the position. In the process she became, according to her biographer Cook, "the most controversial First Lady in United States history".[82] With her husband's strong support, despite criticism of them both, she continued with the active business and speaking agenda she had begun before becoming First Lady, in an era when few married women had careers. She was the first presidential spouse to hold regular press conferences and in 1940 became the first to speak at a national party convention.[83] She also wrote a daily (and widely syndicated) newspaper column, "My Day", another first for a presidential spouse.[84][85] She was also the first First Lady to write a monthly magazine column and to host a weekly radio show.[86]
In the first year of FDR's tenure, determined to match his presidential salary, Eleanor earned $75,000 from her lectures and writing, most of which she gave to charity.[87] By 1941, she was receiving lecture fees of $1,000.[39]
Roosevelt maintained a heavy travel schedule in her twelve years in the White House, frequently making personal appearances at labor meetings to assure Depression-era workers that the White House was mindful of their plight. In one famous cartoon of the time from The New Yorker magazine (June 3, 1933), satirizing a visit she had made to a mine, an astonished coal miner, peering down a dark tunnel, says to a co-worker, "For gosh sakes, here comes Mrs. Roosevelt!"[70][88]
In early 1933, the "Bonus Army", a protest group of World War I veterans, marched on Washington for the second time in two years, calling for their veteran bonus certificates to be awarded early. The previous year, President Herbert Hoover had ordered them dispersed, and the US Army cavalry charged and bombarded the veterans with tear gas.[89] This time, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the veterans at their muddy campsite, listening to their concerns and singing army songs with them.[90] The meeting defused the tension between the veterans and the administration, and one of the marchers later commented, "Hoover sent the Army. Roosevelt sent his wife."[91]
Also in 1933 after she became First Lady, a rose was discovered and named after Eleanor, with the name Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt (Rosa x hybrida “Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt”).[92] It is a hybrid tea rose.[92] However, though this is true, there is no evidence to support the story that Eleanor later quipped, "I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall".[93]
In 1937 she began writing her autobiography, all volumes of which were compiled into The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt in 1961 (Harper & Brothers, ISBN 0-306-80476-X).
American Youth Congress and National Youth Administration
The American Youth Congress was formed in 1935 to advocate for youth rights in U.S. politics, and was responsible for introducing the American Youth Bill of Rights to the U.S. Congress. Roosevelt's relationship with the AYC eventually led to the formation of the National Youth Administration, a New Deal agency in the United States, founded in 1935, that focused on providing work and education for Americans between the ages of 16 and 25.[94][95][96] The NYA was headed by Aubrey Willis Williams, a prominent liberal from Alabama who was close to Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins. Speaking of the NYA in the 1930s, Roosevelt expressed her concern about ageism, stating that "I live in real terror when I think we may be losing this generation. We have got to bring these young people into the active life of the community and make them feel that they are necessary."[97] In 1939 the Dies Committee subpoenaed leaders of the AYC, who, in addition to serving the AYC, also were members of the Young Communist League. Roosevelt was in attendance at the hearings and afterward invited the subpoenaed witnesses to board at the White House during their stay in Washington D.C. Joseph P. Lash was one of her boarders. On February 10, 1940, members of the AYC, as guests of Roosevelt in her capacity as First Lady, attended a picnic on the White House lawn where they were addressed by Franklin from the South Portico. The President admonished them to condemn not merely the Nazi regime but all dictatorships.[98] The President was reportedly booed by the group. Afterwards, many of the same youth picketed the White House as representatives of the American Peace Mobilization. Among them was Joseph Cadden, one of Roosevelt's overnight boarders. Later in 1940, despite Roosevelt's publication of her reasons "Why I still believe in the Youth Congress," the American Youth Congress was disbanded.[99] The NYA was shut down in 1943.[100]
Arthurdale
Roosevelt's chief project during her husband's first two terms was the establishment of a planned community in Arthurdale, West Virginia.[101][102] On August 18, 1933, at Hickok's urging, Roosevelt visited the families of homeless miners in Morgantown, West Virginia, who had been blacklisted following union activities.[103] Deeply affected by the visit, Roosevelt proposed a resettlement community for the miners at Arthurdale, where they could make a living by subsistence farming, handicrafts, and a local manufacturing plant.[102] She hoped the project could become a model for "a new kind of community" in the U.S., in which workers would be better cared for.[104] Her husband enthusiastically supported the project.[102]
After an initial, disastrous experiment with prefab houses, construction began again in 1934 to Roosevelt's specifications, this time with "every modern convenience", including indoor plumbing and central steam heat. Families occupied the first fifty homes in June, and agreed to repay the government in thirty years' time.[101][105]Though Roosevelt had hoped for a racially mixed community, the miners insisted on limiting membership to white Christians. After losing a community vote, Roosevelt recommended the creation of other communities for the excluded black and Jewish miners.[106] The experience motivated Roosevelt to become much more outspoken on the issue of racial discrimination.[107]
Roosevelt remained a vigorous fundraiser for the community for several years, as well as spending most of her own income on the project.[108] However, the project was criticized by both the political left and right. Conservatives condemned it as socialist and a "communist plot", while Democratic members of Congress opposed government competition with private enterprise.[109] Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes also opposed the project, citing its high per-family cost.[110] Arthurdale continued to sink as a government spending priority for the federal government until 1941, when the U.S. sold off the last of its holdings in the community at a loss.[111]
Later commentators generally described the Arthurdale experiment as a failure.[112] Roosevelt herself was sharply discouraged by a 1940 visit in which she felt the town had become excessively dependent on outside assistance.[113] However, the residents considered the town a "utopia" compared to their previous circumstances, and many were returned to economic self-sufficiency.[111] Roosevelt personally considered the project a success, later speaking of the improvements she saw in people's lives there and stating, "I don't know whether you think that is worth half a million dollars. But I do."[112]
Civil rights activism
Eleanor became an important connection for Franklin's administration to the African-American population during the segregation era. Despite the President's desire to placate Southern sentiment, Eleanor was vocal in her support of the African-American civil rights movement. After her experience with Arthurdale and her inspections of New Deal programs in Southern states, she concluded that New Deal programs were discriminating against African-Americans, who received a disproportionately small share of relief moneys. Eleanor became one of the only voices in the Roosevelt White House insisting that benefits be equally extended to Americans of all races.[114]
Eleanor also broke with precedent by inviting hundreds of African-American guests to the White House.[115] When the black singer Marian Anderson was denied the use of Washington's Constitution Hall in 1939 by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Eleanor resigned from the group in protest and helped arrange another concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.[70] Roosevelt later presented Anderson to the King and Queen of the United Kingdom after Anderson performed at a White House dinner.[116] Roosevelt also arranged the appointment of African-American educator Mary McLeod Bethune, with whom she had struck up a friendship, as Director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration.[117][118] To avoid problems with the staff when Bethune would visit the White House, Eleanor would meet her at the gate, embrace her, and walk in with her arm-in-arm.[119]
She was involved by being "the eyes and the ears"[120] of the New Deal. She looked to the future and was committed to social reform. One of those programs helped working women receive better wages. The New Deal also placed women into less machine work and more white collar work. Women did not have to work in the factories making war supplies because men were coming home so they could take over the long days and nights women had been working to contribute to the war efforts. Roosevelt brought unprecedented activism and ability to the role of the First Lady.[121]
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In contrast to her usual support of African-American rights, the "sundown town" Eleanor, in West Virginia, was named for her and was established in 1934 when she and Franklin visited the county and developed it as a test site for families. As a "sundown town", like other Franklin Roosevelt towns around the nation (such as Greenbelt, Greenhills, Greendale, Hanford, or Norris), it was for whites only.[122] It was established as a New Deal project.[123]
Eleanor lobbied behind the scenes for the 1934 Costigan-Wagner Bill to make lynching a federal crime, including arranging a meeting between Franklin and NAACP president Walter Francis White.[124] Fearing he would lose the votes of Southern congressional delegations for his legislative agenda, however, Franklin refused to publicly support the bill, which proved unable to pass the Senate.[125] In 1942, Eleanor worked with activist Pauli Murray to persuade Franklin to appeal on behalf of sharecropper Odell Waller, convicted of killing a white farmer during a fight; though Franklin sent a letter to Virginia Governor Colgate Darden urging him to commute the sentence to life imprisonment, Waller was executed as scheduled.[126]
Roosevelt's support of African-American rights made her an unpopular figure among whites in the South. Rumors spread of "Eleanor Clubs" formed by servants to oppose their employers and "Eleanor Tuesdays" on which African-American men would knock down white women on the street, though no evidence has ever been found of either practice.[127] When race riots broke out in Detroit in June 1943, critics in both the North and South wrote that Roosevelt was to blame.[128] At the same time, she grew so popular among African-Americans, previously a reliable Republican voting bloc, that they became a consistent base of support for the Democratic Party.[129]
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt spoke out against anti-Japanese prejudice, warning against the "great hysteria against minority groups."[130] She also privately opposed her husband's Executive Order 9066, which forced Japanese-Americans in many areas of the U.S. into internment camps.[131] She was widely criticized for her defense of Japanese-American citizens, including in a call by the Los Angeles Times that she be "forced to retire from public life" over her stand on the issue.[132]
Norvelt
On May 21, 1937, Roosevelt visited Westmoreland Homesteads to mark the arrival of the community’s final homesteader. Accompanying her on the trip was the wife of Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the president's Secretary of the Treasury.[133] "I am no believer in paternalism. I do not like charities," she had said earlier. But cooperative communities such as Westmoreland Homesteads, she went on, offered an alternative to "our rather settled ideas" that could "provide equality of opportunity for all and prevent the recurrence of a similar disaster [depression] in the future." Residents were so taken by her personal expression of interest in the program that they promptly agreed to rename the community in her honor. (The new town name, Norvelt, was a combination of the last syllables in her names: EleaNOR RooseVELT.)[134] The Norvelt firefighter's hall is also named Roosevelt Hall in honor of her.[133]
Use of media
As an unprecedentedly outspoken First Lady, Roosevelt made far more use of the media than her predecessors had, holding 348 press conferences over the span of her husband's 12-year presidency.[135] Inspired by her relationship with Hickok, Roosevelt placed a ban on male reporters attending the press conferences, effectively forcing newspapers to keep female reporters on staff in order to cover them. She only relaxed the rule once, on her return from her 1943 Pacific trip.[136] Because the Gridiron Club banned women from its annual Gridiron Dinner for journalists, Roosevelt hosted a competing event for female reporters at the White House, which she called "Gridiron Widows".[137] She was interviewed by many newspapers; the New Orleans journalist Iris Kelso described Mrs. Roosevelt as her most interesting interviewee ever.[138]
In February 1933, just before Franklin assumed the presidency, Eleanor published an editorial in the Women's Daily News conflicting so sharply with his intended public spending policies that he published a rejoinder in the following issue.[139] On entering the White House, she signed a contract with the magazine Woman's Home Companion to provide a monthly column, in which she answered mail sent to her by readers; the feature was canceled in 1936 as another presidential election approached.[140] She continued her articles in other venues, publishing more than sixty articles in national magazines during her tenure as First Lady.[141] Eleanor also began a syndicated newspaper column, titled "My Day", which appeared six days a week from 1936 to her death in 1962.[137] In the column, she wrote about her daily activities but also her humanitarian concerns.[142] Hickok and George T. Bye, Eleanor's literary agent, encouraged her to write the column.[143][144]
Beasley has argued that Roosevelt's publications, which often dealt with women's issues and invited reader responses, represented a conscious attempt to use journalism "to overcome social isolation" for women by making "public communication a two-way channel".[145]
World War II
On May 10, 1940, Germany invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, marking the end of the relatively conflict-free "Phoney War" phase of World War II. As the U.S. began to move toward war footing, Roosevelt found herself again depressed, fearing that her role in fighting for domestic justice would become extraneous in a nation focused on foreign affairs. She briefly considered traveling to Europe to work with the Red Cross, but was dissuaded by presidential advisers who pointed out the consequences should the president's wife be captured as a prisoner of war.[147] She soon found other wartime causes to work on, however, beginning with a popular movement to allow the immigration of European refugee children.[148] She also lobbied her husband to allow greater immigration of groups persecuted by the Nazis, including Jews, but fears of fifth columnists caused Franklin to restrict immigration rather than expanding it.[149] Eleanor successfully secured political refugee status for eighty-three Jewish refugees from the S.S. Quanza in August 1940, but was refused on many other occasions.[150] Her son James later wrote that "her deepest regret at the end of her life" was that she had not forced Franklin to accept more refugees from Nazism during the war.[151]
Eleanor was also active on the home front. Beginning in 1941, she co-chaired the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD) with New York City Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, working to give civilian volunteers expanded roles in war preparations.[152] She soon found herself in a power struggle with LaGuardia, who preferred to focus on narrower aspects of defense, while she saw solutions to broader social problems as equally important to the war effort.[153] Though LaGuardia resigned from the OCD in December 1941, Eleanor was forced to resign following anger in the House of Representatives over high salaries for several OCD appointments, including two of her close friends.[154]
Also in 1941, the short film Women in Defense, written by Roosevelt, was released. It was produced by the Office of Emergency Management and briefly outlines the way in which women could help prepare the country for the possibility of war. There is also a segment on the types of costumes women would wear while engaged in war work. At the end of the film, the narrator explains women are vital to securing a healthy American home life and raising children "which has always been the first line of defense".
In October 1942, Roosevelt toured England, visiting with American troops and inspecting British forces. Her visits drew enormous crowds and received almost unanimously favorable press in both England and America.[155] In August 1943, she visited American troops in the South Pacific on a morale-building tour, of which Admiral William Halsey, Jr. later said, "she alone accomplished more good than any other person, or any groups of civilians, who had passed through my area."[156] For her part, Roosevelt was left shaken and deeply depressed by seeing the war's carnage.[157] A number of Congressional Republicans criticized her for using scarce wartime resources for her trip, prompting Franklin to suggest that she take a break from traveling.[158]
Roosevelt supported increased roles for women and African-Americans in the war effort, and began to advocate for factory jobs to be given to women a year before it became a widespread practice.[159][160] In 1942, she urged women of all social backgrounds to learn trades, saying: "if I were of a debutante age I would go into a factory–any factory where I could learn a skill and be useful."[161] Learning of the high rate of absenteeism among working mothers, she also campaigned for government-sponsored day care.[162] She notably supported the Tuskegee Airmen in their successful effort to become the first black combat pilots, visiting the Tuskegee Air Corps Advanced Flying School in Alabama. She also flew with African-American chief civilian instructor C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson. Anderson, who had been flying since 1929, and was responsible for training thousands of rookie pilots, took her on a half-hour flight in a Piper J-3 Cub.[163] After landing, she cheerfully announced, "Well, you can fly all right."[164] The subsequent brouhaha over the First Lady's flight had such an impact it is often mistakenly cited as the start of the Civilian Pilot Training Program at Tuskegee, even though the program was already five months old. Eleanor Roosevelt did use her position as a trustee of the Julius Rosenwald Fund to arrange a loan of $175,000 to help finance the building of Moton Field.[164]
After the war, Eleanor was a strong proponent of the Morgenthau Plan to de-industrialize Germany in the postwar period.[165] In 1947 she attended the National Conference on the German Problem in New York, which she had helped organize. It issued a statement that "any plans to resurrect the economic and political power of Germany" would be dangerous to international security.[166]
The Giver
The Giver is a 1993 American young adult utopian/dystopian novel by Lois Lowry. It is set in a society which at first appears to be utopian but is revealed to be dystopian as the story progresses. The novel follows a 12-year-old boy named Jonas. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to "Sameness", a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the past memories of the time before Sameness, as there may be times where one must draw upon the wisdom gained from history to aid the community's decision making. Jonas struggles with concepts of all the new emotions and things introduced to him: whether they are inherently good, evil, or in between, and whether it is even possible to have one without the other. The Community lacks any color, memory, climate, or terrain, all in an effort to preserve structure, order, and a true sense of equality beyond personal individuality.[1]Plot[edit]
Jonas, a 12-year-old boy, lives in a Community isolated from all except a few similar towns, where everyone from small infants to the Chief Elder has an assigned role. With the annual Ceremony of Twelve upcoming, he is nervous, for there he will be assigned his life's work. He seeks reassurance from his father, a Nurturer (who cares for the new babies, who are genetically engineered and so Jonas's parents are not related to him) and his mother, an official in the Department of Justice, and is told the Elders, who assign the children their careers, are always right.
The day finally arrives, and Jonas is assembled with his classmates in order of date of birth. All of the Community is present, and the Chief Elder presides. Jonas is stunned when his turn is passed by, and he is increasingly conspicuous and agonized until he is alone. The Chief Elder then explains that Jonas has not been given a normal assignment, but instead has been selected as the next Receiver of Memory, to be trained by the current one, who sits among the Elders, staring at Jonas, and who shares with the boy unusual pale eyes. The position of Receiver has high status, and Jonas quickly finds himself growing distant from his classmates, including his close friends Asher and Fiona. The rules Jonas receive further separate him, as they allow him no time to play with his friends. They also allow him to lie and withhold his feelings from his family, something generally not allowed in the regimented Community.
Once he begins it, Jonas's training makes clear his uniqueness, for the Receiver of Memory is just that—a person who bears the burden of the memories from all of history, and who is the only one allowed access to books beyond schoolbooks, and the rulebook issued to every household. The current Receiver, who asks Jonas to call him the Giver, begins the process of transferring those memories to Jonas, for the ordinary person in the Community knows nothing of the past. These memories, and being the only Community member allowed access to books about the past, give the Receiver perspective to advise the Council of Elders. The first memory is of sliding down a snow-covered hill on a sled, pleasantness made shocking by the fact that Jonas has never seen a sled, or snow, or a hill for even the memory of these things has been given up to assure security and conformity (called Sameness). Even color has been surrendered, and the Giver shows Jonas a rainbow. Less pleasantly, he gives Jonas memories of hunger and war, things alien to the boy. Hanging over Jonas's training is the fact that the Giver once before had an apprentice, named Rosemary, but the boy finds his parents and the Giver reluctant to discuss what happened to her.
Jonas's father is concerned about an infant at the Nurturing Center who is failing to thrive, and has received special permission to bring him home at night. The baby's name will be Gabriel if he grows strong enough to be assigned to a family. He has pale eyes, like Jonas and the Giver, and Jonas becomes attached to him, especially when Jonas finds that he is capable of being given memories. If Gabriel does not increase in strength, he will be "released from the Community," also in common speech termed being taken Elsewhere. This has happened to an off-course air pilot, to chronic rule breakers, to elderly people, and to the apprentice Rosemary. After Jonas casually speculates as to life in Elsewhere, the Giver educates him by showing the boy hidden-camera video of Jonas's father doing his job: as two identical community members cannot be allowed, Jonas's father releases the smaller of identical twin newborns by injecting the baby with poison before putting the body in a trash chute. There is no Elsewhere for those not wanted by the Community, those said to have been "released" have been killed.
Considering his father a murderer, Jonas refuses to return home, but the Giver convinces him that without the memories, the people of the Community cannot know that what they have been trained to do is wrong. Rosemary had been unable to endure the darker memories of the past and had chosen release, injecting the poison into her own body. Together, Jonas and the Giver come to the understanding that the time for change is now, that the Community has lost its way and must have its memories returned. The only way to make this happen is if Jonas leaves the Community, at which time the memories he has been given will flood back into the people, as did the relatively few memories Rosemary had been given. Jonas wants the Giver to escape with him, but the Giver insists that he will be needed to help the people manage the memories, or they will destroy themselves. Once the Community is re-established along new lines, the Giver plans to join his daughter, Rosemary, in death.
The Giver devises a plot in which Jonas will escape beyond the boundaries of the Communities. The Giver will make it appear as if Jonas drowned in the river so that the search for him will be limited. The plan is scuttled when Jonas learns that Gabriel will be "released" the following morning, and he feels he has no choice but to escape with the infant. Their escape is fraught with danger, and the two are near death from cold and starvation when they reach the border of what Jonas believes must be Elsewhere. Using his ability to "see beyond," a gift that he does not quite understand, he finds a sled waiting for him at the top of a snowy hill. He and Gabriel ride the sled down towards a house filled with colored lights and warmth and love and a Christmas tree, and for the first time he hears something he believes must be music. The ending is ambiguous, with Jonas depicted as experiencing symptoms of hypothermia. This leaves his and Gabriel's future unresolved. However, their fate is revealed in Gathering Blue and in Messenger, companion novels written much later.[9]
Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring
In 1944 the modern American ballet Appalachian Spring premiered at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The collaborators behind the performance anxiously awaited the critical response to their artistic achievement: would the world understand what they had done? In Ballet for Martha, the journey to this stage and the success shared among choreographer Martha Graham, composer Aaron Copland and artist Isamu Noguchi is expressively captured by acclaimed children’s book authors Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. Together they tell the exceptional story of the collaborative efforts behind the creation of Appalachian Spring. Martha Graham, famous American dancer and pioneering choreographer, ignited the process with her innovative dance routines and desire to create a ballet that would represent America. With Martha’s spirit and choreography in mind, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Copland built upon the melodies of an old Shaker hymn to create the original score. He titled it simply Ballet for Martha. Upon Martha’s request, artist Isamu Noguchi created the stage design for the ballet, using a simple and angular style that reflected the movements of Martha’s choreography. This story, first chronicled in the award-winning book, is now brought to life in an original audiobook production by Brilliance Audio. Acclaimed actress Sarah Jessica Parker captures the voices and emotions of Martha Graham, Aaron Copland, and Isamu Noguchi as they work together to produce the dance, score, and set of this beloved American ballet. Accompanying the narration is a full performance by the Seattle Symphony of the very score which fueled and inspired the ballet. Listeners will be delighted by the layered collaborations brought together in this audio production. From the three trail-blazing artists who labored to capture America through lyrical movement, lilting melody, and avant-garde design, to the literary, vocal, and orchestral talents of today, Ballet for Martha is a beautiful, musical journey for listeners of all ages.
Martha Graham: A Dancer's Life by Russell Freedman
This Is Just To Say
"This Is Just To Say" (1934) is a famous imagist poem by William Carlos Williams.
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
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