Tag: Greg Bover

George Eliot Quote of The Week from Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

“It’s never too late to be who you might have been.”
Mary Anne Evans, aka George Eliot (1819-1880)

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Among the finest novelists of the Victorian Age, Evans chose a masculine pen name in order that her work would be taken more seriously by the male-dominated literati, and to keep her private life, including a twenty year relationship with a married man, private. Her novels Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, and especially Middlemarch, are regarded as masterful descriptions of life in provincial England with great insight into the psychological drama of everyday life.

Greg Bover Represents! In California

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

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Hey Joey,

Here I am on a ranch up in the hills above Palo Alto; that’s San Francisco Bay in the background. It was seventy today.

I’m here with my crew removing an organ we made in 1987 for a gentleman who built a concert hall as an addition to his house. He was a great guy, we had good times while working here, but he died a couple of years ago. His widow asked C. B. Fisk, Inc. to find a good home for the instrument, and we did. The three-manual, 45 stop organ, with 2,838 pipes, will be going to Indiana University, which has one of the finest organ departments in the country. But first we have to dismantle it completely, pack all 15 tons of it with great care into two 53 foot moving vans and then ship it to Bloomington. About a month’s work for six of us.  Some time next year when IU finishes modifications to Alumni Hall, we’ll put it all back together again. (I have a great job.)

There’s more info about the organ and a portrait at http://www.cbfisk.com/do/DisplayInstrument/instId/91.

Regards, Greg

Cyril Connolly Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

“Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.”
Cyril Connolly (1903-1974)

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An Eton educated literary critic, Connolly was for many years the editor of Horizon, the influential English magazine on prose. He was well traveled, thrice married, and hobnobbed with many of the great literary lights of his generation, but never attained the success as a fiction writer that he desired.

Greg Bover

Norman Vincent Peale Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

“Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture…Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.”

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Norman Vincent Peale (1898 – 1993)

Author of the popular book The Power of Positive Thinking, in 1952, Peale was pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in New York for more than fifty years. In his long running radio and television program, The Art of Living, and his many books, magazine articles, and sermons he tirelessly preached that the development of right thinking was the key to a good life. Though his opposition to John Kennedy’s candidacy on the grounds of Kennedy’s Catholicism sullied his own reputation, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984 by Ronald Reagan.

Greg Bover

Lily Tomlin Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

“If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?”
Mary Jean (Lily) Tomlin (1939-     )

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Detroit born comedian and actress Tomlin got her first big break in 1969 as a member of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In where she developed long-running characters such as Ernestine, the telephone operator, and Edith Ann, the wise and plain spoken five-year-old. She went on to create memorable roles in movies including “All of Me”, “Nine to Five” and “Short Cuts.” She was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Altman’s “Nashville”, and has received numerous awards for her Broadway and recorded work, including four Emmys, a Tony, and a Grammy .

Greg Bover

Mae West Quote of The Week from Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

December 2, 2011
“I’m all for restraint, as long as it doesn’t go too far.”
Mary Jane (Mae) West (1893- 1980)

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From her beginnings in vaudeville, West moved on to Broadway, writing, directing and starring in the 1920’s hit play Sex for which she was arrested and jailed on morals charges, launching a life-long battle with censorship. Her film career began in the thirties with memorable roles in Night after Night, I’m No Angel, and Diamond Lil. West often wrote or rewrote her own dialogue featuring her penchant for double entendre while up-staging a long string of leading men, including Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, and W.C. Fields. She made no films from the Second World War until 1970 when she appeared in Gore Vidal’s camp hit Myra Breckenridge. Inflatable life jackets are still referred to by her name for their resemblance to her statuesque form.

Greg Bover

Carrie Fisher Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

    “Holding on to a resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

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Carrie Fisher (1956-    )
Born to Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, one of Hollywood’s golden postwar couples who messily divorced when she was two, the actress, novelist, lecturer, and screenwriter is perhaps best know for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the early Star Wars movies. She is thought of as one of the smartest people in the film industry and has had a less well-know career as a script doctor and writer. Her novel Postcards from the Edge and her memoir Wishful Drinking detail her battles with substance abuse and eating disorders. The Emmy Award winning Fisher continues to tour as a lecturer and appears frequently on television (30 Rock, Sex in the City, etc.)

Greg Bover

Steven Wright Quote of the Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

“Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.”
Steven Wright 1955-

Although born in New York, comedian, actor and writer Steven Wright is a rabid Sox fan. Known for his lethargic voice and deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes and one-liners, Wright grew up in Burlington, (as did Amy Poehler). He attended Emerson College, (with Dennis Leary) and began his stand up career around Harvard Square.

Greg Bover

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Kin Hubbard Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

"There are two ways to handle a woman, and nobody knows either of them."
Frank McKinney (Kin) Hubbard (1868-1930)

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Midwestern humorist, cartoonist, and writer known best for his political commentary, Hubbard was a high school dropout who said his goal in life was to own a circus. He worked briefly as a silhouette artist and attended art school for a short time before beginning cartoon work for the Indianapolis News.  For 25 years he drew the acclaimed cartoon “Abe Martin of Brown County” which went into syndication and made him nationally known. Will Rogers cited Hubbard as an influence and called him the greatest humorist of his time. Another Hubbard comment on sexual dimorphism: “Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.”

Greg Bover

Honoré de Balzac Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

October 27, 2011
"Behind every great fortune there is a crime."
Honoré de Balzac (1799 – 1850)

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Balzac is often considered the founder of European Realist Literature. His attention to detail and his multi-faceted characters have served as an inspiration to generations of writers, including Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Proust, Poe, Faulkner, Kerouac, and Calvino. His masterwork, Le Comédie Humaine, or The Human Comedy, is a series of sketches of all aspects of life, often presented minute by minute. Although a conservative royalist in his politics, Balzac understood the frustrations of the down-trodden and the revolutionaries in the great social upheavals of his later life.

Greg Bover

William Boyd (Bill) Watterson Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

“There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.”
William Boyd (Bill) Watterson (1932-   )

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A graduate of Kenyon College with a degree in political science, Watterson was a political cartoonist and ad designer before creating his award winning comic strip Calvin and Hobbes in 1985. Named for the Protestant reformer John Calvin and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the strip was hugely popular until 1995 when he stopped drawing it, maintaining he had said all he wanted to say. Famously reclusive, (hence no picture), he refused to allow the strip to be merchandised, and grants no interviews.

Bill Waterson had the Occupy Movement summed up decades ago in this strip-

(click for the larger version)

calvinandhobbesoccupy

Epicurus Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

October 13, 2011
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but instead remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for.”

Epicurus (341 BC – 270 BC)

click photo for the Epicurus wikipedia page

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Born on the Greek island of Samos, Epicurus believed that the goal of one’s life should be happiness, peace and freedom from fear. Often misunderstood as a sort of hedonism because of similarities in a pursuit of pleasure, Epicureanism teaches instead that overindulgence likely brings pain. The greatest pleasure is to be gained in the enjoyment of friends, the simple blessings of food, and the living of the quiet, useful life.

(I decided to quote Epicurus this week because I was struck by the similarity to what Donna wrote earlier. Has anyone ever seen them in the same place at the same time? Hmm.)

Greg Bover

W. Robertson Davies Quote of the Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

October 6, 2011
“The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past.”

W. Robertson Davies (1913-1995)

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The son of a Canadian senator and media mogul, Davies received a degree in literature from Oxford University, then returned to Canada to a career of writing essays, plays, criticism, and especially novels, including his widely celebrated The Fifth Business, a Jungian exploration of magical realism and the world of the spirit, which he followed with The Manticore and World of Wonders, forming his much admired Deptford Trilogy. His stylish literary output continued with the Toronto Trilogy, (The Rebel Angels, What’s Bred in the Bone, and The Lyre of Orpheus.)  Davies was also a sought-after speaker and won awards for his literate humor. He was a finalist for the Booker Prize in 1991, but died before he could complete the last book of a third trilogy.

Greg Bover

John Ruskin Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.”
  – John Ruskin 1819-1900

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Longtime professor of art at Oxford College, Ruskin’s influence on 19th and early 20th century art and architecture was profound. His popular books The Stones of Venice and The Seven Lamps of Architecture had their effect on Le Corbusier, Wright and Gropius, among others. He championed of the works of JWM Turner and the Pre-Raphaelite School setting the tone for a return to natural forms that prefigured the Arts and Crafts Movement. Proust, Tolstoy, and Gandhi round out an international assemblage who admired Ruskin for his poetry and Christian Socialist philosophy.

Greg Bover

Neal Stephenson Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

“Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you…..”
Orolo to Erasmus in Anathem, 2008 by Neal Stephenson (1959-   )

click picture for Neal Stephenson wikipedia page

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Born into a family of academic scientists, Stephenson attended Boston University, graduating with a degree in geography. His third novel, Snow Crash, was widely recognized as the next step in the speculative fiction cyberpunk tradition of William Gibson. Subsequent works such as Cryptonomicon explore a fusion of cryptography, computer science and memetics, while his Diamond Age describes a steampunk world of nanotechnology and active literature.

Greg Bover (woodpunk)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Let us then be up and doing
With a heart for any Fate
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor, and to wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  (1807-1882)

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Born in Maine when it was still a province of Massachusetts, Longfellow became the best known of the lyric poets of the 19th century. His poems still form a core of the New England experience and include The Wreck of the Hesperus, Paul Revere’s Ride, The Song of Hiawatha and Evangeline. Longfellow taught for many years at Harvard College, and his pursuit of and eventual marriage to Frances Appleton still serves as an example of persistence to literary swains of Cambridge. Her accidental death in 1861 cast a dark pall over the last twenty years of his life. The bridge over the Charles River between Kendall Square and Beacon Hill is named in his honor.

Greg Bover

Broderick Steven Harvey Quote Of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

“A dog doesn’t bark at a parked car.”
Broderick Steven Harvey (1957-    )

Click the photo for his wikipedia page

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A stand-up comedian and actor, Harvey is a West Virginia native with earlier careers as a boxer and mailman. Famously intolerant of atheism, he has written books of advice to the lovelorn, and is the current host of the game show Family Feud.

Greg Bover

Henry Louis (H.L.) Mencken Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

Henry Louis (H.L.) Mencken (1880-1956)
Often referred to as the “Sage of Baltimore”, Mencken’s notoriety was solidified by his acerbic coverage of what he called the Scopes Monkey Trial and his widely read book The American Language  (1919). He wrote essays and criticism for the Baltimore Sun, the New Yorker, and the New York Times and was a founding editor of the influential American Mercury. He was a follower of Nietzsche and counted Twain among his heroes. His support for Ayn Rand helped to launch her career.

Greg Bover

click the pic to see his wikipedia page

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Kenneth Grahame Quote of The Week From Greg Bover

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

Water Rat to Mole, The Wind in the Willows, 1908, by Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) Click the picture to view his wikipedia page-

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Born in Scotland, Grahame was raised by his grandmother in rural Berkshire. Although he began writing in his 20’s, his main career was with the Bank of England in which he rose to the rank of Managing Secretary. He retired from the Bank at the age of 49, and the same year published his masterwork featuring Rat, Mole, Badger, and the infamous Mr. Toad, for which he received the Lewis Carroll Award.  It is a classic of children’s literature that has been reprinted dozens of times and can be seen as a play, heard as a recorded book, or listened to as a radio play. This is one of the great books to read aloud with a young person in your life.

Greg Bover