So cool that you had Frank McCourt as a teacher. I recall watching Angela's Ashes around the time it was released on VHS/DVD around 1999 and the introductory scenes where they had to return to Ireland was shocking to me.
I found it weird that the narrator was NOT Frank McCourt himself.
He narrates the audio commentary.
I met Angela once. She was standing in front of Frank's house, wondering where the taxi was that was to pick her up. His face sprang out of hers. I said that to Frank, and he said, "Don't say that, she's a handsome woman!"
I saw the McCourt play, "A Couple of Blaguards," a few dozen times, once with some of their relatives. They told me that everything they did in the play was accurate.
However, when Angela saw it, she leaped to her feet, and screamed, "LIES! EVERYTHING IN THIS PLAY IS A LIE!"
Also, the Logan Act makes any kind of similar attempt at a bottom-up truce by Americans illegal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act (though it probably doesn't apply to a warzone).
There have been a number of informal truces in military history.
While the Christmas Truce of 1914 was unique to the Western Front, they came up again at Gallipoli. The Turks and British organized truces for both sides to haul off their dead and wounded, with imams and Christian pastors supervising the efforts.
They came up again in North Africa in World War II.
That three-year campaign in Libya's and Egypt's deserts was unique. Rommel called it "Kriege Ohne Hass," or "War Without Hate," as it was a pure battlefield, no civilians to get in the way, except along the coast. Often both sides stopped fighting after tough engagements, to carry off the wounded. During the siege of Tobruk, at 4 p.m., every day, both sides fired shots in the air to signal the opening of an hour-long truce to remove wounded and dead. Both sides would take advantage of the break to eat and smoke cigarettes. Firing in the air ended the truce.
There were a few more...Arnhem in 1944, where the besieged British 1st Airborne Division turned over their wounded men to German captivity, which was better than dying. It's well shown in the movie "A Bridge Too Far," of course.
During the Biafran War, the legendary soccer star Pele and his team played a game in Nigeria, and both sides broke from fighting to watch him play, sitting in the same sections of the stands. After the game, they went back to killing each other.
I'm amazed as much as horrified by the absurdity whenever a rule is made on how or when a war can resume. It reveals/reminds how bureaucracy/nation states are like a machine on wheels.
As I learned in that class, it's interesting that it is perfectly legal in war, to fly an aircraft into a position where you can put a .50-caliber bullet through the back of the head of your enemy, but it is a war crime to shoot an enemy soldier in the front of his head with a "dum-dum" exploding bullet.
To our credit, until Vietnam, the US military waged its wars according to the various international conventions, which emphasize taking prisoners, properly processing prisoners, treating wounded prisoners, and moving them back to the rear, where they are fed and housed. During World War II, captured German doctors and medics were put to work caring for PoWs. Often, captured SS men refused blood transfusions, preferring to die than run the risk of having "Jewish" or "Negro" blood put into them.
By the way, under these conventions, captured enlisted men (other ranks in British Commonwealth parlance) can be put to work in occupations, for pay, that do not DIRECTLY support their captors' war effort. Captured German and Italian PoWs worked on farms in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
Officers, however, could NOT be made to work, except in a supervisory capacity.
Interestingly, officers -- but not enlisted men -- were expected to attempt escape, and if not successful, tie up as many enemy guards as possible. They had to continue "fighting" from behind the wire.
A large number of German and Italian PoWs took advantage of being in the United States to make various escapes. However, not to make it back to the Fatherland...just to local communities with large German or Italian populations, where they could sit down with people who spoke their language in a bar or a bistro, quaff some beer or vino, eat strudel or pasta, flirt with local girls, then go back to camp.
Like in 1783, a considerable number of German PoWs sought to stay in the UK, Australia, Canada, and the US. They had good reason to do so. Germany was a ruin, and a chunk of it was in the hands of the Soviets.
There was an Italian with my same surname who was in a Utah POW camp for Italians- I do not know how closely related he was to my family, nor did my grandparents or parents mention his relation. Apparently he was captured in or near Tunisia during the Northern Africa campaign https://www.gentracer.org/utpowcd.html Edit: I think you meant 1943.
I really liked reading on how you evolved as a writer. You either have it or you don’t. You got it in spades - instinct, insight and creative use of words. Keep it up!
I find your essays well written, the subject matter interesting, and overall enjoyable reading. I personally like your writing style and suspect your grammar and sentence structure is flawless.
But if you feel the need to irritate Ms. Poe out of a sense of enjoyment, let it here be known I have the math gene and not the English gene, so please feel free to use as many run on sentences, dangling participles, poor grammar, incomplete sentences, and misspellings as you’d like, I’d never know, although Ms. Poe might.
I suppose Ms. Poe can't add beyond age six. Too bad I blocked her, I have been ridiculing the more recent jerks who have trolled my Substack notes, posts, and re-stacks, urging them to "fill the room with their intelligence" and explain how they come to the idea that I am a "Marxist," a "bigot," and am stupid.
She probably blocked you back. Text format comments, replies and notes do not have the ability to understand context, facial expression, sarcasm, voice tone, and jokes. I’ve been blocked by a woman that couldn’t for the life of her understand I was agreeing with her but only insisted I was being argumentative. Beware of commenters that want the last word.
Thank you for sharing a little of this with me a few days ago. And thank you for all of this! Good writing is a skill, and sadly seems to be diminishing these days.
Interesting. Frank McCourt is one of my favorite writers. Angela's Ashes was a profound book that impacted a lot of people and changed lives. Thank you for this excellent posting.
It was bizarre to read the book in 1995 and recognize all the segments he'd shared with us in 1979 in his classroom or I had seen in performances of his play with his brother Malachy.
Did Kennedy or Obama ever ask how they should behave? Why doesn't Trump just try acting like a grown up instead of a tyrant infant. He behaves like a spoiled brat most of the time minus stomping his feet. Instead, he flails his arms and hands to get attention.
I 'm getting crankier now. Maybe I should just have that chardonnay and not wait until the debate? The picture of T is so doctored, and I don't think that there is anything that will come out of his mouth that won't be insulting about others. Was there ever another president as nasty as Trump is towards others? Trump entire system is one of piss and vinegar. I'm sorry friends for my crudeness. Please try to understand my anxieties.
My family tolerates me and my scruffy puppy. She barks a lot and I rant about
trump but they love us. So, we are a tight group. Could be the other way around.
In times like these it's nice to know that there is compassion out there. We need that so much. And I still believe in miracles, Karma, God, and Superman...
My daughters pupper is around 6 lbs and my Gia is 5. I love big doggies but I find it easier to manage a smaller one now that I'm alone without a large backyard. If I had my druthers I'd live on a farm.
Our best dog was Monster the Mighty Moose. 150 lbs.
50 percent Rottie (size and shape), 25 percent Terrier (intelligence), and 25 percent Retriever (sweetness). Came from the Newark Humane Society.
His favorite thing was hopping up into the chair (with armrest) we left for him at family dinners, sitting there for 15 minutes, staring at each person at the table in turn, then hopping down. He didn’t eat the food. He just wanted to be part of the group.
I kept waiting for him to say something wise, but he never did.
Puppers speak with their eyes. I can understand mine and some other pup's language at times. It's a rather limited vocabulary but they get their messages across. Eyes are the most expressive form of communication in animals, I think.
Trump is so insecure that the only thing left for him to do is find fault in others. He just won’t quit. This is a sickness. It’s a cruel reality. I feel sorry for his mom. He must have treated her horribly. And he’s stupid too because he probably didn’t even think he was doing anything wrong.
Kiwi, I am being an irrational female now with mounting physical problems that are beginning to really bug me. It's not right that I take out my frustrations this way but I am. It beats punching holes in walls or doing pain killing drugs. I'm just so disappointed that more isn't done to stop that T garbage truck from causing anymore stench. Nothing seems to be done about this odorous verbiage that flows out of the opening in the front of his face.
So cool that you had Frank McCourt as a teacher. I recall watching Angela's Ashes around the time it was released on VHS/DVD around 1999 and the introductory scenes where they had to return to Ireland was shocking to me.
I found it weird that the narrator was NOT Frank McCourt himself.
He narrates the audio commentary.
I met Angela once. She was standing in front of Frank's house, wondering where the taxi was that was to pick her up. His face sprang out of hers. I said that to Frank, and he said, "Don't say that, she's a handsome woman!"
I saw the McCourt play, "A Couple of Blaguards," a few dozen times, once with some of their relatives. They told me that everything they did in the play was accurate.
However, when Angela saw it, she leaped to her feet, and screamed, "LIES! EVERYTHING IN THIS PLAY IS A LIE!"
I also found the part about the class you took, Anatomy of War, interesting. I haven't seen Breaker Morant. I am curious as to how the rules of war work when there is an instance of something like The 1914 Christmas Day Truce. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-real-story-of-the-christmas-truce The war in Eastern Ukraine has been compared to the trenches of the first WW. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2023/nov/07/21st-century-trench-warfare-ukrainian-frontline-in-pictures What's sad, is that the dependency on remotely controlled UAVs makes anything like the Christmas Day truce impossible today.
Also, the Logan Act makes any kind of similar attempt at a bottom-up truce by Americans illegal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act (though it probably doesn't apply to a warzone).
There have been a number of informal truces in military history.
While the Christmas Truce of 1914 was unique to the Western Front, they came up again at Gallipoli. The Turks and British organized truces for both sides to haul off their dead and wounded, with imams and Christian pastors supervising the efforts.
They came up again in North Africa in World War II.
That three-year campaign in Libya's and Egypt's deserts was unique. Rommel called it "Kriege Ohne Hass," or "War Without Hate," as it was a pure battlefield, no civilians to get in the way, except along the coast. Often both sides stopped fighting after tough engagements, to carry off the wounded. During the siege of Tobruk, at 4 p.m., every day, both sides fired shots in the air to signal the opening of an hour-long truce to remove wounded and dead. Both sides would take advantage of the break to eat and smoke cigarettes. Firing in the air ended the truce.
There were a few more...Arnhem in 1944, where the besieged British 1st Airborne Division turned over their wounded men to German captivity, which was better than dying. It's well shown in the movie "A Bridge Too Far," of course.
During the Biafran War, the legendary soccer star Pele and his team played a game in Nigeria, and both sides broke from fighting to watch him play, sitting in the same sections of the stands. After the game, they went back to killing each other.
I'm amazed as much as horrified by the absurdity whenever a rule is made on how or when a war can resume. It reveals/reminds how bureaucracy/nation states are like a machine on wheels.
As I learned in that class, it's interesting that it is perfectly legal in war, to fly an aircraft into a position where you can put a .50-caliber bullet through the back of the head of your enemy, but it is a war crime to shoot an enemy soldier in the front of his head with a "dum-dum" exploding bullet.
To our credit, until Vietnam, the US military waged its wars according to the various international conventions, which emphasize taking prisoners, properly processing prisoners, treating wounded prisoners, and moving them back to the rear, where they are fed and housed. During World War II, captured German doctors and medics were put to work caring for PoWs. Often, captured SS men refused blood transfusions, preferring to die than run the risk of having "Jewish" or "Negro" blood put into them.
By the way, under these conventions, captured enlisted men (other ranks in British Commonwealth parlance) can be put to work in occupations, for pay, that do not DIRECTLY support their captors' war effort. Captured German and Italian PoWs worked on farms in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
Officers, however, could NOT be made to work, except in a supervisory capacity.
Interestingly, officers -- but not enlisted men -- were expected to attempt escape, and if not successful, tie up as many enemy guards as possible. They had to continue "fighting" from behind the wire.
A large number of German and Italian PoWs took advantage of being in the United States to make various escapes. However, not to make it back to the Fatherland...just to local communities with large German or Italian populations, where they could sit down with people who spoke their language in a bar or a bistro, quaff some beer or vino, eat strudel or pasta, flirt with local girls, then go back to camp.
Like in 1783, a considerable number of German PoWs sought to stay in the UK, Australia, Canada, and the US. They had good reason to do so. Germany was a ruin, and a chunk of it was in the hands of the Soviets.
There was an Italian with my same surname who was in a Utah POW camp for Italians- I do not know how closely related he was to my family, nor did my grandparents or parents mention his relation. Apparently he was captured in or near Tunisia during the Northern Africa campaign https://www.gentracer.org/utpowcd.html Edit: I think you meant 1943.
I really liked reading on how you evolved as a writer. You either have it or you don’t. You got it in spades - instinct, insight and creative use of words. Keep it up!
You'll see the next part next week.
Thanks for the warm words.
Now only if I made some money from it....
I find your essays well written, the subject matter interesting, and overall enjoyable reading. I personally like your writing style and suspect your grammar and sentence structure is flawless.
But if you feel the need to irritate Ms. Poe out of a sense of enjoyment, let it here be known I have the math gene and not the English gene, so please feel free to use as many run on sentences, dangling participles, poor grammar, incomplete sentences, and misspellings as you’d like, I’d never know, although Ms. Poe might.
Thank you for the warm words.
I suppose Ms. Poe can't add beyond age six. Too bad I blocked her, I have been ridiculing the more recent jerks who have trolled my Substack notes, posts, and re-stacks, urging them to "fill the room with their intelligence" and explain how they come to the idea that I am a "Marxist," a "bigot," and am stupid.
I send them private messages to that effect, too.
Oddly, they don't answer.
Maybe I should send photos of chickens....
She probably blocked you back. Text format comments, replies and notes do not have the ability to understand context, facial expression, sarcasm, voice tone, and jokes. I’ve been blocked by a woman that couldn’t for the life of her understand I was agreeing with her but only insisted I was being argumentative. Beware of commenters that want the last word.
Yes, there are no "winners" in flame wars.
I just like to make the flamers look as dumb as they are.
I envy Elizabeth Poe, who surely must be surrounded by the most precocious six year olds.
Actually, she hasn't written a word on her Sub Stack.
Maybe she writes memos...memos are the most powerful writing there is. Nobody died for the Constitution, Magna Carta, or Churchill's speeches.
They died because (e.g., here), Field Marshal Montgomery wrote an "Order of the Day," that said, "21st Army Group will now cross the Rhine."
Thank you for sharing a little of this with me a few days ago. And thank you for all of this! Good writing is a skill, and sadly seems to be diminishing these days.
Texting is wiping it out. SMH, LOL, TL;DR, are replacing the English language.
Orwell was right about "Newspeak."
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc. Oldspeak doubleplus ungoodful duckspeak. Rewrite antewise upfiling.
So true. I long ago told my son (27) to use complete sentences in texts to me or expect no response.
Doubleplus goodful duckspeak.
Interesting. Frank McCourt is one of my favorite writers. Angela's Ashes was a profound book that impacted a lot of people and changed lives. Thank you for this excellent posting.
It was bizarre to read the book in 1995 and recognize all the segments he'd shared with us in 1979 in his classroom or I had seen in performances of his play with his brother Malachy.
Did Kennedy or Obama ever ask how they should behave? Why doesn't Trump just try acting like a grown up instead of a tyrant infant. He behaves like a spoiled brat most of the time minus stomping his feet. Instead, he flails his arms and hands to get attention.
I 'm getting crankier now. Maybe I should just have that chardonnay and not wait until the debate? The picture of T is so doctored, and I don't think that there is anything that will come out of his mouth that won't be insulting about others. Was there ever another president as nasty as Trump is towards others? Trump entire system is one of piss and vinegar. I'm sorry friends for my crudeness. Please try to understand my anxieties.
Unfortunately, I can’t even watch baseball tonight.
The Yankees have the night off.
I’ll probably watch “Cobra Kai” with my wife.
My family tolerates me and my scruffy puppy. She barks a lot and I rant about
trump but they love us. So, we are a tight group. Could be the other way around.
In times like these it's nice to know that there is compassion out there. We need that so much. And I still believe in miracles, Karma, God, and Superman...
We are up to our eighth and ninth dogs. Here they are: Bodhi Bodacious the Mass of Hot Air and Love, and Gemma Gen the Mass of Chaos and Sweetness.
Bodhi is a 75-lb. Preso Canarias-Pitbull cross. Gemma is a 130-lb. South African Boerboel (Mastiff).
Their favorite hobbies are playing with humans (they can get competitive over who will get the most attention), playing with each other, and snoozing.
Bodhi is on the left. He has a white fur arrow on the back of his neck that points forward, so we always know which way he is going. Him too.
Did you send a picture of the doggies? If you did I didn’t receive it.
My daughters pupper is around 6 lbs and my Gia is 5. I love big doggies but I find it easier to manage a smaller one now that I'm alone without a large backyard. If I had my druthers I'd live on a farm.
We like our dogs large.
Our best dog was Monster the Mighty Moose. 150 lbs.
50 percent Rottie (size and shape), 25 percent Terrier (intelligence), and 25 percent Retriever (sweetness). Came from the Newark Humane Society.
His favorite thing was hopping up into the chair (with armrest) we left for him at family dinners, sitting there for 15 minutes, staring at each person at the table in turn, then hopping down. He didn’t eat the food. He just wanted to be part of the group.
I kept waiting for him to say something wise, but he never did.
Puppers speak with their eyes. I can understand mine and some other pup's language at times. It's a rather limited vocabulary but they get their messages across. Eyes are the most expressive form of communication in animals, I think.
Love it. What fun. Must have these fellas in our lives.
Do you all sleep together?
No, we rarely let our dogs emerge from the first floor, which has their food, dog bed, dog blankets, and dog toys.
We used to let dogs sleep on the sofas and on top of us on the sofas, but not any more.
Of course, they regularly go in the backyard.
My wife captioned this shot of Bodhi relaxing on the back porch: “It’s that kind of day.”
They sound wonderful. I am a great animal lover. Can’t imagine a home without puppers.
What is Cobra Kai?
It’s a Netflix TV series that is a 30-year-later sequel to the “Karate Kid” movies with the original cast as their original roles, decades later.
It’s a mix of comedy and drama…with a great deal of exposition as to how the various characters became who they were and are.
I really wonder what T is going to be on. Will the moderators be muzzle ready in case he gets obnoxious, which he will you can bet on it.
EXACTLY!
Should I dine first or wait until after the fracas debate on the 27th? Can't decide if I'm going to watch or not.
If you eat first, you'll barf it up during the debate....
Trump is so insecure that the only thing left for him to do is find fault in others. He just won’t quit. This is a sickness. It’s a cruel reality. I feel sorry for his mom. He must have treated her horribly. And he’s stupid too because he probably didn’t even think he was doing anything wrong.
It's not just T. It more Republicans than ever now. The infestation is becoming very annoying.
Can not Cannon afford the cost to have another picture taken? This picture of the judge is rather dated and stale.
So is she….
Just how bad does she look?
Or should I say, how much worse can it be?
Kiwi, I hope no Jewish person NEVER ever, ever votes for the slab of flab in this next election! That would be a disgrace to the Jewish people.
A shame for the neighbors would it be! Oy gevalt!
Was it specific enough? And, maybe even non-Jewish as well!
I just saved another wall in my house.
Baseball is not me. But glad it's you. I'm just getting fed up, Kiwi...
I have two obsessions in life: baseball and history. They feed each other.
Kiwi, I am being an irrational female now with mounting physical problems that are beginning to really bug me. It's not right that I take out my frustrations this way but I am. It beats punching holes in walls or doing pain killing drugs. I'm just so disappointed that more isn't done to stop that T garbage truck from causing anymore stench. Nothing seems to be done about this odorous verbiage that flows out of the opening in the front of his face.
I get away from it by watching or listening to baseball.