#James Grisson

[dk-thrive]

It's okay to not know.

There is a tendency--unfortunate, and one of which I am guilty--to be right, to be in control of all things. This is folly in life; it is destructive in art. This desire to be in control, to be correct, to nail all things down is not representative of life. Life is frightening and mysterious and beautiful and out of our control. It is better I think--now, after many mistakes--to be honest, to be open in one's fear, and to ask a reader or a friend or an audience or a loved one to simply walk along with you and figure things out. It's okay to not know.

— Arthur Miller, Timebends: A Life (Grove/Atlantic, 1987) (via Alive on All Channels)

[vqtblog]

The New Yorker: Did This Writer Actually Know Tennessee Williams

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"I work at being good. Mine is not a natural talent, a great talent. Mine is an earned talent. I want to be good, and I get to be good through hard work and good luck and the aid of others. But Tennessee [Williams] was a bolt of lightning, a mountain, a blooming tree of immense size. He was breathing--so natural and so necessary. Now, the man could not dress himself properly--nothing much matched. The man had trouble handling a tray in a cafeteria--I saw this. 

I think life, and all these boring things we have to do to get the lights on and the dogs fed and the floor clean and the bills paid--that all defeated him, or nearly did. But then he'd sit down and that mighty talent would flow on the page, and it was genius. I can clean the floor and feed the dogs and get the bills paid, but I can't just show up and be great. I have to work at it. I have to search for it. It was Tennessee's destiny. He had genius in being. He showed up a genius."

--Katharine Hepburn on Tennessee Williams/Interview with James Grissom/1990

[Follies Of God]

[books0977]

No Orchids for Miss Blandish. James Hadley Chase. New York: Howell, Soskin, (1942). First American edition. Original dust jacket.

Miss Blandish - innocent, exquisite, vulnerable heiress - is kidnapped by a gang of ruthless hoods who've never tried big-time crime. Foiled by their own vicious ineptitude and the greed of a superior mob, the kidnappers lose their million dollar prize. Blandish, terrified and broken, is now the captive of Ma' Grisson and her sadistic, sexually deviant son Slim.

[instapicsil3]

TODAY IS ELECTION DAY – TUESDAY, APRIL 2! POLLS ARE OPEN UNTIL 7 P.M. Find your registration status and polling place at: https://ift.tt/2crKxmr ________________________________ HERE ARE THE CANDIDATES: AURORA CITY COUNCIL • AT-LARGE: Sherman Jenkins, Brooke Ann Shanley, Durrell Williams • WARD 1: Peter Aguilera, Emmanuel Llamas, Caryl Riley, Amanda Sperzel • WARD 3: Ted Mesiacos is running unopposed. • WARD 5: Casildo “Casey” Cuevas, Carl Franco, Bonnie Lee Kunkel • WARD 6: Matt Harrington, Dan Hites, Matthew Orr and Michael Saville • WARD 8: Patty Smith, Savannah Smith and Thomas Weil WEST AURORA SCHOOL DISTRICT 129 SCHOOL BOARD • Eight candidates are running for four seats: James Buzzard, Robert Gonzalez, Joe Grisson, Ira Lathan, James Leslie, Daniel Renz, Melody Saperston and Thomas St. Jules EAST AURORA SCHOOL DISTRICT 131 SCHOOL BOARD • Four candidates are seeking four open seats on the board: Alex Arroyo, Kim Hatchett, Avis Miller and Juan Sifuentes, Jr. INDIAN PRAIRIE SCHOOL DISTRICT 204 SCHOOL BOARD • Five candidates are seeking three spots on the board: Guatam “GB” Bhatia , Natasha Grover, Carole Jones, Justin Karubas and Mark Rising FOX VALLEY PARK DISTRICT • At-large: Mavis Bates and Mark Buschbacher • District 1: Matt Hicks is running unopposed. • District 2: Jerry Butler is running unopposed. • District 3: Allan Broholm is running unopposed. WAUBONSEE COMMUNITY COLLEGE • Two seats available for six-year terms: Richard “Rick” Guzman, Willie Mayes Sr., and Tina Medlin Willson • One seat available for four-year term: Greg Thomas is running unopposed COLLEGE OF DUPAGE Two seats available for six-year terms: Dan Bailey, Annette Corrigan, Maureen Dunne and Marc Incrocci https://ift.tt/2uF3Fcb

[instatrack]

TODAY IS ELECTION DAY – TUESDAY, APRIL 2! POLLS ARE OPEN UNTIL 7 P.M. Find your registration status and polling place at: https://ift.tt/2crKxmr ________________________________ HERE ARE THE CANDIDATES: AURORA CITY COUNCIL • AT-LARGE: Sherman Jenkins, Brooke Ann Shanley, Durrell Williams • WARD 1: Peter Aguilera, Emmanuel Llamas, Caryl Riley, Amanda Sperzel • WARD 3: Ted Mesiacos is running unopposed. • WARD 5: Casildo “Casey” Cuevas, Carl Franco, Bonnie Lee Kunkel • WARD 6: Matt Harrington, Dan Hites, Matthew Orr and Michael Saville • WARD 8: Patty Smith, Savannah Smith and Thomas Weil WEST AURORA SCHOOL DISTRICT 129 SCHOOL BOARD • Eight candidates are running for four seats: James Buzzard, Robert Gonzalez, Joe Grisson, Ira Lathan, James Leslie, Daniel Renz, Melody Saperston and Thomas St. Jules EAST AURORA SCHOOL DISTRICT 131 SCHOOL BOARD • Four candidates are seeking four open seats on the board: Alex Arroyo, Kim Hatchett, Avis Miller and Juan Sifuentes, Jr. INDIAN PRAIRIE SCHOOL DISTRICT 204 SCHOOL BOARD • Five candidates are seeking three spots on the board: Guatam “GB” Bhatia , Natasha Grover, Carole Jones, Justin Karubas and Mark Rising FOX VALLEY PARK DISTRICT • At-large: Mavis Bates and Mark Buschbacher • District 1: Matt Hicks is running unopposed. • District 2: Jerry Butler is running unopposed. • District 3: Allan Broholm is running unopposed. WAUBONSEE COMMUNITY COLLEGE • Two seats available for six-year terms: Richard “Rick” Guzman, Willie Mayes Sr., and Tina Medlin Willson • One seat available for four-year term: Greg Thomas is running unopposed COLLEGE OF DUPAGE Two seats available for six-year terms: Dan Bailey, Annette Corrigan, Maureen Dunne and Marc Incrocci https://ift.tt/2uF3Fcb

[instapicsil1]

TODAY IS ELECTION DAY – TUESDAY, APRIL 2! POLLS ARE OPEN UNTIL 7 P.M. Find your registration status and polling place at: https://ift.tt/2crKxmr ________________________________ HERE ARE THE CANDIDATES: AURORA CITY COUNCIL • AT-LARGE: Sherman Jenkins, Brooke Ann Shanley, Durrell Williams • WARD 1: Peter Aguilera, Emmanuel Llamas, Caryl Riley, Amanda Sperzel • WARD 3: Ted Mesiacos is running unopposed. • WARD 5: Casildo “Casey” Cuevas, Carl Franco, Bonnie Lee Kunkel • WARD 6: Matt Harrington, Dan Hites, Matthew Orr and Michael Saville • WARD 8: Patty Smith, Savannah Smith and Thomas Weil WEST AURORA SCHOOL DISTRICT 129 SCHOOL BOARD • Eight candidates are running for four seats: James Buzzard, Robert Gonzalez, Joe Grisson, Ira Lathan, James Leslie, Daniel Renz, Melody Saperston and Thomas St. Jules EAST AURORA SCHOOL DISTRICT 131 SCHOOL BOARD • Four candidates are seeking four open seats on the board: Alex Arroyo, Kim Hatchett, Avis Miller and Juan Sifuentes, Jr. INDIAN PRAIRIE SCHOOL DISTRICT 204 SCHOOL BOARD • Five candidates are seeking three spots on the board: Guatam “GB” Bhatia , Natasha Grover, Carole Jones, Justin Karubas and Mark Rising FOX VALLEY PARK DISTRICT • At-large: Mavis Bates and Mark Buschbacher • District 1: Matt Hicks is running unopposed. • District 2: Jerry Butler is running unopposed. • District 3: Allan Broholm is running unopposed. WAUBONSEE COMMUNITY COLLEGE • Two seats available for six-year terms: Richard “Rick” Guzman, Willie Mayes Sr., and Tina Medlin Willson • One seat available for four-year term: Greg Thomas is running unopposed COLLEGE OF DUPAGE Two seats available for six-year terms: Dan Bailey, Annette Corrigan, Maureen Dunne and Marc Incrocci https://ift.tt/2uF3Fcb

[dk-thrive]

Don't just show up. Transform the work, yourself, and everybody around you.

Well, it's not enough to be talented. There's a lot of talent out there, but it's owned by lazy, stupid, or essentially boring people. You can't just be talented: You have to be terribly smart and energetic and ruthless. You also have to become necessary to people, by working hard and well and bringing more than your bones and your skin to the project. Don't just show up. Transform the work, yourself, and everybody around you. Be needed. Be interesting. Be something no one else can be--and consistently."

— Katharine Hepburn, Interview with James Grissom/1990/Hepburn with director David Lean on the set of "Summertime"/1955/ (FB, Follies of God, April 30, 2018)

[dk-thrive]

but I would encourage everyone to remain in a state of confusion and disappointment

Gratitude has its place, but it now means very little, because even the untalented and the unsuccessful are so grateful for all they’ve been given, even if no one else can discern what that may be. I’m grateful for many things, but I would encourage everyone to remain in a state of confusion and disappointment. That is the state of the real artist, and it leads them to be better yet again, one more time, reaching higher. Disappointment has gotten a bad reputation, but it’s where you’re going to spend most of your time if you’re any kind of artist. –Agnes de Mille, Interview with James Grissom in “Follies of God” (FB, September 18, 2022) (via Alive on All Channels)

[dk-thrive]

What kills me is that I repeatedly forget the wonder of it--the aid, the completion, the seeking again, the finding again

We like to say that as writers we are own bosses, but I think writers realize more than others just who really is in charge. The blank page, the moistness under the arms and above the lip, the sheer terror of Nothing Happening. I know that it doesn't come from some nook of the brain when the words start to come. I know that I'm not wrestling forth a novel, a phrase, one perfectly wonderful sentence. I know where it comes from. I can sometimes feel Him slip into me like a thief with good tools. I think Tennessee was permanently in search of his various gods, seeking, hoping. What kills me is that I repeatedly forget the wonder of it--the aid, the completion, the seeking again, the finding again." --Walker Percy, Interview with James Grissom/1983 in “Follies of God by James Grisson” (Alfred A. Knopf. Vintage; August 9, 2016) (via Alive on All Channels)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

(Photo by Arnold Wertheimer, 1956)

* * * *

"Elvis [Presley] was the ideal Val [in 'Orpheus Descending'], and we were optimistic up to a point that he might make his first appearance on the stage, and then we hoped he would appear in a film. That was a madly delirious episode, because time, for the most famous people, simply has no meaning. People and things arrive at the slightest expression of desire or interest, and they disappear just as quickly. All questions are answered; every need fulfilled. He was elaborately polite with me: I think he saw me as some elder Southern gentleman who might give his father a loan at the bank downtown, but we soon saw that the discipline of a stage performance was beyond him. It was--and it is--frightfully boring for most people to show up and replicate and expand within a refined role. Still, I met him. I was in the presence. Diamonds and lard. There's your title."

--Tennessee Williams on Elvis Presley/Interview with James Grissom 

[Follies of God]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"Didion will always look in the absolute worst places for her directions; this trait we share. What is fascinating is what she will make of her botched cues, wrong turns, markers lost in fog or rain or the migraines of the morning. When she makes her way back to the comfortable home, with the right china and silver, the fragrant and flawless flowers, the potpourri in tidy bowls, candles on the table, what does she remember? Like an attenuated princess in a Grimm fairy tale, she must gather her woolens about her and sigh in amazement that she narrowly escaped death, injury, the third revision of the script at Fox, the snub at the restaurant, the receipt that blew out the window of the cab as it drove down Park, an act that caused her to miss the newly planted tulips.

"These acts of outrage and inconvenience will lead her to her own pale judgment, and her anger will produce those flawless, toxic sentences: fortunes from cookies dipped in arsenic and placed on the perfect Spode plate. Didion knows the price and the cost of everything: one dies in a dress that was on lay-a-way, with $3.85 owing; one flies from New York to Los Angeles not only first class but having left behind a sick child and a husband who may or not be having an affair heading to a room  at the Wilshire with a credit card bearing a limit of two hundred dollars."

There is so much waiting for us, and so little to bring to its fruition--in terms of money, physical and psychic strength, courtesy, simple energy."

You wear the right clothes, smile at the right people, dab on some Fracas, and step boldly into the party at which you need to be seen, but always there is a snake in the garden, a wind in the mountains that may bring fire or corrosive dust, an incipient migraine or an affair or a joke gone bad that erases that thirteen-episode commitment that would have paid for the apartment, the school, the summer home, the sports car that might have satisfied the randy husband."We are all doomed, but we smile and we move and we greet the pale judgment--or whatever surface on which we imprint our lives. We do what we can."

--Tennessee Williams/Interview with James Grissom

  Follies of God