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The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Today’s
thought by me for you;
Make sure you’re not being
ungrateful. It will only wear you down and destroy your happy spirit. Be grateful
instead. Being grateful is far better
for your soul and mind because it inspires all that’s good in the universe.
Beat
poetry evolved during the 1940s in both New York City and on the west coast,
although San Francisco became the heart of the movement in the early 1950s. The
end of World War II left poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso questioning mainstream politics and
culture. A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets | Academy of American Poets https://www.poets.org/poetsorg
Wulf Zendik
Wulf Zendik (born Lawrence E. Wulfing, in El Paso, Texas, October 7, 1920 – June 12, 1999) was an American writer, environmentalist, and bohemian. He was the author of the novel A Quest Among The Bewildered, and has been described as an "undiscovered Beat."
Larry Wulfing, a.k.a. Wulf, founded the community, Zendik (also known as Zendik Arts Farm), located in Florida, Southern California, Texas, North Carolina, and West Virginia at various times, with his wife/partner Carol Merson, a.k.a. Arol Wulf. After Zendik's death, Zendik Farm continued Zendik's philosophy by promoting the arts and an environmentally sound lifestyle.
In 2006, the community had a show, Zendik News, on public-access television Channel 75 in Baltimore, MD. Zendik Farm members were known for their sales of T-shirts and bumper stickers saying "Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution." The community has since disbanded, with the property being sold.
Don’t Go!
Ho Chang rests his rifle across a branch and focuses its sights on the American infantryman. Ho Chang is fourteen years old. He is a guerrilla fighter, a skilled assassin, a sniper. Concealed high in a tree — a tree that a short time ago he climbed in play — he reaches and methodically plucks a leaf from his line of fire. Killing is his single remaining pleasure.…
~ Don’t Go ~
Ho Chang is a fanatic. He became a fanatic six months earlier while watching his mother, father, and beloved sister run screaming from the pyre of curling flame and smoke that had been their home. He watched his loved ones, each a wild torch, stumbling crazily through the village and finally sprawling laying in the dust, eyeless hairless black smoking hulks that twitched and emitted sounds not human. In the terrible racking sobbing agony of his grief the boy knelt beside the charred remains of his family and pleaded that he too might die… Their hut had been struck by an American bomb….
~ Don’t Go ~
The American infantryman, Private Eugene Roberts, is in his first day of combat. Always a peaceful boy and raised in the quiet suburbs of Los Angeles, Private Roberts had never been involved in physical conflict until today. Today he has killed three people. A few hours earlier his squad was fired on from a dense thicket by a number of the enemy. The boy beside him suddenly stopped and turned, a puzzled expression on his face and a small red oozing hole in his forehead….
~ Don’t Go ~
Private Roberts, in a blurred rage of revenge, followed his combat training. Running, zigzagging, firing from the hip, he charged the thicket with his squad. A flurry of shouts, of confusion and violent hand-to-hand combat resulted in Private Roberts shooting two uniformed boys and pulling his bayonet from deep in the breast of a third, a slim uniformed enemy — a girl enemy, a girl younger than he. Their eyes had locked… His in young blue-irised horror… hers in brown graceful long-lashed acceptance that glazed to death while he watched and whimpered…..
~ Don’t Go ~
Alone now, lost from his squad, wandering aimlessly, he slogs through the lonely landscape. Dazed, oblivious, mumbling to himself, his mind has returned home… To Los Angeles, to the suburban high school he last year graduated from, to sixteen-year-old Donna who still attends the school — Donna who promised to wait, who writes long chatty lonesome letters on wide-ruled notebook paper. School days together, surfing together, high together, their clear eyes close staring inquisitive innocent learning one another, touching one another, loving one another in gentle tentative passion…..
~ Don’t Go ~
There’s others who wait: his younger brother who brags of a big brother hero in uniform. His father, veteran of an earlier war, proud of his fighting son. His mother, who successfully impersonalizes the war news and insures Eugene’s safety by prayer… perhaps a medal, perhaps a purple heart, a slight, romantic wound. His car waits parked in their suburban yard, and his surfboard — the board he decorated and glassed himself––waits stored in the garage rafters. Sometimes Mrs. Roberts goes to the garage and stands a moment looking up at the board…..
~ Don’t Go ~
Private Roberts’ head looms large, circle-framed in Ho Chang’s telescopic sights. The boy feels grim satisfaction at the imminent destruction of another American. He pauses… Deciding against a quick death, he lowers his sights on the enemy figure and slowly, skillfully squeezes the trigger… The rifle jumps, kicks solidly against his shoulder and a single violent crack of sound shatters the insect-buzzing bird-calling tropical day… The immediate absolute silence that follows hangs still and ominous on the warm heavy air….
~ Don’t Go ~
The hate-altered hollownose bullet makes a small smoldering hole in Private Roberts’ tunic, enters his side below the ribs and above the hip bone. Expanding rapidly it plows a deep hole through the abdomen. Private Roberts throws up his hands, and as a wind-up toy soldier whose spring has burst, staggers crazily wildly awkwardly. He does not fall. Stunned by the bullet’s slamming impact he fails to understand what has happened… But immediately the numbness begins to change to pain, a trail of dull pain across his belly. He looks down and in confused stupor unbelts his tunic….
~ Don’t Go ~
He stands there swaying in shock and bewildered comprehension while with fear fumbling fingers he tries to unbutton the shirt. Sweat pours over his face and his lips move trembling. The real pain hits him then. Its white hot sear is terrible. He rips frantically at the red seeping cloth — buttons fly — the shirt opens… He sees the wound from which his entrails now bulge, a wound that now sluggishly disgorges long grotesque ropes of mangled gut, of yellow dismembered quivering glands, of blue ruptured spurting arteries, of red severed nerve jumping muscles — a hanging mutilated mass of brown leaking intestine that dangles and splashes to the ground…..
~ Don’t Go ~
Private Roberts begins shaking his head in unbelieving protest. He mumbles, “No… No… Oh, God… No…” Swaying, crying, still moving his head in denial he clumsily grasps the mangled mess of maimed entrails and begins to stuff them back into himself. For a few seconds he plays the hopeless game. His legs begin to shake violently, to jump uncontrollably. They buckle….
~ Don’t Go ~
Still striving to hold his intestines within himself, Private Roberts slowly sinks to his knees. He kneels there, and his blood bleeds a clear crimson stain. He understands then the futility — dimly understands his death, as head bowed, he watches his weakened hands fall away and the bulging intestines emerge, go floating out like bright hued tentacles reaching across the void….
~ Don’t Go ~
Private Roberts’ face contorts with the last flashing emotions of his quick young life. No glory, no thoughts of country, no audience, no movie-soldier brave clenched-cigarette wisecracking death, no patriotic slogans in his fading mind. He sobs his last now, nods in final acceptance and as thousands and thousands of dying boy soldiers before him, he piteously asks for that woman who bore him and who eased each childhood pain — quietly softly he whispers, “Mom… Mother… I…” And upon the sunlit surface of a far distant native land only a red smear remains… Nineteen years of clean young promise gone. Shot to hell….
~ Don’t Go ~
Acid in the Wind
Won’t count the things I’ve tasted
How far I’ve been wasted
seeking my own Self
Acid blowing flowing in the wind—
cross the wide mountain sky
What will a man do
to clear the mind and eye
What alchemy will he try
How much will he stake
What will he take
to See what’s True
Acid blowing flowing in the wind—
thru a tall knowing pine
Ancient and divine, this sacred tree of eternal design
I kneel to its wind-swept glory
Yes, far from my weary city story—
I seek the weave of Cozmic interlace to slow my mad mortal pace
And mountain summer rain, thru green willing branches,
weeps gentle tears upon my face
And the wind whispers “Thou art rush and strain…
we, the wind and rain and great knowing tree, are free.”
And there in humble prayer before an all- knowing shrine,
this tall knowing pine, I sing, in holy asking,
“Ancient one of the wind and rain, ease my pain…
I seek to end this mad pace of my mortal chase…
You were once young, as I—teach me now,
teach me how to live, and die, ever free, ever high.”
And the wind thru green giving branches whispers,
“Tell this glory into thy weary city story:::
To rush is sin… forsake the race… thou canst win…
Life itself is the only grace.”
Acid blowing flowing cross the wide mountain sky
acid…… acid
blowing flowing in the wind
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
John
William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washington DC. He holds an MFA in
writing from Lindenwood University.
He is
the author of No Time to Say Goodbye: Memoirs of a Life in Foster Care and
Short Stories from a Small Town. He is also the author of numerous non-fiction
on the history of organized crime including the ground break biography of
bootlegger Roger Tuohy "When Capone's Mob Murdered Touhy" and
"Guns and Glamour: A History of Organized Crime in Chicago."
His
non-fiction crime short stories have appeared in The New Criminologist,
American Mafia and other publications. John won the City of Chicago's Celtic
Playfest for his work The Hannigan's of Beverly, and his short story fiction
work, Karma Finds Franny Glass, appeared in AdmitTwo Magazine in October of
2008.
His
play, Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a public performance at the Actors Chapel
in Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the groups Reading Series for New
York project. In June of 2008, the play won the Virginia Theater of The First
Amendment Award for best new play.
Contact
John:
MYWRITERSSITE.BLOGSPOT.COM
JWTUOHY95@GMAIL.COM
In
1962, six year old John Tuohy, his two brothers and two sisters entered
Connecticut’s foster care system and were promptly split apart. Over the next
ten years, John would live in more than ten foster homes, group homes and state
schools, from his native Waterbury to Ansonia, New Haven, West Haven, Deep
River and Hartford. In the end, a decade later, the state returned him to the
same home and the same parents they had taken him from. As tragic as is funny
compelling story will make you cry and laugh as you journey with this child to
overcome the obstacles of the foster care system and find his dreams.
http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/0692361294/
http://amemoirofalifeinfostercare.blogspot.com/
http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/
By
Dr. Wm. Anthony Connolly
This incredible memoir, No Time
to Say Goodbye, tells of entertaining angels, dancing with devils, and of the
abandoned children many viewed simply as raining manna from some lesser god.
The young and unfortunate lives
of the Tuohy bruins—sometimes Irish, sometimes Jewish, often Catholic,
rambunctious, but all imbued with Lion’s hearts—told here with brutal honesty
leavened with humor and laudable introspective forgiveness. The memoir will
have you falling to your knees thanking that benevolent Irish cop in the sky,
your lucky stars, or hugging the oxygen out of your own kids the fate foisted
upon Johnny and his siblings does not and did not befall your own brood. John
William Tuohy, a nationally-recognized authority on organized crime and Irish
levity, is your trusted guide through the weeds the decades of neglect ensnared
he and his brothers and sisters, all suffering for the impersonal and often
mercenary taint of the foster care system. Theirs, and Tuohy’s, story is not at
all figures of speech as this review might suggest, but all too real and all
too sad, and maddening. I wanted to scream. I wanted to get into a time
machine, go back and adopt every last one of them. I was angry. I was
captivated. The requisite damning verities of foster care are all here,
regretfully, but what sets this story above others is its beating heart, even a
bruised and broken one, still willing to forgive and understand, and continue
to aid its walking wounded. I cannot recommend this book enough.
AMAZON REVIEWS
By
jackieh on October 13, 2015
After reading about John's deeply
personal and painful past, I just wanted to hug the child within him......and
hug all the children who were thrown into the state's foster system....it is an
amazing read.......
By
Jane Pogoda on October 9, 2015
I truly enjoyed reading his
memoir. I also grew up in Ansonia and had no idea conditions such as these
existed. The saving grace is knowing the author made it out and survived the
system. Just knowing he was able to have a family of his own made me happy. I
attended the same grammar school and was happy that his experience there was
not negative. I had a wonderful experience in that school. I wish that I could
have been there for him when he was at the school since we were there at
probably at the same time.
By
Sue on September 27, 2015
Hi - just finished your novel
"No time to say goodbye" - what a powerful read!!! - I bought it for
my 90 year old mom who is an avid reader and lived in the valley all her
life-she loved it also along with my sister- we are all born and raised in the
valley- i.e. Derby and Ansonia
By
David A. Wright on September 7, 2015
I enjoyed this book. I grew up in
Ansonia CT and went to the Assumption School. Also reconized all the places he
was talking about and some of the families.
By
Robert G Manley on September 7, 2015
This is a wonderfully written
book. It is heart wrenchingly sad at times and the next minute hilariously
funny. I attribute that to the intelligence and wit of the author who combines
the humor and pathos of his Irish catholic background and horrendous
"foster kid" experience. He captures each character perfectly and the
reader can easily visualize the individuals the author has to deal with on
daily basis. Having lived part of my life in the parochial school system and
having lived as a child in the same neighborhood as the author, I was vividly
brought back to my childhood .Most importantly, it shows the strength of the
soul and how just a little compassion can be so important to a lost child.
By
LNA on July 9, 2015
John Tuohy writes with compelling
honesty, and warmth. I grew up in Ansonia, CT myself, so it makes it even more
real. He brings me immediately back there with his narrative, while he wounds
my soul, as I realize I had no idea of the suffering of some of the children
around me. His story is a must read, of courage and great spirit in the face of
impoverishment, sorrow, and adult neglect. I could go on and on, but just get
the book. If you're like me, you'll soon be reading it out loud to any person
in the room who will listen. Many can suffer and overcome as they go through
it, but few can find the words that take us through the story. John is a gifted
writer to be able to do that.
By
Barbara Pietruszka on June 29, 2015
I am from Connecticut so I was
very familiar with many locations described in the book especially Ansonia
where I lived. I totally enjoyed the book and would like to know more about the
author. I recommend the book to everyone
By
Joanne B. on June 28, 2015
What an emotional rollercoaster.
I laughed. I cried. Once you start reading it's hard to stop. I was torn
between wanting to gulp it up and read over and over each quote that started
the chapter. I couldn't help but feel part of the Tuohy clan. I wanted to
scream in their defense. It's truly hard to believe the challenges that foster
children face. I can only pray that this story may touch even one person facing
this life. It's an inspiring read. That will linger long after you finish it.
This is a wonderfully written memoir that immediately pulls you in to the lives
of the Tuohy family.
By
Paul Day on June 15, 2015
Great reading. Life in foster
care told from a very rare point of view.
By
Jackie Malkes on June 5, 2015
This book is definitely a must
for social workers working with children specifically. This is an excellent
memoir which identifies the trails of foster children in the 1960s in the
United States. The memoir captures stories of joy as well as nail biting
terror, as the family is at times torn apart but finds each other later and
finds solace in the experiences of one another. The stories capture the love siblings
have for one another as well as the protection they have for one another in
even the worst of circumstances. On the flip side, one of the most touching
stories to me was when a Nun at the school helped him to read-- truly an
example of how a positive person really helped to shape the author in times
when circumstances at home were challenging and treacherous. I found the book
to be a page turner and at times show how even in the hardest of circumstances
there was a need to live and survive and make the best of any moment. The
memoir is eye-opening and helped to shed light and make me feel proud of the
volunteer work I take part in with disadvantaged children. Riveting....Must
read....memory lane on steroids....Catholic school banter, blue color towns...Lawrence
Welk on Sundays night's.
By
Eileen on June 4, 2015
From ' No time to say Goodbye
'and authors John W. Touhys Gangster novels, his style never waivers...humorous
to sadness to candidly realistic situations all his writings leaves the reader
in awe......longing for more.
By
karen pojakene on June 1, 2015
This book is a must-read for
anyone who administers to the foster care program in any state. This is not a
"fell through the cracks" life story, but rather a memoir of a life
guided by strength and faith and a hard determination to survive. it is
heartening to know that the "sewer" that life can become to steal our
personal peace can be fought and our peace can be restored, scarred, but
restored.
By
Michelle Black on
A captivating, shocking, and deeply
moving memoir, No Time to Say Goodbye is a true page turner. John shares the
story of his childhood, from the struggles of living in poverty to being in the
foster care system and simply trying to survive. You will be cheering for him
all the way, as he never loses his will to thrive even in the darkest and
bleakest of circumstances. This memoir is a very truthful and unapologetic
glimpse into the way in which some of our most vulnerable citizens have been
treated in the past and are still being treated today. It is truly eye-opening,
and hopefully will inspire many people to take action in protection of
vulnerable children.
By
Kimberly on May 24, 2015
I found myself in tears while
reading this book. John William Tuohy writes quite movingly about the world he
grew up in; a world in which I had hoped did not exist within the foster care
system. This book is at times funny, raw, compelling, heartbreaking and
disturbing. I found myself rooting for John as he tries to escape from an
incredibly difficult life. You will too!
By
Geoffrey A. Childs on May 20, 2015
I found this book to be a
compelling story of life in the Ct foster care system. at times disturbing and
at others inspirational ,The author goes into great detail in this gritty
memoir of His early life being abandoned into the states system and his
subsequent escape from it. Every once in a while a book or even an article in a
newspaper comes along that bears witness to an injustice or even something
that's just plain wrong. This chronicle of the foster care system is such a
book and should be required reading for any aspiring social workers.
HERE'S MY LATEST BOOKS.....
This is a
book of short stories taken from the things I saw and heard in my childhood in
the factory town of Ansonia in southwestern Connecticut.
Most of
these stories, or as true as I recall them because I witnessed these events
many years ago through the eyes of child and are retold to you now with the pen
and hindsight of an older man. The only exception is the story Beat Time which is based on the
disappearance of Beat poet Lew Welch. Decades before I knew who Welch was, I
was told that he had made his from California to New Haven, Connecticut, where
was an alcoholic living in a mission. The notion fascinated me and I filed it
away but never forgot it.
The
collected stories are loosely modeled around Joyce’s novel, Dubliners (I also borrowed from the
novels character and place names. Ivy Day, my character in “Local Orphan is
Hero” is also the name of chapter in Dubliners,
etc.) and like Joyce I wanted to write about my people, the people I knew as a
child, the working class in small town America and I wanted to give a complete
view of them as well. As a result the stories are about the divorced, Gays,
black people, the working poor, the middle class, the lost and the found, the
contented and the discontented.
Conversely
many of the stories in this book are about starting life over again as a result
of suicide (The Hanging Party, Small Town
Tragedy, Beat Time) or from a near death experience (Anna Bell Lee and the Charge of the Light Brigade, A Brief Summer)
and natural occurring death. (The Best
Laid Plans, The Winter Years, Balanced and Serene)
With the
exception of Jesus Loves Shaqunda, in
each story there is a rebirth from the death. (Shaqunda is reported as having
died of pneumonia in The Winter Years)
Sal, the
desperate and depressed divorcee in Things
Change, changes his life in Lunch
Hour when asks the waitress for a date and she accepts. (Which we learn in
Closing Time, the last story in the book) In The Arranged Time, Thisby is given the option of change and whether
she takes it or, we don’t know. The death of Greta’s husband in A Matter of Time has led her to the diner
and into the waiting arms of the outgoing and loveable Gabe.
Although
the book is based on three sets of time (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and the
diner is opened in the early morning and closed at night, time stands still
inside the Diner. The hour on the big clock on the wall never changes time and
much like my memories of that place, everything remains the same.
http://www.amazon.com/Short-Stories-Small-William-Tuohy/dp/1517270456/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444164878&sr=1-1&keywords=short+stories+from+a+small+town
The Valley
Lives
By Marion Marchetto, author of The
Bridgewater Chronicles on October 15, 2015
Short
Stores from a Small Town is set in The Valley (known to outsiders as The Lower
Naugatuck Valley) in Connecticut. While the short stories are contemporary they
provide insight into the timeless qualities of an Industrial Era community and
the values and morals of the people who live there. Some are first or second
generation Americans, some are transplants, yet each takes on the mantle of
Valleyite and wears it proudly. It isn't easy for an author to take the reader
on a journey down memory lane and involve the reader in the life stories of a
group of seemingly unrelated characters. I say seemingly because by book's end
the reader will realize that he/she has done more than meet a group of loosely
related characters.
We
meet all of the characters during a one-day time period as each of them finds
their way to the Valley Diner on a rainy autumn day. From our first meeting
with Angel, the educationally challenged man who opens and closes the diner, to
our farewell for the day to the young waitress whose smile hides her despair we
meet a cross section of the Valley population. Rich, poor, ambitious, and not
so ambitious, each life proves that there is more to it beneath the surface.
And the one thing that binds these lives together is The Valley itself. Not so
much a place (or a memory) but an almost palpable living thing that becomes a
part of its inhabitants.
Let
me be the first the congratulate author John William Tuohy on a job well done.
He has evoked the heart of The Valley and in doing so brought to life the
fabric that Valleyites wear as a mantle of pride. While set in a specific
region of the country, the stories that unfold within the pages of this slim
volume are similar to those that live in many a small town from coast to coast.
By Sandra Mendyk
Just
read "Short Stories from a Small Town," and couldn't put it down!
Like Mr. Tuohy's other books I read, they keep your interest, especially if
you're from a small town and can relate to the lives of the people he writes
about. I recommend this book for anyone interested in human interest stories.
His characters all have a central place where the stories take place--a
diner--and come from different walks of life and wrestle with different problems
of everyday life. Enjoyable and thoughtful.
I loved how the author wrote about
"his people"
By kathee
A
touching thoughtful book. I loved how the author wrote about "his
people", the people he knew as a child from his town. It is based on sets
of time in the local diner, breakfast , lunch and dinner, but time stands still
... Highly recommend !
WONDERFUL book, I loved it!
By
John M. Cribbins
What
wonderful stories...I just loved this book.... It is great how it is written
following, breakfast, lunch, dinner, at a diner. Great characters.... I just
loved it....
Mish Mash:
noun \ˈmish-ˌmash, -ˌmäsh\ A : hodgepodge, jumble
“The
painting was just a mishmash of colors and abstract shapes as far as we could
tell”. Origin Middle English & Yiddish; Middle English mysse
masche, perhaps reduplication of mash mash; Yiddish mish-mash, perhaps
reduplication of mishn to mix. First Known Use: 15th century
A man sweeping the hyper-inflated pengő banknotes away from the streets after the introduction of the new forint in August 1946, Hungary
DON'T YOU WANT TO SEE THE ENTIRE WORLD?
Heidelberg, Germany
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia (by n.miloradovic)
Himalayan Sunset 12 - Almost Gone by Clara & James
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul
Hain Bridge, Budapest (by LuÃs Henrique Boucault)
ROGER TOUHY,
THE LAST GANGSTER
Editorial
Reviews
From
Publishers Weekly
JFK's
pardons and the mob; Prohibition, Chicago's crime cadres and the staged
kidnapping of "`Jake the Barber'" Factor, "the black sheep
brother of the cosmetics king, Max Factor"; lifetime sentences, attempted
jail busts and the perseverance of "a rumpled private detective and an
eccentric lawyer" John W. Tuohy showcases all these and more sensational
and shady happenings in When Capone's Mob Murdered Roger Touhy: The Strange
Case of Touhy, Jake the Barber and the Kidnapping that Never Happened. The
author started investigating Touhy's 1959 murder by Capone's gang in 1975 for
an undergrad assignment. He traces the frame-job whereby Touhy was accused of
the kidnapping, his decades in jail, his memoirs, his retrial and release and,
finally, his murder, 28 days after regaining his freedom. Sixteen pages of
photos.
From
Library Journal
Roger
Touhy, one of the "terrible Touhys" and leader of a bootlegging
racket that challenged Capone's mob in Prohibition Chicago, had a lot to answer
for, but the crime that put him behind bars was, ironically, one he didn't
commit: the alleged kidnapping of Jake Factor, half-brother of Max Factor and
international swindler. Author Tuohy (apparently no relation), a former staff
investigator for the National Center for the Study of Organized Crime, briefly
traces the history of the Touhys and the Capone mob, then describes Factor's
plan to have himself kidnapped, putting Touhy behind bars and keeping himself
from being deported. This miscarriage of justice lasted 17 years and ended in
Touhy's parole and murder by the Capone mob 28 days later. Factor was never
deported. The author spent 26 years researching this story, and he can't bear
to waste a word of it. Though slim, the book still seems padded, with
irrelevant detail muddying the main story. Touhy is a hard man to feel sorry
for, but the author does his best. Sure to be popular in the Chicago area and
with the many fans of mob history, this is suitable for larger public libraries
and regional collections. Deirdre Bray Root, Middletown P.L., OH
BOOK
REVIEW
John
William Tuohy, one of the most prolific crime writers in America, has penned a
tragic, but fascinating story of Roger Touhy and John Factor. It's a tale born
out of poverty and violence, a story of ambition gone wrong and deception on an
enormous, almost unfathomable, scale. However, this is also a story of triumph
of determination to survive, of a lifelong struggle for dignity and redemption
of the spirit.
The
story starts with John "Jake the Barber" Factor. The product of the
turn of the century European ethnic slums of Chicago's west side, Jake's brother,
Max Factor, would go on to create an international cosmetic empire.
In
1926, Factor, grubstaked in a partnership with the great New York criminal
genius, Arnold Rothstien, and Chicago's Al Capone, John Factor set up a stock
scam in England that fleeced thousands of investors, including members of the
royal family, out of $8 million dollars, an incredible sum of money in 1926.
After
the scam fell apart, Factor fled to France, where he formed another syndicate
of con artists, who broke the bank at Monte Carlo by rigging the tables.
Eventually,
Factor fled to the safety of Capone's Chicago but the highest powers in the
Empire demanded his arrest. However, Factor fought extradition all the way to
the United States Supreme Court, but he had a weak case and deportation was
inevitable. Just 24 hours before the court was to decide his fate, Factor paid
to have himself kidnapped and his case was postponed. He reappeared in Chicago
several days later, and, at the syndicates' urging, accused gangster Roger
Touhy of the kidnapping.
Roger
"The Terrible" Touhy was the youngest son of an honest Chicago cop.
Although born in the Valley, a teeming Irish slum, the family moved to rural
Des Plains, Illinois while Roger was still a boy. Touhy's five older brothers
stayed behind in the valley and soon flew under the leadership of
"Terrible Tommy" O'Connor. By 1933, three of them would be shot dead
in various disputes with the mob and one, Tommy, would lose the use of his legs
by syndicate machine guns. Secure in the still rural suburbs of Cook County,
Roger Touhy graduated as class valedictorian of his Catholic school.
Afterwards, he briefly worked as an organizer for the Telegraph and
Telecommunications Workers Union after being blacklisted by Western Union for
his minor pro-labor activities.
Touhy
entered the Navy in the first world war and served two years, teaching Morse
code to Officers at Harvard University.
After
the war, he rode the rails out west where he earned a living as a railroad telegraph
operator and eventually made a small but respectable fortune as an oil well
speculator.
Returning
to Chicago in 1924, Touhy married his childhood sweetheart, regrouped with his
brothers and formed a partnership with a corrupt ward heeler named Matt Kolb,
and, in 1925, he started a suburban bootlegging and slot machine operation in
northwestern Cook County. Left out of the endless beer wars that plagued the
gangs inside Chicago, Touhy's operation flourished. By 1926, his slot machine
operations alone grossed over $1,000,000.00 a year, at a time when a gallon of
gas cost eight cents.
They
were unusual gangsters. When the Klu Klux Klan, then at the height of its
power, threatened the life of a priest who had befriended the gang, Tommy
Touhy, Roger's older brother, the real "Terrible Touhy," broke into
the Klan's national headquarters, stole its membership roles, and, despite an
offer of $25,000 to return them, delivered the list to the priest who published
the names in several Catholic newspapers the following day.
Once,
Touhy unthinkingly released several thousand gallons of putrid sour mash in to
the Des Plains River one day before the city was to reenact its discovery by
canoe-riding Jesuits a hundred years before. After a dressing down by the towns
people Touhy spent $10,000.00 on perfume and doused the river with it, saving
the day.
They
were inventive too. When the Chicago police levied a 50% protection tax on
Touhy's beer, Touhy bought a fleet of Esso gasoline delivery trucks, kept the
Esso logo on the vehicles, and delivered his booze to his speakeasies that way.
In
1930, when Capone invaded the labor rackets, the union bosses, mostly Irish and
completely corrupt, turned to the Touhy organization for protection. The
intermittent gun battles between the Touhys and the Capone mob over control of
beer routes which had been fought on the empty, back roads of rural Cook
County, was now brought into the city where street battles extracted an awesome
toll on both sides. The Chicago Tribune estimated the casualties to be one
hundred dead in less then 12 months.
By
the winter of 1933, remarkably, Touhy was winning the war in large part because
joining him in the struggle against the mob was Chicago's very corrupt, newly
elected mayor Anthony "Ten percent Tony" Cermak, who was as much a
gangster as he was an elected official.
Cermak
threw the entire weight of his office and the whole Chicago police force behind
Touhy's forces. Eventually, two of Cermak's police bodyguards arrested Frank
Nitti, the syndicate's boss, and, for a price, shot him six times. Nitti lived.
As a result, two months later Nitti's gunmen caught up with Cermak at a
political rally in Florida.
Using
previously overlooked Secret Service reports, this book proves, for the first
time, that the mob stalked Cermak and used a hardened felon to kill him. The
true story behind the mob's 1933 murder of Anton Cermak, will changes histories
understanding of organized crimes forever. The fascinating thing about this killing
is its eerie similarity to the Kennedy assassination in Dallas thirty years
later, made even more macabre by the fact that several of the names associated
with the Cermak killing were later aligned with the Kennedy killing.
For
many decades, it was whispered that the mob had executed Cermak for his role in
the Touhy-syndicate war of 1931-33, but there was never proof. The official
story is that a loner named Giuseppe Zangara, an out-of-work, Sicilian born
drifter with communist leanings, traveled to Florida in the winter of 1933 and
fired several shots at President Franklin Roosevelt. He missed the President,
but killed Chicago's Mayor Anton Cermak instead. However, using long lost
documents, Tuohy is able to prove that Zangara was a convicted felon with long
ties to mob Mafia and that he very much intended to murder Anton Cermak.
With
Cermak dead, Touhy was on his own against the mob. At the same time, the United
States Postal Service was closing in on his gang for pulling off the largest mail
heists in US history at that time. The cash was used to fund Touhy's war with
the Capones.Then in June of 1933, John Factor en he reappeared, Factor accused
Roger Touhy of kidnapping him. After two sensational trials, Touhy was
convicted of kidnapping John Factor and sentenced to 99 years in prison and
Factor, after a series of complicated legal maneuvers, and using the mob's
influence, was allowed to remain in the United States as a witness for the
prosecution, however, he was still a wanted felon in England.
By
1942 Roger Touhy had been in prison for nine years, his once vast fortune was
gone. Roger's family was gone as well. At his request, his wife Clara had moved
to Florida with their two sons in 1934. However, with the help of Touhy's
remaining sister, the family retained a rumpled private detective, actually a
down-and-out, a very shady and disbarred mob lawyer named Morrie Green.
Disheveled
of not, Green was a highly competent investigator and was able to piece
together and prove the conspiracy that landed Touhy in jail. However, no court
would hear the case, and by the fall of 1942, Touhy had exhausted every legal
avenue open to him.Desperate, Touhy hatched a daring daylight breakout over the
thirty foot walls of Stateville prison.The sensational escape ended three
months later in a dramatic and bloody shootout between the convicts and the
FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover.
Less
then three months after Touhy was captured, Fox Studios hired producer Brian
Foy to churn out a mob financed docudrama film on the escape entitled,
"Roger Touhy, The Last Gangster." The executive producer on the film
was Johnny Roselli, the hood who later introduced Judy Campbell to Frank
Sinatra. Touhy sued Fox and eventually won his case and the film was withdrawn
from circulation. In 1962, Columbia pictures and John Houston tried to produce
a remake of the film, but were scared off the project.
While
Touhy was on the run from prison, John Factor was convicted for m ail fraud and
was sentenced and served ten years at hard labor. Factor's take from the scam
was $10,000,000.00 in cash.
Released
in 1949, Factor took control of the Stardust Hotel Casino in 1955, then the
largest operation on the Vegas strip. The casino's true owners, of course, were
Chicago mob bosses Paul Ricca, Tony Accardo, Murray Humpreys and Sam Giancana.
From 1955 to 1963, the length of Factor's tenure at the casino, the US Justice
Department estimated that the Chicago outfit skimmed between forty-eight to 200
million dollars from the Stardust alone.
In
1956, while Factor and the outfit were growing rich off the Stardust, Roger
Touhy hired a quirky, high strung, but highly effective lawyer named Robert B.
Johnstone to take his case. A brilliant legal tactician, who worked incessantly
on Touhy's freedom, Robert Johnstone managed to get Touhy's case heard before
federal judge John P. Barnes, a refined magistrate filled with his own
eccentricities. After two years of hearings, Barnes released a 1,500-page
decision on Touhy's case, finding that Touhy was railroaded to prison in a
conspiracy between the mob and the state attorney's office and that John Factor
had kidnapped himself as a means to avoid extradition to England.
Released
from prison in 1959, Touhy wrote his life story "The Stolen Years"
with legendary Chicago crime reporter, Ray Brennan. It was Brennan, as a young
cub reporter, who broke the story of John Dillenger's sensational escape from
Crown Point prison, supposedly with a bar of soap whittled to look like a pistol.
It was also Brennan who brought about the end of Roger Touhy's mortal enemy,
"Tubbo" Gilbert, the mob owned chief investigator for the Cook County
state attorney's office, and who designed the frame-up that placed Touhy behind
bars.
Factor
entered a suit against Roger Touhy, his book publishers and Ray Brennan,
claiming it damaged his reputation as a "leading citizen of Nevada and a
philanthropist."
The
teamsters, Factor's partners in the Stardust Casino, refused to ship the book
and Chicago's bookstore owners were warned by Tony Accardo, in person, not to
carry the book.
Touhy
and Johnstone fought back by drawing up the papers to enter a $300,000,000
lawsuit against John Factor, mob leaders Paul Ricca, Tony Accardo and Murray
Humpreys as well as former Cook County state attorney Thomas Courtney and Tubbo
Gilbert, his chief investigator, for wrongful imprisonment.
The
mob couldn't allow the suit to reach court, and considering Touhy's
determination, Ray Brennan's nose for a good story and Bob Johnstone's legal
talents, there was no doubt the case would make it to court. If the case went
to court, John Factor, the outfit's figurehead at the lucrative Stardust
Casino, could easily be tied in to illegal teamster loans. At the same time,
the McClellan committee was looking into the ties between the teamsters, Las
Vegas and organized crime and the raid at the mob conclave in New York state
had awakened the FBI and brought them into the fight. So, Touhy's lawsuit was,
in effect, his death sentence.
Twenty-five
days after his release from twenty-five years in prison, Roger Touhy was gunned
down on a frigid December night on his sister's front door.
Two
years after Touhy's murder, in 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered
his Justice Department to look into the highly suspect dealings of the Stardust
Casino. Factor was still the owner on record, but had sold his interest in the
casino portion of the hotel for a mere 7 million dollars. Then, in December of
that year, the INS, working with the FBI on Bobby Kennedy's orders, informed
Jake Factor that he was to be deported from the United States before the end of
the month. Factor would be returned to England where he was still a wanted
felon as a result of his 1928 stock scam. Just 48 hours before the deportation,
Factor, John Kennedy's largest single personal political contributor, was
granted a full and complete Presidential pardon which allowed him to stay in
the United States.
The
story hints that Factor was more then probably an informant for the Internal
Revenue Service, it also investigates the murky world of Presidential pardons,
the last imperial power of the Executive branch. It's a sordid tale of abuse of
privilege, the mob's best friend and perhaps it is time the American people
reconsider the entire notion.
The
mob wasn't finished with Factor. Right after his pardon, Factor was involved in
a vague, questionable financial plot to try and bail teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa
out of his seemingly endless financial problems in Florida real estate. He was
also involved with a questionable stock transaction with mobster Murray
Humpreys. Factor spent the remaining twenty years of his life as a benefactor
to California's Black ghettos. He tried, truly, to make amends for all of the
suffering he had caused in his life. He spent millions of dollars building
churches, gyms, parks and low cost housing in the poverty stricken ghettos.
When he died, three United States Senators, the Mayor of Los Angles and several
hundred poor Black waited in the rain to pay their last respects at Jake the
Barber's funeral.
Interesting
Information on A Little Known Case
By Bill Emblom
Author John Tuohy, who has a
similar spelling of the last name to his subject Roger, but apparently no
relation, has provided us with an interesting story of northwest Chicago beer
baron Roger Touhy who was in competition with Al Capone during Capone's heyday.
Touhy appeared to be winning the battle since Mayor Anton Cermak was deporting
a number of Capone's cronies. However, the mob hit, according to the author, on
Mayor Cermak in Miami, Florida, by Giuseppe Zangara following a speech by
President-elect Roosevelt, put an end to the harrassment of Capone's cronies.
The author details the staged "kidnapping" of Jake "the
Barber" Factor who did this to avoid being deported to England and facing
a prison sentence there for stock swindling, with Touhy having his rights
violated and sent to prison for 25 years for the kidnapping that never
happened. Factor and other Chicago mobsters were making a lot of money with the
Stardust Casino in Las Vegas when they got word that Touhy was to be parolled
and planned to write his life story. The mob, not wanting this, decided Touhy
had to be eliminated. Touhy was murdered by hit men in 1959, 28 days after
gaining his freedom. Jake Factor had also spent time in prison in the United
States for a whiskey swindle involving 300 victims in 12 states. Two days
before Factor was to be deported to England to face prison for the stock
swindle President Kennedy granted Factor a full Presidential Pardon after
Factor's contribution to the Bay of Pigs fund. President Kennedy, the author
notes, issued 472 pardons (about half questionable) more than any president
before or since.
There are a number of books on
Capone and the Chicago mob. This book takes a look at an overlooked beer baron
from that time period, Roger Touhy. It is a very worthwhile read and one that
will hold your interest.
GREAT
BOOK FROM CHICAGO AND ERA WAS MY DAD'S,TRUE TO STORY
Very good book. Hard to put down
Bymistakesweremadeon
Eight long years locked up for a
kidnapping that was in fact a hoax, in autumn 1942, Roger Touhy & his gang
of cons busted out of Stateville, the infamous "roundhouse" prison,
southwest of Chicago Illinois. On the lam 2 months he was, when J Edgar &
his agents sniffed him out in a run down 6-flat tenement on the city's far
north lakefront. "Terrible Roger" had celebrated Christmas morning on
the outside - just like all square Johns & Janes - but by New Year's Eve,
was back in the bighouse.
Touhy's arrest hideout holds
special interest to me because I grew up less than a mile away from it. Though
I never knew so til 1975 when his bio was included in hard-boiled crime
chronicler Jay Robert Nash's, Badmen & Bloodletters, a phone book sized
encyclopedia of crooks & killers. Touhy's hard scrabble charisma stood out
among 200 years' worth of sociopathic Americana Nash had alphabetized, and
gotten a pulphouse publisher to print up for him.
I read Nash's outlaw dictionary
as a teen, and found Touhy's Prohibition era David vs Goliath battles with
ultimate gangster kingpin, Al Capone quite alluring, in an anti-hero sorta way.
Years later I learned Touhy had written a memoir, and reading his The Stolen
Years only reinforced my image of an underdog speakeasy beer baron - slash
suburban family man - outwitting the stone cold killer who masterminded the St.
Valentine's Day Massacre.
Like most autobiographies tho,
Touhy's book painted him the good guy. Just an everyday gent caught up in events,
and he sold his story well. Had I been a saloonkeeper back then I could picture
myself buying his sales pitch - and liking the guy too. I sure bought into his
tale, which in hindsight criminal scribe Nash had too, because both writers
portray Touhy - though admittedly a crook - as never "really" hurting
anybody. Only doing what any down-to-earth bootlegger running a million
dollar/year criminal enterprise would have.
What Capone's Mob Murdered Roger
Touhy author John Tuohy does tho is, provide a more objective version of
events, balancing out Touhy's white wash ... 'er ... make that subjectively ...
remembered telling of his life & times. Author Tuohy's account of gangster
Touhy's account forced me - grown up now - to re-account for my own original
take on the story.
As a kid back then, Touhy seemed
almost a Robin Hood- ish hood - if you'll pardon a very lame pun. Forty years
on tho re-considering the evidence, I think a persuasive - if not iron-clad
convincing - case can be made for his conviction in the kidnapping of swindler
scumbag Jake the Barber Factor. At least as far as conspiracy to do so goes,
anyways. (Please excuse the crude redundancy there but Factor's stench truly
was that of the dog s*** one steps in on those unfortunate occasions one does.)
Touhy's memoir painted himself as
almost an innocent bystander at his own life's events. But he was a very smart
& savvy guy - no dummy by a long shot. And I kinda do believe now, to not
have known his own henchmen were in on Factor's ploy to stave off deportation
and imprisonment, Touhy would have had to be as naive a Prohibition crime boss
- and make no mistake he was one - as I was as a teenage kid reading Nash's
thug-opedia,
On the other hand, the guy was
the father of two sons and it's repulsive to consider he would have taken part
in loathsomeness the crime of kidnapping was - even if the abducted victim was
an adult and as repulsively loathsome as widows & orphans conman, Jake
Factor.
This book's target audience is
crime buffs no doubt, but it's an interesting read just the same; and includes
anecdotes and insights I had not known of before. Unfortunately too, one that
knocks a hero of mine down a peg or two - or more like ten.
Circa 1960, President Kennedy
pardoned Jake the Barber, a fact that reading of almost made me puke. Then
again JFK and the Chicago Mob did make for some strange bedfellowery every now
& again. I'll always admire WWII US Navy commander Kennedy's astonishing
(word chosen carefully) bravery following his PT boat's sinking, but him
signing that document - effectively wiping Factor's s*** stain clean - as
payback for campaign contributions Factor made to him, was REALLY nauseating to
read.
Come to think of it tho, the
terms "criminal douchedog" & "any political candidate"
are pretty much interchangeable.
Anyways tho ... rest in peace
Rog, & I raise a toast - of virtual bootleg ale - in your honor:
"Turns out you weren't the hard-luck mug I'd thought you were, but what
the hell, at least you had style." And guts to meet your inevitable end
with more grace than a gangster should.
Post Note: Author Tuohy's
re-examination of the evidence in the Roger Touhy case does include some heroes
- guys & women - who attempted to find the truth of what did happen.
Reading about people like that IS rewarding. They showed true courage - and
decency - in a world reeking of corruption & deceit. So, here's to the
lawyer who took on a lost cause; the private detective who dug up buried facts;
and most of all, Touhy's wife & sister who stood by his side all those
years.
Crime
don't pay, kids
Very good organized crime book. A
rather obscure gangster story which makes it fresh to read. I do not like these
minimum word requirements for a review. (There, I have met my minimum)
Chicago
Gangster History At It's Best
ByJ. CROSBYon
As a 4th generation Chicagoan, I
just loved this book. Growing up in the 1950's and 60's I heard the name
"Terrible Touhy's" mentioned many times. Roger was thought of as a
great man, and seems to have been held in high esteem among the old timer
Chicagoans.
That said, I thought this book to
be nothing but interesting and well written. (It inspired me to find a copy of
Roger's "Stolen Years" bio.) I do recommend this book to other folks
interested in prohibition/depression era Chicago crime research. It is a must
have for your library of Gangsters literature from that era. Chock full of
information and the reader is transported back in time.
I'd like to know just what is
"The Valley" area today in Chicago. I still live in the Windy City
and would like to see if anything remains from the early days of the 20th
century.
A good writer and a good book! I
will buy some more of Mr. Tuohy's work.
Great
story, great read
ByBookreaderon
A complex tale of gangsters,
political kickback, mob wars and corrupt politicians told with wit and humor at
a good pace. Highly recommend this book.
One
of the best books I've read in a long time....
If you're into mafioso, read
this! I loved it. Bought a copy for my brother to read for his birthday--good
stuff.
CYBERDATE
An award winning full length
play.
"Cyberdate.Com is the
story of six ordinary people in search of romance, friendship and love and find
it in very extraordinary ways. Based on the real life experiences of the
authors misadventures with on line dating, Cyber date is a bittersweet story
that will make you laugh, cry and want to fall in love again." Ellis
McKay
Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a
public at the Actors Chapel in Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the
groups Reading Series for New York project. In June of 2008, the play won the
Virginia Theater of The First Amendment Award for best new play. The play was
also given a full reading at The Frederick Playhouse in Maryland in March of
2007.
GUNS AND GLAMOUR
Capone. Torrio. Ricca. Giancana and
Accardo. The giant legends of organized crime that led the largest, wealthiest,
most powerful, and near completely documented organized crime syndicate in the
world. At the height of its power, the Chicago mobs influence extended from
Lake Shore Drive to the beaches of Havana, the neon lights of Vegas and the
heroin drenched back alleys of Hanoi. The years 1900 through 1959 are largely
considered the Golden Age for the Chicago mob. The end came with the accession
of Sam “Momo” Giancana to the criminal throne that Big Jim Colosimo had
founded. Flashy, arrogant and dangerous, Giancana’s rise to the leadership of
the Chicago Mob was paralleled by the federal government’s assault on organized
crime. By 1980, the Chicago mob has lost control of the organized labor on a
national basis and given up Las Vegas Las Vegas. Virtually every significant
Mafia Boss in the country was in jail or under indictment and Sam Giancana was
shot dead by his own men. The so-called Golden Age of Chicago Mob had ended.
Between 1900 and 1959, fifty-nine years, only seven Bosses led the Chicago Mob.
Between 1963 and 2000, thirty-seven years, there were more than nine Bosses in
rapid succession. All except one of them…the indomitable Tony Accardo…died in
jail or under federal and state indictment. While the Chicago Mob still wields
considerable criminal, financial, and political influence, it is a mere shadow
of what it once was. With increased pressure from far reaching RICO laws, the
constant surveillance of a well-informed and effective federal organized crime
task force and increased competition from equally ruthless and ambitious new
ethnic mobs, there is little chance it will ever reemerge as the awesome power
it once was.
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: I heard a lot about Chicago mafia and
I think it very interesting theme and I read few books but those books were so
hard to read (!): small font, a lot of slangs, hard spelling words! But John
Tuohy's book not like that!!! It's easy to read(and I'm not saying it written
poor or anything), what I mean is for the person who doesn't know much about
the mafia world this book is really helps to understand all the details, I
would say to see the whole picture!!! This book is really interesting and
helpful!
It also has a lot of photographs which
makes the book even better!
I wish there would be more writers like
John Tuohy who makes the books more interesting and cognitive!
Amazon review: Mr. Tuohy, has out done himself with
this prized piece of literary work! Since I'm a Chicagoan, born and raised for
40 years, some of them on the very same streets where some of the Outfit's
associates and higher-ups lived, and after the first few pages I'm hooked. His
writing style to me is very easy to digest, and his photos are spectacular,
either due to it's rarity or the person being photo, alot of these Outfit
bosses/hitman didn't like to be photographed, and believe me, they made sure
that you knew it. To take the Chicago Outfit and write about the ups and downs
the Organization went through during this 100 year time frame is an amazing
feat. You get some real good stories, written without an agenda, just to get
the information out to the public. A brilliant topic which was handled with
care and dignity by Mr.Tuohy, as I'm finding out is the case in ALL OF HIS
BOOKS, be they organized crime or based on something else. Get if a try, you'll
end up buying more than the one book, betcha you can't read just one!!!
An interesting book about the history
of the Chicago mob. It highlights the legends of the Chicago mob in the 1900s.
Any fan of the Chicago mob should add this to their collection.
The Mob and the Kennedy Assassination: Jack Ruby. Testimony by
Mobsters Lewis McWillie, Joseph Campisi and Irwin Weiner (The Mob Files) Kindle
Edition
From the Inside Flap
The United States House of
Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was established in
1976 to investigate the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther
King, Jr. and the shooting of Alabama Governor George Wallace. The Committee
investigated until 1978 and issued its final report, and ruled that Kennedy was
very likely assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. However, the Committee
noted that it believed that the conspiracy did not include the governments of
the Soviet Union or Cuba.
The Committee also stated it did not believe
the conspiracy was organized by any organized crime group, nor any anti-Castro
group, but that it could not rule out individual members of any of those groups
acting together.
The House Select Committee on
Assassinations suffered from being conducted mostly in secret, and then issued
a public report with much of its evidence sealed for 50 years under
Congressional rules.
In 1992, Congress passed legislation to
collect and open up all the evidence relating to Kennedy's death, and created
the Assassination Records Review Board to further that goal.
General conclusions
In particular, the various
investigations performed by the U.S. government were faulted for insufficient
consideration of the possibility of a conspiracy in each case. The Committee in
its report also made recommendations for legislative and administrative
improvements, including making some assassinations Federal crimes.
The Chief Counsel of the Committee
later changed his views that the CIA was being cooperative and forthcoming with
the investigation when he learned that the CIA's special liaison to the
Committee researchers, George Joannides, was actually involved with some of the
organizations that Lee Harvey Oswald was involved with in the months leading up
to the assassination, including an anti-Castro group, the DRE, which was linked
to the CIA, where the liaison, Joannides, worked in 1963.
Chief Counsel Blakey later stated that Joannides,
instead, should have been interviewed by the Committee, rather than serving as
a gatekeeper to the CIA's evidence and files regarding the assassination. He
further disregarded and suspected all the CIA's statements and representations
to the Committee, accusing it of obstruction of justice.
Conclusions regarding the Kennedy
assassination
The HSCA concluded in its 1979 report
that:
1.Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at
Kennedy. The second and third shots he fired struck the President. The third
shot Oswald fired successfully killed the President.
2.Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a
high probability that at least two gunmen fired at the President. Other
scientific evidence does not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at
the President. Scientific evidence negates some specific conspiracy
allegations.
3.The committee believes, on the basis of the
evidence available to it, that the President John F. Kennedy was probably
assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify
the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy. The committee believes, on
the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not
involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.
The committee believes, on the basis of
the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the
assassination of President Kennedy.
The committee believes, on the basis of
the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were
not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available
evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have
been involved.
The committee believes, on the basis of
the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime,
as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but
that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual
members may have been involved.
The committee believes, on the basis of the
evidence available to it, that the Secret Service, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the
assassination of President Kennedy.
4. Agencies and departments of the U.S.
Government performed with varying degrees of competency in the fulfilment of
their duties. President John F. Kennedy did not receive adequate protection. A
thorough and reliable investigation into the responsibility of Lee Harvey
Oswald for the assassination was conducted. The investigation into the
possibility of conspiracy in the assassination was inadequate. The conclusions
of the investigations were arrived at in good faith, but presented in a fashion
that was too definitive.
The Committee further concluded that it
was probable that:
Four shots were fired. The third shot came
from a second assassin located on the grassy knoll, but missed. They concluded
that it missed due to the lack of physical evidence of an actual bullet, of
course this investigation took place almost sixteen years after the crime.
The HSCA agreed with the single bullet theory,
but concluded that it occurred at a time point during the assassination that
differed from any of the several time points the Warren Commission theorized it
occurred.
The Department of Justice, FBI, CIA,
and the Warren Commission were all criticized for not revealing to the Warren
Commission information available in 1964, and the Secret Service was deemed
deficient in their protection of the President.
The HSCA made several accusations of
deficiency against the FBI and CIA.
The accusations encompassed
organizational failures, miscommunication, and a desire to keep certain parts
of their operations secret. Furthermore, the Warren Commission expected these
agencies to be forthcoming with any information that would aid their
investigation. But the FBI and CIA only saw it as their duty to respond to
specific requests for information from the commission. However, the HSCA found
the FBI and CIA were deficient in performing even that limited role.
In 2003, Robert Blakey, staff director
and chief counsel for the Committee, issued a statement on the Central
Intelligence Agency:
...I no longer believe that we were
able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the [Central Intelligence]
Agency and its relationship to Oswald.... We now know that the Agency withheld
from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the
commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its
investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to
obtain the full truth, which will now never be known. Significantly, the Warren
Commission's conclusion that the agencies of the government co-operated with it
is, in retrospect, not the truth. We also now know that the Agency set up a
process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the
committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the
Agency. Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication
and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of
story. I am now in that camp.
The Kefauver Organized Crime Hearings. Abridged.
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: Senator Kefauver is a great person!
The committee did a amazingly great job investigating organized crime in
different cities, the same as the author did putting it all together in one
book!!It was really interesting to read this record! I felt like I was there in
a court room! Seriously, very impressive!
Amazon review: It's great that we have such a great
historical document in print! Senator Kefauver and the committee investigate
Organized Crime all over the country: Miami, NY, New Orleans, Philadelphia,
Kansas city, etc. This record
has many interviews with mafia leaders. Rare and great
photographs! It's one of the best criminal books I ever read! I would highly
recommend it to anyone!
The Connecticut Irish
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: This book is not a history of the
Irish in Connecticut so much as it is a history of people of Irish decent of
the great State of Connecticut, but in that, it does a very good job reporting
the facts and being wholly inclusive. It has presents dome very wonderful
photographs and fives a brief but disturbing picture of the Anti-Irish movement
in the New England states.
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: "Shooting the Mob: Organized
Crime in photos, Crime Boss Tony Accardo" was a welcomed addition to my
book collection. For one thing, not much is written about ,"the Big
Tuna", Tony Accardo; the Chicago Outfit's "man of many talents",
let alone any photos. This book gives the reader a chance to gain some
knowledge on the amazing Outfit boss/consigliere, that might not otherwise be
available.
For me, it was a must for my
collection; not to give too much away, but there are photos and personal
information about the life and times of Anthony "JB" Accardo; from
his days hanging around the "Circus Cafe" with "Tough" Tony
Capezio, John "Screwey" Moore and "Machine Gun" Jack
McGurn, to catching "the Big Guy's",attention, "Snorky" who
then had him sitting in the lobby of his hotels with a Thompson Sub-Machine Gun
on guard duty!
Things just kept getting better for the
capable "Joe Batters"!!
Mob Testimony: Joe Pistone, Michael Scars DiLeonardo, Angelo
Lonardo and others: The court testimony of FBI New York Undercover Agent Joe
Pistone
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: What I loved about this book is that
even though its mostly testimony before government investigative inquires, you
can sense the hood attitudes and their arrogance. This is the real mob talking
about everyday life as a gangster. Good stuff
Amazon review: This is the story of gangland told in
the federal testimony of the hoodlum who decided to talk about life in the underworld.
Although some Chicago gangsters are included in the text and photos (Lots of
photos here) the concentration is on the New York mob.
An Illustrated Chronological History of the Chicago Mob. Time
Line. 1837-2000 K
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: Love the pictures in the book, some
of them I've not seen before. This is a good outline for what one needs to know
about the rise and fall of what was once a mighty underworld mob.
Amazon review: Pretty good outline in photos and
text of the Chicago Outfit from start to what is basically its finish, the last
year of the 20th century.
EMERSON
Amazon review: I purchased this book for my daughter
who loves Emerson. The quotes are organized in categories and are easy to find
and read. The book includes the most memorable quotes of Emerson and my
daughter loves it.
Amazon review: This is really enjoyable to read and
I like how it is done and you can look up all sorts of things. I have shared
some of Emerson's quotes from this book on my website right from this book,
giving him credit.
Amazon review: Made me hungry for more!!
Amazon review: It's a keeper!
The New England Mafia.
Amazon review: Good book about the New England mafia
with some nice rare pictures
Amazon review: Coming from RI - The book was great
Amazon review: This held my interest, read it in two
sittings, quite late at night. Most of the main characters were familiar to me,
being a born and bred New Englander, got a kick out of some of the
descriptions. A good easy read with lots of history and Mafia insight.
Mob Recipes to Die For. Meals and Mobsters in Photos Paperback –
December 20, 2011
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: This is a funny book, okay a little
bloody in places but believe it or not, the recipes are actually pretty good
and there are several good stories about mobsters and meals. The mob stories
are mixed with authentic Italian recipes and other Outfit anecdotes and all of
it makes for fun reading and actually some pretty good cooking.(Including the
meat sauce recipe from the prison scene in "Gooodfellas") Most of the
recipes are very simple fare, quick to make and include classic dishes like
Shrimp Scampi, a simple Tomato Sauce, Veal Piccata, Asparagus with Prosciutto,
Baked Stuffed Clams, Veal Chops Milanese, Caponata and Lobster. The book has
about 50 something photos of dead mobsters followed by a recipe. The bloody
scenes aside, this book would make compliment most cooking libraries and will
works especially well for the novice cook.
Shooting the Mob: Organized Crime in Photos: The Saint Valentine's
Day Massacre. Paperback – December 7, 2011
by Shadrach Bond
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: A detailed photographic account of
the murders that shocked the underworld, the St. Valentine's Day massacre. The
author tells the story of what happened and how it happened on that fateful day
for the Northside gang and demonstrates with photos. Good book.
Shooting the Mob: Organized Crime in Photographs. Dutch Schultz.
Paperback – May 4, 2012
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: Dutch Schultz continues to capture
and fascinate and his story, including his last words, are detailed here with
dozens of photographs from Schultz early days in crime until the bitter end.
Amazon review: Dutch Schultz (Arthur Flegenheimer)
was the problem child of organized crime in New York City in the 1920s and
1930s who made his fortune in bootlegging alcohol and the numbers racket. The
book gives a quick but accurate account of the Dutchman's rise and his battle
in two tax evasions trials led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey. It covers his
murder, probably on the orders of fellow mobster Lucky Luciano. In an effort to
avert his conviction, Schultz asked the Commission for permission to kill
Dewey, which they declined. After Schultz disobeyed the Commission and
attempted to carry out the hit, they ordered his assassination in 1935. The
book has a very fine series of photographs. Good reading at a fair price.
Shooting the mob. Organized crime in photos. Dead Mobsters,
Gangsters and Hoods.
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: This book covers the full gamut of
gangsters with many excellent photos. The story accompanying each slain hoodlum
varies from a few pages to one or two lines. The book suffers from atrocious
editing of the text. Words are frequently mispelled or missing, sentences often
end half way through only to resume as a new sentence and paragraphs sometimes end
midsentence. There are also no sources for anything. If not for this, the book
would have received five stars.
Amazon review: There is no shortage of corpses in
this book. Its page after page of dead hoodlums from the underworld with a
passage on how they got that way and by whom. Gory but I must say, fascinating
as the violence of the underworld so often is. The book is a guilty pleasure.
The Salerno Report. The Mafia and the Murder of President John F.
Kennedy: The report by Mafia expert Ralph Salerno Consultant to the Select Committee on Assassinations
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: A must read for anyone studying the
Kennedy assassination. Among the many conspiracy theories is the possible
involvement of Mafia. As we all know there are no definite conclusions, and
history may never resolve the issue, but this report is engaging and captive
reading.
Amazon review: The Salerno Report is far more
accurate than the Warren Report
Amazon review: Evidence mounted in a certain
direction. The truth is still discoverable, and this ghastly event in our
history deserves still more examination. This book contributes to the eventual
revelation of what really happened.
Baby Boomers Guide to the Beatles Songs of the Sixties
READERS REVIEWS FROM
AMAZON BOOKS
Amazon review: There are more intense books that go
into supposed motivation and recording techniques and equipment, but this is a
lovely work that illuminates the songs and the stories behind them without
being overbearing in doing so. I really enjoyed it - bought several copies to
give as gifts. Well done!
Rosenthal murder case
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
"The old Metropole. The old
Metropole," brooded Mr. Wolfshiem gloomily. "Filled with faces dead
and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever. I can't forget so long as I
live the night they shot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at the table,
and Rosy had eat and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost morning the
waiter came up to him with a funny look and says somebody wants to speak to him
outside. 'all right,' says Rosy, and
begins to get up, and I pulled him down in his chair. "'Let the bastards
in here if they want you, Rosy, but don't you, so help me, move outside this
room.' "It was four o'clock in the morning then, and if we'd of raised the
blinds we'd of seen daylight."
"Did he go?" I asked
innocently.
'Sure he went." Mr. Wolfshiem's
nose flashed at me indignantly. "He turned around in the door and says:
'Don't let that waiter take away my coffee!' Then he went out on the sidewalk,
and they shot him three times in his full belly and drove away."
"Four of them were
electrocuted,"
I said, remembering. "Five, with
Becker"
The Great Gatsby
Amazon review: The Becker-Rosenthal trial was a 1912
trial for the murder of Herman Rosenthal by Charles Becker and members of the
Lenox Avenue Gang. The trial ran from October 7, 1912 to October 30, 1912 and
restarted on May 2, 1914 to May 22, 1914. Other procedural events took place in
1915.
In July 1912, Lieutenant Charles Becker was
named in the New York World as one of three senior police officials involved in
the case of Herman Rosenthal, a small time bookmaker who had complained to the
press that his illegal casinos had been badly damaged by the greed of Becker
and his associates. On July 16, two days after the story appeared, Rosenthal
walked out of the Hotel Metropole at 147 West 43rd Street, just off Times
Square. He was gunned down by a crew of Jewish gangsters from the Lower East
Side, Manhattan. In the aftermath, Manhattan District Attorney Charles S.
Whitman, who had made an appointment with Rosenthal before his death, made no
secret of his belief that the gangsters had committed the murder at Charles
Becker's behest.
At first, John J. Reisler, also known as
"John the barber," told the police that he'd seen "Bridgey"
Webber running away from the crime scene directly following the killing. He
recanted under duress from gangsters the next week, and was charged with
perjury.
The investigation was covered on the front
page of the New York Times for months. It was so complex that the NYPD recalled
thirty retired detectives to help investigate; they were said "to know
most of the gangsters."
One of these old-timers, Detective
Upton, formerly of the NYPD "Italian Squad," was instrumental in the
July 25, 1912, arrest of "Dago" Frank Cirofici, one of the suspected
killers. He and his companion, Regina Gorden (formerly known as "Rose
Harris"), were "so stupefied by opium that they offered no objection
to their arrests," according to the New York Times.
Joe Petrosino
READERS REVIEWS FROM AMAZON BOOKS
Review: Any book about Joe Petrosino can't be
all bad. Far too little attention is paid to Petrosino these days. The foolish
Public remembers names of scumbags like Capone, Gotti, Valachi, Tony Soprano,
etc. Far too few people remember New York Cop Joe Petrosino. In a time when
Italians were segregated, harassed by Cops and treated as second class
citizens, Petrosino arose as the first Italian anti-gangster Cop. Then, as now,
gangsters claimed they were the victims of prejudice, discrimination and
profiling. Petrosino rose above his times to become a Pioneer in anti-Mafia
police work. Tough as nails, un-corruptible, and utterly fearless, Petrosino
was assassinated by the Mafia in their usual cowardly style.
Review: This book is a welcome bit of
scholarship on the great Petrosino. Tuohy's book does contain an, apparent,
misprint. There is a lone word, without authority, regarding Petrosino being
"corrupt," perhaps a reference to his tough police tactics.
Corruption, however, implies a personal power or profit motive. Tuohy provides
no evidence or argument of any such motive or activity on Petrosino's part. On
the contrary, the only evidence is that Petrosino was a good, honest Cop.
Petrosino is a role model for young and old alike, oppressed immigrants,
Review: I have several books from The Mob
Files Series and I have really enjoyed reading them. The Joe Petrosino story is
definitely one worth reading. He had an interesting life working against the
mafia. I enjoyed seeing the pictures in the book and they helped bring the story
to life.
TODAY'S ALLEGED MOB GUY
Leo Vincent Brothers
Lingle
Killing: Jake Lingle came from a moderately successful Jewish working
class family in the valley, an Irish slum near the Loop. He managed to graduate
from the Calhoun elementary school, otherwise he was ill prepared to work as
for the Chicago Tribune newspaper at $65 a week, a respectable salary for a
working reporter in 1933. Lingle was a "Legman"-- the street person
who gathered the news and called it in to the city editor's room, where the
stories were written by professional news writers. Yet on his modest income
Lingle had a chauffeured limo that whisked him across town, he spent $1000 a
day on the horse races and wore a diamond studded belt given to him by Capone.
That gave his wealth was the fact
that Lingle was a liaison between the Capone organization and police
commissioner William P. Russel. Russel
and Lingle had known each other since their childhood days in the Valley.
Later, after Lingle was dead and the facts of their relationship came to light,
Russell resigned his position.
Through Lingle's connection with
the commissioner and the higher ups in the police department, Lingle was able
to pass on information to the Capone's and others willing to pay, as to what
speakeasies were going to be raided, what brothels were marked to be shut down
and so forth. Lingle also spied on Bugs Moran and his North Siders for Capone.
Friend of the commission or not,
it still didn't explain the way Lingle lived his life or the money he spent.
None of that made sense until it was learned that Lingle owed Capone $100,000
in bad gambling debts and he tried to pay it off by extortion against both
Moran and Capone by using his influence to barter gambling and limited liqueur
licenses, essential to both hoodlums' operations.
"I fix the price of beer in this
town," Lingle said, and he may have been right in a fool's sort of way.
One of the hundreds of rumors going around the
city at that time was that Lingle had been given $50,000 to keep a racetrack
open and had kept the money and as a result the track was closed.
Another story involved the
Sheridan Club, owned and operated by Weiss and Moran, and which had been closed
for eighteen months after the St. Valentine's Day murders. Moran tried to
muster help to reopen the track with no luck until Julian "Potatoes"
Kaufman approached Jake Lingle and asked him to use his contacts to get the
Moran’s track reopened. Lingle said he would help for 50% of the profits, Moran
refused and the club remained closed.
Moran turned to Boss John
McLaughlin for advice. McLaughlin, a criminal mastermind and freelancer who
occasionally worked with the Touhy organization on burglaries, hated Lingle and
had once threatened to kill the newsman when he refused to intercede in
obtaining police and Capone's permission to open a gambling house. It was
McLaughlin's advice that Moran go to the State's Attorney’s office with the
information he had on Lingle but Moran decided against it.
fter Lingle was murdered, it was
assumed that Capone ordered Lingle killed because the reporter was blackmailing
Capone and several of his under bosses so he could pay off his gambling debts.
Supposedly Lingle had gone to Capone and promised that for a set price he would
see to it that no more of Capone's speakeasies were shut down. The Capone’s
refused and Lingle threatened to have one of Capone's speakeasies shut down
every day until Lingle got his price.
On the day they killed Lingle,
his killers, dressed as Roman Catholic priests followed Lingle across town. As
Lingle entered a subway tunnel, one of the two killers ran up from behind
Lingle and fired a round off into the reporter's head just as Lingle walked
into an underground pass at Randolf and Michigan, his face buried in the daily
racing form. It was at rush hour and a dozen citizens were in or near the
tunnel when Lingle was gunned down.
The Lingle murder investigation dogged Chicago's gangland for the summer
and fall. The police demanded that
Capone turn over the men who had killed Lingle but Capone refused saying
instead that he would have his execution squad take out the killer, which would
bring an end to the matter. Eventually Leo Brothers was arrested in connection
with the crime. His trial began March 16, 1931, and ended on April 2, 1931,
when he was convicted of murder and sentenced to eight years in prison.
On April 2, 1931, Brothers was
sentenced to 14 years. He was paroled eight years later; the sentence was light
because the jury believed he was taking the fall for someone else.
DON’T WORRY-BE HAPPY
GOOD WORDS
TO HAVE…………
Velleity \vuh-LEE-uh-tee\
1 :the lowest degree of volition 2 : a slight wish or tendency : inclination. Velleity
is a derivative of the New Latin noun velleitas, from the Latin verb velle,
meaning "to wish or will." You might also wish to know that velle is
the word that gave us voluntary (by way of Anglo-French voluntarie and Latin
voluntarius) and volunteer (by way of French voluntaire). While both of those
words might imply a wish to do something (specifically, to offer one's help)
and the will to act upon it, the less common velleity typically refers to a
wish or inclination that is so insignificant that a person feels little or no
compulsion to act.
Jackleg: A: Characterized by unscrupulousness, dishonesty, or lack of professional standards. b:lacking skill or training : amateur. 2 : designed as a temporary expedient : makeshift. Throughout its 165-year-old history in English, jackleg has most often been used as a term of contempt and deprecation, particularly in reference to lawyers and preachers. Its form echoes that of the similar blackleg, an older term for a cheating gambler or a worker opposed to union policies. Etymologists know that blackleg appeared over fifty years before jackleg, but they don't have any verifiable theories about the origin of either term.
WHY THE WORLD NEEDS EDITORS..........
Finland plans to give every
citizen a basic income of 800 euros a month
Olivia Goldhill
December 05, 2015
Finland plans to give a basic income to every
adult
The Finnish government is currently
drawing up plans to introduce a national basic income. A final proposal won’t
be presented until November 2016, but if all goes to schedule, Finland will
scrap all existing benefits and instead hand out €800 ($870) per
month—toeveryone.
It sounds far-fetched, but it’s
looking likely that Finland will carry through with the idea. Whereas several
Dutch cities will introduce basic income next year and Switzerland is holding a
referendum on the subject, there is strongest political and public support for
the idea in Finland.
A poll commissioned by the
government agency planning the proposal, the Finnish Social Insurance
Institution or KELA, showed that 69% support (link in Finnish) a basic income
plan. Prime minister Juha Sipilä is in favor of the idea and he’s backed by
most of the major political parties. “For me, a basic income means simplifying
the social security system,” he says.
But for those outside Finland,
the plan raises two obvious questions: Why is this a good idea, and how will it
work?
It may sound counterintuitive,
but the proposal is meant to tackleunemployment. Finland’s unemployment rate is
at a 15-year high, at 9.53% and a basic income would allow people to take on
low-paying jobs without personal cost. At the moment, a temporary job results
in lower welfare benefits, which can lead to an overall drop in income.
Previous experiments have shown
that universal basic income can have a positive effect. Everyone in the
Canadian town of Dauphin was given a stipend from 1974 to 1979, and though
there was a drop in working hours, this was mainly because men spent more time
in school and women took longer maternity leaves. Meanwhile, when thousands of
unemployed people in Uganda were given unsupervised grants of twice their
monthly income, working hours increased by 17% and earnings increased by 38%.
One of the major downsides, of
course, is the cost of handing out money to so many people. Liisa Hyssälä,
director general of KELA, has said that the plan will save the government
millions. But, as Bloomberg calculated, giving €800 of basic income to the
population of 5.4 million every month would cost €52.2 billion a year. Finland
only plans to give the basic income to adults, not every citizen, but with
around 4.9 million adults in Finland, this would still cost €46.7 billion per
year. The government expects to have €49.1 billion in revenue in 2016.
Another serious consideration is
that some people may be worse off under the plan. As the proposal hasn’t been
published yet, it’s not yet known exactly who will lose out. But those who
currently receive housing support or disability benefits could conceivably end
up with less under national basic income, since the plan calls for scrapping
existing benefits. And as national basic income would only give a monthly
allowance to adults, a single mother of three could struggle to support herself
compared to, for example, a neighbor with the same government support but no
children and a part-time job.
Finally, the proposal raises the
question of whether it’s really fair to give a relatively better off individual
the same amount of welfare as someone who’s truly struggling. Finland’s
constitution insists that all citizens must be equal, though, of course,
equality can be interpreted in many different ways. So far, there’s no
definitive answer as to whether national basic income will create a more or
less equal society.
THE ART OF PULP
I'm a big big Fan of Butowski
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washington DC. He holds an MFA in writing from Lindenwood University.
He is the author of No Time to Say Goodbye: Memoirs of a Life in Foster Care and Short Stories from a Small Town. He is also the author of numerous non-fiction on the history of organized crime including the ground break biography of bootlegger Roger Tuohy "When Capone's Mob Murdered Touhy" and "Guns and Glamour: A History of Organized Crime in Chicago."
His non-fiction crime short stories have appeared in The New Criminologist, American Mafia and other publications. John won the City of Chicago's Celtic Playfest for his work The Hannigan's of Beverly, and his short story fiction work, Karma Finds Franny Glass, appeared in AdmitTwo Magazine in October of 2008.
His play, Cyberdate.Com, was chosen for a public performance at the Actors Chapel in Manhattan in February of 2007 as part of the groups Reading Series for New York project. In June of 2008, the play won the Virginia Theater of The First Amendment Award for best new play.
Contact John:
MYWRITERSSITE.BLOGSPOT.COM
JWTUOHY95@GMAIL.COM
HERE'S MY LATEST BOOKS.....
This is a book of short stories taken from the things I saw and heard in my childhood in the factory town of Ansonia in southwestern Connecticut.
Most of these stories, or as true as I recall them because I witnessed these events many years ago through the eyes of child and are retold to you now with the pen and hindsight of an older man. The only exception is the story Beat Time which is based on the disappearance of Beat poet Lew Welch. Decades before I knew who Welch was, I was told that he had made his from California to New Haven, Connecticut, where was an alcoholic living in a mission. The notion fascinated me and I filed it away but never forgot it.
The collected stories are loosely modeled around Joyce’s novel, Dubliners (I also borrowed from the novels character and place names. Ivy Day, my character in “Local Orphan is Hero” is also the name of chapter in Dubliners, etc.) and like Joyce I wanted to write about my people, the people I knew as a child, the working class in small town America and I wanted to give a complete view of them as well. As a result the stories are about the divorced, Gays, black people, the working poor, the middle class, the lost and the found, the contented and the discontented.
Conversely many of the stories in this book are about starting life over again as a result of suicide (The Hanging Party, Small Town Tragedy, Beat Time) or from a near death experience (Anna Bell Lee and the Charge of the Light Brigade, A Brief Summer) and natural occurring death. (The Best Laid Plans, The Winter Years, Balanced and Serene)
With the exception of Jesus Loves Shaqunda, in each story there is a rebirth from the death. (Shaqunda is reported as having died of pneumonia in The Winter Years)
Sal, the desperate and depressed divorcee in Things Change, changes his life in Lunch Hour when asks the waitress for a date and she accepts. (Which we learn in Closing Time, the last story in the book) In The Arranged Time, Thisby is given the option of change and whether she takes it or, we don’t know. The death of Greta’s husband in A Matter of Time has led her to the diner and into the waiting arms of the outgoing and loveable Gabe.
Although the book is based on three sets of time (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and the diner is opened in the early morning and closed at night, time stands still inside the Diner. The hour on the big clock on the wall never changes time and much like my memories of that place, everything remains the same.
http://www.amazon.com/Short-Stories-Small-William-Tuohy/dp/1517270456/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444164878&sr=1-1&keywords=short+stories+from+a+small+town
The Valley Lives
By Marion Marchetto, author of The Bridgewater Chronicles on October 15, 2015
Short Stores from a Small Town is set in The Valley (known to outsiders as The Lower Naugatuck Valley) in Connecticut. While the short stories are contemporary they provide insight into the timeless qualities of an Industrial Era community and the values and morals of the people who live there. Some are first or second generation Americans, some are transplants, yet each takes on the mantle of Valleyite and wears it proudly. It isn't easy for an author to take the reader on a journey down memory lane and involve the reader in the life stories of a group of seemingly unrelated characters. I say seemingly because by book's end the reader will realize that he/she has done more than meet a group of loosely related characters.
We meet all of the characters during a one-day time period as each of them finds their way to the Valley Diner on a rainy autumn day. From our first meeting with Angel, the educationally challenged man who opens and closes the diner, to our farewell for the day to the young waitress whose smile hides her despair we meet a cross section of the Valley population. Rich, poor, ambitious, and not so ambitious, each life proves that there is more to it beneath the surface. And the one thing that binds these lives together is The Valley itself. Not so much a place (or a memory) but an almost palpable living thing that becomes a part of its inhabitants.
Let me be the first the congratulate author John William Tuohy on a job well done. He has evoked the heart of The Valley and in doing so brought to life the fabric that Valleyites wear as a mantle of pride. While set in a specific region of the country, the stories that unfold within the pages of this slim volume are similar to those that live in many a small town from coast to coast.
By Sandra Mendyk
Just read "Short Stories from a Small Town," and couldn't put it down! Like Mr. Tuohy's other books I read, they keep your interest, especially if you're from a small town and can relate to the lives of the people he writes about. I recommend this book for anyone interested in human interest stories. His characters all have a central place where the stories take place--a diner--and come from different walks of life and wrestle with different problems of everyday life. Enjoyable and thoughtful.
I loved how the author wrote about "his people"
By kathee
A touching thoughtful book. I loved how the author wrote about "his people", the people he knew as a child from his town. It is based on sets of time in the local diner, breakfast , lunch and dinner, but time stands still ... Highly recommend !
WONDERFUL book, I loved it!
By John M. Cribbins
What wonderful stories...I just loved this book.... It is great how it is written following, breakfast, lunch, dinner, at a diner. Great characters.... I just loved it....
Sculpture this and Sculpture that
Apollo and Daphne
Apollo and Daphne is a story from
ancient Greek mythology, retold by Hellenistic and Roman authors in the form of
an amorous vignette. Apollo, one of the most powerful gods and a great warrior,
mocked the god of love Eros for his use of bow and arrow, saying, "What
have you to do with warlike weapons? Leave them for hands worthy of them.
Behold the conquest I have won by means of them over the vast serpent that
stretched his poisonous body over acres of the plain! Be content with your
light, child, and kindle up your flames, as you call them, where you will, but
presume not to meddle with my weapons."
The insulted Eros then prepared
two arrows, one of gold and one of lead. With the leaden shaft, to incite
hatred, he shot the nymph Daphne and with the golden one, to incite love, he
shot Apollo; both of them through the heart. Apollo was seized with love for
the maiden Daphne and she, in turn, abhorred him. In fact, she spurned her many
potential lovers, preferring instead woodland sports and exploring the forest.
Her father, the river god Peneus, demanded that she get married and give him
grandchildren. She, however, begged her father to let her remain unmarried.
Apollo continually followed her,
begging her to stay, but the nymph continued her flight. They were evenly
matched in the race until Eros intervened, helping Apollo gain upon Daphne.
Seeing that Apollo was bound to catch her, she called upon her father,
"Help me, Peneus! Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which
has brought me into this danger! Let me be free of this man from this moment
forward!"
Peneus frightfully answered her
plea, casting upon her an enchantment of great power. Daphne's arms transformed
into branches as her hair became leaves; her skin then turning to bark. She
stopped running as her feet became rooted to the ground and Apollo overcame
her, embracing her branches. Yet, even the branches shrank away from him. Since
Apollo could no longer take her as his wife, he vowed to tend her as his tree;
to raid away all tempted beasts and creatures of the earth that intended to do
her harm. He promised that her leaves would crown the heads of leaders and
champions, decorate the weaponry of warriors, and never be claimed as another's
for as long as her branches flourished. Apollo also used his powers of eternal
youth and immortality to render her ever green. For this reason, the leaves of
the Bay laurel tree have never known decay.
HERE'S PLEASANT POEM FOR YOU TO ENJOY................
For
C.W.B.
BY Elizabeth
Bishop
I.
Let us live in a lull of the long winter winds
Where the shy, silver-antlered reindeer go
On dainty hoofs with their white rabbit friends
Amidst the delicate flowering snow.
All of our thoughts will be fairer than doves.
We will live upon wedding-cake frosted with sleet.
We will build us a house from two red tablecloths
And wear scarlet mittens on both hands and feet.
II.
Let us live in the land of the whispering trees;
Alder and aspen and popular and birch;
Singing our prayers in a pale, sea-green breeze
With star-flower rosaries and moss blankets for church.
All of our dreams will be clearer than glass,
Clad in the water or sun as you wish,
We will watch the white feet of the young morning pass,
And dine upon honey and small shiny fish.
III.
Let us live where the twilight lives after dark,
In the deep drowsy blue, let us make a home.
Let us meet in the cool evening grass with a stork,
And a whistle of willow played by a gnome.
Half-asleep, half-awake, we shall hear, we shall know
The soft "Miserere" the wood-swallow tolls,
We will wander away where the wild raspberries grow,
And eat them for tea from two lily-white bowls.
Robert Frost, Family Man
Review: Lesley Lee Francis, ‘You Come Too: My Journey with Robert Frost’
BY: Micah Mattix
December 5, 2015 5:00 am
In a key scene in Lawrence Thompson’s almost entirely negative biography of Robert Frost, the poet and his wife, Elinor, are fighting in the kitchen when the poet goes upstairs to get their six-year-old daughter, Lesley. He points a revolver at himself and at his wife and tells Lesley to choose which parent she prefers because “Before morning, one of us will be dead.”
Thompson adds that the event, which Lesley recounted shortly after her father’s death in 1963, may have been a dream, but the anecdote fits Thompson’s narrative so well that it is regularly cited by those who want see in Frost a brooding misogynist and pathological egoist who cared little for his children’s well-being.
Jay Parini would call this account into question over 30 years later in his own biography of Frost. According to her brother Carol, Lesley, who had frequent nightmares as a child, “was dreaming, that the incident with the gun never happened.” Lesley’s own daughter, Lesley Lee Francis, tells him that “In all the years my mother and I talked about her father, there was never any mention of this scene … I don’t doubt that tensions did arise in the family and that Robert Frost was, at times, moody and difficult; but the idea that he would threaten Elinor with a gun is absurd, and the story runs against the whole tenor of the Derry years, which were quite idyllic.”
Now, in You Come Too: My Journey with Robert Frost, part memoir and part continued correction of the “monster myth,” as it has come to be called, Francis takes a closer look at her grandfather’s relationship with women and children. She only mentions the “revolver incident” once, but the thrust of the first part of the book is that those early years in Derry were indeed idyllic—if also difficult for a young family struggling to make ends meet.
The children (there were four of them by 1905) were schooled at home, and while Frost farmed and later taught at Pinkerton Academy, he was also heavily involved in their education, teaching them botany and astronomy, writing stories and poems for them, and responding to their writing.
Lesley’s journals show a healthy, active family in which the daily lives of parents and children were tightly interwoven. Not only did Frost ask his children to type clean copies of his poems, but as many as thirty of his early poems treated topics that his children also wrote about in their compositions. This suggests that these topics were part of a larger family conversation.
As Francis shows, family life was important to Frost’s work. While his poems are very much for adults and both playful and dark, which Francis too often ignores, she’s right to note the importance of children as characters in his work. Frost once remarked to Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren that he wanted to throw readers “back on their Mother Goose…with the play of ideas in it; how deep Mother Goose is.”
When Lesley went to Wellesley College, Frost’s letters to her show him to have been a patient, supportive, and occasionally worried father, particularly after she had failed to make the tennis team. He encourages her to spend her money wisely and tells her, though Francis does not mention this exchange, to “Keep your balance—that’s all. Your marks don’t matter.”
Many of these anecdotes of the Frosts’ early years were treated (some verbatim) in Francis’s earlier volume, Robert Frost: An Adventure in Poetry, 1900-1918. In You Come Too, however, she also looks at her father’s relationship with his wife and his eldest daughter, Lesley, after 1918 and his relationship with three women outside the family who played an important role in his life as a poet—Susan Hayes Ward, Harriet Monroe, and the poet Amy Lowell.
Susan Hayes Ward, literary editor of the New York Independent, published Frost’s “My Butterfly: An Elegy,” which started a correspondence and eventually friendship between the older Ward, her clergyman brother, and the younger Frosts. Ward was pivotal in encouraging the young poet. Frost’s correspondence with Monroe, the founder and editor of Poetry, and Lowell was at times good-naturedly combative on matters of prosody, yet it was through such interactions that Frost came to develop his ideas about what he called the “sound of sense,” which he first mentioned in a letter to John Bartlett while he was living in England.
In all of these relationships, Elinor was an equal party, frequently writing letters to both Monroe and Lowell, and participating in visits and discussions when she could, though obviously limited by the responsibilities of child-rearing. Frost loved Elinor, and Elinor was deeply committed to Frost’s poetry and willing to make whatever sacrifices were necessary for him to pursue it, even if she disliked the fame it brought. She was his first and most important critic—“the unspoken half of everything I ever wrote,” Frost once told his friends, “and both halves of many a thing.”
Elinor’s willingness to sacrifice a great deal for Frost’s art, however, came to vex Lesley. When Elinor died of a heart attack in Florida in 1938, Lesley believed it was caused by Frost’s insistence that the older couple occupy the upstairs so as not to be disturbed by the grandchildren running above them. In her anger, Lesley prevented her father from visiting his wife before she died.
Francis does not take sides in this dispute between her mother and grandfather, which is perhaps a tacit acknowledgement that Frost could be difficult and selfish as well as loving. Strong-willed but reserved, Elinor herself never expressed regret regarding her marriage to Frost or the other choices she had made.
You Come Too is a series of almost entirely positive memories, recounted in a conversational manner, with little interest in keeping to a predictable timeline. This may annoy some readers, but it does have a certain charm. The long sections on Lesley and Francis’s own schooling and professional lives are less interesting the further they stray from the poet’s own life or work.
Frost once remarked that it is best “not to have children remember you as having taught them anything in particular. May they remember you as an old friend.” Were he alive today, he would certainly be pleased to be remembered as such here.
Micah Mattix
Micah Mattix is an assistant professor of literature at Houston Baptist University and a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and many other publications.
A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be
ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and
stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face
like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
HERE'S SOME NICE ART FOR YOU TO LOOK AT....ENJOY!
Eastman Johnson. This rendition
of “The Early Scholar,” likely Johnson’s initial oil sketch, is one of at least
three versions of the composition.
What do you notice first when
looking at this picture? The dark stove, its pipe, and the dull corner of the
blackboard form a stark, two-dimensional, geometric motif that collapses the
space of the left side of the scene. In contrast, the stepped series of student
desks extends the right portion of the painting into an ambiguous distance.
Pentimenti above and to the left of the benches—visible traces of previous work
on the canvas—indicate that Johnson experimented with the compositional balance
that the grouping provides.
In the center foreground is the
young boy, the profile of his round face lost to the shadows. Far more
suggestive is the long curve of his back as his body strains to fold inward—his
feet raised and his pants pulling at the knee—in an effort to move his
extremities as close to the stove as possible. Eastman Johnson, “The Early
Scholar,” c. 1865, oil on academy board on canvas, National Gallery of Art,
Washington, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.157
Sonnet 90 by William Shakespeare
The poet is telling a young man not to postpone his desertion of him if that is what he intends; do it at once
Then hate me when thou wilt; if
ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my
deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune,
make me bow,
And do not drop in for an
after-loss:
Ah, do not, when my heart hath
‘scoped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a
conquer’d woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy
morrow,
To linger out a purposed
overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not
leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done
their spite
But in the onset come; so shall I
taste
At first the very worst of
fortune’s might,
And other strains of woe, which
now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will
not seem so.
THE ART OF WAR............
Latin Word of the Day
Culpa: fault, blame
Example sentence: Non est mea culpa.
Sentence meaning: It is not my fault.
The view from our Orchestra Pit
(in case you ever wondered)
What really killed Oscar Wilde?
By STATESIDE STAFF •
115 years ago today, a great
literary voice was silenced.
Oscar Wilde died November 30,
1900. He was only 46 years old.
Since then, it has been widely
held that Wilde succumbed to the ravages of end-stage syphilis.
But some determined modern
physicians have done some medical detective work and have developed a much
different theory about what killed the great writer: an ear infection.
According to University of
Michigan medical historian and PBS Newshour contributor Dr. Howard Markel, the
syphilis theory originated with Wilde himself.
As an undergraduate at Oxford,
Wilde sought the services of “a really well-known prostitute … named Old Jess,”
Markel says. It was Wilde’s belief that he contracted syphilis that night. He
was so concerned he had contracted the disease that before marrying Constance
Lloyd, he underwent a medical examination, which declared him healthy.
Markel explains that at the time,
the 1870s or so, they had no real understanding of what caused syphilis and no
way to test for it other than through physical diagnosis.
“You could have the symptoms of
syphilis and not have syphilis, there could have been other diseases. Or you
could have no symptoms, because syphilis is a very sneaky disease with three
main stages, and still be infected,” he says. “So that being cleared doesn’t
really mean much pro or con.”
"There was no mention ever
in his medical records of having any of the signs of syphilis."
Markel tells us there’s a lot of
evidence stacked against Wilde’s self-diagnosis. First and foremost, neither
his wife nor their two sons ever showed any symptoms of the disease.
Moreover, he says that Wilde
never showed any of “the cardiovascular symptoms or the neurological symptoms”
of late-stage syphilis.
Wilde was jailed for being a
homosexual between 1895 and 1897. Throughout his time behind bars, Wilde was
examined by physicians “at least seven times … and there was no mention ever in
his medical records of having any of the signs of syphilis, whether it was
neurosyphilis or any other form,” Markel says.
Those symptoms would be expected
at this point in Wilde’s life, since he supposedly died of the disease only
three years after his release.
Markel says Wilde did suffer from
a chronic drainage from his ear, “probably a series of middle ear infections.”
The condition came and went during his sentence, but came back with a vengeance
in 1900.
Markel explains that the
infection at that time had likely spread to Wilde’s mastoid bone, “right near
the ear and right under the brain.”
“And that, particularly before
antibiotics was a harbinger of bad things,” he says. “When it got to the
mastoid bone you really had the risk of meningitis.”
Once the infection reaches and
penetrates the meninges, the three membranes that protect the brain and spinal
cord, it can cause meningoencephalitis, “and that is a terrible infection that
kills you.”
According to Markel, it sounds
like that’s what happened to Wilde. He describes Wilde’s last month as one
filled with agony, punctuated by intense fevers, delirium, and doses of opiates
and chloral hydrate, all of which fits the posthumous diagnosis.
But through it all, Markel says
Wilde held on to his characteristic wit.
“Oscar Wilde was incredible. He
is said to have said, ‘My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One
or the other of us must go.’ Sadly, it was Oscar Wilde who went first.”
- Ryan Grimes, Stateside
DON'T YOU JUST LOVE POP ART?
Museum of Contemporary Art execs
hoping a new pop art show really pops
Lewis Lazare ReporterChicago Business Journal
With their collective fingers
crossed, executives at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago are hoping
their upcoming exhibition "Pop Art Design" just might have some of
the wide-ranging appeal of the MCA's 2014 blockbuster show"David Bowie
Is."
The "David Bowie" show
was a retrospective of the famed rock musician's life and career, focusing in
particular on his creative persona. The Bowie show's appeal understandably
crossed over from modern art aficionados to include a larger rock music fan
base.
The new pop art show has no
direct connection to the rock music industry, and according to an MCA
spokeswoman, no music component in the exhibition.
But Pop Art Design does include
works by some exceedingly well-known artists and furniture designers, including
Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Charles Eames and Verner Panton, among others.
More important, the new Pop Art
Show is all about an arts movement that seriously began in the 1960s and is
memorable for being brash, colorful and playful. Those characteristics could
certainly help whet the appetite of some who might be still deciding if Pop Art
Design is for them.
The Pop Art Design show will
include more than 150 pieces organized by MCA curator Michael Darling to create
a series of vignettes about the pop art movement. The new show will include
works first seen in a pop art exhibit organized by the Vitra Design Museum in
Germany, supplemented with some significant pop art work from the MCA
collection.
The Bowie show last year drew
193,000 visitors, by far the largest for any exhibit in the MCA's history. A
spokeswoman for the MCA said today the museum will be happy if Pop Art Design
attracts anywhere close to that total.
Pop Art Design opens to the
public on Dec. 19 and runs through Mar. 27, 2016.
Peter Blake isn’t a pop artist —
he’s a gentle realist
Plus: several masterpieces at
Pallant House Gallery by another artist who’s hard to categorise, David Jones
Martin Gayford
Peter Blake: Portraits and People
Waddington Custot Galleries,
until 30 January 2016
David Jones: Vision and Memory
Pallant House Gallery, until 21
February 2016
'Leslie and Clodagh Waddington' (1996) by Peter Blake
Painters and sculptors are highly
averse to being labelled. So much so that it seems fairly certain that, if
asked, Michelangelo would have indignantly repudiated the suggestion that he
belonged to something called ‘the Renaissance’. Peter Blake is among the few
I’ve met who owns up to being a member of a movement; he openly admits to being
a pop artist. The odd thing about that candid declaration is that I’m not sure
he really is one.
A delightful exhibition at the
Waddington Custot Gallery presents Blake in several guises, including
photorealist and fantasist, but — although one of the exhibits is an elaborate
shrine in honour of Elvis Presley — ‘pop’ is not the term that comes to mind.
One reason why artists don’t like
being classified is that the more those categories — baroque, impressionist —
are examined, the more they fall apart. For example, Blake has genuinely ‘pop’
tastes in one sense: he is a fan of rock’n’roll — indeed famously created an
album cover for the Beatles. But there is none of the irony of an Andy Warhol
about his work, or the intellectual distance of Richard Hamilton. He comes
across partly as a gentle realist, and partly as a romantic with a love of
eccentric outsiders.
One half of the exhibition is
made up of portraits, among them a fine one of Leslie Waddington, founder of
the gallery, whose death was announced this week. Blake makes no secret of the
fact that these are based on photographs, which he traces. Such a procedure has
been common for centuries, but a superstitious feeling lingers that it is
somehow ‘cheating’ to use a camera to help make a painting. But what Blake is
doing is far more subtle than simply copying a photograph. His translation of
the original image into paint is delicate and subtle — and sometimes requires
an extraordinary amount of time.
Blake is renowned for continuing
to exhibit certain pictures as ‘works in progress’ for decades (one in this
exhibition was begun ‘c.1980’). If he can be very slow, however, Blake — now 83
— can also be surprisingly quick. Many of the exhibits in this show date from
this year.
Among them is a series of new
watercolours entitled ‘Tatooed Men & Women’ (see p33). They all have
everyday faces, presumably derived again from photographs, but emblazoned on
their skin is a whimsical phantasmagoria. One has a full crucifixion on his
chest, plus the word ‘Mother’; a woman has portrayals of princes Harry and
William across her naked breasts. These hark back to Blake’s long-standing love
of fairground entertainers and what you might call contemporary folk art. So,
too, does a series, still ‘in progress’, depicting fantastic wrestlers, each
with a fighting pseudonym — ‘Considerate Boy’, ‘Princess Perfect’, written
beneath their picture and a characteristic costume. Princess Perfect wears a
crown to fight.
David Jones, subject of a
retrospective exhibition at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, is also hard to
place in any category. That’s about the only thing he has in common with Blake,
except for origins on the south bank of the Thames. Blake hails from Dartford;
Jones (1895–1974) was brought up in Brockley, the child of an Anglo-Italian
mother and Welsh father.
The mixture in his life and work
of medievalism, poetry, piety and modernism was perhaps — like some chemical
compounds — inherently unstable. A poet and writer — T.S. Eliot described his
book In Parenthesis, based on his experiences in the first world war, as a ‘work
of genius’ — Jones was absorbed in a mental world of Arthurian legends and
Celtic literature. At Camberwell School of Art he had absorbed the influences
of Cézanne and later Picasso and Derain. In his 20s, he converted to
Catholicism, and lived for a while in craft communities presided over by Eric
Gill.
In Jones’s most dense images,
such as ‘Aphrodite in Aulis’ (1940–1), there is a chaotic thicket of symbolic
bric-Ã -brac in which you can make out a bulbous, naked goddess, soldiers from
the first world war and fragments of Roman architecture. His wood engravings on
religious themes, though more refined than Gill’s, still have a touch of art
deco Romanesque about them.
Jones did much better when
tethered to the real world by a subject such as a portrait or a landscape seen
through a window (a favourite theme perhaps because Jones suffered from
agoraphobia). Even then the results could be both muddy — as watercolour — and
muddled; but when it came off the effect could be ecstatic.
In ‘Flora in Calyx-Light’ (1950)
everything — not just glass but wood and stone — becomes translucent.
Ostensibly this is a picture of three glass vessels filled with flowers on a
tabletop in front of a window. But it’s simultaneously a mystic vision in which
these solid objects appear to melt in front of your eyes.
This painting almost but not
quite dissolves into a shimmering cobweb of fragments: leaves, tendrils,
petals, reflections.
In a curious fashion this
waywardly backward-looking man was completely of his time: ‘Flora in
Calyx-Light’ is about the Holy Grail, but also close to Jackson Pollock. A
teacher at Camberwell once announced, addressing the whole class, ‘You see,
Jones leaves out everything — except the magic.’ That’s true of his
masterpieces, and despite his inner complexities and contradictions there were
quite a few of those.
The Observation and Appreciation of Architecture
Stunning Midcentury Architecture In
Minnesota You Haven't Seen Before
People often don't recognize what they
have in their own backyards, according to Larry Millett, author of Minnesota
Modern, and that goes double for Midcentury architecture in Minnesota and the
Twin Cities. According to the former St. Paul Pioneer Pressarchitecture critic,
it's a style that played a dominant role in defining the look of the region's
cities and suburbs, but the canon of great works goes well beyond big names
such as Ralph Rapson, or world-renowned projects such as Marcel Breuer's Saint
John's Abbey Church.
"The modernism of Minnesota was
certainly more buttoned-down than what you'd find on California or the
coasts," he says, "but it's all over the houses and churches of the
region, the outstanding building types of its era."
While he was compiling buildings and
stories for Minnesota Modern, which came out last month, Millett made sure to
cover the entire range of building types and typologies, from the private homes
to theaters, school and office buildings, to provide a look at how this
universal style was given local context. While many high-profile architects
such as Wright and Saarinen left a legacy of great projects in the area, local
designers and firms, from Leonard Parker and Donald Haarstick to the prolific
Thorshov and Cerny, added their own distinctive spins to the style between the
postwar era and the mid '60s. The region also served as a center for daring
religious architecture. At a time many considered buttoned-down, congregations
across Minneapolis were commissioning inventive churches, according to Millett,
"absolutely unlike anything you'd see elsewhere." These structures
serve as some of the many arguments Minnesota Modernmakes advancing the notion
that this region was a fertile ground for architectural creativity during an
era of experimentation.
"I hope people will have an
appreciation for the value for all this, because preservation is so
important," he says. "Right now, it's hard to identify the main idea in
contemporary architecture. During the modern era, people strove to create a new
image and redesign old building types. There was a belief that architecture and
design could build a better world. That was pretty fun."
The Elam House is an exceptionally
large example of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian style. Its boldest feature is an
upthrust roof that soars over a glass-walled living room. Photograph by Denes
Saari and Maria Forrai Saari
The June Halvorson Alworth
House (Marcel Breuer, 1955) seems to leap off the hillside toward the lake. The
lower-level family room, to the right, was added by the current owners, Neal
and Iola Vanstrom. Photograph by Denes Saari and Maria Forrai Saari)
With its grand portico, the
Northwestern National Life Insurance Building in Minneapolis by Minoru Yamasaki
has often been likened to a Greek temple. Completed in 1964, it hovers
somewhere between authentic grandeur and high kitsch. Credit: Photograph by
Pete Sieger.
St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Edina, designed by Ralph Rapson and
completed in 1956, features a centralized worship space, with the congregation
arrayed around the altar. Photograph by George Winterowd, College of Design
Collection, Digital Content Library, University of Minnesota
IBM Building, Rochester,
Minnesota, 1958, designed by Eero Saarinen. The two-toned, cobalt blue curtain
walls were less than a half-inch thick, the thinnest ever up to that time.
According to Millett, the modular structure is "one of the
great midcentury palaces in Minnesota," but sadly, one that few people get
to visit or truly experience. Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division, Balthazar Korab Archive (LC-DIG-krb-00479).
Architect Donald Haarstick's
two-story brick-and-steel home (St. Paul, 1955) stands behind a sinuous brick
fence that sweeps around the house like a colorful ribbon and shelters a side
terrace. Millett says it was incredibly well built, a "beast" of
I-beams and concrete. Photograph by Denes Saari and Maria Forrai Saari
The Experimental City project,
proposed in the last '50s, conjured up many improbable ideas, including the
dream of a vast, climate-controlled dome that would protect residents from Minnesota's
climatic extremes. Credit: Minnesota Experimental City Authority Records,
Minnesota Historical Society
Designed by Elizabeth and
Winston Close, the Lippincott House—with its flat roof, unadorned walls, and
ribbons of windows—introduced the international Style of Midcentury Modernism
to Minnesota in 1938. Another early modernist icon, Frank Lloyd Wright's Willey
House, is just across the street. Photograph by Denes Saari and Maria Forrai
Saari
The Terrace's multilevel lobby
had the feel of an especially large and elegant midcentury home. Amenities
included built-in seating, a fireplace, and plenty of ashtrays. Millett calls
this movie theater, built in Robbinsdale in 1950, a "real knockout,"
but its irregular layout has challenged groups trying to preserve and repurpose
the space, which closed down in 1999. Credit: Liebenberg and Kaplan Papers
(N36), Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries,
Minneapolis
At dusk, the Richard and
Dorothy Babcock House (Golden Valley, 1961) has a soft, inviting glow. The
narrow windows on the brick-clad lower floor contrast with the much larger
windows on the main level, which is sheathed in bleached redwood siding.
(Credit: Photograph by Pete Sieger.)
I LOVE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS FROM FILM
New York subway commuters at rush hour, 1945, a photo by Stanley Kubrick
BLOGLAPEDIA’S BLOGS
ARCHITECTURE
Architecture
for the blog of it
http://architecturefortheblogofit.blogspot.com/
THE ARTS
Art
for the Blog of It
http://artfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/
Art
for the Pop of it
http://artforthepopofit.blogspot.com/
Photography
for the blog of it
http://photographyfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/
Music
for the Blog of it
http://musicfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/
Sculpture
this and Sculpture that
http://sculpturethisandsculpturethat.blogspot.com/
The
art of War (Propaganda art through the ages)
http://theartofwarcleverhuh.blogspot.com/
Album
Art (Photographic arts)
http://albumartsocheesyitsgood.blogspot.com/
Pulp
Fiction Trash (The art of Pulp Fiction covers)
http://pulpfictiontrash.blogspot.com/
Admit
it, you want to Read this Book (The art of Pulp Fiction covers)
http://goaheadadmitityouwanttoread.blogspot.com/
FILM
The
Godfather Trilogy BlogSpot
http://thegodfathertrilogyblogspot.blogspot.com/
On
the Waterfront: The Making of a great American Film
http://onthewaterfrontthefilm.blogspot.com/
FOOD
Absolutely
blogalicious
http://absolutelyblogalicious.blogspot.com/
The
Wee Book of Irish Recipes (Book support site)
http://theweeblogofirishrecipes.blogspot.com/
Good
chowda (New England foods)
http://goodchowda.blogspot.com/
Old
New England Recipes (Book support site)
http://oldnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com/
And I
Love Clams (New England foods)
http://andiloveclams.blogspot.com/
In
Praise of the Rhode Island Wiener (New England foods)
http://inpraiseoftherhodeislandwiener.blogspot.com/
Wicked
Cool New England Recipes (New England foods)
http://whickedcoolnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com
Old
New England Recipes (New England foods)
http://oldnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com
FOSTER CARE
Foster Care new and Updates
Aging out of the system
Murder, Death and Abuse in the
Foster Care system
Angel and Saints in the Foster
Care System
The Foster Children’s Blogs
Foster Care Legislation
The Foster Children’s Bill of
Right
Foster Kids own Story
The Adventures of Foster Kid.
HEALTH
Me
vs. Diabetes (Diabetes education site)
http://mevsdiabetes-bloglapedia.blogspot.com/
HISTORY
The
Quotable Helen Keller
http://thequotablehelenkeller.blogspot.com/
Teddy
Roosevelt's Letters to his children (Book support site)
http://teddyrooseveltsletterstohischildren.blogspot.com/
The
Quotable Machiavelli (Book support site)
http://thequotablemachiavelli.blogspot.com/
HUMOR
Whatever
you do, don't laugh
http://whateveryoudodontlaugh.blogspot.com/
The
Quotable Grouch Marx
http://thequotablegrouchmarx.blogspot.com/
IRISH-AMERICANA
A Big
Blog of Irish Literature
http://abigblogofirishliterature.blogspot.com/
The
Wee Blog of Irish Jokes (Book support blog)
http://theweeblogofirishjokes.blogspot.com/
The
Wee Blog of Irish Recipes
http://theweeblogofirishrecipes.blogspot.com/
The
Irish American Gangster
http://irishamericangangsters.blogspot.com
The
Irish in their Own Words
http://theirishintheirownwords.blogspot.com/
When
Washington Was Irish
http://whenwashingtonwasirish.blogspot.com/
The
Wee Book of Irish Recipes (Book support site)
http://theweeblogofirishrecipes.blogspot.com/
LITERATURE
Following
Fitzgerald
http://followingfitzgerald.blogspot.com/
Shakespeare
http://shakespeareinamericanenglish.blogspot.com/
The
Blogable Robert Frost
http://theblogablerobertfrost.blogspot.com/
Charles
Dickens
http://charlesdickensfan.blogspot.com/
The
Beat Poets of the Forever Generation
http://thebeatspoetsoftheforevergenera.blogspot.com/
Holden
Caulfield Blog Spot
http://holdencaulfieldblogspot.blogspot.com/
The
Quotable Oscar Wilde
http://thequotableoscarwilde.blogspot.com/
NEW ENGLAND BLOGS
The
Quotable Thoreau
http://thequotablethenrydavidthoreau.blogspot.com/
Old
New England Recipes
http://oldnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com
Wicked
Cool New England Recipes
http://whickedcoolnewenglandrecipes.blogspot.com
Emerson
http://emersonsaidit.blogspot.com/
The
New England Mafia
http://thenewenglandmafia.blogspot.com/
And I
Love Clams
http://andiloveclams.blogspot.com/
In
Praise of the Rhode Island Wiener
http://inpraiseoftherhodeislandwiener.blogspot.com/
Watch
Hill
http://watchhillwesterly.blogspot.com/
York Beach
http://yorkbeachfortheblogofit.blogspot.com/
The
Connecticut History Blog
http://connecticuthistory.blogspot.com/
The
Connecticut Irish
http://theconnecticutirish.blogspot.com/
Good
chowda
http://goodchowda.blogspot.com/
NOSTALGIA
God,
How I hated the 70s
http://godhowihatedthe70s.blogspot.com/
Child
of the Sixties Forever
http://childofthesixtiesforeverandever.blogspot.com/
The
Kennedy’s in the 60’s
http://thekennedysinthe60s.blogspot.com/
Music
of the Sixties Forever
http://musicofthesixtiesforever.blogspot.com/
Elvis
and Nixon at the White House (Book support site)
http://elvisandnixonatthewhitehouse.blogspot.com/
Beatles
Fan Forever
http://beatlesfanforever.blogspot.com/
Year
One, 1955
http://yearone1955.blogspot.com/
Robert
Kennedy in His Own Words
The
1980s were fun
http://the1980swereokayactually.blogspot.com/
The
1990s. The last decade.
http://1990sthelastdecade.blogspot.com/
ORGANIZED CRIME
The
Russian Mafia
http://russianmafiagangster.blogspot.com/
The
American Jewish Gangster
http://theamericanjewishgangster.blogspot.com/
The
Mob in Hollywood
http://themobinhollywood.blogspot.com/
We
Only Kill Each Other
http://weonlykilleachother.blogspot.com/
Early
Gangsters of New York City
http://earlygangstersofnewyorkcity.blogspot.com/
Al
Capone: Biography of a self-made Man
http://alcaponethebiographyofaselfmademan.blogspot.com/
The
Life and World of Al Capone
http://thelifeandworldofalcapone.blogspot.com/
The
Salerno Report
http://salernoreportmafiaandurderjohnkennedy.blogspot.com/
Guns
and Glamour
http://gunsandglamourthechicagomobahistory.blogspot.com/
The
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
http://thesaintvalentinesdaymassacre.blogspot.com/
Mob
Testimony
http://mobtestimony.blogspot.com/
Recipes
we would Die For
http://recipeswewoulddiefor.blogspot.com/
The
Prohibition in Pictures
http://theprohibitioninpictures.blogspot.com/
The
Mob in Pictures
http://themobinpictures.blogspot.com/
The
Mob in Vegas
http://themobinvegasinpictures.blogspot.com/
The
Irish American Gangster
http://irishamericangangsters.blogspot.com
Roger
Touhy Gangster
http://rogertouhygangsters.blogspot.com/
Chicago’s
Mob Bosses
http://chicagosmobbossesfromaccardoto.blogspot.com/
Chicago
Gang Land: It Happened Here
http://chicagoganglandithappenedhere.blogspot.com/
Whacked:
One Hundred years of Murder in Gangland
http://whackedonehundredyearsmurderand.blogspot.com/
The
Mob Across America
http://themobacrossamerica.blogspot.com/
Mob
Cops, Lawyers and Front Men
http://mobcopslawyersandinformantsand.blogspot.com/
Shooting
the Mob: Dutch Schultz
http://shootingthemobdutchschultz.blogspot.com/
Bugsy&
His Flamingo: The Testimony of Virginia Hill
http://bugsyandvirginiahill.blogspot.com/
After
Valachi. Hearings before the US Senate on Organized Crime
http://aftervalachi.blogspot.com/
Mob
Buster: Report of Special Agent Virgil Peterson to the Kefauver Committee (Book
support site)
http://virgilpetersonmobbuster.blogspot.com/
The
US Government’s Timeline of Organized Crime (Book support site)
http://timelineoforganizedcrime.blogspot.com/
The
Kefauver Organized Crime Hearings (Book support site)
http://thekefauverorganizedcrimehearings.blogspot.com/
Joe
Valachi's testimony on the Mafia (Book support site)
http://joevalachistestimonyonthemafia.blogspot.com/
Mobsters
in the News
http://mobstersinthenews.blogspot.com/
Shooting
the Mob: Dead Mobsters (Book support site)
http://deadmobsters.blogspot.com/
The
Stolen Years Full Text (Roger Touhy)
http://thestolenyearsfulltext.blogspot.com/
Mobsters
in Black and White
http://mobstersinblackandwhite.blogspot.com/
Mafia
Gangsters, Wiseguys and Goodfellas
http://mafiagangsterswiseguysandgoodfellas.blogspot.com/
Whacked:
One Hundred Years of Murder and Mayhem in the Chicago Mob (Book support site)
http://whackedonehundredyearsmurderand.blogspot.com/
Gangland
Gaslight: The Killing of Rosy Rosenthal (Book support site)
http://ganglandgaslightrosyrosenthal.blogspot.com/
The
Best of the Mob Files Series (Book support site)
http://thebestofthemobfilesseries.blogspot.com/
PHILOSOPHY
It’s
All Greek Mythology to me
http://itsallgreekmythologytome.blogspot.com/
PSYCHOLOGY
Psychologically
Relevant
http://psychologicallyrelevant.blogspot.com/
SNOBBERY
The
Rarifieid Tribe
http://therarifiedtribe.blogspot.com/
Perfect
Behavior
http://perfectbehavior.blogspot.com/
TRAVEL
The
Upscale Traveler
http://theupscaletraveler.blogspot.com/
TRIVIA
The
Mish Mosh Blog
http://theupscaletraveler.blogspot.com/
WASHINGTON DC
DC
Behind the Monuments
http://dcbehindthemonuments.blogspot.com/
Washington
Oddities
http://washingtonoddities.blogspot.com/
When
Washington Was Irish
http://whenwashingtonwasirish.blogspot.com/
FROM LLR BOOKS. COM
Litchfield Literary Books. A really small company
run by writers.
AMERICAN HISTORY
The Day
Nixon Met Elvis
Paperback 46 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Nixon-Met-elvis/
Theodore
Roosevelt: Letters to his Children. 1903-1918
Paperback 194 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Theodore-Roosevelt-Letters-Children-1903-1918/dp/
THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND CIVILIZATIONS
The Works
of Horace
Paperback 174 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Works-Horace-Richard-Willoughby/
The
Quotable Greeks
Paperback 234 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Greeks-Richard-W-Willoughby
The
Quotable Epictetus
Paperback 142 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Epictetus-Golden-Sayings
Quo
Vadis: A narrative of the time of Nero
Paperback 420 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quo-Vadis-Narrative-Time-Nero
CHILDRENS
BOOKS
The
Porchless Pumpkin: A Halloween Story for Children
A Halloween play for young children. By consent of the author,
this play may be performed, at no charge, by educational institutions,
neighborhood organizations and other not-for-profit-organizations.
A fun story with a moral
“I believe that Denny O'Day is an American treasure and this
little book proves it. Jack is a pumpkin who happens to be very small, by
pumpkins standards and as a result he goes unbought in the pumpkin patch on
Halloween eve, but at the last moment he is given his chance to prove that just
because you're small doesn't mean you can't be brave. Here is the point that I
found so wonderful, the book stresses that while size doesn't matter when it
comes to courage...ITS OKAY TO BE SCARED....as well. I think children need to
hear that, that's its okay to be unsure because life is a ongoing lesson isn't
it?”
Paperback: 42 pages
http://www.amazon.com/OLANTERN-PORCHLESS-PUMPKIN-Halloween-Children
It's Not
All Right to be a Foster Kid....no matter what they tell you: Tweet the books
contents
Paperback 94 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Right-Foster-Kid-no-matter-what
From the Author
I spent my childhood, from age seven through seventeen, in
foster care. Over the course of those
ten years, many decent, well-meaning, and concerned people told me, "It's
okay to be foster kid."
In saying that, those very good people meant to encourage me,
and I appreciated their kindness then, and all these many decades later, I
still appreciate their good intentions. But as I was tossed around the foster
care system, it began to dawn on me that they were wrong. It was not all right to be a foster kid.
During my time in the system, I was bounced every eighteen
months from three foster homes to an orphanage to a boy's school and to a group
home before I left on my own accord at age seventeen.
In the course of my stay in foster care, I was severely beaten
in two homes by my "care givers" and separated from my four siblings
who were also in care, sometimes only blocks away from where I was living.
I left the system rather than to wait to age out, although the
effects of leaving the system without any family, means, or safety net of any
kind, were the same as if I had aged out. I lived in poverty for the first part
of my life, dropped out of high school, and had continuous problems with the
law.
Today, almost nothing
about foster care has changed. Exactly
what happened to me is happening to some other child, somewhere in America,
right now. The system, corrupt, bloated,
and inefficient, goes on, unchanging and secretive.
Something has gone wrong in a system that was originally a
compassionate social policy built to improve lives but is now a definitive
cause in ruining lives. Due to gross
negligence, mismanagement, apathy, and greed, mostly what the foster care
system builds are dangerous consequences. Truly, foster care has become our
epic national disgrace and a nightmare for those of us who have lived through
it.
Yet there is a suspicion among some Americans that foster care
costs too much, undermines the work ethic, and is at odds with a satisfying
life. Others see foster care as a part
of the welfare system, as legal plunder of the public treasuries.
None of that is true;
in fact, all that sort of thinking does is to blame the victims. There is not a single child in the system who
wants to be there or asked to be there.
Foster kids are in foster care because they had nowhere else to go. It's that simple. And believe me, if those kids could get out
of the system and be reunited with their parents and lead normal, healthy
lives, they would. And if foster care is a sort of legal plunder of the public
treasuries, it's not the kids in the system who are doing the plundering.
We need to end this
needless suffering. We need to end it
because it is morally and ethically wrong and because the generations to come
will not judge us on the might of our armed forces or our technological
advancements or on our fabulous wealth.
Rather, they will judge
us, I am certain, on our compassion for those who are friendless, on our
decency to those who have nothing and on our efforts, successful or not, to
make our nation and our world a better place.
And if we cannot accomplish those things in the short time allotted to
us, then let them say of us "at least they tried."
You can change the tragedy of foster care and here's how to do
it. We have created this book so that
almost all of it can be tweeted out by you to the world. You have the power to improve the lives of
those in our society who are least able to defend themselves. All you need is the will to do it.
If the American people,
as good, decent and generous as they are, knew what was going on in foster
care, in their name and with their money, they would stop it. But, generally speaking, although the public
has a vague notion that foster care is a mess, they don't have the complete
picture. They are not aware of the human, economic and social cost that the
mismanagement of the foster care system puts on our nation.
By tweeting the facts laid out in this work, you can help to
change all of that. You can make a
difference. You can change things for
the better.
We can always change the future for a foster kid; to make it
better ...you have the power to do that. Speak up (or tweet out) because it's
your country. Don't depend on the
"The other guy" to speak up for these kids, because you are the other
guy.
We cannot build a future for foster children, but we can build
foster children for the future and the time to start that change is today.
No time
to say Goodbye: Memoirs of a life in foster
Paperbook 440 Books
http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir
BOOKS ABOUT FILM
On the
Waterfront: The Making of a Great American Film
Paperback: 416 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Waterfront-Making-Great-American-Film/
BOOKS ABOUT GHOSTS AND THE SUPERNATUAL
Scotish Ghost
Stories
Paperback 186 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Scottish-Ghost-Stories-Elliott-ODonell
HUMOR BOOKS
The Book
of funny odd and interesting things people say
Paperback: 278 pages
http://www.amazon.com/book-funny-interesting-things-people
The Wee
Book of Irish Jokes
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Series-Irish-Jokes-ebook
Perfect
Behavior: A guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises
http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Behavior-Ladies-Gentlemen-Social
BOOKS ABOUT THE 1960s
You Don’t
Need a Weatherman. Underground 1969
Paperback 122 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Weatherman-Notes-Weatherman-Underground-1969
Baby
Boomers Guide to the Beatles Songs of the Sixties
Paperback
http://www.amazon.com/Boomers-Guide-Beatles-Songs-Sixties/
Baby Boomers
Guide to Songs of the 1960s
http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Boomers-Guide-Songs-1960s
IRISH- AMERICANA
The
Connecticut Irish
Paper back 140 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Connecticut-Irish-Catherine-F-Connolly
The Wee Book of Irish Jokes
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Series-Irish-Jokes-ebook/
The Wee
Book of Irish Recipes
http://www.amazon.com/The-Wee-Book-Irish-Recipes/
The Wee Book of the American-Irish Gangsters
http://www.amazon.com/The-Wee-Book-Irish-American-Gangsters/
The Wee book of Irish Blessings...
http://www.amazon.com/Series-Blessing-Proverbs-Toasts-ebook/
The Wee
Book of the American Irish in Their Own Words
http://www.amazon.com/Book-American-Irish-Their-Words/
Everything
you need to know about St. Patrick
Paperback 26 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Need-About-Saint-Patrick
A Reading
Book in Ancient Irish History
Paperback 147pages
http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Book-Ancient-Irish-History
The Book
of Things Irish
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Things-Irish-William-Tuohy/
Poets and
Dreamer; Stories translated from the Irish
Paperback 158 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Poets-Dreamers-Stories-Translated-Irish/
The
History of the Great Irish Famine: Abridged and Illustrated
Paperback 356 pages
http://www.amazon.com/History-Great-Irish-Famine-Illustrated/
BOOKS ABOUT NEW ENGLAND
The New
England Mafia
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-England-Mafia-ebook/
Wicked
Good New England Recipes
http://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Good-New-England-Recipes/
The
Connecticut Irish
Paper back 140 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Connecticut-Irish-Catherine-F-Connolly
The
Twenty-Fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers
Paperback 64 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Fifth-Regiment-Connecticut-Volunteers-Rebellion
The Life
of James Mars
Paperback 54 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Life-James-Mars-Slave-Connecticut
Stories
of Colonial Connecticut
Paperback 116 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Colonial-Connnecticut-Caroline-Clifford
What they
Say in Old New England
Paperback 194 pages
http://www.amazon.com/What-they-say-New-England/
BOOK ABOUT ORGANIZED CRIME
Chicago
Organized Crime
Chicago-Mob-Bosses
http://www.amazon.com/Chicagos-Mob-Bosses-Accardo-ebook
The Mob
Files: It Happened Here: Places of Note in Chicago gangland 1900-2000
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mob-Files-1900-2000-ebook
An
Illustrated Chronological History of the Chicago Mob. Time Line 1837-2000
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Chronological-History-Chicago-1837-2000/
Mob
Buster: Report of Special Agent Virgil Peterson to the Kefauver Committee
http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Buster-Peterson-Committee-ebook/
The Mob
Files. Guns and Glamour: The Chicago Mob. A History. 1900-2000
http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Files-Guns-Glamour-ebook/
Shooting
the Mob: Organized crime in photos. Crime Boss Tony Accardo
http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Mob-Organized-photos-Accardo/
Shooting
the Mob: Organized Crime in Photos: The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.
http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Mob-Organized-Valentines-Massacre
The Life
and World of Al Capone in Photos
http://www.amazon.com/Life-World-Al-Capone
AL
CAPONE: The Biography of a Self-Made Man.: Revised from the 0riginal 1930
edition.Over 200 new photographs
Paperback: 340 pages
http://www.amazon.com/CAPONE-Biography-Self-Made-Over-photographs
Whacked.
One Hundred Years Murder and Mayhem in the Chicago Outfit
Paperback: 172 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Whacked-Hundred-Murder-Mayhem-Chicago/
Las
Vegas Organized Crime
The Mob
in Vegas
http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Files-Vegas-ebook
Bugsy
& His Flamingo: The Testimony of Virginia Hill
http://www.amazon.com/Bugsy-His-Flamingo-Testimony-Virginia/
Testimony
by Mobsters Lewis McWillie, Joseph Campisi and Irwin Weiner (The Mob Files Series)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Kennedy-Assassination-Ruby-Testimony-ebook
Rattling
the Cup on Chicago Crime.
Paperback 264 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Rattling-Cup-Chicago-Crime-Abridged
The Life
and Times of Terrible Tommy O’Connor.
Paperback 94 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Terrible-Tommy-OConnor
The Mob,
Sam Giancana and the overthrow of the Black Policy Racket in Chicago
Paperback 200 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Giancana-ovethrow-Policy-Rackets-Chicago
When
Capone’s Mob Murdered Roger Touhy. In Photos
Paperback 234 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Capones-Murdered-Roger-Touhy-photos
Organized
Crime in Hollywood
The Mob in Hollywood
http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Files-Hollywood-ebook/
The Bioff
Scandal
Paperback 54 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Bioff-Scandal-Shakedown-Hollywood-Studios
Organized
Crime in New York
Joe Pistone’s war on the mafia
http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Petrosinos-War-Mafia-Files/
Mob
Testimony: Joe Pistone, Michael Scars DiLeonardo, Angelo Lonardo and others
http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Testimony-DiLeonardo-testimony-Undercover/
The New
York Mafia: The Origins of the New York Mob
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-York-Mafia-Origins
The New
York Mob: The Bosses
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-York-Mob-Bosses/
Organized
Crime 25 Years after Valachi. Hearings before the US Senate
http://www.amazon.com/Organized-Crime-Valachi-Hearings-ebook
Shooting
the mob: Dutch Schultz
http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Mob-Organized-Photographs-Schultz
Gangland
Gaslight: The Killing of Rosy Rosenthal. (Illustrated)
http://www.amazon.com/Gangland-Gaslight-Killing-Rosenthal-Illustrated/
Early
Street Gangs and Gangsters of New York City
Paperback 382 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Early-Street-Gangs-Gangsters-York
THE RUSSIAN MOBS
The
Russian Mafia in America
http://www.amazon.com/The-Russian-Mafia-America-ebook/
The
Threat of Russian Organzied Crime
Paperback 192 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Threat-Russian-Organized-Crime-photographs-ebook
Organized
Crime/General
Best of
Mob Stories
http://www.amazon.com/Files-Series-Illustrated-Articles-Organized-Crime/
Best of
Mob Stories Part 2
http://www.amazon.com/Series-Illustrated-Articles-Organized-ebook/
Illustrated-Book-Prohibition-Gangsters
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Prohibition-Gangsters-ebook
Mob
Recipes to Die For. Meals and Mobsters in Photos
http://www.amazon.com/Recipes-For-Meals-Mobsters-Photos
More Mob
Recipes to Die For. Meals and Mobs
http://www.amazon.com/More-Recipes-Meals-Mobsters-Photos
The New
England Mafia
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-England-Mafia-ebook
Shooting
the mob. Organized crime in photos. Dead Mobsters, Gangsters and Hoods.
http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-mob-Organized-photos-Mobsters-Gangsters/
The
Salerno Report: The Mafia and the Murder of President John F. Kennedy
http://www.amazon.com/The-Salerno-Report-President-ebook/
The
Mob Files: Mob Wars. "We only kill each other"
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mob-Files-Wars-other/
The Mob
across America
http://www.amazon.com/The-Files-Across-America-ebook/
The US
Government’s Time Line of Organzied Crime 1920-1987
http://www.amazon.com/GOVERNMENTS-ORGANIZED-1920-1987-Illustrated-ebook/
Early
Street Gangs and Gangsters of New York City: 1800-1919. Illustrated
http://www.amazon.com/Gangsters-1800-1919-Illustrated-Street-ebook/
The Mob
Files: Mob Cops, Lawyers and Informants and Fronts
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mob-Files-Informants-ebook/
Gangster
Quotes: Mobsters in their own words. Illustrated
Paperback: 128 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Gangsters-Quotes-Mobsters-words-Illustrated/
The Book
of American-Jewish Gangsters: A Pictorial History.
Paperback: 436 pages
http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-American-Jewish-Gangsters-Pictorial/
The Mob
and the Kennedy Assassination
Paperback 414 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Mob-Kennedy-Assassination-Ruby-Testimony-Mobsters
BOOKS ABOUT THE OLD WEST
The Last
Outlaw: The story of Cole Younger, by Himself
Paperback 152 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Outlaw-Story-Younger-Himself
BOOKS ON PHOTOGRAPHY
Chicago:
A photographic essay.
Paperback: 200 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Photographic-Essay-William-Thomas
STAGE PLAYS
Boomers
on a train: A ten minute play
Paperback 22 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Boomers-train-ten-minute-Play-ebook
Four
Short Plays
By John William Tuohy
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Short-Plays-William-Tuohy
Four More
Short Plays
By John William Tuohy
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Short-Plays-William-Tuohy/
High and
Goodbye: Everybody gets the Timothy Leary they deserve. A full length play
By John William Tuohy
http://www.amazon.com/High-Goodbye-Everybody-Timothy-deserve
Cyberdate.
An Everyday Love Story about Everyday People
By John William Tuohy
http://www.amazon.com/Cyberdate-Everyday-Story-People-ebook/
The
Dutchman's Soliloquy: A one Act Play based on the factual last words of
Gangster Dutch Schultz.
By John William Tuohy
http://www.amazon.com/Dutchmans-Soliloquy-factual-Gangster-Schultz/
Fishbowling
on The Last Words of Dutch Schultz: Or William S. Burroughs intersects with
Dutch Schultz
Print Length: 57 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Fishbowling-Last-Words-Dutch-Schultz-ebook/
American
Shakespeare: August Wilson in his own words. A One Act Play
By John William Tuohy
http://www.amazon.com/American-Shakespeare-August-Wilson-ebook
She
Stoops to Conquer
http://www.amazon.com/She-Stoops-Conquer-Oliver-Goldsmith/
The Seven
Deadly Sins of Gilligan’s Island: A ten minute play
Print Length: 14 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Deadly-Gilligans-Island-minute-ebook/
BOOKS ABOUT VIRGINIA
OUT OF
CONTROL: An Informal History of the Fairfax County Police
http://www.amazon.com/Control-Informal-History-Fairfax-Police/
McLean
Virginia. A short informal history
http://www.amazon.com/McLean-Virginia-Short-Informal-History/
THE QUOTABLE SERIES
The
Quotable Emerson: Life lessons from the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Over 300
quotes
http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Emerson-lessons-quotes
The
Quotable John F. Kennedy
http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-John-F-Kennedy/
The
Quotable Oscar Wilde
http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Oscar-Wilde-lessons/
The
Quotable Machiavelli
http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Machiavelli-Richard-Thayer/
The
Quotable Confucius: Life Lesson from the Chinese Master
http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Confucius-Lesson-Chinese/
The
Quotable Henry David Thoreau
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Henry-Thoreau-Quotables-ebook
The
Quotable Robert F. Kennedy
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Robert-F-Kennedy-Illustrated/
The
Quotable Writer: Writers on the Writers Life
http://www.amazon.com/The-Quotable-Writer-Quotables-ebook
The words
of Walt Whitman: An American Poet
Paperback: 162 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Words-Walt-Whitman-American-Poet
Gangster
Quotes: Mobsters in their own words. Illustrated
Paperback: 128 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Gangsters-Quotes-Mobsters-words-Illustrated/
The
Quotable Popes
Paperback 66 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Popes-Maria-Conasenti
The
Quotable Kahlil Gibran with Artwork from Kahlil Gibran
Paperback 52 pages
Kahlil Gibran, an artist, poet, and writer was born on January
6, 1883 n the north of modern-day Lebanon and in what was then part of Ottoman
Empire. He had no formal schooling in Lebanon. In 1895, the family immigrated
to the United States when Kahlil was a young man and settled in South Boston.
Gibran enrolled in an art school and was soon a member of the avant-garde
community and became especially close to Boston artist, photographer, and
publisher Fred Holland Day who encouraged and supported Gibran’s creative
projects. An accomplished artist in drawing and watercolor, Kahlil attended art
school in Paris from 1908 to 1910, pursuing a symbolist and romantic style. He
held his first art exhibition of his drawings in 1904 in Boston, at Day's
studio. It was at this exhibition, that Gibran met Mary Elizabeth Haskell, who
ten years his senior. The two formed an important friendship and love affair
that lasted the rest of Gibran’s short life. Haskell influenced every aspect of
Gibran’s personal life and career. She became his editor when he began to write
and ushered his first book into publication in 1918, The Madman, a slim volume
of aphorisms and parables written in biblical cadence somewhere between poetry
and prose. Gibran died in New York City on April 10, 1931, at the age of 48
from cirrhosis of the liver and tuberculosis.
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Kahlil-Gibran-artwork/
The
Quotable Dorothy Parker
Paperback 86 pages
The
Quotable Machiavelli
Paperback 36 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Machiavelli-Richard-L-Thayer
The
Quotable Greeks
Paperback 230 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Greeks-Richard-W-Willoughby
The
Quotabe Oscar Wilde
Paperback 24 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Oscar-Wilde-lessons-words/
The
Quotable Helen Keller
Paperback 66 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Helen-Keller-Richard-Willoughby
The Art
of War: Sun Tzu
Paperback 60 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Confucius-Lesson-Chinese-Quotables-ebook
The
Quotable Shakespeare
Paperback 54 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Shakespeare-Richard-W-Willoughby
The
Quotable Gorucho Marx
Paperback 46 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Quotable-Groucho-Marx-Devon-Alexander