“Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile."

“Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile." ― William Cullen Bryant (Bryant Park)
The Rolling Stone's Keith Richards knows that reading is fundamental.

Bryant is ours. He’s locally grown (born in Cummington: 1st poem published in the Daily Gazette) & he changed the world in positive ways by founding American literature (w/Thanotopsis), by bankrolling and encouraging Hudson School founder Thomas Cole, and by introducing an unknown senator named Abraham Lincoln to NYC’s power elite @ Cooper Union.

The North American Review, which started in 1815 and ran without interruption until 1940, was the first American magazine devoted entirely to literature. Massachusetts native William Cullen Bryant published his first poems—including “To a Waterfowl” (1821) and “Thanatopsis,” his most famous work—in early issues.

Cocker Spaniels

Woman's Home Companion Magazine from March 1937. Great cover of two Cocker Spaniels—one black, one light brown.
My best friend was a Cocker, that was the 1950's. His name was Tugwell, we called him "Tuggy".  He had a most beautiful long golden (or  red?) coat. His namesake was Rexford Tugwell. In 1932 Tugwell was invited to join President Franklin Roosevelt's team of advisers known as the Brain Trust. After Roosevelt's inauguration in 1933, Tugwell was appointed first as Assistant Secretary and then in 1934 as Undersecretary of the United States Department of Agriculture. (I have no idea why my sister chose the Tugwell name)

Chummy  1936 (1935)

     Cocker Spaniels     Stella the Cocker Spaniel

September 2014

Scarlett in the cotton field

Scarlett O'Hara

Tara and Twelve Oaks

Ruins of Tara Plantation Set. Gone With the Wind producer David O. Selznick solemnly observed that “Nothing in Hollywood is  permanent. Once photographed, life here is ended. It is almost symbolic of Hollywood. Tara has no rooms inside. It’s just a facade… Much of Hollywood is a facade.” California, Selznick International Studios in Culver City set in 1959,  ruins of mansion from Gone With the Wind.

THE HOLLYWOOD FANTASY 

Never before seen photographs offer a rare glimpse behind the scenes of Gone with the Wind.  TARA, the plantation.

 Unaffiliated Critic. "How can you permit your husband to conduct this slave auction?"