“In 1939, the story goes, F Scott Fitzgerald earned $33 from royalties on all his books. Those included This Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, and The Great Gatsby. The great writer of recent times was only 43 but he was ‘washed up,‘ very ill, horribly reliant on booze, trying to keep a daughter in good schools and a wife, Zelda, in expensive sanatoriums. In that desperate plight, he tried again to get assignments from Hollywood. He had been hired before and there were still easy assumptions that with his dialogue, his construction ability, his sense of character, he must be a natural for talking pictures. There had been people in power, like Irving Thalberg and David Selznick, who liked him and tried to hire him. But Fitzgerald was a dunce at movie-writing. He might make $1,500 a week for a couple of weeks (on Gone With the Wind ), but then Selznick had to fire him. ‘Poor Scott,’ they said, and wondered how much longer the ex-genius had to go. I’m sure he wondered himself. He had few illusions about his own stamina. And in the last year of his life, he tried to write a novel about Hollywood. He died of a heart attack on December 21 1940, with about 150 pages of what he called The Last Tycoon done. Those pages, along with the notes he had left on how the book might end, are among the most touching things ever written. There was no bitterness in Fitzgerald. Indeed, The Last Tycoon is alive with his fond insight, his admiration for people like Thalberg (trying to run the very complicated show), and his intuition that Hollywood was reshaping America.”

 

 – David Thompson

 

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Huge Octopus Topples the Golden Gate!

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms skulks

Ashore, hearing a foghorn, lonely for friends.

Nessie slips from the Loch to seize a mate.

Swarming tentacles haul great, breathing hulks

From frozen deeps to clutch prey, then descend.

The clumsy frogman from the Black Lagoon

Gazes, glistening, from the giant sail

Of the drive-in screen, at nestled, flinching teens —

But these beasts don’t belong here, and they’re soon

Beaten. They slink from our defended soil,

Sink in the cold whirl. We are their sardines. 

Sea birds, drunken on guts, hover over

Churned seas, watching for the next poor monster.

 

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1. O

2. G

3. M

4. π (Pi)

5. Z

 

Bonus: V, the TV miniseries

 

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Check out the historical blog from an E-Versing archivist at Wells Fargo in San Francisco, loaded with great stuff and yearning for intelligent comments from E-Verse readers:

 

 

[Let’s take a look and help him out. – E]

 

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An E-Verser sends in a quote on last week’s articles about the recent resurgence of independent bookstores:

 

“If you want to make a little money in a bookstore, start out with a lot of money.”

 

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A Savannah E-Verser who directs and writes wonderful films invites you to a fundraising concert for his movie The Bottom. For more information, please visit:

 

 

 

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A reader writes in: “I’ve got a ‘Place you’ve got to visit,’ just be careful and please don’t drink the water . . .”

 

 

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E-Verse Unbelievable but Real Film Title of the Week: 

 

Spanking Machine, The (1995)

 

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Lightning can reach thirty miles long and is less than an inch thick.

 

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A reader writes in on the fact that “a cow’s only sweat glands are in its nose”:
 
“Well, that explains everything.”

 

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Frankenstein, Missouri

 

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A deceit of lapwings

 

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Contemporary poets and critics discuss the life and work of the poet Hart Crane upon the publication of The Library of America’s HART CRANE: COMPLETE POEMS & SELECTED LETTERS. With Langdon Hammer, editor of the new volume, Herbert Leibowitz, Wayne Koestenbaum, Brian Reed, and David Yezzi. Moderated by Rachel Cohen.

 

Monday, October 23, 6:30pm
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street (Skylight Room)
NYC

 

Admission is free.

Co-presented by the Poetry Society of America & The Center for the Humanities, CUNY.

Contact: 212-254-9628

 

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“As ever, I suspect that your E-Verse lists are designed more towards the devilment of inciting dispute than to pin down supportable listings. But I will point out that Ben Jonson indisputably killed a man and, unlike anybody on today’s list, is indubitably important.”

 

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