CURRENT EVENTS

Happy Labor Day

BOOK OF THE WEEK

Recently, I have watched a number of film versions of this book, so I decided to read the book. It is actually, a fairly easy book to read.

The Great Gatsby

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

I suspect many of you have either read the book or seen a movie version of the book, so you folks may find the following of interest.

American socialite and heiress Ginevra King pictured on the July 1918 cover of Town & Country magazine. In January 1915, a 16-year-old King met future novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Love-struck at first sight, Fitzgerald courted King for several years. He visited her father’s estate several times, and Ginevra wrote in her diary that she was “madly in love with him.” However, Ginevra’s upper-class family openly discouraged Fitzgerald’s courtship of their daughter because of his lower-class status, and her father purportedly told him that “poor boys shouldn’t think of marrying rich girls”.

Rejected by Ginevra’s family as a suitor because of his lack of financial prospects, a suicidal Fitzgerald enlisted in the United States Army amid World War I. Ginevra King later served as the inspiration for the character of Daisy Buchanan in Fitzgerald’s literary masterwork The Great Gatsby. (Source: Wikipedia)

 

 

MOVIES OF THE WEEK

In August of this year, I watched all four of these film versions of The Great Gatsby and found it a rewarding experience. Oh hindsight, I wish I had read the book first, rather than last. 

 

 

 

MUSIC OF THE WEEK

The Great Gatsby Charleston Swing Party

by DJ Electro Swingable Mix

ART OF THE WEEK

The Chrysler Building

The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan, New York City. At 1,046 feet, it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel framework, and was the world’s tallest building for 11 months after its completion in 1930. (Source: Wikipedia)

  EXTRAORDINARY PERSON  OF THE WEEK

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, short story and screenwriter. He was best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularized.

During his lifetime, he published four novels, four collections of short stories, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death, and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

Born into a middle-class family in St. Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York. He attended Princeton University, but owing to a failed relationship with socialite Ginevra King and a preoccupation with writing, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army.

While stationed in Alabama, he romanced Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery’s exclusive country-club set. Although she rejected Fitzgerald initially, because of his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.

His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the “Lost Generation” expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway.

His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now widely praised, with some labeling it the “Great American Novel”.

Following the deterioration of his wife’s mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).

Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works amid the Great Depression, Fitzgerald turned to Hollywood, writing and revising screenplays. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44.

His friend Edmund Wilson completed and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald’s death.

  JOKE OF THE WEEK

PHYSICAL TRAITS

Tips From World Famous Chef Ronaldo

Here is this week’s tip from Chef Ronaldo

CHARACTER TRAITS 

SOCIAL TRAITS

LEARNING TRAITS

MISCELLANEOUS