Little Library's Book Review

 

A very brief glimpse of the life of Shirley Temple is neatly explained in this 29-page book by John Bankston, which is geared for both young and old readers.

This Blue Banner Biography book highlights the beginning and end to Temple’s movie career. Shirley Temple was born in April of 1928, and from 1935-1938 she was the biggest box office attraction at the movies.

When Temple was 3-years-old, her mother enrolled her in The Ethel Meglin Dance Studio. Temple advanced quickly, and with less then 10 months of dance lessons, she harnessed her lessons with her natural skill and rhythm as a dancer.

The 1930s Baby Burlesk short comedies showcased children mimicking adults with a combination of innocence and secularism. The Baby Burlesk movies paid the preschool aged Temple $50.00 a week and her mother, Gertrude an additional $5.00 a week.

When Temple was 4 years in 1933, she was in feature films earning a $150.00 a week while her mother was making $25.00 per week.  

   

Temple made several movies with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson who became a famous dancer when he was 8-years-old in the 1880s. Bojangles and Temple were the first interracial dance duo in American movies. I highly recommend watching the stair dance Temple and Bojangles did in the 1935 movie, “The Little Colonel.”  

By the time Temple was 21-years-old, she was done making movies.  In 1998, she told Jet magazine, Bojangles was her favorite star, and she called him Uncle Billy in the Jet magazine interview, as she did when she acted, danced, and sung with him in the 1930s.

An easy four star read.

Mark Izzy Schurr

"Face It," Blondie's Book Reviewed

 

Sexual exploits of Blondie were filmed once in the 1960s, and what happened to that footage is perhaps absorbed in the cosmic ether of the 60s, Blondie said.

Debbie Harry, aka Blondie was 15-years-old in 1960, and her October, 2019 book “Face It” is a morose memoir of her life, she said.

“Face It” was marvelously morose to me, and very seldom, was it morose. Debbie Harry candidly talks about her sexuality and drug use in “Face It” and eloquently details living and working with all male bandmates in New York during the decade of the 1960s and mid-70s.  

Blondie showcases a lot of artwork, all from her fans in “Face It.” People have been sending her artwork since the infancy of her musical career, which she saves, and she pays tribute to many of these artists in this book. She was given a “Vultures” T-shirt in the 1970s, pictured below, and she still has the same shirt.  

Debbie Harry has a fascinating way of explaining the general facts about herself, her parents and her upbringing. Debbie Harry’s life is more than book worthy, and she seized my attention with her poetry and unique writing style.

Debbie Harry referenced childbirth from the baby’s perspective, as forcing your way into the world. Harry was born in 1945 and adopted by Richard and Cathy Harry when she was six months old. They changed her name to Deborah, which prior was Angela Trimble. The way Harry describes herself as a being a Love Child is incredibly positive and inspiring. Read “Face It” if you want to experience the full fragrance of fascination, generated from the chapter, “Love Child.”  

“The Blondie Loft,” 2,000 square feet was where she and the band lived, rehearsed and even did a show. The bands 1970s and 80s hits, Call Me,” Heart of Glass” and One Way or Another,” have definitively withstood the test of time, along with numerous other songs.

Psychedelic events were merely induced delusions, Blondie was a fractured psyche in the midst of heightened states, guitarist Chris Stein said.

It’s no surprise a young band in the 60s was in a musical culture of getting high. Despite the occasional abuses of heroin, LSD and cocaine, Debbie Harry not only survived the 60s, she thrived through it.

Even if your unfamiliar with Blondie’s music, writing, or acting, “Face It” is a mind adventure in the life of the musical icon, we call Blondie.

The fervent details of her own intrigues and obsessions omitted passion to the reader. Blondie’s natural beauty catered to the camera’s eye and her penchant detail to music spawned a musical revolution, or at least provided the world with timelessly fun music.

In “Face It,” Blondie talked about the sexuality of women in pictures, and even the dark side of mainstreaming actual girls as sex objects. When Brooke Shields was 10-years-old, her mother signed a permission document allowing Shields to pose nude and oiled in a bathtub for a Playboy press publication, “Sugar and Spice.”

Does a picture reveal the darker secrets of our souls? Blondie is clear and concise when she details the beliefs of the Aboriginal people, who claim a photograph is part of some mystical image bank, a type of Akashic record.

Blondie reveals some extremely personal secrets about Phil Spector and what David Bowie enjoyed showing off to men and women when his senses were heightened by cocaine.  

“How do we edit our life into a decent story? What to embellish, what to downplay? What’s going to compel, what might bore?” Blondie said in “Face It.”

Five stars for “Face It.”     

Mark Izzy Schurr

Coup Klux Klan, Treason on January 6, 2021

 

When fascism comes to America, it will be cloaked in American flags, Stephen Colbert said, slightly altering the words of James Waterman Wise.

Colbert’s quote came after Tuesday’s, Jan. 6, 2021 attempted coup in which nine people were killed, and more than a 140 injured while rioting in the nation’s capital, simply because their sore losers and cult followers of former Fascist in Chief, Donald J. Trump.

Trump's then lawyer, Rudy Giuliani did not get a single judge in America to side with his baseless claims of election fraud. The courts of the U.S. want more evidence than what is posted on Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. 

"Trump had his days in court to challenge the results of the election, and he was within his rights to do so. He lost in the courts, just as he did in the ballot box...January 6 was a brazen attempt to overthrow the government, the violence was no accident, it represented Trump's last stand," U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson said. 

Trump's election fraud claims were so frivolous and ludicrous, to the point where his lead lawyer, Rudy Giuliani not only lost his cases in court, but also his licence to practice law.     

The people who stormed the capital on January 6, 2021 have eagerly embraced decisive misinformation they have heard at Trump rallies for the last five years. We don’t decide elections on whose most upset, we decide them on who gets the most votes, Colbert said.

Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million votes, and most importantly, annihilated Trump on the electoral college votes, 306-232, the same margin of victory Trump won in the 2016 election. Any candidate who receives at least 270 electoral votes wins the election.  

 Amid the treason and sub moronic actions of the feeble-minded followers of the then Traitor in Chief, Trump praised his posse who murdered a federal police officer, and injured more than a 110 other federal  officers, including at least one who lost one if not more fingers. 

“…We love you, (rioters) you’re very special,” Trump said.  

Insane trust in blatant lies is the reason officer Brain D. Sicknick was slain by Trump supporters. Sicknick died on Thursday, January, 8, 2021 from injuries he sustained from the heinous worshippers of Trump. Trump said the rioters were totally appropriate in what they did on January 6. Totally appropriate? A federal police officer was killed in honor of Trump, by his insane loyalist, and Trump continues to fan the flames of hate and lies. 

Rosanne Boyland, a 34-year-old, was among the nine others killed in Washington D.C., on January 6. 2021. Boyland was a hard-right Trump supporter, as were three other victims of his politically induced rage.  

“It’s my own personal believe that the president’s words and rhetoric incited a riot that killed four of his biggest fans,” Justin Cave, Boyland’s brother in-law said.  

While his treasonous supporters stormed the nation’s capital, Trump did absolutely nothing for more than three hours, despite phone calls from his government agency loyalist to get on TV and Twitter, to call off his 100s, if not 1,000s of violent followers. 

At one point during this nefarious insanity, Trump told the Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy over the phone, these are not my people, these are Antifia. If it was Antifia, why didn't Trump call in the National Guard? Either way, Trump is a sadistic fool. He's vehemently against Antifia, but if these rioters were Antifia, then he loves them, remember his final message to the rioters, we love you, you're very special. If you believe the January 6, 2021 riots were done by Antifia, you really are stupid. 

Trump supporters are nothing but entertainment for him, and a steady stream of merchandise sales. Believers in Trump live in another universe which is currently collapsing in on itself. It’s like a black hole of whiteness Colbert said. 

The Times of India called America’s treason; "Coup Klux Klan: Don Triggers Mob & Rob Bid".

Republican senators Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn and Josh Hawley relish in the ruin of democracy, as does our former Racist in Chief.

Cruz, Blackburn and Hawley are among many republican senators who aided Trump in fermenting this insurrection against our government. The people who got into the Capital building to destroy and loot are ignorant, and their faces are on camera and their crimes are documented.

Republican senators, Cruz, Blackburn and Hawley are the real criminals, along with Trump and too many other republican senators who cater to Trump’s twisted view of power and money with no regard for the law or the constitution Colbert said. 

"Trump's conduct on January 6, (2021) was a supreme violation of his oath of office and a complete dereliction of his duty to our nation. It's a stain on our history, a dishonor to all those who have sacrificed and died in service of our democracy," Representative Adam Kinzinger said.     

Mark Izzy Schurr