By Staff
A new book, "The Castle in the Forest," by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer – his first novel in 10 years since visiting Dowagiac – is scheduled for release in January 2007, according to his publisher, Random House.
Mailer's last novel, "The Gospel According to the Son," told the story from Christ's point of view and had just been published when he arrived at the fifth Dogwood Fine Arts Festival on May 16, 1997.
Mailer won the Pulitzer for the amazing "The Executioner's Song" (1979), his "true live novel" chronicling the life and death of Utah killer Gary Gilmore.
"Armies of the Night" (1968), a non-fiction book about the anti-Vietnam war march on the Pentagon, won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.
Labor Day 2006: Michigan union membership fell to 20.5 percent in 2005 from 26 percent in 1989, yet remains well above the national average, 12.5 percent. Only five states' union membership rates reach 20 percent, along with New York, Hawaii, New Jersey and Alaska. Loss of well-paid union jobs figures in Michigan's median household income falling more than any other state during the last six years as productivity gains reduced the need for factory workers.
37 million: Number of Americans living below the poverty line in 2005. The number of people without health insurance climbed for the sixth straight year to 46.6 million. Michigan's poverty rate is 13.2 percent, Indiana's 12.2 percent. The last decline in the poverty rate was in 2000, during the Clinton administration.
Journalism outsourcing: Chicago's Tribune Co., which owns daily newspapers in 10 U.S. cities, is eliminating 250 jobs at circulation call centers and shifting the operation to the Philippines to save costs. Calls about circulation and delivery will be turned over to Deerfield, Ill.-based APAC Customer Services Inc., which has operations in the Philippines.
Homework outsourcing: A new government report found that 80 percent of students entitled to after-school tutoring at taxpayer expense under the No Child Left Behind Act aren't getting it. Enter TutorVista, of Bangalore, India, which last fall began providing online tutoring to U.S. students in everything from grammar to geometry. TutorVista offered to provide a year of free tutoring to kids in the 10 poorest rural counties in the United States. "There is plenty of work to go around," TutorVista Chairman Krishnan Ganesh dismisses critics who lament shipping more jobs overseas. "The American educational system is pathetic."
Quips, quotes and qulunkers: "I wish someone would try to blow up a plane using New Age music, so I wouldn't have to sit and listen to (it) while people are boarding."
– David Rees
"I wouldn't have written 'Hey Ya!' if it weren't for the Hives … I went crazy for the Ramones … I have posters of all my favorites (in his home studio in the middle of his living room): Coltrane, Hendrix, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Marley and Prince."
– Andre '3000' Benjamin
of OutKast
"On the new season of 'Survivor,' the four teams are a white team, a black team, a Hispanic team and an Asian team … They should replace Jeff Probst with Mel Gibson, just for fun."
– Jimmy Kimmel
"I look at it as this most ethnically diverse group ever seen on television. I don't believe you can go back to a show that's 80 percent white after doing this (13th) season (beginning Sept. 14 with 20 castaways in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific) … Hunger does not discriminate."
– host Jeff Probst. General Motors coincidentally pulled its advertising from the CBS series after being a sponsor since the May 2000 premiere to shift media dollars to sports, award shows and other big events.
Anniversary to come: Bill Clinton, 60. The Rolling Stones will perform a rare theater show at New York's Beacon Theatre on Oct. 29 filmed by Martin Scorsese. Proceeds benefit the William J. Clinton Foundation, which fights AIDS and global poverty, speaking of which…
Bono and five associates in Elevation Partners bought a 40-percent share of Forbes magazine and several other Forbes Media properties for a reported $250 million to $300 million.
And if that isn't interesting enough, flat-taxin' Steve Forbes, a 1996 presidential candidate, claims to be a U2 fan. " 'One' is my favorite U2 song," he told the New York Times. As for the Irish rock band, work has begun on the follow-up to 2004's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb."
Bono lives in France "because the French are so snobbish and into themselves that they don't even notice you."
The peace plan for Lebanon called for a French contingent of 15,000. "Honestly," Stephen Colbert said, "the difference between 200 French troops and 15,000 French troops is just fewer French prisoners."
Keith Richards, "the Wile E. Coyote of rock and roll," vacationed in August in France after falling from a Fiji palm tree.
In other fall music news: Speaking of '96, that's when Michigan's own Bob Seger began writing songs for his next album after finishing his tour. His kids were 1 and 3. "Face the Promise," his first self-produced effort, is finally finished. "It turned out, I got real into my kids," Seger, 61, told Rolling Stone. "I spent most of my time doing a lot of other stuff, like going to tee ball games and cheerleading practice." The first single, "Wait for Me," is a ballad said to recall his 1980 hit, "Against the Wind."
An 11-year wait is nothing to a Who fan: "Endless Wire," out Oct. 30, is their first studio album in 24 years, since "It's Hard."
The Killers: Frontman Brandon Flowers acknowledged Bruce Springsteen's influence on the Las Vegas band's sophomore follow-up to "Hot Fuss." Drummer Ronnie Vannucci credits the bombastic bent to another arena rock act, the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), which I saw pop out of its flying saucer after opener Heart stole the show.
"All these bands have one thing in common: They write huge, anthemic hits. That's the kind of band … we've become."
Rolling Stone also says "Sam's Town," out Oct. 3, brims with Queen-like harmonies, synthesizers and "orchestral flourishes." Sept. 3 I heard "When You Were Young."
Obit: Glenn Ford, 90, whom I used to watch in Westerns, was found dead Aug. 30 at his California home. At a May tribute, Dowagiac visitor Shirley Jones, who co-starred with him in the comedy "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," that later became a TV series featuring Bill Bixby, called Ford "one of the cornerstones of our industry, and there aren't many left." He appeared n 85 films from 1939 to 1991.
Osama bin Laden may lust after Whitney Houston, but Bob Dylan has muses, too – Scarlett Johansson, riding the Coney Island Cyclone in his new video, and Alicia Keyes, whose name he drops in "Thunder on the Mountain" in his latest five-star release, "Modern Times."
She's not sure why. Perhaps because he recorded the album in her old stompin' grounds, Hell's Kitchen. His 31st studio release since 1962 is pronounced his third straight masterpiece after 1997 Grammy winner "Time Out of Mind" and 2001's "Love and Theft," released on 9/11.
Toward the end of RS's Sept. 7 cover, the man who owns the Sixties, confirms the feeling he left me with in the outfield in South Bend with his somewhat defensive introduction: "I always wanted to stop when I was on top. I didn't want to fade away. I didn't want to be a has-been, I wanted to be somebody who'd never be forgotten … I think I'm in my middle years now. I've got no retirement plans" at 65. If he's recorded a trilogy, it started with "Love and Theft," not "Time Out of Mind," he said.
Obit: Robert Hoffman, 59, a former Coca-Cola executive who, in 1969, along with two fellow Harvard students, co-founded National Lampoon, died of leukemia in Dallas.
Not exactly how Israel planned it: Hezbollah's "Jihad for Reconstruction" consolidates Lebanese support after 34 days of conflict ended in a draw, making it harder to disarm.
First, Hamas, famous for suicide bombings in Israel, became majority party in the Palestinian Authority. Hezbollah, founded in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, is a Shiite political organization Iran backs.
In fact, the Tehran regime reportedly dispatched $150 million in cash for reconstruction projects and insurance against any potential Israeli or U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Washington's initial $50 million aid offer quickly ballooned to $230 million.
Hezbollah isn't being charitable, but with the United States and its Arab allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan blindsided, handing out $10,000 to $12,000 grants to 15,000 homeless families is winning the battle for hearts and minds.
July's war caused $3.6 billion damage, displaced 974,184 and left 1,183 people dead, according to the Lebanese government.
Within a day of the cease fire, Hezbollah moved in bulldozers and earth-moving equipment to clear debris. Sixty-three percent of Israelis want Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gone. Their military is no longer regarded as invincible, making the Jewish state determined to strike harder next time.