Uncategorized « ENTERTAINMENT REALM

9/11 In Memory: AMY SWEENEY

September 11, 2011

I didn’t know Amy Sweeney but growing up in Acton, Mass. knew the hockey-playing Sweeney family.

Amy lived in Acton and was the Flight 11 flight attendant who calmly and bravely provided integral seat information for Mohammed Atta and the other terrorists on Flight 11. I’m proud that she’s from my hometown.

Amy’s last words to American Airlines manager Micheal Woodward: I see water. I see buildings. I see buildings! We are flying low. We are flying very, very low. We are flying way too low. Oh my God we are flying way too low. Oh my god! (American 11 crashes)

Madeline Amy Sweeney Award for Civilian Bravery

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Posted by Amy Steele

HAPPY 38th BIRTHDAY to my Welsh pony Homestead Easter

April 23, 2011

Animals are such agreeable friends– they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
–George Eliot

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Posted by Amy Steele

National Poetry Month: Sylvia Plath

March 20, 2011

Last Words
by Sylvia Plath

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already–the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.
I should sugar and preserve my days like fruit!
My mirror is clouding over —
A few more breaths, and it will reflect nothing at all.
The flowers and the faces whiten to a sheet.

I do not trust the spirit. It escapes like steam
In dreams, through mouth-hole or eye-hole. I can’t stop it.
One day it won’t come back. Things aren’t like that.
They stay, their little particular lusters
Warmed by much handling. They almost purr.
When the soles of my feet grow cold,
The blue eye of my turquoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.
They will roll me up in bandages, they will store my heart
Under my feet in a neat parcel.
I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,
And the shine of these small things sweeter than the face of Ishtar.

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Posted by Amy Steele

POEM: A Pony Named Easter

February 23, 2011

Shiny and black with a white star on her lovely face,
Easter knows what she wants and big horses treat her with grace.

Welsh Mountain is her breed.
Why the name Easter? She happened to be born on the holiday on April 22, 1973.

This Welsh mountain pony is rugged, sometimes stubborn, more often sweet.
She doesn’t mind being out in rain, snow and sleet.

Amy took Easter swimming, on long trail rides and to shows.
She also brushed her as kittens, a-top Easter, curled up and dosed.

Easter moved to a new barn, little bantam chickens would roost on her back.
The pony was round and comfortable and never gave the chickens any flack.

These days she lies out in the sun to nap when she gets tired.
She’s 37-years-old and retired.

Beneath Easter’s barn live a few foxes with dark cinnamon fur and bushy tails.
Many days you can see the foxes running alongside the rails.

In the paddock, the foxes and the pony sometimes stay close to each other.
Although wary of the pony, the foxes and Easter still respect one another

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Posted by Amy Steele

UNSOLVED CASE/ MISSING: my childhood friend Tiffany Sessions

February 9, 2011

Tiffany Sessions went missing 22 years ago. During her sophomore year at University of Florida, Gainesville, Tiffany went out for a walk on February 9, 1989 and never returned.

She was a childhood friend of mine. We rode horses together and also took ice skating lessons.

The case is still very much unsolved though there are some leads here and there.

Tiffany Sessions Project

Anyone with information should contact:
Alachua County Sheriff’s Office
904-955-2500

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Posted by Amy Steele

To continue to review or NOT…

February 2, 2011

This is fun but I’ve been out of real work for so long and reviewing books can be time consuming. I’m also an excellent writer/ reviewer yet have never garnered the recognition and/or respect I feel that I deserve. Publicists don’t solicit me to write reviews. I mostly contact authors or get in touch with publicists. I realize a masters degree is no big deal for anyone living in the Boston area. We all have one. But I do feel that I worked hard to get my masters in journalism many years ago and without it I wouldn’t possess my interview, research and writing skills after much study and persistence to learn techniques.

I’m frustrated.

Publicists tell me I cannot get product unless I have 30K unique hits on my site per month. It’s about quantity and not quality and that discourages and saddens me. I see writers and reviewers with far less skill than me who get ARCS, advance screeners of DVDS or invitations to advance film screenings. It used to be me and is not longer. I’m BLACKLISTED seemingly everywhere in Boston.

Mostly I’m probably wasting time writing reviews that few people read or care about when I should be writing my own memoir or non-fiction work.

I guess I’m giving up. I gave up on music criticism many years ago and started it again recently but now I want to stop it all. The problem is that I enjoy doing it. I don’t consider myself a blogger but a critic, a journalist and yes, there is a distinction. So I’m in a bit of a conundrum.

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Posted by Amy Steele

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

January 17, 2011

Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

A riot is the language of the unheard.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.

I also recommend this book [I read it in my African-American History class at Simmons College]:

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Posted by Amy Steele

Holiday Lights and the BEST Gingerbread House

December 23, 2010

Every year two houses in Belmont set up major lighting displays with none of those weird blow up Santas I’ve seen lately. I pulled over and tried to get a decent picture with my iPhone but it doesn’t capture the “magic.”

On the other hand, EVERY year a local Concord, Mass. doctor creates the most AMAZING Gingerbread house for the Concord Free Public Library. It stays up well into January.