THE COEN BROTHERS' TRUE GRIT

John Wayne's True Grit

by guest blogger Duane Spurlock

Spur and Lock Mercantile
http://spurandlock.blogspot.com/

During the Silent Era and Hollywood's Golden Age, when westerns were a regularly produced film genre, new films based on western novels and stories were commonplace. New western fiction appeared weekly on newsstands and on bookstore shelves, and Hollywood producers saw little need for remaking a western movie that already had been based on a prose work.

Therefore the number of western films that have had remakes is relatively low. Consider, then, the number of western remakes of movies already assigned classic status. A smaller number still, right?

Look at this in another manner – how many western films have been based on books whose remakes have been produced during the original author's lifetime?

Can you count 'em on one hand? I can, if I don't take time to gargle the Internet for further research (other than to double-check some dates) . . .

Bees In The Butterfly Garden, novel by Maureen Lang

Bees In The Butterfly Garden

A note from Maureen Lang:

I always say whatever book I'm working on is my favorite, but even though I'm on to a new project I readily admit having had special fun with Bees In The Butterfly Garden.

First, it's set in New York City's Gilded Age—a time easy to romanticize if you stick to those who gilded the era. Lots of wealth to be found amid a developing brand of American aristocracy . . . a world in which a thief's daughter never should have been invited.

That's right, my heroine Meg is the daughter of a thief. Only Meg never knew that her father has been a thief since she was a bit older than a toddler, after the death of her mother. He protected her from the truth by sending her to be raised at an exclusive New England school for girls. Living among the rich, trained to be a lady, Meg nonetheless missed the one thing she's never had in her life: a father's love. Little did she know he loved her in the only way he knew how, by shielding her from himself.

A DREAM OF HIS OWN, new novel by Gail Gaymer Martin

A Dream Of His Own

The Story:
The only thing philanthropist Quinn O'Neill wants is to forget the accident that took his wife and son. He doesn't expect a fender bender with a lovely stranger to change his life in a major way. Struggling single mom Ava Darnell and her teenage son have their own hardships.

What better way for him to lend a hand than through the Dreams Come True Foundation? But helping Ava means earning her trust…and having faith that dreams of healing and family just might become reality.

PRISON BREAK by Janet Chester Bly

When you want peace from the stress of life, if you can play your own instrument. . .or sing a power song. . .or create your own surround sound, that's a bonus.

I enjoy pleasurable memories of my mother playing "Moonlight Sonata" or one of many other classics she mostly played by ear on her antique upright piano.

Singer Pam Thum

Pam Thum told interviewer Camerin J. Courtney in Today's Christian Woman that she was raised by traveling evangelist parents. They produced dramas for the road.

"But moving around every month or so was really hard. We'd pull into a new town and I'd go up to the kids and say, 'Hi, my name's Pam. Want to be my best friend for four weeks?"

She'd find some pals, then cry when they left town.

"I was a happy, bubbly kid on the outside, but deep inside I was lonely. With friends constantly ripped from me, I became fearful of goodbyes."

She found peace in her music, in helping her fans not to feel so lonely through her songs.

Paul and Silas in prison

Charged with disturbing the peace, the magistrates ordered Paul and Silas to be stripped, beaten, flogged and tossed in jail (Acts 16). Talk about a very bad, no good day.

But instead of griping or cursing or wailing, Paul and Silas sang hymns. That got the ground to quake so hard, the prison rumbled, the doors flew open, and chains broke loose. Tossed like dirty, bloody mops into a moldy cellar, this pair praised God. Then, they refused to escape when they had a chance, on account of maybe saving some soul. In this case, the jailer's and all his household.

Their peace when they got an unfair shaft changed a whole family's eternal destiny.

How about trying to create music during your next torment that seems like a prison and see what happens? For you. For your circumstance. For those around you. You never know. You might walk out healed and free. And take some others with you.

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Find free downloads of articles by Janet Chester Bly, including "31 Ways To Win The Fight For Personal Peace" at http://www.BlyBooks.com 

 

Find out more about Pam Thum at http://www.PamThum.com 

Pam Thum CD, DVD & Devo Book