Hepburner
Full Member
'Enemies are so stimulating'
Posts: 180
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Post by Hepburner on Nov 8, 2006 4:55:46 GMT -5
Why is there not a thread on this already?
Firstly let me say - I ADORED THIS BOOK! Isnt it fantastic!? A true insight to a Hollywood film set...in Africa. Absolutely mind boggling stuff here - how they managed to pull this film off - and SO WELL - is beyond me!, and this account of the whole fiasco is perfectly written by Kate. Such her-nesses throughout it are such a joy. I especially (for reasons unbeknownst even to me) loved the bit where she said of John Huston: "I did not believe for an instant that he was ill. Just thought he was fascinating around and not working".
Fascinating around? OH! how I laughed.
Anyway, the point is, I thought this book was fantastic. But I feel kind of bad about owning it. Heres why.
I bought it off a woman here in New Zealand where I live, via the internet and a site called TradeMe. TradeMe is, essentially, like ebay, but on the much smaller scale that is obvious by the fact that it, for the most part, exists only within New Zealand. Its mostly for New Zealanders to trade online. Anyway, she had bought the book for (I suspect) about $2, maybe up to about $5 from a local library where she lives in Nelson. The library had cancelled the book, which basically meant they weren't going to stock it on the shelves no more, and put it in a box near the front of the library for people to buy dirt cheap. Like, for instance, maybe a few dollars. This woman bought it, obviously realized it was of more value than that - even though it was an ex-library book - and put it on TradeMe. I then bought it from her for $15. Now, thats New Zealand currency. In American thats about $7.50. In pounds or I guess its about 5. I'm not too sure about european money. But yeah...HOW CHEAP IS THAT!?
And I can assure you that it is in fabulous condition. I was in fact quite suprised. Naturally I bought it anyway, but I was really expecting it to be in very poor condition. But its marvelous. And what a bargain! I cant help but feel guilty. The poor girl who sold it! Had she put it on ebay, I'm sure she would have gotten a much higher price for it, because there would be SOOOO many more obsessive Hepburn fans like us, prepared to pay lots for it. Ah well. So I feel guilt. But also I cant help but think - 'screw it...its mine now. MINE!'
And I love it. What do ya'll think of the book?
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Post by dreamer on Nov 8, 2006 7:35:23 GMT -5
Hi Shane, congratulations to your book and be happy Love it But mine is in German - and the translation is - miss the feeling of her voice - even though I'm used to the synchronizing from German TV, which I can watch as well - it is not the same. Bought it on a holiday - which I regret - after reading the original. The same with - Kate Remembered, which a friend send me "Ein Jahrhundertleben" in German - and the translation was very bad, infact worse - they even had skipped hole sentences, sometimes giving a different meaning - so I bought it again in English The Making of The African Queen: Or How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall, and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind is one of the funniest books I have read - can only recommend it ;D The title say's it all
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Post by martha on Jan 1, 2008 1:33:59 GMT -5
love this book. love it solo .. and in collections (as i witnessed in a pile of editions in a number of languages) at the southeby auction display a few days before the auction in 2004 ..) .. its kate's vocal rhythm and humor for sure .. just as ME .. a charming memoir.
love it.
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Post by martha on Jun 28, 2008 2:17:01 GMT -5
just bumping this existing thread on kate's AFRICAN QUEEN memoir .. 'cause a member created a new thread about it .. let's use this old one to chat. .. ditto my previous comments about 'vocal rhythms' .. yummy.
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Post by courtneymarie on Sept 12, 2009 19:31:38 GMT -5
I have to admit that I don't own this book ...I just finished reading it though after borrowing it from my school library... I loved it from cover to cover...it was funny and insightful I really loved and had to re-read this one portion to know if I had understood it right the first time... on page 58 she is discussing John Huston coming to visit one morning for breakfast and she tells him: "John, I like to eat breakfast alone. I like to think and read and write and contemplate-I always feel great when I wake up and I don't like idle conversation at that hour." I like idle conversation with only one, I should say-and he wasn't there." I believe that she is talking about Spence right I really just had to stop at that passage There are so many other great parts as well Court
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Post by HollywoodHepcat on Sept 12, 2009 22:41:24 GMT -5
Oh, it's insightful all right. Who in their right mind [Read: Descriptor does not always apply to Katharine Hepburn] believes that something constructed out of this material: "Greetings, I'm a cardboard rocket ship. If you pee in me I will leak. Please do repeat this nugget of wisdom. Me? In no way a porta-potty, so you can go right ahead and pull those pants back up. Thanks and a good day to you, sir." [Sidenote: If it were still socially acceptable for me to play in this totally pimped out rocket ship without the searing rays of judgement, I would be FLYING THIS THING TO MARS AND BACK IN TIME FOR LUNCHABLES. This probably stems from that one time when I convinced myself that I was Princess Lea for 3 years. I'm talking piggy-tails fashioned into side-buns and vehement feminist rants on why Leia never got a decent light saber fight, back before I even knew what the word "feminist" meant. Yeah, wasn't overly popular at the girls' lunch table.] Anyway. I had a point some...........time. So, who -- besides Kate, a newborn, and a small, not yet housebroken puppy -- presumes that a cardboard ANYthing is appropriate to double-function as a makeshit toilet?! WHAT EVEN??!! That's pretty much all I took away from TMOTAQOHIWTAWBBAHAALMM. Oh, and that at one point in life there was a man named Tahili Bakumba. And once he hopped down a trail like Peter Cottontail, never to be seen of or heard from again. (PS, Best acronym for a book title ever? Yes! I THINK SO!)
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Post by Judy on Sept 12, 2009 22:58:35 GMT -5
I actually think that if you tossed all the books about Kate in the garbage - and let's face it, that's where most belong, 'cept for the pictures - the one with the great acronym is the one I'd keep - okay, and yes, Kanin's book, too...and Me.... But this one is perhaps my favorite. I always recommend it by saying that anything you want/need to know about Katharine Hepburn is in this slim (like the woman herself) volume: Her loyalties, humor, devotion to her work, general menchiness and sense of fun. Does it tell you EVERYTHING about her? Why, no, of course not. Just the important stuff.
Oh, and you, kid - in the cardboard space ship. Cute.
... And you gotta lay at least some of the blame on the train stewards who surely gave EVERYONE a little box, not just Kate.
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Post by HollywoodHepcat on Sept 12, 2009 23:12:57 GMT -5
And I'm not foolin' anybody, because this is my favorite of her books [All two of 'em!].
And, yes, Judy. But did everyone write a memoir 50 years later recanting the time they mistook said tiny box for a potty? She was such a silly lady!! The fact that she even felt comfortable enough with the reading public to share such an intimate and awkward mishap speaks a lot more about Kate than her proclivity for pants--slackswatchyourlanguage. Well..........almost as much.
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Post by HollywoodHepcat on Sept 12, 2009 23:28:51 GMT -5
See, there was my point!!
:-D
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Post by Judy on Sept 13, 2009 10:32:11 GMT -5
Once a urologist's daughter, always a urologist's daughter ;D And I'm not foolin' anybody, because this is my favorite of her books [All two of 'em!]. And, yes, Judy. But did everyone write a memoir 50 years later recanting the time they mistook said tiny box for a potty? She was such a silly lady!! The fact that she even felt comfortable enough with the reading public to share such an intimate and awkward mishap speaks a lot more about Kate than her proclivity for pants--slackswatchyourlanguage. Well..........almost as much.
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Post by HollywoodHepcat on Sept 14, 2009 13:01:36 GMT -5
Or, as a newborn, the fairies sprinkled awkward dust all over her person. Kate's life was essentially an insane fairy tale, so this makes clear sense.
I feel like if I had ever been invited to her house for dinner, she would have chosen that operative moment to dish on what it's like to have a bowel movement after you've recently acquired the clap [aka dysentery]. And then, after not having touched the liver and onions/chipped beef/pile o' gross that Kate had served me, she'd have gotten all hoppin' mad that I didn't think that that time she talked to the British doctor about her potty-time was the most interesting story that has ever been told. And that would have been my last dinner at Kate's place.
Weirdo.
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Post by Judy on Sept 14, 2009 13:09:01 GMT -5
Or, as a newborn, the fairies sprinkled awkward dust all over her person. Kate's life was essentially an insane fairy tale, so this makes clear sense. I feel like if I had ever been invited to her house for dinner, she would have chosen that operative moment to dish on what it's like to have a bowel movement after you've recently acquired the clap [aka dysentery]. And then, after not having touched the liver and onions/chipped beef/pile o' gross that Kate had served me, she'd have gotten all hoppin' mad that I didn't think that that time she talked to the British doctor about her potty-time was the most interesting story that has ever been told. And that would have been my last dinner at Kate's place. Weirdo. Honey - wait till you're in your fifties - when certain things become more important than certain other things - and then come talk to me . . .
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Post by HollywoodHepcat on Sept 14, 2009 13:26:52 GMT -5
Oh, bother.
Like how my mother goes on and on about her mild case of osteoperosis?
All right.
::sits Indian-style and pouts::
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Post by dreamer on Sept 14, 2009 14:38:41 GMT -5
Or, as a newborn, the fairies sprinkled awkward dust all over her person. Kate's life was essentially an insane fairy tale, so this makes clear sense. I feel like if I had ever been invited to her house for dinner, she would have chosen that operative moment to dish on what it's like to have a bowel movement after you've recently acquired the clap [aka dysentery]. And then, after not having touched the liver and onions/chipped beef/pile o' gross that Kate had served me, she'd have gotten all hoppin' mad that I didn't think that that time she talked to the British doctor about her potty-time was the most interesting story that has ever been told. And that would have been my last dinner at Kate's place. Weirdo. Honey - wait till you're in your fifties - when certain things become more important than certain other things - and then come talk to me . . . I love you guys Wait til you get kids - potty talk is then in your daily conversation And you will even applaud
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