by Richard Subber | Oct 18, 2026 | Human Nature, Reflections
such gentle tendernesses…
Movie review:
Driving Miss Daisy
I guess it’s fair to say that every old lady who can’t drive any more needs a guy like Hoke Colburn to take her where she needs to go.
Even if she’s almost too cranky for words.
Jessica Tandy is the almost inexpressively cranky old lady named Daisy Werthan, who keeps on giving Hoke (played by Morgan Freeman) a run for his money every time he takes her for a run in her big old car down there in Alabama. At first she doesn’t seem to mind much at all that Hoke is a black man. Maybe the fact that she’s an old Jewish lady has something to do with that.
A couple subplots in Driving Miss Daisy (1989, rated PG, 99 minutes) are welcome extensions of what becomes the blossoming relationship between Hoke and Miss Daisy.
You don’t need to work too hard to figure out how the story ends.
You do need to keep watching with love in your heart, right up to the end, so you can feel the luxury of a good ending, and watch one of the best movie endings you’re likely to see: there are almost indescribably gentle tendernesses.
Almost forgot: there is a filmed version of a 2013 Australian theater production of Driving Miss Daisy starring Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones. It’s not as good as the 1989 movie. Ditto for the 1992 TV version starring Joan Plowright and Robert Guillaume.
* * * * * *
Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
“…and dipped in folly…”
only Poe knows how to say it…
–
many waters: more poems with 53 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Sep 26, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
the doctor wants to help you,
you good with that?
Book review:
Black Man in a White Coat:
A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine
by Dr. Damon Tweedy
New York: Picador, 2015
294 pages
There is only one mystery about Black Man in a White Coat. The mystery existed for me before I read it. I had a more informed understanding of the mystery after I read it. Why is Tweedy’s story so damnably true?
Tweedy is a black doctor in a world with mostly white doctors, a world with too many people who disdain black doctors or don’t want to be treated by them.
Read Dr. Tweedy’s candid and insightful story of his own life—professional and personal—walk a mile in his shoes, and then tell a friend how you feel about your own life.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Scarlet Letter
the beating hearts…by Nathaniel Hawthorne
–
In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Sep 15, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
it’s good storytelling
Book review:
Brian’s Hunt
by Gary Paulsen (1939-2021)
New York: Ember, Random House Children’s Books, 2003
103 pages
Gary Paulsen writes for young people, but any adult reader can readily see that the stories are realistic, and fully readable. It’s good storytelling.
Brian’s Hunt is about a teenage boy who is at home in the woods, can survive on his own, and ultimately hunts a bear that is hunting him. Brian is a completely credible character. When he walks at the water’s edge, the reader can feel the mud between his toes.
The story line is simple and singular. The challenges of life in the wild are all too easy to experience vicariously. There is learning.
There is the satisfaction of the preferred outcome.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (book review)
consistent tension, a page turner…
by Erik Larson
–
As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Aug 27, 2026 | American history, History, Human Nature, Politics, Power and inequality
Do a good thing today…
“…the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (1913-2005)
You remember…Rosa Parks wouldn’t give her seat
to a white man on the bus in Montgomery in 1955…
* * * * * *
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
The Scarlet Letter, victim of Hollywood
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s version is best
–
Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Jul 30, 2026 | Human Nature, Tidbits
Tina was my favorite kicker.
“You can’t dance in a long dress.”
Anna Mae Bullock (Tina Turner) (1939-2023)
The simple truths may not be the true-est, but they are the most remember-ful.
I’m a Tina Turner fan, and after reading this terpsichorean quote, I understand even better exactly why I’m a Tina Turner fan.
Tina was the exotic essence of vitality, with a decent dose of sexuality and a potent dollop of magnificent obsession.
When Tina performed, she was All.
All in, all out, all Tina, all right, all zippity, all extra well done, all flash dance without the welding helmet.
I think Tina had no intention to titillate when she said “You can’t dance in a long dress.”
I think she purely meant to make it real clear that you have to be able to kick when you’re proving to yourself that you’re alive. Alive!
Dance like no one is watching you!
* * * * * *
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Lafayette by Harlow Unger
He was a great man. Also rich and lucky.
–
As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Jul 16, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Reflections
it’s not the last obscenity…
Book review:
Aging: An Apprenticeship
Nan Narboe, ed.
Portland, OR: Red Notebook Press, 2018
286 pages
Narboe created a handy and wide-ranging collection of reflections on the art, science, and humanity of the aging process. More than 50 authors tell it like they think it is, for folks nearing the increasingly ordinary age of 50, and for folks in their 50s, 60s, 70s , 80s, and 90s and beyond. If you’re not in one of those groups, you will be sooner than you think.
Of course, the explicit premise of most of the authors in Aging: An Apprenticeship is that life can be good (or not), aging happens to everyone, and dying is the end game.
Gloria Steinem’s contribution is on point, completely tolerable, and instructive. She says:
“After all, we are communal creatures
who must mirror each other to know who we are.
Every living thing ages and dies,
yet humans seem to be the only species
that thinks about aging and thinks about dying.
Surely, we are meant to use this ability,
especially in a country
that suffers so much from concealing aging and dying
as if they were the last obscenities.”
For Aging: An Apprenticeship, Narboe has collected essays that range from whimsical to doggone serious. Each author offers a very personal argument that aging and dying are 100% natural.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
A quote from General Custer
Hint: something to do with Indians…
–
In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
