Romantic Tips

** Medical studies show that people in better relationships live longer, healthier lives! ***

*** Forget exercise, vitamins or meditating. The real secret to staying young is love ***

Call to see if you can pick up anything on the way home from work.

Send a dozen roses: 11 red roses and 1 white one. The note: "In every bunch there's one who stands out - and you are that one."

Float a love note in a bottle in the bathtub.

Call him at work and say: "Hello handsome! Are you free tonight?"

"The art of love ... is largely the art of persistence" Dr Albert Ellis

Write him/her a check for one million kisses

Get tulips and attach this note: "I've got two-lips waiting for you!"

Something for the anniversary.... a lottery ticket and a note: "I hit the jackpot when I married you."

Hire a masseuse to give your partner a professional massage at home.

On cold mornings warm up her car.

Bring flowers home for no reason (well, the reason is love).

Love Calculator | Love Meter | Love Test

Love Calculator | Love Meter | Love Test

We all know that a name can tell a lot about a person. Names are not randomly chosen: they all have a meaning. Doctor Love knew this so he made another great invention just for the lonely you!

Sometimes you'd like to know if a relationship with someone could work out. Therefore Doctor Love himself designed this great machine for you. With The Love Calculator you can calculate the probability of a successful relationship between two people. The Love Calculator is an affective way to get an impression of what the chances are on a relationship between two people.

To find out what the chances for you and your dream partner are, just fill in both full names (both first and last name) in the two text boxes below, and press the test.

Love Calculator

Love Calculator | Love Meter | Love Test

"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" Published 1845

"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe about a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death. An example of a tale of suspense and horror, it is also, to a certain degree, a hoax as it was published without claiming to be fictional, and many at the time of publication (1845) took it to be a factual account. Poe toyed with this for a while before admitting it was a work of pure fiction in his "Marginalia."

Plot summary

The narrator presents the facts of the extraordinary case of Valdemar which have incited public discussion. He is interested in Mesmerism, a pseudoscience involving bringing a patient into a hypnogogic state by the influence of magnetism, a process which later developed into hypnotism. He points out that, as far as he knows, no one has ever been mesmerized at the point of death, and he is curious to see what effects mesmerism would have on a dying person. He considers experimenting on his friend Ernest Valdemar, an author whom he had previously mesmerized, and who has recently been diagnosed with phthisis (tuberculosis).

Valdemar consents to the experiment and informs the narrator by letter that he will probably die in twenty-four hours. Valdemar's two physicians inform the narrator of their patient's poor condition. After confirming again that Valdemar is willing to be part of the experiment, the narrator comes back the next night with two nurses and a medical student as witnesses. Again, Valdemar insists he is willing to take part and asks the narrator to hurry, for fear he has "deferred it for too long." Valdemar is quickly mesmerized, just as the two physicians return and serve as additional witnesses. In a trance, he reports first that he is dying - then that he is dead. The narrator leaves him in a mesmeric state for seven months, checking on him daily. During this time Valdemar is without pulse, heartbeat or perceptible breathing, his skin cold and pale.

Finally, the narrator makes attempts to awaken Valdemar, asking questions which are answered with difficulty, his voice seemingly coming from his swollen, blackened tongue. In between trance and wakefulness, Valdemar's tongue begs to quickly either put him back to sleep or to wake him. As Valdemar's voice shouts "dead! dead!" repeatedly, the narrator takes Valdemar out of his trance; in the process, Valdemar's entire body immediately decays into a "nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putrescence."

Analysis

Poe uses particularly detailed descriptions and relatively high levels of gore in "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," suggesting Poe deeply studied medical texts.[1] Valdemar's eyes at one point leak a "profuse outflowing of a yellowish ichor", for example, though Poe's imagery in the story is best summed up in its final lines: "...his whole frame at once — within the space of a single minute, or even less, shrunk—crumbled—absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putrescence." The disgusting imagery almost certainly inspired later fiction including that of H. P. Lovecraft.[2] Those final lines make up one of the most powerfully effective moments in Poe's work, incorporating shock, disgust, and uneasiness into one moment.[3] This ending shows that attempts to appropriate power over death will have hideous results[4] and, therefore, ultimately be unsuccessful.[5]

In Spanish, "Valdemar" roughly translates to "valley of the sea." The name suggests both solid and liquid states; this meaning is emphasized in the imagery in the story as Valdemar's body goes from its normal solid state to liquid in the final climactic lines.[6] Poe also uses teeth as a symbol; he typically uses teeth in his works to symbolize mortality. Other uses include the "sepulchral and disgusting" horse's teeth in "Metzengerstein," obsessing over teeth in "Berenice," and the sound of grating teeth in "Hop-Frog."[7]

Valdemar's death by tuberculosis, and attempts to postpone his death, may have been influenced by Poe's wife, Virginia.[2] At the time of this story's publication, she had been suffering from tuberculosis for four years.[1] Poe's extreme detail in "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" may have been based on Virginia's actual suffering.[6] Additionally, Poe may have been inspired by Andrew Jackson Davis, whose lectures on mesmerism he had attended.[8] Valdemar's death, however, is not portrayed sentimentally as Poe's typical theme of "the death of a beautiful woman" portrayed in other works such as "Ligeia" and "Morella." The death of this male character contrasts as brutal and sensational.[9]

Reception and critical response

Many readers thought the story to be a scientific report. Robert Collyer, an English magnetic healer visiting Boston, wrote to Poe saying that he himself had performed a similar act to revive a man who had been pronounced dead (in truth, the man was actually a drunk sailor who was revived by a hot bath). Another Englishman, Thomas South, used the story as a case study in his book Early Magnetism in its Higher Relations to Humanity in 1846.[10] Medical student George C. Eveleth wrote to Poe: "I have strenuously held that it was true. But I tell you that I strongly suspect it for a hoax."[11] A Scottish reader named Archibald Ramsay wrote to Poe "as a believer in Mesmerism" asking about the story. "It details... most extraordinary circumstances", he wrote, concerned that it had been labeled a hoax. "For the sake of... Science and of truth", he requested an answer from Poe himself. Poe's response: "Hoax is precisely the word suited... Some few persons believe it—but I do not—and don't you."[12] He received many similar letters, replying to one such letter from a friend, he added the succinct postscript: "P.S. The 'Valdemar Case' was a hoax, of course."[13] In the Daily Tribune, editor Horace Greeley noted "that several good matter-of-fact citizens" were tricked by it but "whoever thought it a veracious recital must have the bump of Faith large, very large indeed."[14]

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote to Poe about the story to commend him on his ability of "making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar."[15] Virginia poet Philip Pendleton Cooke also wrote to Poe, calling the story "the most damnable, vraisemblable, horrible, hair-lifting, shocking, ingenious chapter of fiction that any brain ever conceived or hand traced. That gelatinous, viscous sound of man's voice! there never was such an idea before."[16] Literary critic and professor George Edward Woodberry said that the story "for mere physical disgust and foul horror, has no rival in literature."[17] Scholar James M. Hutchisson refers to the story as "probably Poe's most gruesome tale."[18]

Rudyard Kipling, an admirer of Poe, references "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" in his story "In the House of Suddhoo". The story suggests the disastrous results of sorcery in trying to save his sick son's life. One spell requires the head of a dead baby, which seems to speak. The narrator says, "Read Poe's account of the voice that came from the mesmerised dying man, and you will realise less than one half of the horror of that head's voice."[19]

Publication history

While editor of The Broadway Journal, Poe printed a letter from a New York physician named Dr. A. Sidney Doane which recounted a surgical operation performed while a patient was "in a magnetic sleep"; the letter served as inspiration for Poe's tale.[20] "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" was published simultaneously in the December 20, 1845, issue of the Broadway Journal and the December 1845 issue of American Review: A Whig Journal[8]—the latter journal used the title "The Facts in M. Valdemar's Case."[21] It was also republished in England, first as a pamphlet edition as "Mesmerism in Articulo Mortis" and later as "The Last Days of M. Valdemar."[22]

Adaptations

"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" was adapted into film in Argentina in 1960 as a segment of Masterpieces of Horror, first shown in the United States in 1965. It was also one of three Poe-inspired segments in the 1962 film Roger Corman-directed Tales of Terror.[8] It was later adapted by George A. Romero in Two Evil Eyes (1990). The radio drama series Radio Tales produced an adaptation of the story entitled "Edgar Allan Poe's Valdemar" (2000) for National Public Radio. The story was also loosely adapted into the black comedy The Mesmerist (2002).

References

1.^ Stashower, Daniel. The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder. New York: Dutton, 2006: 275. ISBN 052594981X
2.^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York City: Harper Perennial, 1991: 294. ISBN 0060923318
3.^ Elmer, Jonathan. "Terminate or Liquidate? Poe Sensationalism, and the Sentimental Tradition" collected in The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995: 116. ISBN 0801850258
4.^ Selley, April. "Poe and the Will" as collected in Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu, edited by Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, Inc., 1990: 97. ISBN 0961644923
5.^ Hutchisson, James M. Poe. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005: 158. ISBN 1-57806-721-9
6.^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York City: Cooper Square Press, 1992: 179. ISBN 0815410387
7.^ Kennedy, J. Gerald. Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987: 79. ISBN 0300037732
8.^ Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York City: Checkmark Books, 2001: 85. ISBN 081604161X
9.^ Elmer, Jonathan. "Terminate or Liquidate? Poe Sensationalism, and the Sentimental Tradition" collected in The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Shawn Rosenheim and Stephen Rachman. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995: 108. ISBN 0801850258
10.^ Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York City: Harper Perennial, 1991. ISBN 0060923318 p. 294–295
11.^ Phillips, Mary E. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man. Chicago: The John C. Winston Company, 1926: 1189.
12.^ Phillips, Mary E. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man. Chicago: The John C. Winston Company, 1926: 1188–1189.
13.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998: 529. ISBN 0801857309
14.^ Thomas, Dwight & David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987: 603. ISBN 0816187347
15.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. p. 484. ISBN 0801857309
16.^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York City: Cooper Square Press, 1992: 179-180. ISBN 0815410387
17.^ Phillips, Mary E. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man. Chicago: The John C. Winston Company, 1926: 1075.
18.^ Hutchisson, James M. Poe. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005: 157. ISBN 1-57806-721-9
19.^ Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press, 1992: 291. ISBN 0815410387
20.^ Thomas, Dwight & David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987: 498. ISBN 0816187347
21.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998: 470. ISBN 0801857309
22.^ Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998: 516. ISBN 0801857309

happy new year 2011 sms, happy new year wishes

New is the year, new are the hopes and the aspirations,
New is the resolution, new are the spirits and
Forever my warm wishes are for u.
Have a promising and fulfilling new year.

………………….

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning. Happy New Year

………………….

Years come n go, but this year I specially wish 4 u a double dose of health n happiness topped with loads of good fortune. Have a gr8 year ahead! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

………………….

A NEW YEAR
A New Challenge
A New Goal
A New Optimism
A New Aproach
A New Mission
A New Resolution
Wishng U a very
“Happy New year”

………………….

Oh my Dear, Forget ur Fear,
Let all ur Dreams be Clear,
Never put Tear, Please Hear,
I want to tell one thing in ur Ear
Wishing u a very “Happy NEW YEAR“!

………………….

A Happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I’ve played the friend
Have lived and loved and labored here
And made of it a happy year.

………………….

May this New Year bring many opportunities your way, to explore every joy of life and may your resolutions for the days ahead stay firm, turning all your dreams into reality and all your efforts into great achievements.

………………….

If It didn’t Bring you Joy,
Just Leave it Behind.

Let’s Ring in the New Year
With Good Things in Mind.

Let Every Bad Memory
That Brought Heartache and Pain.

And let’s Turn a New Leaf
With the Smell of New Rain.

Let’s Forget Past Mistakes
Making Amends for This Year.

Sending You These Greetings
To Bring You Hope and Cheer.

Happy New Year!

………………….

May ALLAH make ur year a happy one!
Not by shielding you from all sorrows and pain,
But by strengthening you to bear it, as it comes;
Not by making your path easy,
But by making you sturdy to travel any path;
Not by taking hardships from you,
But by taking fear from your heart;
Not by granting you unbroken sunshine,
But by keeping your face bright, even in the shadows;

………………….

“Here is a wishing that the coming year is a glorious one
That rewards all your future endeavors with success”.

………………….

Nights are Dark but Days are Light,
Wish your Life will always be Bright.
So my Dear don’t get Fear
Coz, God Gift us a “BRAND NEW YEAR”.
*HAPPY NEW YEAR*

………………….

I wish U to have a …..
Sweetest Sunday,
Marvellous Monday,
Tasty Tuesday,
Wonderful Wednesday,
Thankful Thursday,
Friendly Friday,
Successful Saturday.
Have a great Year. HAPPY NEW YEAR

………………….

Good time Bad time
Day time Night time
Off time Work time
Happy time Sad time
Naye saal main kisi bhi time
Apun ka sms aa sakta hai..!
Bole to happy new year mamu

………………….

May each day of the coming year be vibrant and
New bringing along many reasons for celebrations.

Wishing you Happy New Year, May u always keep in ur heart the special beauty and cheer of New Year.

………………….

Year’s end is neither an end
nor a beginning
but a going on,
with all the wisdom
that experience
can instill in us.
Happy New Year

………………….

Wishing you a fabulous 2011 with full of great achievements and experiences.
A meaningful chapter waiting to be written HAPPY NEW YEAR!

………………….

When the mid-nite bell rings tonight…
Let it signify new and better things for you,
let it signify a realisation of all things you wish for,
Let it signify a year of courage and believes,
Wishing you a very…very…very prosperious 2011

Tags: happy new year sms hindi, happy new year sms 2011, happy new year wishes, happy new year message, sms new year, new year love sms messages

10 Weirdest and Oddest Stories of 2010

2010 has been a wacky year for many, but few news events have grabbed people quite like the stories here. From the out-of-the box, to the crazy, to the unfortunate 2010 produced some truly memorable news moments including odd 911 calls, drug trafficking parrots, and cat-cooking chefs. Paul the 'Psychic' Octopus was perhaps the year's most famous piece of odd news, but here's a few more than really turned some heads and may have made you chuckle.

The triplets who were born 11 years apart

Ever wonder what you were like when you were growing up? Two 11-year-old sisters in England will have just that chance, thanks to the amazing birth of their newborn triplet who had been on ice since she was conceived more than a decade ago. When Adrian and Lisa Shepherd decided to start a family in 1998, they underwent in vitro fertilization at the Midland Fertility Clinic because Lisa suffered from fertility issues that made traditional conception difficult. Doctors obtained 24 eggs from the mother, 14 of which were successfully fertilized. Two of those embryos were then implanted in Lisa, who gave birth to twins Megan and Bethany in 1999.


The other 12 embryos were placed in cryogenic storage until the family started talking about having another child last year. The Shepherds returned to the clinic, where doctors implanted a third embryo in Lisa that had been conceived on the same day as Megan and Bethany. Ryleigh was born on November 2010 at 7 pounds 10 ounces -- 11 years after her sisters. Experts told the paper it could be the longest age gap between siblings conceived during the same fertility treatment.

(Link | Via)


The man who was shot in the head but only found out 5 years later
A man living in Germany walked around and functioned normally for five years without noticing he had been shot in the head. The .22 caliber bullet was found when the man went to the doctor to have what he thought was a cyst removed. All he could remember was that he had received a blow to the head around midnight at a New Year's party "in 2004 or 2005," but had forgotten about it because he had been "very drunk." The wound later healed around the bullet and it was not until the man decided to have the lump examined due to recurring pains that the discovery was made. (Link)


The man who shot a teenager for wearing baggy pants
Cops in Tennessee say 45-year-old Kenneth Bonds got so angry at a teenager's baggy pants that he shot the young man in the buttocks. In Sept 25, Bonds, who was charged with two counts of aggravated assault, allegedly fired several shots at the 17-year-old after the victim refused to pull up his sagging trousers and called the accused gunman a "fat ass." (Link | Via)


The Taliban insurgents who were training Kalashnikov-armed macaques and baboons to shoot at US troops
A report in China's People's Daily indicated that the Taliban is creating an army of monkey mujahideen. The story that appeared in July 2010 in the Chinese People's Daily suggested that insurgents used a reward-and-punishment system to train macaques and baboons to target soldiers wearing U.S. military uniforms. The Taliban supposedly "taught monkeys how to use the Kalashnikov, Bren light machine gun and trench mortars." But a researcher who has spent his career studying the social life of non-human primates casted a highly critical eye on the story.

"They can be trained to do things like turn off lights and open faucets and so on, but eventually that breaks down," said William Mason, a psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California. The Chinese story cited unnamed British journalists and U.S. military sources when discussing the idea of insurgent monkeys. By contrast, the U.S. Stars and Stripes news source interviewed a NATO spokesman who said the notion had no basis in reality. (Link)

The woman who achieved the record of world's fattest at 700 pounds
Terri Smith, 49, a 700-pound woman is pinned in her sleeping room, incapable to move, stand or roll across by herself - adjusting the fresh world record as the Fattest woman. She suffers severe headaches and needs an MRI scan to check out for a potential brain tumor, unfortunately she is also too big to fit in a scanner or to pass through the doors of a hospital.

Terry has never been a delicate female child. At the age of 7, she weighed almost 70 kilograms. The woman explains that her family was poor which did not allow for her parents to bargain healthy foods. At the age of twenty, Terry weighed about 120 kilograms. Terri wedded husband Myron, whom she looks up to as her guardian spirit, in 1986. At the age of 32 she built up severe arthritis in her knees and was incapable to walking more than a couple of steps at one time. Smith was lastly given an electric wheelchair to get around in. The lack of physical exercise and not having modified her eating caused her weight balloon to the point wherever she could barely stand. Then about three years ago a change in her medicine caused her to gain 91 pounds in 30 days. Those pounds forced her to the bed ridden state she has been in ever since.

(Link)


The thief who tried to steal from a museum wearing an elaborate camouflaged "ghillie suit"
Gregory Liascos might have been an invisible man, but he still had an ill-conceived plan. According to police in Oregon, the 36-year-old suspect wore an elaborate camouflaged "ghillie suit" before attempting to break through the wall of a rock and mineral museum over the course of several nights in October in an attempt to snatch the museum's quarter-million-dollar gold collection. Museum staff alerted police after spotting a half-chiseled hole that the Moss Man had allegedly carved into a bathroom wall, and though his grassy outfit was hard to spot, police dog had no trouble sniffing out the suspect. The animal found a large piece of ground interesting. The dog bit - the ground screamed. (Link)


The man who fled hospital to avoid having his penis amputated after 27 hours erect
In May 2010, a man tried to escape from a hospital in the Dominican Republic where he had been hospitalized for priapism, a condition characterized by a prolonged and painful erection not associated with sexual desire after learning that doctors planned to amputate his penis because he may have gangrene.

Luis Rodríguez Taveras, 45, had been admitted more than three weeks in a hospital north of the Dominican Republic because of this problem, which was caused by eating a lot of sexual stimulants. In statements given to local journalists later, Rodriguez declared that he had ingested drugs. Rodríguez Taveras said he warned his wife not to sign the document authorizing the operation because “I could not live without my penis.” He argued that the erection began to subside gradually after treatment provided by an urologist at another hospital, who was defined as a good doctor and “very human.” (Link)


The baby who survived a seven-story fall
In November 2010 a 15-month-old baby girl survived a seven story fall after she bounced off an awning into the arms of a man in Paris. The tot had been playing unsupervised with her older sister when she fell out of the window. A young man saw the baby starting to fall and alerted his father, who raced to get into position, arms outstretched, to catch her after she hit the awning. “He must have played rugby for years to have developed reflexes like that,” a bystander reported. The baby was lucky: normally the cafe owner closes the awning because people throw their cigarette butts on it. The baby girl is in the hospital, but is virtually unscratched. (Link)


The Flight Attendant who quit his job during a flight using the emergency slide.
In August 2010, Steven Slater, a flight attendant of JetBlue airlines, got into an argument with a passenger during boarding at a Pittsburgh airport. He finally had enough of his job, quit, and opened the emergency slide on the plane in order to leave. He grabbed the intercom and said: “To the passenger who called me a mother ——, —- you. “I've been in the business 28 years. I've had it. That's it.” Mr Slater then activated the emergency exit and slid down the inflatable slide on to the tarmac. He then boarded a train to the terminal, stripping off his tie and discarding it to the astonishment of bemused onlookers. Slater was later arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief. (Link | Via)


The dog who swallowed a $20,000-worth diamond in a jewelery
A diamond dealer never imagined that his $20,000 dollar diamond would make for a good dog biscuit, but a dog named Sully had other plans. In March 2010, the dealer brought the $20,000 dollar gem into the Robert Bernard Jewelery Store to show owners Robert Rosin and George Kaufmann, but dropped it when he went to pull it from his pocket. In the blink of an eye, Sully, a golden retriever, pounced on the diamond and sent it down the hatch; it was by far the priciest dog treat Sully had ever tasted. Sully's expensive taste sent the owners of the jewelery store owners into a panic. A quick call to the vet and the owner's had a plan to retrieve the gem -- allow nature to take its course and don't leave Sully out of your sight.

Owner Kaufmann says it was an unpleasant experience, as he had to no only follow Sully, but also check up on the dog's bathroom breaks in hopes of finding the diamond.After three days of careful search, Sully gave up the goods and the owners were able to return the stone back to its owner -- after a thorough shine and polish. Sully is back on a steady diet of regular doggy treats. (Link)

Deathday: Author Theodore Dreiser 1945

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist. He pioneered the naturalist school and is known for portraying characters whose value lies not in their moral code, but in their persistence against all obstacles, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency.[1]

Early life

Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, to Sarah and John Paul Dreiser, a strict Catholic family. John Paul Dreiser was a German immigrant from Mayen in the Eifel region, and Sarah was from the Mennonite farming community near Dayton, Ohio; she was disowned for marrying John and converting to Roman Catholicism. Theodore was the twelfth of thirteen children (the ninth of the ten surviving). The popular songwriter Paul Dresser (1859–1906) was his older brother.

From 1889 to 1890, Theodore attended Indiana University before dropping out.[citation needed]. Within several years, he was writing for the Chicago Globe newspaper and then the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. He wrote several articles on writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Dean Howells, Israel Zangwill, John Burroughs, and interviewed public figures such as Andrew Carnegie, Marshall Field, Thomas Edison, and Theodore Thomas[2]. Other interviewees included Lillian Nordica, Emilia E. Barr, Philip Armour and Alfred Stieglitz[3]. After proposing in 1893, he married Sara White on December 28, 1898. They ultimately separated in 1909, partly as a result of Dreiser's infatuation with Thelma Cudlipp, the teenage daughter of a work colleague, but were never formally divorced.[4]

In 1919 Dreiser met his cousin Helen Richardson with whom he began an affair[5] with sado-masochistic elements.[6] They eventually married on 13 June 1944.[5]

Literary career

His first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), tells the story of a woman who flees her country life for the city (Chicago) and falls into a wayward life. It sold poorly, but it later acquired a considerable reputation. (It was made into a 1952 film by William Wyler, which starred Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones.)

He was a witness to a lynching in 1893 and wrote the short story, "Cracker," which appeared in Ainslee's Magazine in 1901.[7]

His second novel, Jennie Gerhardt, was published in 1911. Many of Dreiser's subsequent novels dealt with social inequality. His first commercial success was An American Tragedy (1925), which was made into a film in 1931 and again in 1951 (as A Place in the Sun). Already in 1892, when Dreiser began work as a newspaperman he had begun "to observe a certain type of crime in the United States that proved very common. It seemed to spring from the fact that almost every young person was possessed of an ingrown ambition to be somebody financially and socially." "Fortune hunting became a disease" with the frequent result of a peculiarly American kind of crime, a form of "murder for money," when "the young ambitious lover of some poorer girl" found "a more attractive girl with money or position" but could not get rid of the first girl, usually because of pregnancy.[8] Dreiser claimed to have collected such stories every year between 1895 and 1935. The murder in 1911 of Avis Linnell by Clarence Richeson particularly caught his attention. By 1919 this murder was the basis of one of two separate novels begun by Dreiser. The 1906 murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette eventually became the basis for An American Tragedy.[9]

Though primarily known as a novelist, Dreiser published his first collection of short stories, Free and Other Stories in 1918. The collection contained 11 stories. A particularly interesting story, "My Brother Paul", was a brief biography of his older brother, Paul Dresser, who was a famous songwriter in the 1890s. This story was the basis for the 1942 romantic movie, "My Gal Sal".

Other works include The "Genius" and Trilogy of Desire (a three-parter based on the remarkable life of the Chicago streetcar tycoon Charles Tyson Yerkes and composed of The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), and The Stoic). The latter was published posthumously in 1947.

Dreiser was often forced to battle against censorship because of his depiction of some aspects of life, such as sexual promiscuity, offended authorities and popular opinion.

Political commitment

Politically, Dreiser was involved in several campaigns against social injustice. This included the lynching of Frank Little, one of the leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World, the Sacco and Vanzetti case, the deportation of Emma Goldman, and the conviction of the trade union leader Tom Mooney. In November 1931, Dreiser led the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners to the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky, where they took testimony from coal miners in Pineville and Harlan on the violence against the miners and their unions by the coal operators.[10]

Dreiser was a committed socialist, and wrote several non-fiction books on political issues. These included Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928), the result of his 1927 trip to the Soviet Union, and two books presenting a critical perspective on capitalist America, Tragic America (1931) and America Is Worth Saving (1941). His vision of capitalism and a future world order with a strong American military dictate combined with the harsh criticism of the latter made him unpopular within the official circles. Although less politically radical friends, such as H.L. Mencken, spoke of Dreiser's relationship with communism as an "unimportant detail in his life," Dreiser's biographer Jerome Loving notes that his political activities since the early 1930s had "clearly been in concert with ostensible communist aims with regard to the working class." [11]

Dreiser died on December 28, 1945 in Hollywood at 74.

Legacy

Dreiser had an enormous influence on the generation that followed his. In his tribute "Dreiser" from Horses and Men (1923), Sherwood Anderson writes:

Heavy, heavy, the feet of Theodore. How easy to pick some of his books to pieces, to laugh at him for so much of his heavy prose ... [T]he fellows of the ink-pots, the prose writers in America who follow Dreiser, will have much to do that he has never done. Their road is long but, because of him, those who follow will never have to face the road through the wilderness of Puritan denial, the road that Dreiser faced alone.

Alfred Kazin characterized Dreiser as "stronger than all the others of his time, and at the same time more poignant; greater than the world he has described, but as significant as the people in it," while Larzer Ziff (UC Berkeley) remarked that Dreiser "succeeded beyond any of his predecessors or successors in producing a great American business novel." Arguably, Dreiser succeeded beyond any of his predecessors or successors in producing the great American novel.

Renowned mid-century literary critic Irving Howe spoke of Dreiser as "among the American giants, one of the very few American giants we have had."[12] A British view of Dreiser came from the publisher Rupert Hart-Davis: "Theodore Dreiser's books are enough to stop me in my tracks, never mind his letters — that slovenly turgid style describing endless business deals, with a seduction every hundred pages as light relief. If he's the great American novelist, give me the Marx Brothers every time."[13]

One of Dreiser's strongest champions during his lifetime, H.L. Mencken, declared "that he is a great artist, and that no other American of his generation left so wide and handsome a mark upon the national letters. American writing, before and after his time, differed almost as much as biology before and after Darwin. He was a man of large originality, of profound feeling, and of unshakable courage. All of us who write are better off because he lived, worked, and hoped."[14]

Dreiser's great theme was the tremendous tensions that can arise among ambition, desire, and social mores.

In 2008, the Library of America selected Dreiser’s article “Dreiser Sees Error in Edwards Defense” for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.

Fiction

Sister Carrie (1900)
Old Rogaum and His Theresa (1901)
Jennie Gerhardt (1911)
The Financier (1912)
The Titan (1914)
The "Genius" (1915)
Free and Other Stories (1918)
Twelve Men (1919)
An American Tragedy (1925)
Chains: Lesser Novels and Stories (1927)
A Gallery of Women (1929)
The Bulwark (1946)
The Stoic (1947)

Drama

Plays of the Natural and Supernatural (1916)
The Hand of the Potter (1918), first produced 1921

Nonfiction

A Traveler at Forty (1913)
A Hoosier Holiday (1916)
Hey Rub-a-Dub-Dub: A Book of the Mystery and Wonder and Terror of Life (1920)
A Book About Myself (1922); republished (unexpurgated) as Newspaper Days (1931)
The Color of a Great City (1923)
Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928)
My City (1929)
Tragic America (1931)
Dawn (1931)
America Is Worth Saving (1941)

References

1.^ Van Doren, Carl (1925). American and British Literature since 1890. Century Company.
2.^ Yoshinobu Hakutani, 'Preface', in Theodore Dreiser, Selected Magazine Articles: v.1: Life and Art in the American 1890's: Vol 1, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,U.S., 1985, p. 10
3.^ Donald Pizer Pizer, Theodore Dreiser: Interviews, University of Illinois Press, 2005, p. xiii [1]
4.^ Newlin, Keith (2003). A Theodore Dreiser Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 78. ISBN 0-313-31680-5. 
5.^ Newlin, Keith (2003). A Theodore Dreiser Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 101. ISBN 0-313-31680-5.
6.^ Shorter, Edward (2005). Written in the flesh: a history of desire. University of Toronto Press. p. 216. ISBN 0802038433.
7.^ Anne P. Rice (2003). Witnessing lynching: American writers respond. Rutgers University Press. p. 151–170. ISBN 9780813533308.
8.^ [2]
9.^ Fishkin, Shelley Fisher (1988). From Fact to Fiction. Oxford University Press.
10.^ Theodore Dreiser et al., Harlan Miners Speak: Report on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields (Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1932; rpt. Da Capo Press, 1970).
11.^ Jerome Loving, The Last Titan: A Life of Theodore Dreiser. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. ISBN 0520234812, ISBN 9780520234819. P. 398.
12.^ Rodden, John (2005). Irving Howe and the Critics: Celebrations and Attacks. Nebraska U.P..
13.^ Hart-Davis (ed). Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters, Vol 4 (1959 letters), John Murray, London, 1982. ISBN 0719539411, Letter dated 30 August 1959
14.^ Riggio, Thomas P., "Biography of Theodore Dreiser," http://www.library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/dreiser/tdbio.html, Accessed March 22, 2008
Cassuto, Leonard and Clare Virginia Eby, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Theodore Dreiser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Loving, Jerome. The Last Titan: A Life of Theodore Dreiser. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.

New Year Poems

Happy New Year To You

Happy New Year to you!
May every great new day
Bring you sweet surprises--
A happiness buffet.

Happy New Year to you,
And when the new year’s done,
May the next year be even better,
Full of pleasure, joy and fun.

By Joanna Fuchs
======================

New Year’s Reflections

Looking back on the months gone by,
As a new year starts and an old one ends,
We contemplate what brought us joy,
And we think of our loved ones and our friends.

Recalling all the happy times,
Remembering how they enriched our lives,
We reflect upon who really counts,
As the fresh and bright new year arrives.

And when I/we ponder those who do,
I/we immediately think of you.

Thanks for being one of the reasons I'll/We'll have a Happy New Year!

By Joanna Fuchs
======================

Happy New Year Wish

My Happy New Year wish for you
Is for your best year yet,
A year where life is peaceful,
And what you want, you get.

A year in which you cherish
The past year’s memories,
And live your life each new day,
Full of bright expectancies.

I wish for you a holiday
With happiness galore;
And when it’s done, I wish you
Happy New Year, and many more.

By Joanna Fuchs


====================

New Year’s Reality Check

Another year, another chance
To start our lives anew;
This time we’ll leap old barriers
To have a real breakthrough.

We’ll take one little step
And then we’ll take one more,
Our unlimited potential
We’ll totally explore.

We’ll show off all our talents
Everyone will be inspired;
(Whew! While I’m writing this,
I’m getting very tired.)

We’ll give up all bad habits;

We’ll read and learn a lot,
All our goals will be accomplished,
Sigh...or maybe not.

Oh well, Happy New Year anyway!

By Joanna Fuchs

====================

New Year’s Resolutions

Each year I resolve with the strongest intent
To be better this year than the last.
And I work very hard; the rules hardly get bent,
But this discipline gets old so fast!

But with this new year I just know I’ll win out,
Just watch how I do and you’ll see!
I’m not going to have yet another blowout;
I’ll be good as I know I can be.

But, if wicked things beckon, and I’m not so strong,
If I weaken and fall on my ast,
I’ll be thankful again that you’ll help me along
As you have during all new years past.

I’m so grateful that you’re my (title)! Happy New Year!

By Karl and Joanna Fuchs

====================

In The New Year

In the New Year,
we wish you the best year you’ve ever had,
and that each New Year
will be better than the last.
May you realize your fondest dreams
and take time to recognize and enjoy
each and every blessing.

Happy New Year,
And many more!

By Joanna Fuchs

====================

People Like You

A brand new year!
A clean slate on which to write
our hopes and dreams.
This year:
Less time and energy on things;
More time and energy on people.
All of life’s best rewards,
deepest and finest feelings,
greatest satisfactions,
come from people--
people like you.

Happy New Year!

By Joanna Fuchs


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2011 New Year Messages \ Greetings

My wishes for you in year 2011
Great start for Jan,
Love for Feb,
Peace for march,
No worries for April
Fun for May,
Joy for June to Nov,
Happiness for Dec,
Have a lucky and wonderful 2011.
================================

2011 is at the door…
Remember
Life is short, break the rules,
Forgive quickly,
love truly,
laugh uncontrollably,
and
never regret anything that made you smile.

==============================

New rules of life for 2011
1. Haste Rehne ka.
2. Tension nai leneka.
3. B positive, eat positive, sleep positive
4. Mast rehneka.
5. Har problem ko solve kernay ka.
6. Friend k sath lifetime friendship account kholnay ka
7. Mujhko yaad rakhnay ka
Aur mujhey sms kertay rehnay ka.
===============================

Oh my Dear, Forget ur Fear,
Let all ur Dreams be Clear,
Never put Tear, Please Hear,
I want to tell one thing in ur Ear
Wishing u a very “Happy NEW YEAR“!

===============================

Good time Bad time
Day time Night time
Off time Work time
Happy time Sad time
Naye saal main kisi bhi time
Apun ka sms aa sakta hai..!
Bole to happy new year mamu
===============================

There have been many time in 2010
when I may disturbed you
troubled u
irritated u
bugged u
.
.
.
.
today I just wanna tell you
.
.
.
.
I plan to continue it in 2011.

===============================

A New Year’s Prayer

May ALLAH make ur year a happy one!
Not by shielding you from all sorrows and pain,
But by strengthening you to bear it, as it comes;
Not by making your path easy,
But by making you sturdy to travel any path;
Not by taking hardships from you,
But by taking fear from your heart;
Not by granting you unbroken sunshine,
But by keeping your face bright, even in the shadows;

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Happy Holidays at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Feliz Navidad from Dominican Republic

While I was looking forward to a home exchange in New York for Xmas, my daughters had a different idea. If they were going to have to spend a week with me, they preferred to be on a beach. Since they enjoyed Cuba last year, this year they suggested another Caribbean destination....the Dominican Republic.

Wandering around our large immaculately maintained resort, it is hard to believe that at the western end of this island is Haiti in its tragic state of chaos and disrepair. We will not attempt to cross the border, but do plan to explore some of DR and Santo Domingo, the oldest European settlement in the Americas.

Christmas in the tropics is not really Christmas, as far as I am concerned. It is hard to adjust to sand and swimming pools instead of snow; but wandering around our resort Christmas Eve, I did come across some interesting sights. While resort staff posed in a colourful nativity scene, one very handsome gentleman enjoyed being elevated to the status of angel.

Half naked Santa’s little helpers were everywhere...pouring drinks and posing for pictures, while some resort guests didn’t need any local props to let you know it was Christmas. At the buffet, Christmas was on display at the bread table next to the un-Christmas like mountain of local crab.

To celebrate the occasion, I wore a Xmas tie hand made by my daughter Claire. Following dinner, while we both expected a special Christmas pageant in the theatre, instead we found a show featuring Janet Jackson, Elvis Presley, Britney Spears and Cher.

We had been told there was a Christmas Mass service, but when we found it, we did not stay long since it did not compare with those we had enjoyed in small charming English churches. So we headed off to bed in anticipation of a busy Xmas day... on the beach and perhaps the golf course.

To all our friends and colleagues back in Vancouver....Feliz Navidad!