Marlene Wagman-Geller

If the voices submerged in the shadows of the Holocaust could speak they would whisper of when the line separating man from beasts blurred in the atrocities the Nazis committed. Yet,despite the horrors, a love story blossomed. Simon Wiesenthal and a woman from his town shared lives which rivaled the harrowing twists of a Stephen King plot.

The girl with the dragon tattoo is as iconic as the boy-wizard with the glasses, and the Swedish author has become as famous as the British. However, while J.K. Rowling basks in her billions, Stieg Larsson’s life-and that of his muse- took a more novel-worthy twist.

“I do not sing politics. I merely sing the truth.”

    Nelson Mandela, who endured twenty-seven years in South Africa’s brutal Robben Island, was instrumental in shaking off the yoke of apartheid. For his life-long arm-wrestle against the Afrikaner regime, he became a beloved icon, the father of his people. Another freedom fighter against colonialism was the woman known by the epithet, “Mama Africa.” 

          A tongue twister popularized in the 2010 film, The King’s Speech, “I have a sieve full of sifted thistles and a sieve full of unsifted thistles, because I am a thistle sifter.” A century earlier, a popular tongue-twister was, “She sells seashells by the seashore.” While most assume ‘she’ was merely an anonymous pronoun, it refers to Mary Anning.

“I figure when my husband comes home at night, if those kids are still alive, hey, I’ve done my job.” Roseanne Barr

     Baby boomers whiled away untold hours watching television that beamed airbrushed portrayals of mothers such as ever so sweet Marion Cunningham. These Stepfordian housewives vacuumed while wearing heels, wore dresses replete with accessories, every hair in place. When their children arrived home, they indulged in home baked cookies, while their model moms listened to the recital of their days as if it were the Sermon on the Mount. Enter Roseanne.

He was my cream, and I was his coffee-And when you poured us together, it was something.”

        Balancing a fruit hat, one inspired by the “baianas,” Afro-Brazilian vendors, dancer Carmen Miranda’s samba sashayed onto the world stage. Fruit must be titillating, as another entertainer, clad in a banana skirt, likewise unleashed shock waves around the globe.

“I’m saving the bass player for Omaha.”

   “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose....” The song lyric, the paean to anguish, serves as the existential cry of Janis Joplin, the poster child for angst. The singer blazed across the sky: a comet whose brightness illuminated the darkness before disappearing into the night.