AQUARIUS the Water Bearer (Jan.20-Feb.18):
It's a new year and you've decided to resolve a fitness routine you'll enjoy for a change. So, January will be a Good month to go
out and play in the mud. Or at least, find some way of making the squishy sounds you love.
PISCES the Fish (Feb.19-Mar.20):
This month you will read a bit of Shakespeare, and just before you fall asleep, you will think: "A duck, by any other name, would
smell as foul." Never mix Shakespeare and Ben & Jerry's as a late night snack. The results can be a bit disturbing.
ARIES the Ram (Mar.23-Apr.19):
This month, taking on a new exercise routine to get rid of the weight gained over the holidays, you will accidentally throw your back
out. Not only will that really hurt, but the trash guys will get really surly when you ask for it back.
TAURUS the Bull (Apr.20-May.20):
The influence of a new year has you resolve, this month is an excellent time to do some personal re-engineering. Face it, your
mother simply wasn't much of an engineer was she?
GEMINI the Twins(May.21-Jun.20):
No publishers beating down your door, you'll feel tired and discouraged this month. But you'll be able to raise your spirits by pretending
to be a cartoon character. You never know, ACME Products may come calling!
CANCER the Crab (Jun.21-Jul.22):
A B-movie fiend appears looking at you through your window this month. Or at least that's what you'll use as an excuse to avoid an evening
run of fitness resolved at the beginning of the month.
LEO the Lion (Jul.23-Aug.22):
You have exactly as much chance of having a decent month as you have of developing amazing telekinetic abilities. Abilities that let you
secretly give innocent passers-by a wedgie. Think positive since you still have two good hands even though one is often busy protecting your backside.
VIRGO the Virgin (Aug.23-Sep.22):
You'll find more, and very "titillating", uses for cocktail umbrellas today. So many you'll write a best-selling arts and craft book for lonely bar
patrons that frequent the Elephant & Bucket (better known as penWrights chat).
LIBRA the Balance (Sep.23-Oct.22):
You'll resolve to give back more to mankind this year by deciding to write software to help people with mental problems. You will call it SchizoSoft.
Your motto: Who Do You Want To Be Today?
SCORPIO the Scorpion (Oct.23-Nov.21):
This month when you enter the penWrights chat someone will ask "How are you?" for the billionth time. You should celebrate the occasion by having a speech
prepared. Something embarrassingly intimate is usually best. "Glad you asked, Broff. I'm having a darned tough time getting rid of these pesky genital
warts, for one thing."
SAGITTARIUS the Archer (Nov.22-Dec.21):
You'll resolve to spend less and save more this month. Yet January will be a great month for bargains. For example, you'll find a really amazing price on
a flame-thrower at the Army surplus store. A flame-thrower is one of those rare things that really create a lasting first impression. So you should
definitely get it.
CAPRICORN the Goat (Dec.22-Jan.19):
You'll find you're taking your fitness routine too seriously this month. You will accidentally step on someone's foot, and they will say "Ouch!"
Then you'll reply "No pain, no gain." This won't be good when you realize the foot belongs to a heavy-weight boxer. However, you'll get to repeat
the phrase "no pain, no gain" plenty from your hospital bed.
A Capricorn Writers Profile:
Capricorns are ambitious, cold minded, resolute and often melancholic. Fatigue rarely makes them afraid. They are hard working individuals always willing
to sacrifice themselves for their ventures. They're patient planners, careful all their objectives are reachable. Those born under the sign of Capricorn
are reserved and introverted. A main characteristic found is shyness and insecurity which disappear when they find genuine love and appreciation.
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J.D. (Jerome David) Salinger was a New Years Day baby born in 1919 in New York. His father was Jewish and mother Irish Catholic. Being half Jewish in early
20th century America became a source of huge emotional conflict for Salinger. He grew up feeling his social status was compromised. In the 30's and 40's Ivy League
Colleges held prejudice against Jews, not admitting them. As well, there were many Americans who were openly racist. A cold relationship with his father added to
his drama along with his traumatic experiences in World War II. All those negative aspects of his life shaped his personality and his fiction. He entered the war
with gentle affection for the military.
However, soon Salinger found himself right in the middle of intense, savage warfare. In Salinger's first two weeks he watched 75% of his unit die. After four months
of fighting and the liberation of Paris, he negotiated his way into a military hospital for psychiatric reasons.
There are a plethora of reasons for wanting to know more about Salinger. Many who have read Catcher in the Rye are merely intrigued. Some feel as if they know him through his writing. That he understands what makes
us tick. I became curious about J.D. Salinger for that reason--his writing.
After all, what is wrong in wanting to learn about an author who makes an impression upon us? However, when I learned what a recluse he is, my curiosity was heightened.
Questions arose like, what is he hiding? And if Salinger isn't hiding anything, what could his psychopathology be?
It's intriguing not knowing what it is like to have an eccentricity that fame and money cannot buy. Why isn't he seen more regularly on talk shows and enjoy the fame
most of us dream of? He might at least entertain students at Universities who could learn from such wisdom. Yet instead J.D. Salinger locks himself far from others as
his own prisoner.
(There is something about generations of People Magazine readers who thrive off the story of a recluse).
Salinger is a man of contradictions and although an extremist, never has he been a purist. He is known for rigid rules of conduct which he often found reason to
break or abandon. In a Salinger biography by Paul Alexander, it is conversed that he enjoyed the attention of being a recluse. Could the mystery increase his book
sales? Alexander had found that now and again when interest in Salinger wanes, he will do or say something to be in the pubic eye. He might place a phone call
to a reporter or make an appearance in New York.
But does a recluse want attention? A Capricorn is perseverant and a planner, yet not often trusting out of shyness. Therefore making a Capricorn desire isolation.
So, yes, though Salinger is driven by a force to avoid human contact, he yearns for attention, approval and love. And through his actions he has ended up a
far-gone member of his self-made cult. In J.D. Salinger's own words: "I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy."
So what caused Salinger to become a reclusive Capricorn? Biographies tell us at an early age he was odd and stand-offish. Not to a wide degree, but notably and
commented on. When he was asked to be social, Salinger was warm and engaging as if Cary Grant in a movie. He was known for using pocketed phrases to please.
Until the 70's he was never sited as awkward in speech or manners. (During the 70's be became angry with too many unwanted guest). But while he was in school
he was the center of attention--amusing classmates, telling stories and jokes well. Often at another's expense. Yet, when his mates would go out drinking,
Salinger chose to stay behind as the charming Capricorn loner.
Capricorns are known for being devoted to their dreams with methodical patience and sincerity. During Salinger's University days, he immodestly told many that
some day he would be a great, great writer.
Salinger briefly attended New York University where it is said he didn't apply himself. At Columbia University he entertained a writing class taught by Whit
Burnett, editor of Story Magazine. Burnett said Jerry (as Salinger was known then) sat in the back of his class staring out the window most days. But during the
last half of his semester he came to life. Burnett admired Salinger's confidence and encouraged him by publishing "The Young Folks" in Story magazine. Friends
from college remember Salinger as a loner, overly impressed with himself. However the girls from college recall he was terribly handsome. In his later years after
many relationships with women (mostly younger than him) Salinger is quoted: "I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down.
That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty... you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are."
Later as Salinger followed his reclusive path of privacy, it is validated:
He eats mostly organic food but is known to be occasionally seen at a diner near his home in Cornish, New Hampshire. (An experience with his father in his meat and
cheese shop early on probably helped choose his near vegetarian life).
Although Salinger's Buddhist beliefs created a scorn for worldly desire, vanity controlled the attention his writing received. As in the past, he was known to pursue
female readers and fans for relationship.
Military School, yet portrayed it as a kind of hell in his novel Catcher in the Rye.
Salinger held great admiration for Ernest Hemingway and claims to have met him in France during its relief from Germany. (Yet there has never been evidence to prove
such). However he parodied him in letters and was very critical of Hemingway.
He felt writers should never have their photographs with their work, yet he would never have started a relationship with writer Joyce Maynard if he'd not seen her
photo appear with a magazine article.
During the Vietnam War, Salinger stated contempt for the military and ridiculed the young men who registered for the draft.
Of Salinger's work:
The New Yorker delivered to him ten years of rejection notices before publishing any of his stories, which was "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" a tale that soared
through the approval process. It was then he seemed to become the great writer he is known as today. Salinger enjoyed the fact the New Yorker did not print author
profiles, as he wanted attention directed to his literature not himself.
The stories that have generated the most mail for Salinger are Franny, Zooey and Teddy, and of course, Catcher in the Rye.
Excerpt from Catcher in the Rye
(from Chapter One):
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents
were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the
first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They're
quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all. I'm not saying that-but they're also touchy as hell. Besides, I'm not going to
tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty
run-down and had to come out here and take it easy. I mean that's all I told D.B. about, and he's my brother and all. He's in Hollywood. That isn't too far from
this crumby place, and he comes over and visits me practically every week end. He's going to drive me home when I go home next month maybe.
He just got a Jaguar. One of those little English jobs that can do around two hundred miles an hour. It cost him damn near four thousand bucks. He's got a lot of
dough, now. He didn't use to. He used to be just a regular writer, when he was home. He wrote this terrific book of short stories, The Secret Goldfish, in case you
never heard of him. The best one in it was "The Secret Goldfish." It was about this little kid that wouldn't let anybody look at his goldfish because he'd bought it
with his own money. It killed me. Now he's out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute. If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me.
Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is this school that's in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. You've probably
seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hot-shot guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at
Pencey was play polo all the time. I never even once saw a horse anywhere near the place. And underneath the guy on the horse's picture, it always says: "Since 1888 we
have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men."
Strictly for the birds. They don't do any damn more molding at Pencey than they do at any other school. And I didn't know anybody there that was splendid and clear-thinking
and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. And they probably came to Pencey that way. Anyway, it was the Saturday of the football game with Saxon Hall. The game with Saxon Hall
was supposed to be a very big deal around Pencey. It was the last game of the year, and you were supposed to commit suicide or something if old Pencey didn't win. I
remember around three o'clock that afternoon I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill, right next to this crazy cannon that was in the Revolutionary War
and all. You could see the whole field from there, and you could see the two teams bashing each other all over the place. You couldn't see the grandstand too hot, but you
could hear them all yelling, deep and terrific on the Pencey side, because practically the whole school except me was there, and scrawny and faggy on the Saxon Hall side,
because the visiting team hardly ever There were never many girls at all at the football games. Only seniors were allowed to bring girls with them. It was a terrible school,
no matter how you looked at it. I like to be somewhere at least where you can see a few girls around once in a while, even if they're only scratching their arms or blowing
their noses or even just giggling or something. Old Selma Thurmer-she was the headmaster's daughter-showed up at the games quite often, but she wasn't exactly the type that
drove you mad with desire. She was a pretty nice girl, though. I sat next to her once in the bus from Agerstown and we sort of struck up a conversation.
I liked her. She had a big nose and her nails were all bitten down and bleedy-looking and she had on those damn falsies that point all over the place, but you felt sort of
sorry for her. What I liked about her, she didn't give you a lot of horse manure about what a great guy her father was. She probably knew what a phony slob he was.
Thomsen Hill, instead of down at the game, was because I'd just got back from New York with the fencing team.
I was the goddam manager of the fencing team. Very big deal. We'd gone in to New York that morning for this fencing meet with McBurney School.
Only, we didn't have the meet. I left all the foils and equipment and stuff on the goddam subway. It wasn't all my fault. I had to keep getting up to look at this map,
so we'd know where to get off. So we got back to Pencey around two-thirty instead of around dinnertime. The whole team ostracized me the whole way back on the train.
It was pretty funny, in a way.
The other reason I wasn't down at the game was because I was on my way to say good-by to old Spencer, my history teacher. He had the grippe, and I figured I probably
wouldn't see him again till Christmas vacation started. He wrote me this note saying he wanted to see me before I went home. He knew I wasn't coming back to Pencey.
I forgot to tell you about that. They kicked me out. I wasn't supposed to come back after Christmas vacation, on account of I was flunking four subjects and not applying
myself and all. They gave me frequent warning to start applying myself-especially around mid-terms, when my parents came up for a conference with old Thurmer-but I didn't
do it. So I got the ax. They give guys the ax quite frequently at Pencey. It has a very good academic rating, Pencey. It really does.
Anyway, it was December and all, and it was cold as a witch's teat, especially on top of that stupid hill. I only had on my reversible and no gloves or anything. The week
before that, somebody'd stolen my camel's-hair coat right out of my room, with my fur-lined gloves right in the pocket and all. Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys
came from these very wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has-I'm not kidding.
Anyway, I kept standing next to that crazy cannon, looking down at the game and freezing my ass off. Only, I wasn't watching the game too much. What I was really hanging
around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-bye. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a
sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse.
I was lucky. All of a sudden I thought of something that helped make me know I was getting the hell out. I suddenly remembered this time, in around October, that I and
Robert Tichener and Paul Campbell were chucking a football around, in front of the academic building. They were nice guys, especially Tichener. It was just before dinner
and it was getting pretty dark out, but we kept chucking the ball around anyway. It kept getting darker and darker, and we could hardly see the ball any more, but we
didn't want to stop doing what we were doing. Finally we had to. This teacher that taught biology, Mr. Zambesis stuck his head out of this window in the academic building
and told us to go back to the dorm and get ready for dinner. If I get a chance to remember that kind of stuff, I can get a good-bye when I need one-at least, most of the
time I can. As soon as I got it, I turned around and started running down the other side of the hill, toward old Spencer's house. He didn't live on the campus. He lived
on Anthony Wayne Avenue.
I ran all the way to the main gate, and then I waited a second till I got my breath. I have no wind, if you want to know the truth. I'm quite a heavy smoker, for one
thing-that is, I used to be. They made me cut it out. Another thing, I grew six and a half inches last year. That's also how I practically got t.b. and came out here for
all these goddam checkups and stuff. I'm pretty healthy, though.
Anyway, as soon as I got my breath back I ran across Route 204. It was icy as hell and I damn near fell down. I don't even know what I was running for-I guess I just felt
like it. After I got across the road, I felt like I was sort of disappearing. It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you
felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.
Boy, I rang that doorbell fast when I got to old Spencer's house. I was really frozen. My ears were hurting and I could hardly move my fingers at all. "C'mon, c'mon," I
said right out loud, almost, "somebody open the door." Finally old Mrs. Spencer opened it. They didn't have a maid or anything, and they always opened the door themselves.
They didn't have too much dough.
"Holden!" Mrs. Spencer said. "How lovely to see you! Come in, dear! Are you frozen to death?" I think she was glad to see me. She liked me. At least,
I think she did.
Boy, did I get in that house fast. "How are you, Mrs. Spencer?" I said. "How's Mr. Spencer?"
"Let me take your coat, dear," she said. She didn't hear me ask her how Mr. Spencer was. She was sort of deaf.
I sort of brushed my hair back with my hand. I wear a crew cut quite frequently and I never have to comb it much. "How'd you been, Mrs. Spencer?"
I said again, only louder, so she'd hear me.
"I've been just fine, Holden." She closed the closet door. "How have you been?" The way she asked me, I knew right away old Spencer'd told her
I'd been kicked out.
"Fine," I said. "How's Mr. Spencer? He over his grippe yet?"
"Over it! Holden, he's behaving like a perfect-I don't know what . . . He's in his room, dear. Go right in."
