Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Wolfgang Hampel, Betty MacDonald and a very cute dedication


Betty MacDonald in the living room at Vashon on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.

Wolfgang Hampel - and Betty MacDonald fan club fans,

we are working on Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter March introducing many new info, essays, Betty MacDonald fan club contests and other surprising facts.

You'll enjoy it very much.

You'll be able to read a new letter by Betty MacDonald discussing political topics.

I agree Betty MacDonald wouldn't have been fond of Donald Trump.

Just the opposite!



We are going to celebrate 70th anniversary of Betty MacDonald's golden The Egg and I in Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter March.


We asked  in which languages The Egg and I has been translated?



That's your chance. Don't miss it, please. 

You can win a first edition of The Egg and I with a very cute dedication by Betty MacDonald and a new Betty MacDonald documentary.


The Egg and I belongs to the most successful books ever.



First published by the J. B. Lippincott Company on October 3, 1945, The Egg and I received laudatory reviews and soon appeared on the best-seller list. 

The book was a blockbuster success as a novel, being reprinted on a nearly monthly basis for the next two years.

On September 12, 1946, the specially-bound one-millionth copy of the book was presented to MacDonald by Washington Governor Monrad Wallgren at a luncheon in Seattle.

Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter March includes the names of our former Betty MacDonald fan club contest winners, the correct answers and many more info.



Anita, I'm one of your many fans. 


Many greetings to Eartha Kitt II. You are a dream team. Thank you so much for sharing the photo of you and Eartha in your living-room. It's so cute.

I admire your Betty MacDonald Fan Club story about Betty MacDonald, Robert Heskett, Donald MacDonald, Darsie Bard, Sydney Bard, Gammy, Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde R. Jensen, Sydney Cleveland Bard, Mary Alice Bard, Dorothea Darsie Bard Goldsmith, Alison Bard Burnett, Jerry Keil, Joan MacDonald Keil, Madge Baldwin, Don Woodfin, Perry Woodfin, Mike Gordon, Ma and Pa Kettle, Nancy and Plum, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Ma and Pa Kettle and many others.
It's the best Betty MacDonald fan club story ever beside Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and his magical Betty MacDonald Interviews.

Björn: I have a surprise. My parents visited the Northwest in the sixties. Both are huge Betty MacDonald Fans and they went to Vashon of course and they met ........
Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde Reynolds Jensen, Cleve Bard and Mary Alice Bard. We have many photos of the family and my father filmed them with his camera. So you can see and hear the Bard family. I'm going to present this at the next Betty MacDonald Fan Club Meeting. 


Mary Bard Jensen is very funny, indeed but you'll enjoy Clyde Jensen, Cleve and Mary Alice Bard as well. A wonderful family!

Björn, we can't wait to see the Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde R. Jensen, Cleve Bard and Mary Alice Bard interviews filmed by your father. Did Mary Bard Jensen share any info about the story of Sandra, which Betty MacDonald mentioned in her book Anybody can do anything?


We would like to learn more about Mary Bard's book published in the thirties. We know so much more about it after reading Anita's Top Betty MacDonald Fan Club story. Anita also tells the exciting story of Dorita Hess. Betty MacDonald describes this rather strange lady in Anybody can do anything. Did Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde R. Jensen, Cleve Bard and Mary Alice Bard mention her in the interviews?

Björn, excuse my many questions, please but it's so great to have the opportunity to see all the members of the Bard family. I'm overwhelmed. It's such a great feeling.
I hope we'll be able to see these interviews and the filmed Betty MacDonald interview at the next Betty MacDonald Fan Club meeting.

Jens: Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and Betty MacDonald interviews have fans in 40 countries. I bet there will be many more fans in the future.
Isn' t this amazing? Wolfgang Hampel and Alison Bard Burnett are born humorists. Both delight their fans from all over the world.


I'd love to have a Wolfgang Hampel CD and DVD with his very funny poems and stories. What about a book? We adore Wolfgang Hampel's high humor and wit in Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and his wonderful Betty MacDonald interviews.

Jens, it doesn't amaze me at all. 


As you wrote Alison Bard Burnett and Wolfgang Hampel are born humorists. I heard many more Alison Bard Burnett interviews by Wolfgang Hampel will be published in the future. Come on, please. Do it! This couple is so funny. I can listen to them a million times without getting tired. Pure Bard and Hampel magic.


Wonderful story tellers, world painters, great entertainers. Alison Bard Burnett and Wolfgang Hampel share it with Betty MacDonald Fans from all over the world. 


By the way I don't like poems so much but Wolfgang Hampel's satirical poems are as witty and charming as his Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and Betty MacDonald Interviews. Wolfgang Hampel's very funny stories about everyday life make us laugh aloud.

I heard one of the next Betty MacDonald Fan Club Newsletter stories are about our beloved Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honor members.


My family and I are crazy about Mr. Tigerli - our unique trouble shooter!


Our unique Betty MacDonald fan club honor members are outstanding artists and writers. 


Let's go to the bookstore and enjoy a new breakfast with Brad and Nick.

I'm crazy about Jamie-Lee and her outstanding song 'Ghost'.


What about moving to very beautiful Vashon Island? 



Yours,

David


Vita Magica
Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 


Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD

Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I  

Betty MacDonald fan club groups 

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund

Betty MacDonald Fan Club proudly presents:

The amazing, very witty, charming, intelligent story written by our brilliant Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honor Member - artist and writer Letizia Mancino.

WHEN YOU DREAM, DREAM BIG

Copyright 2011/2016 by Letizia Mancino
All rights reserved
Translated by D. Tsiaprakas

Betty, I love you! Your books „Anybody can do anything“ and „Onions in the Stew“ are really outstanding! I take them into my hand, and at a stone's throw I am right away in America ! Columbus and the egg: The great discovery!

Your bestseller „The Egg and I“ the greatest discovery. And you and I! I know America: It's true what you are writing: That's America: Absolutely right! No, even to the least detail! The landscape and the passion: Do you know the country where pistols blossom? Brava, Betty, you are describing the Americans vividly, genuinely, insufferably, brushed upon paper. If I like to read your works? To read doesn't even express it! I can even hear and see everything: Nature, culture, subculture.

America has almost remained unchanged! O those cool Americans! Calculating, stockmarket, Wall Street, the financial crisis (even back in 1930), the gamblers, the bankruptcy of companies! The swarming of dodgers and cheaters. People left without money. Dispair und hunger! A terrible „Worst Case“ (when I knew but little English I thought it is sausage with cheese).

Still how impressive is the ability to adaptone self of the Americans: They know how to enjoy life, acrobats of survival! In the twinkle of an eye they achieved to adapt themselves and effect the work of pioneers: In the morning you are a cleaningwoman, in the evening a brothel woman! No problem!

„The insufficient, here it's becoming an event; The indescribable, here it's done;“ Mary Bard Jensen, your sister, was the treasure trove of procuring work: My word, what a power woman with unlimited imagination! She has recommended you everywhere: Betty can do everything, also write novels! Go ahead, sister, hurry up! The editor wants to see your manuscripts! Up to that point you had not written a single line! Wow! And if still everything goes wrong? No problem: When you dream, dream big!

Just look, you have become famous.The Egg and I You know that, Betty? I'll slip into „The Egg and I“ and come and be your guest! I want to get to know your chickens. I hate chickens! I'm a chickens slave from North America! O Betty, without these damned animals, no chance of you becoming famous! „The Egg and I“ you would never have written! How many readers you have made happy!

Your book is so amusing! Your witty fine (almost nasty) remarks about your family members and roundabout neighbours made me laugh so much! You have been born into a special family: Comfort was not desired: I can't but be amazed: What did your father say to your mother? After tomorrow I am going to work elsewhere: Thousands of miles away...He sent her a telegram: LEAVING FOR TWO YEARS ON THURSDAY FOR MEXICO CITY STOP GET READY IF YOU WANT TO COME ALONG – That was on Monday. Mother wired back: SHALL BE READY, and so she was.That's America! Improvisation, change, adventure. You show no weakness: Let's go! Your descriptions, Betty, about the tremendous happenings in nature have deeply frightened me.

Continent America, I'm terrified by you! I feel so small and threatened like a tiny fly before an enormous flyswatter! Your novel is very many-sided! The reader may use it even as a cook book! „The Egg and I“ starts straight away with a recipe: „Next to the wisdom that lamb meat doesn't taste good unless it has been roasted with garlic“. Do you enjoy the American food?

O Betty, it's too fatty for me and I hate garlic! (Betty is presently cooking lunch for Bob. She's continually talking to „STOVE“: STOVE is Bob's rival; in the beginning I thought it was being himself). She turns round and says: Well, so no garlic for you. No lamb either, Betty. I don't eat any meat! I'd actually prefer only fried eggs. Betty, let me make them myself. Then you try it!

Blow! „STOVE“ out of order! I don't succeed in turning it on! Damned! It's got more of a mind of its own than „STOVE“ of my friend, Hilde Domin! Bob's coming! He must eat directly! „Men eat anything, the swines! Says your grandmother Gammy“. Is it true? Do you like my chickens? Bob asked me without introducing himself. Yes, Bob (rude) I love them! I'm vegetarian. Do you want to clean the henhouse with me tomorrow? A, you're always getting up so early at four o'clock! Bob, that's not a job for me! He looked at me disdainfully! A Roman cissy! You need a reeducation at once! Help, Bob's attacking me! I rather change the novel immediately and move to the „Island“!

   

Migrant crisis: Why Europe is in a 'Scream'



"The EU's migrant chaos, embodied in Edvard Munch's The Scream, that's basically what you're saying," my colleague noted wryly after I had recounted at length the mess the EU is in over uncontrolled migration.
She was not hugely off the mark.
I had described countries across the continent, united in that they face the same crisis, but so very divided in their attitudes and decision making.
After months of bad press and even worse co-ordination, I had commented that it is as if every EU country now has its metaphorical hands over its metaphorical ears in this migrant crisis, hence the Scream analogy.
Take this week: Germany is still calling for an EU-wide solution, praying fervently that a very shaky accord with Turkey will lead to Ankara clamping down on the boat-filling people smugglers.
But Austria and the Western Balkan countries that most arriving refugees and other migrants pass through on their way to wealthier northern Europe think that is pie in the sky.
They held an extraordinary meeting in Vienna a couple of days ago to discuss unilateral ways to stop asylum seekers entering their territory in such large numbers.


One after another, these countries are unilaterally imposing limits on the number of asylum seekers they are allowing in each day.And who was not invited to the Vienna pow-wow? This is a case where omission screams louder than words: Greece.The main entry-point to Europe for most of these refugees and other migrants, around 100,000 already this year.
Greece: A country struggling socially and financially under a suffocating debt burden.
Greece, which, with the Balkan countries slamming their gates shut, is becoming a restive holding pen for thousands of frustrated asylum seekers.
Two tried to publicly hang themselves in Athens this week.
But European colleagues are not listening to Greek protestations.
Greece is certainly guilty of ignoring EU regulations for months last year, waving refugees and others onwards and northwards over its border rather than encouraging them to claim asylum immediately.


But under pressure and a threat of expulsion from Europe's passport-free Schengen travel area, Greece is now beginning to get its organisational act together.In the meantime, though, it has been sidelined as an EU decision maker and serious player.Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras feels so ignored that he pretty much held David Cameron's EU reform deal to ransom at the recent EU summit. He demanded that he be listened to on migration first before making his contribution to what had to be a unanimous vote of confidence in the UK deal.
The Scream analogy fits in other ways too.
It embodies the anguish you see on the faces of recently arrived refugees in Greece, fleeing the horror of near-death experiences, under bombardment at home and at sea in the Mediterranean.
The painting also radiates a sense of fear and anxiety, a feeling of being exposed and unprotected.




These a widely-felt sentiments across the EU when it comes to migration.That is often the reaction I hear when travelling across Europe from Greece in the south to Sweden in the north.Consider the rising support for the virulently anti-immigrant AfD party in Germany, which is expected to make spectacular gains in key regional elections in a couple of weeks' time. There is an uncomfortable recognition in EU circles here in Brussels that the shambles and European infighting surrounding the migrant and refugee crisis could have a decisive influence on British voters as they weigh up whether to vote Stay or Leave in their forthcoming referendum on EU membership.
Asked whether he would intervene in the referendum campaign, the President of the European Council Donald Tusk said he did not think it would be a good idea but he felt the most effective thing he could do to encourage British voters to stay in the EU, was to work hard to solve the Europe's migrant fiasco.
As things stand, Mr Tusk and his colleagues fear the reports and images of the migrant crisis from Lesbos to Munich to Calais could well send hitherto undecided voters screaming towards the door marked EXIT on EU membership.

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