Challenge for Garson, Stephen, and Others (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Victor Steinbok]

Ann Landers likely got this version from the Rotarian or directly from Time:

http://goo.gl/M6MTL
The Rotarian. June 1963
In Pursuit of Excellence. By Charles F. Moore, Jr. p. 56

http://goo.gl/mjOGG
Time. [GB claims 1961, but it actually seems to be 1961-62 volume--and
another page mentions "Red Smith, 55", which would put the snippet to
early 1961, as Smith was born in September 1905.]

But "sweating blood" for a column is an old metaphor:

http://goo.gl/n7dOS
The Reader: an illustrated monthly magazine, Volume 5:2. January 1905.
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. By Will Levington Comfort. p. 212/2
> "'E's a free lawnce, I'm tauld," Peele said languidly, "un-limited
> spyce 'n' all that. Tell me nauw, 'ow much does 'e myke?"
> "Altogether too much--an amount, wholly unnewspaperlike. Fifty or
> sixty dollars a day, likely. And he don't write easily--labors,
> groans, sweats blood before he gets it comings--"
> A fit of coughing in Graver's room silenced the typewriter. Afterward
> there was the squeak of a drawn cork, the suggestion of a gurgle,
> followed by a harsh expulsion of breath, as from one nauseated.
> "And that's all new too," Keeler resumed, half-angrily. "Stimulant!
> It's so easy, so devilish easy, to get used to working that way. I
> believe I'll go and rope him down, strangle him and make him see the
> right way!"

Note, however, that the comment suggests that the process involves
sweating blood because it's /not/ easy.

     VS-)

On 3/3/2011 3:28 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
> Ann Landers in _The [Bend, OR] Bulletin_ 10/3/1966 p  8 col 4
>
> "As Red Smith put it, "Writing a daily column is easy.  All you have to
> do is sit at a typewriter until small drops of blood form on your
> forehead." "

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