About the book "Tough and Tender" + + + Larry Henares who is an engineer and economist from the prestigious MIT, is also a highly literate man who read a book a day for a period of seven years, and made Hollywood-type home movies of his children (20 years before Bugsy Malone was filmed) that are both profound and child -- like: a story of Man from the beginning to the end of the world (Original Sin) -- invasion from the stars (The Stargazer) with a surprise ending -- a man with eyes in the country of the blind -- and of a fortune-prone man who became the president of the world (Atom the Great, antedating Forrest Gump by almost 40 years}. And he did all these before the Videocam was invented, and using 8 mm Kodachrome with a magnetic sound stripe. As "the star in the theater of my mind," he speaks of being the leading man in Broadway plays, even as he retold his favorite stories from the masters: Oscar Wilde, O Henry, Garcis Marquez and Franz Kafka. And oh, what fun he has with Jesuit priest (a nomad in the desert of his mind), an American Embassy official (a flatfoot fogey with a floo floo) a beautiful dentist digging into his molar, a Press Secretary playing hardball, a businesswoman who looks like Shirley Temple and Mae West, and our own local Sparkle Plenty. And the usual commentary on the contemporary scene, on frats, on India without God, the life styles of the filthy rich and the infamous, Filipina yayas who rock the cradle and rule the world, of the tango of love betrayed, and a moving essay on Vesuvius, Krakatoa, Pinatubo and God in exile. + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + Foreword by Father James B. Reuter, S.J - p.5 Chapter One: Stories in Our Mind - p.8 1. I am the star in the theater of my mind - p.8 2. The Original Sin: a bad beginning - p.10 3. The Country of the Blind - p.13 4. Atom the Great: (1) The Luck of Alfredo Tomas - p.16 (2) The man who was also God - p.18 (3) The Tragedy of Greatness - p.20 (4) Immortal only in death - p.21 5. The Star Gazer: (1) The Creature from Space - p.23 (2) The Coming of Loki - p.25 (3) The Blinding Blaze of Suns and Stars - p.27 6. The Fable of the Big Bad Fat Vulture - p.29 Chapter Two: Stories retold from the Masters - p.31 7. Oscar Wilde: The Parable of the Happy Prince - p.31 8. Oscar Wilde: The sweetest song ever sung - p.34 9. Oscar Wilde: We are slaves though men call us free - p.36 10. O. Henry: Of Bums and Lovers - p.38 11. O. Henry: The Gift of the Magi - p.40 12. O. Henry: The Last Christmas - p.42 13. Garcia Marquez: Death of a river, a bad dream - p.44 14. Franz Kafka: Before the Law - p.46 15. Franz Kafka: An Imperial Message - p.48 16. The Kafka nightmare of Thelma Condes - p.49 This pit of hell on earth - p.51 17. Breur: The gostak distimms the doshes - p.53 Chapter Three: Personalities - p.55 18. Kinik leads us into a dangerous journey - p.55 Why Kinik Bernas stands on his head - p.57 Kinik: nomad in the desert of his mind - p.59 19. Schrager: Flatfoot Fogey with the Floo Floo - p.61 Schrager got Victoria Middleton pregnant - p.63 Alexander N. was pissed off at Schrager - p.64 20. Serenading beautiful Lucila Bernardo - p.67 21. Playing hardball with Agui and Buddy - p.69 22. Mabuhay si Alex Poyatos, hero - p.70 23. Town Crier Elena and what Tommy's got - p.73 24. Bring back Cochise for Mother's Day - p.76 25. Dakila Castro is Sparkle Plenty - p.78 26. Colon Cancer: Curse of the Alberts - p.80 27. Neno Abreu: with him died part of our lives - p.83 Chapter Four: Contemporary Scene - p.85 28. Things I'd never have known without walking - p.85 29. Fraternities: bang, bang you're dead - p.88 Frats, PMA: snake pit of sado-masochists - p.91 30. There is no God in India - p.94 (+ 20 more artic