Monthly Archives: June 2012

Daily Diversion #18: Dreams and (Dis)connections

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“Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.”-Sylvia Plath                                

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The direct nature of old architecture appeals to me: a glance transports you to another time, and a different way of life. Your imagination is free to conjure a dozen or a hundred scenarios or conversations, sometimes in mere seconds. I walk past these handsome buildings three days a week. They reside on one of the ugliest streets in the city proper. Hemmed in by nondescript banks, a mall where no one shops, and a hideous parking garage that mercilessly casts its blight to the East and West, they are easy to miss. I’ve seen them again and again, out of the corner of a careless eye. Distracted. Too busy. Focused on a destination or a passing thought. On Monday, I finally took the time to see them. It was only for a minute or two, while standing under a canopy as my best friend withdrew money from an ATM. The weird angle is a reflection of my short stature, deep concentration, and unwillingness to find a better shot. Sense of place and ambiance are acutely important to me. The necessity of feeling a connection to my surroundings is one of the odder factors in my struggle to become a better writer. It’s one of the things I have the toughest time handling, this lack of rootedness to where I live. I’m glad that I finally took the time to become better acquainted with this trio. The slideshow image is the result, a visual memory of an important moment in my deepening relationship with this city.

A Year in Books/Day 162: The Associated Press Stylebook

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  • Title: The Associated Press Stylebook Fully Revised and Updated
  • Year Published: 2004 (The Associated Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2004
  • Source: Writer’s Digest Book Club
  • About: I am not a journalist. When I write non-fiction (which is most of the time), it is always of the creative variety. I still appreciate good form, however. I believe every writer should have a fat arsenal of reference books, including one style guide. This is mine. I use it more than I anticipated, much like fractions. The part of my brain that appreciates orderliness considers this book a necessity, and well worth every penny. The creative part doesn’t give two figs. Fortunately, on most days they enjoy a mutually productive collaboration. Yay for cooperation-and the AP Stylebook.
  • Motivation: I love reference books. I regularly sing their praises here; you’re probably already sick of my fan-girl like devotion to the genre.
  • Times Read: Used only as a reference book.
  • Random Excerpt/Page vii: “Today, the 21st-century Associated Press has become the essential global news network. And the AP Stylebook has become the essential tool for anyone who cares about good writing.”
  • Happiness Scale: 7

A Year in Books/Day 161: Hollywood and the Great Fan Magazines

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  • Title: Hollywood and the Great Fan Magazines
  • Editor: Martin Levin
  • Year Published: 1970/This Edition: 1991
  • Year Purchased: 1990s
  • Source: Unknown, but likely B. Dalton Bookseller
  • About: This book is a collection of articles from the heyday of film fan magazines-the 1930s. Equal parts pop culture and history (and 100% fun), it is a fascinating look at the Hollywood publicity machine in full swing at top strength. Don’t let the mostly light-hearted topics fool you: this was a serious business that helped fuel an incredibly powerful industry. The frivolity is underpinned by ruthlessness and a lot of money. It is this carefully placed juxtaposition that intrigues me. You’ll find the following articles and then some: What’s Wrong With Hollywood Love; What I Will Tell My Baby; Charlie Chaplin’s Kids; Four Rules of Married Love; Career Comes First With Loretta; I’m No Gigolo! Says George Raft; I Want to Talk About My Baby!; The Price They Pay For Fame; Mystery Tales of the Stars; The Story Jean Harlow Never Told; Tarzan Seeks a Divorce; Ronald Colman Gives the Lowdown on Himself; Watch Your Step, Ann Dvorak!; Ginger Rogers Asks, “Did I Get What I Wanted Out of Life?”; Can Hollywood Hold Errol Flynn?; and Hollywood’s Unmarried Husbands and Wives. The photos are splendid and rare.
  • Motivation: I collect movie magazines from the 1910s-1950s. As a teenager in the early 1990s, that hobby was still in my future. This book was the next best thing.
  • Times Read: A few
  • Random Excerpt/Page 42: “PRIZE CONTEST! Can You Describe Errol Flynn In ONE SENTENCE Using Just 20 Words? How proficient are you in the use of adjectives? In order to describe Errol Flynn most effectively at least three descriptive adjectives should be used. For instance, here’s a sample sentence of 20 words containing three adjectives which we think fit his type and personality: One of the most debonair and adventurous Hollywood actors is attractive Errol Flynn whose hobby is traveling in strange places.” (Ed. Note: I want to travel back in time and take this person’s job.)

    Cropped screenshot of Ann Dvorak from the trai...

    Ann Dvorak watching her step (Photo credit: Screen shot from Three on a Match via Wikipedia)

  • Happiness Scale: 9

Daily Diversion #17: Tongues in Trees*

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Gentle giant

Gentle giant

I’m a city girl but I like my urban living with a side of greenery, please. I like to call it tree tourism. We visited this handsome fella and several of his friends last week. You cannot tell  from this photograph that the countryside is miles away. Hop in the car and three minutes later you are in the shadow of a different kind of titan, all concrete and steel and cold comeliness.

*”And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”-William Shakespeare

A Year in Books/Day 160: My Blue Notebooks

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  • Title: My Blue Notebooks The Intimate Journal of Paris’s Most Beautiful and Notorious Courtesan
  • Author: Liane de Pougy
  • Translation: Diana Athill
  • Year Published: This Edition: 2002 (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam)
  • Year Purchased: 2003/2004
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: Liane de Pougy ended her long life as a nun. A devout one, no doubt, whose circumstances bore little resemblance to the notorious escapades that made her name more than half a century earlier. She was a premiere good-time girl of the Belle Epoque . A Folies Bergere dancer who, in middle age, married a prince. She knew Proust, and was a vituperative frenemy of Colette. Her journals, which she kept between the ages of 50 and 72 (roughly the years corresponding to her marriage), are nearly as astounding as her life. Although journals are the most intimate of settings, there is always the temptation to gloss over the truth of personal shortcomings or weak moments with the mask of who you wish you were. The projection of a nobler, better self.  There can be no doubt that de Pougy was not entirely inclusive (who is?), yet the woman laid out in her journals is not always likable. She is haughty and self-important and a dozen other meaner things. As the heroine of her own life, she is indelibly grand-and unforgettable: passion, candour, wit, resilience, a genuine desire for self-improvement and intelligence are a few of her finer qualities. She is one of the most interesting women of the century.
  • Motivation: I love weird and controversial women. Those who go against the grain. Oddities. Survivors.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 47: “I have to admit that I’m up to my neck in frivolity, buried in dresses to the point of ruin! Fifteen different garments! My wardrobe jam-packed! My girl, this is not the way for an old woman to behave-particularly since you never wear anything but black and white, or a little grey, so you always look as though you were in the same dress. Why fritter away your money so absurdly?”
  • Happiness Scale: 8
    A postcard depicting Liane de Pougy.

    A postcard depicting Liane de Pougy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

[Intermezzo] Develop Monomania or Go Home!

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Excuse me, but I’ve been holed up in the 19th century for the last few days. Time flies when your nose is in a book (or two). Close the cover and, wham, it is 2012 again. How did that happen? Where are the Shelleys, the Hunts, Keats, Byron? They were here just ten minutes ago. Their laughter hangs in the air, lilting and vaporous. I wish they had been able to stay longer; I enjoyed the discourse, the flinging of ideas, their beautiful and weighty words. Emily, too, slipped off when I wasn’t looking. She cannot be shackled, or fully understood. She is the elusive one. The great riddle. Why am I annoyed? They were selfish, demanding my time when it wasn’t healthy to give: develop monomania, or go home! was their request. It is always the same with them. Nothing ever changes. They aren’t very romantic-never were-but they are sirens, alluring as they lure you away from workaday life. They left, and do not linger. Out of the moment, through the fire, and I am not affected at all. I like it that way. Back in reality, refreshed, I can write again.

A Year in Books/Day 159: Emily Brontë

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  • Title: The British Writers’ Lives Emily Brontë
  • Author: Robert Barnard
  • Year Published: 2000 (The British Library)
  • Year Purchased: 2012
  • Source: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio
  • About: I’m no Brontë virgin. There are many biographies of the famous literary family. I’ve read a lot of them, cut from various cloths. This entry in The British Library Writers’ Lives series is different from any of the others I’ve read. Focusing on middle daughter Emily (she of Wuthering Heights), it completes the feat of being a wonderful introduction to first-timers while bringing something new to the party for veterans. It is steady and insightful without ever resorting to the wild-child mystic trope that has followed Emily’s ghost around for decades. This biography is packed with original photographs, drawings, manuscripts, artwork and letters, which lend it a vivid immediacy that longer works often lack. It is a quick, quick read that you will want to return to time and again.
  • Motivation: I bought this volume to continue my love affair with dead writers and classic literature.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 38: “There is a touch of cracker-barrel philosopher about this, as if Emily is only happy dealing with strong personal emotion when she can don a Gondal mask as a partial cover for her feelings. Confessional poetry was never to be her forte.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10