Thanks to the lovely Madame Weebles, my post about Frank was Freshly Pressed yesterday. What a wonderful anniversary gift! I’m chuffed that so many readers, new and old, have taken so wholeheartedly to my dear buddy. It is truly touching that a bit of his unique spirit has touched you, too. Since I was off gallivanting about town with The Chef on Tuesday, I am only now starting to read and respond to all of your lovely, thoughtful comments. The WordPress community is stellar, and I cannot imagine hosting my blog anywhere else.
Today is my wedding anniversary. Two years ago, The Chef and I were rocking out to our Bookish Punk Rock Scottish Vintage Poetry-Laden Party with a Wedding in the Middle. I walked out to the sweet, sweet sounds of The Clash and the ceremony was composed strictly of poetry by Rumi, Mary Pauline Collier (my husband’s grandmother), and my favourite, Pablo Neruda.
*I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You by Pablo Neruda was the heart of our wedding ceremony. We are weird like that.
Colley Cibber died on 12/11/1757. “You know, one had as good be out of the world, as out of the fashion.” (An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber)
Gustave Flaubert was born on 12/12/1821. “Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.” (Madame Bovary)
Robert Browning died on 12/12/1889. “Take away love and our earth is a tomb.” (Paracelsus; Sordello; Love Among the Ruins)
Samuel Johnson died on 12/13/1784. “Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.” (A Dictionary of the English Language; A Journey to theWestern Islands of Scotland; London)
Heinrich Heine was born on 12/13/1797. “Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.” (The North Sea; The Salon)
Shirley Jackson was born on 12/14/1916 (or 1919). “I delight in what I fear.” (TheHaunting of Hill House)
Maxwell Anderson was born on 12/15/1888. “This liberty will look easy by and by when nobody dies to get it.” (What Price Glory; Saturday’s Children; Both YourHouses; Winterset; Knickerbocker Holiday; Key Largo; Anne of the Thousand Days)
Betty Smith was born on 12/15/1896. “I wrote about people who liked fake fireplaces in their parlor, who thought a brass horse with a clock imbedded in its flank was wonderful.” (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)
Jane Austen was born on 12/16/1775. “There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.” (Sense and Sensibility; Pride andPrejudice; Mansfield Park; Emma; Northanger Abbey; Persuasion)
George Santayana was born on 12/16/1863. “An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.” (The Sense of Beauty; The Life of Reason; The Realmsof Being)
Sir Noël Coward was born on 12/16/1899. “I love criticism just so long as it’s unqualified praise.” (Hay Fever; Private Lives; Cavalcade; Design for Living; Tonightat 8:30; Blithe Spirit)
W. Somerset Maugham died on 12/16/1965. “Only a mediocre person is always at his best.” (Of Human Bondage; The Moon and Sixpence; The Painted Veil; Cakesand Ale; The Razor’s Edge)
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[All images are in the Public Domain and are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]
A great big thank you to the Bookin’ It blog for nominating us for the Blog of the Year 2012 Award! As usual, we are blushing at least three shades of red over the honor.
Year Published: 1980/This Edition: 1981 (Random House/Pocket Books)
Year Purchased: Mid-1990s
Source: Antique Barn, Ohio State Fair
About: “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”-George Bernard Shaw. Every Hollywood memoir should come with the preceding GBS quote as a disclaimer. That, or the generic perception is reality. Either will do. With that out of the way, we could get down to the important business of enjoying good Tinseltown autobiographies for what they are: damn fun entertainment. Underneath the ego and the stage-managed pathos, these one-person exercises in reputation preservation usually contain heaping amounts of self-deprecation, humor, and memorable industry anecdotes, with the self-subjects somehow, through a strange, magical process, coming across as down-to-earth and larger than life; normal and privileged; lucky and talented; flawed and beautiful. Continue reading →
Heading into this holiday season, we have so much to be thankful for: health, love, happiness, good friends, and our wonderful blog readers. Books at Middlemay Farm nominated us for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award, and we couldn’t be more honored.
Very Inspiring Blogger Award
The rules of this award are:
1. Display the award logo on your blog.
2. Link back to the person who nominated you.
3. State seven things about yourself.
4. Nominate fifteen other bloggers for this award and link to them.
5. Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award’s requirements.
I’m answering the seven things this time, so here you are:
My second wedding anniversary is on Tuesday, and I am so excited.
I have Obsessive-compulsive disorder, which makes my life extra interesting.
Since May 2007, The Chef and I have lived in 3 apartments (all on the first floor) in the same renovated loft building. We love change, but are also really lazy.
I have no sense of direction.
I’ve had 8 or 9 hairstyles and 5 different colours in the last 16 months.
I have my first 5 tattoos mapped out.
I watch Miracle on 34th Street (1947) at least 10 times between Thanksgiving Day and New Year’s Day. Every single year. I repeat, every single year.
My nominees are:
ALL of you lovelies. During this peaceful holiday season, I cannot and will not choose favourites. I love every blog I read and follow. You know who you are, so congrats on being so awesome! I will leave you with this anticipatory ditty:
The essay I wrote yesterday in honor of my friend Frank really took a lot out of me. I’m drained. I’ve decided that I deserve a break from wading through my creativity. Tonight’s entertainment?
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 