This…
It only looks like a cardboard cutout.
…is why you haven’t heard much from me since Thursday.
Daily Diversion #34: Oh So Quiet
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Author Archives: maedez
A Year in Books/Day 190: Feminist Ryan Gosling
- Title: Feminist Ryan Gosling Feminist Theory As Imagined from Your Favorite Sensitive Movie Dude (Unauthorized)
- Author: Danielle Henderson
- Year Published: 2012 (Running Press)
- Year Purchased: 2012
- Source: This was a birthday gift from my mom.
- About: Based on the hilarious blog of the same name, this book is every bit as good as the original source. I do not have an opinion on Ryan Gosling. Is he a fine actor? Word-of-mouth and critical response indicates as much. Is he as good-looking as many people think? That’s a matter of opinion. Until a year ago, I never even gave him any thought. As soon as I saw the first blog post, I was in love. With this concept. Feminist theory coming out of the mouth* of an actor known for his positive sentiments about women? Next to photographs of him looking thoughtful and sensitive (really, is there any other kind?). The very idea cracks me up. Hey girl, indeed. *(Naturally, he never said any of the quotes attributed to him in the blog or book. Is that a detraction? Nope. In fact, it makes it even better.)
- Motivation: I’m a feminist with a sense of humor. There are lots of us, by the way, and this book is proof.
- Times Read: More than once, and I’ve only had it one week.
- Random Excerpt/Pages 62 & 99: “Hey girl. We’d be more successful at reclaiming public space for women if we were willing to address the patriarchal fixtures that made it unsafe in the first place.”/ “Hey girl. I literally have no idea how to react to someone who hasn’t read Judy Blume’s Forever.”
- Happiness Scale: 10+++
A Reading List a Mile Long: Daedalus Books Midsummer 2012 Edition, Part II
Here’s the companion piece to Part I, delivered as promised.
- Travelling Heroes In the Epic Age of Homer by Robin Lane Fox
- America Dreaming How Youth Changed America in the 60’s by Laban Carrick Hill
- Fanny and Adelaide The Lives of the Remarkable Kemble Sisters by Ann Blainey
- The Booklover’s Guide to the Midwest A Literary Tour by Greg Holden
- Script and Scribble The Rise and Fall of Handwriting by Kitty Burns Florey
- Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch
- Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel by Edmund White
- The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head-Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay by Louis Begley
- The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith by Joan Schenkar
- Woman of Letters Irene Nemirovsky and Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
- My Paper Chase True Stories of Vanished Times by Harold Evans
- Paris to the Past Traveling Through French History by Train by Ina Caro
- Vedic Ecology: Practical Wisdom for Surviving the 21st Century by Ranchor Prime
- The Life of David by Robert Pinsky
- Saint Augustine, Tarsicius J. van Bavel, ed.
- All Hopped Up and Ready to Go Music from the Streets of New York 1927-77 by Tony Fletcher
- The Red Prince The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke by Timothy Snyder
- Renaissance Florence on 5 Florins a Day by Charles FitzRoy
I’ve learned a few things from typing out this list.
- It should have been split into 3 parts.
- I am obviously intrigued by anyone with a secret life.
- Literary biographies are even more of a personal thing than I thought.
Plus, a bonus revelation:
- If I read all of these books (and everything else on my ever-fattening To-Read List) I would not only never write another word, I would spend 20 hours a day reading in bed. For the rest of my life.
The Dead Writers Round-Up: 9th-12th August
- Hermann Hesse died on 8/9/1962. “Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.”
- Louise Bogan was born on 8/11/1897. “Your work is carved out of agony as a statue is carved out of marble.”
- Edith Wharton died on 8/11/1937. “Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.”
- William Blake died on 8/12/1827. “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.”
- Mary Roberts Rinehart was born on 8/12/1876. “The writing career is not a romantic one. The writer’s life may be colorful, but his work itself is rather drab.”
- Radclyffe Hall was born on 8/12/1880. “The world hid its head in the sands of convention, so that by seeing nothing it might avoid Truth.”-The Well of Loneliness
- Helen Hunt Jackson died on 8/12/1885. “Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; Each to his passion; what’s in a name?
- Thomas Mann died on 8/12/1955. “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
[All images are in the Public Domain and are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]
Daily Diversion #33: A View from the Cemetery Floor
A view from the cemetery floor.
“He could not die when trees were green, for he loved the time too well.”-John Clare
A Year in Books/Day 189: Virginia Woolf
- Title: Virginia Woolf
- Author: Mary Ann Caws
- Year Published: 2001 (The Overlook Press)
- Year Purchased: 2002
- Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
- About: The beauty of this volume is not in famed academic Caws’ disappointingly standard-issue prose but in the abundance of photographs decorating the pages. It’s a wee book you can read in an hour. The eclectic images of Woolf and her circle will make you pick it up again and again; most of the photos do not suffer from being over-published. They are fresh and compelling. My favourite is the back of a stripe-shirted (Dora) Carrington.
- Motivation: Virginia Woolf! There’s nothing more to it than that.
- Times Read: 2 or 3
- Random Excerpt/Page 36: “Monk’s House was a perfect place for living and for visitors, for Leonard’s gardening and their writing. Endless discussions took place there, some of which are recounted in Virginia’s letters. Work went on constantly wherever Virginia and Leonard were, whether in Hogarth House or Monk’s House.”
- Happiness Scale: 9 (for the photographs)
Daily Diversion #32: A Little Kindness
I work at a gallery. Downtown, part-time. I manage the company-wide blog, answer random questions about grammar, dole out directions to places I have never been, and sell artsy things. If you lack the ability to visualize how artwork should be framed, I will come to the rescue with the perfect design. My eye is better than yours, anyway.
The postal worker assigned to our route is fantastically nice and funny. He slathers it on a bit thick at times, but is unfailingly amusing. He also has the solid recommendation of being a playwright.
We did not have any incoming mail today. This was the only delivery.
The pink really popped in the bright light of the gallery.
Every day, the mailman gives one customer a rose. Continue reading
Quote
“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”-Saul Bellow
Voices from the Grave #31: Gore Vidal Talking About His Memoir ‘Point to Point Navigation’
Gore Vidal talking about his memoir Point to Point Navigation.
“Yeah, well, I’m, I’m not in the book, if you notice. I keep myself out of that.”
A Year in Books/Day 188: Hollywood Royalty
William Randolph Hearst, circa 1910. He threw all of the best parties, thanks to his sweetheart Marion Davies. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Title: Hollywood Royalty
- Author: Gregory Speck
- Year Published: 1992 (Birch Lane Press Book/Carol Publishing Group)
- Year Purchased: 1990s
- Source: Library sale
- About: San Simeon, William Randolph Hearst’s estate, was the setting of countless celebrity-gilded parties. An invitation for a weekend stay was not only a passport to bask in temporary opulence so extreme it made members of the movie colony seem like paupers in comparison, it meant that you had truly arrived on the Hollywood scene. Close your eyes. Conjure up a dinner party of seven courses, attended by some of the most fabulous classic movie stars. Your curiosity probably takes the form of many questions, with the big one being: What would they talk about? The setting of Hollywood Royalty is real, the occasion is imaginary and the conversation is composed of snippets from published interviews. Fact and fiction cross borders, on an evening removed from time, to mingle as seductively as the stars in Hearst’s dining room.
- Motivation: I like when lines are blurred. I love classic film.
- Times Read: 1 or 2
- Random Excerpt/Page 160: “I (Olivia de Havilland) learned a lot from Jimmy Cagney, and he was always so sweet to me. On A Midsummer Night’s Dream he was very nice to me, and I was so flattered. He would come into my little canvas dressing room, and we would just talk about everything. I couldn’t believe it, for he was already a great star, and it was my first film, way back in 1935.”
- Happiness Scale: 10
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 