Author Archives: maedez

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About maedez

Writer, biographer, poet. History nerd, silent movie maven. Punk rocker, amateur baker, bookworm. Cricket fan, Scotch drinker, craft beer snob.

[Drumroll] Our First Alternative Muse of the Month is…..

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Katherine Mansfield! We cannot think of a better person to fill the first Alternative Muse slot than the New Zealand-born short story writer (1888-1923).

Katherine Mansfield, a New Zealand-writer of s...

Katherine Mansfield.  Picture taken 1912. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Check back often during the month of May as we break down and study why she makes an ideal Alternative Muse. There will be reviews, fiction, trivia, essays and quotes by, about or in her honor. Please feel free to enter the discussion at any time with your thoughts, questions and ideas. The real fun begins on Friday. We hope to see you then!

 

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 2nd-4th May

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  • Van Wyck Brooks died on 5/2/1963.
Portrait of Van Wyck Brooks, 1909

Portrait of Van Wyck Brooks, 1909

“If men were basically evil, who would bother to improve the world instead of giving it up as a bad job at the outset?”

 

  • May Sarton was born on 5/3/1912. “In a total work, the failures have their not unimportant place.”
  • William Inge was born on 5/3/1913. He wrote several wildly popular plays that were successfully adapted for the screen: Come Back, Little Sheba; Picnic; Bus Stop. He won the Academy Award for writing the original screenplay for Splendor in the Grass.
  • Jane Bowles died on 5/4/1973. “I am a writer and I want to write.”

A Year in Books/Day 123: Within Tuscany

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  • Title: Within Tuscany Reflections on a Time and Place
  • Author: Matthew Spender
  • Year Published: 1992/This Edition: 1993 (Viking Press/Penguin Books)
  • Year Purchased: 2004/2005
  • Source: A bookstore in Upstate New York
  • About: This book got off to an agonizingly slow start. Whatever a snail’s pace is in reading lingo, that’s what it was. S-l-o-o-o-o-w-w. I plodded away a few pages at a time, absolutely determined to keep at it until I hit the sweet spot where my interest was finally piqued. That eventually happened about half-way through. It took a long few months for that day to arrive. I read at least three dozen other books during the wait. Was it worth my stubborn insistence? Eh. Yes and no. The over-all feel of the book is marvelous; the individual stories and anecdotes of English transplant Matthew Spender and his wife raising their two daughters deep in the heart of Tuscany are hit-and-miss. If that seems like a contradictory feat, it is: yet, as a whole, it works. Don’t expect it to be an edge-of-your-seat or limitlessly engaging read, and you’ll likely enjoy find it enjoyable.
  • Motivation: It was cheap and looked interesting.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 91: “I was unused to the etiquette of sitting up with the dead. There are rules to this social ritual, the principal one being that neither the body nor the family should ever be left alone. You arrive: whoever is there leaves, and you remain until someone else appears who can take over from you.”
  • Happiness Scale: 7

A Year in Books/Day 122: Swingin’ Chicks of the ’60s

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  • Title: Swingin’ Chicks of the ’60s A Tribute to 101 of the Decade’s defining women
  • Author: Chris Strodder/Foreword by Angie Dickinson
  • Year Published: 2000 (Cedco Publishing Company)
  • Year Purchased: 2001/2002
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: I owned the calender before the book. It was so cheery and bright-and full of fun facts-that I was sold on this volume as soon as I saw it at Barnes & Noble. It profiles 101 ‘It Girls’ of the ’60s: from Annette Funicello to Ursula Andress, Capucine to Hayley Mills, Nico to Diahann Carroll, every major show business medium is represented by a bevy of talented ladies. Each entry includes a short biography, relevant dates, trivia and, of course, deliciously swingin’ photos.
  • Motivation: The title says it all. How could you not want to read this eye candy, pop culture gem?
  • Times Read: 3
  • Random Excerpt/Page 12: “In the late ’60s, every American soldier knew Chris Noel. More accurately, they knew her voice. It’s still the first thing one notices about her, that marvelously husky, tomboyish voice that cracks then soothes with the warmth of a summer afternoon. To hear her is to remember a picnic on a sunny California hillside, or a swimmin’ hole on a Midwest river, or white sand on a hot Florida beach.”
  • Happiness Scale: A very cheesy, wholesome 9++
    Screenshot of Capucine from the trailer for th...

    Screenshot of Capucine from the trailer for the film The Pink Panther (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

A Year in Books/Day 121: The Artist’s Way

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  • Title: The Artist’s Way A Spiritual Path to Creativity
  • Author: Julia Cameron
  • Year Published: 1992 (G.P Putnam’s Sons)
  • Year Purchased: 1998
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: If you’re an artist, writer or other creative type you’ve likely heard of this book; it’s a classic of its kind. I have a confession: I’ve read it at least four times (maybe five) but have never done the exercises for more than a week. I know, I know. Reading it (the easy part) but not following through by actually putting in the work (the tough part) entirely defeats the purpose. I don’t know why I always stop at around the same point in the program: the whole thing makes sense, it is inspiring, my brain knows that it would probably be helpful. Maybe it’s because I’m not very good at following directions (I’m a control freak) and don’t like to be locked into anything with such an open-ended outcome. Given that it’s only a twelve-week program, maybe I will give it another whirl. On the plus side-for me, anyway-is the relative structure involved. I can get behind free writing every morning; that’s a sound discipline to have. I also love the quotes in the margins of nearly every page. The program seems to encourage artistic empowerment and creative openness, both good things. Whether it skews , in actual practice, to the side of personal revelation or empty promise remains to be seen.
  • Motivation: It is an attractive concept and was all the rage for the whole of the 1990s and into this century, when I was a very young aspiring writer.
  • Times Read: 4 or 5
  • Random Excerpt/Page 123: “Jealousy is a map. Each of our jealousy maps differs. Each of us will probably be surprised by some of the things we discover on our own. I, for example, have never been eaten alive with resentment over the success of women novelists. But I took an unhealthy interest in the fortunes and misfortunes of women playwrights. I was their harshest critic, until I wrote my first play.”
  • Happiness Scale: My jury of one is still out.

If you’ve actually read the book AND completed the program, I’d love to hear from you. Did it help in any practical way? What did you get from the program?

Introducing: Alternative Muses + Our First Mini Contest/Giveaway*

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I don’t like normal muses. I’m not inspired by flawless beauty or a record heavy with wild successes. Convention is a hindrance. I look to the obscure, the weird, the disenfranchised for daily sustenance. I love passion, prickliness, commitment, awkwardness, individuality. A willingness to fall hard on a big stage or the refusal to walk on to it at all, to not shut up when it’s convenient, to live close to the bone and heart and brain. Dead Writers, mostly, but also artists, photographers, performers, activists, life-livers, non-conformists, survivors. The majority are women but, being a feminist, men are definitely not excluded. It’s a personal list-and very, very long-but inclusive. My magpie tastes couldn’t have it any other way. Continue reading →