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.

[Intermezzo] Happy Birthday, Momma! Or, This is Where I Review My Mother’s Job Performance…..

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I’m taking a break from my work to wish my sweet, lovely mom, Kay, a Happy Birthday! I started by searching the web for appropriate “mom/mothering” quotes. I came up empty. Oh, there are thousands on the Internet. Most of them are quite nice, inspiring even. Perfectly appropriate. Unfortunately, they just seemed…hollow. Not right. Then it occurred to me. “Duh! You’re a writer. Doing a ventriloquist act with someone else’s words is not good enough for your mother. Do it yourself.”

So here I am, feebly attempting to explain how wonderful she is in (almost) every way. I decided to add that ‘almost’ qualifier because no one is perfect. Not even my mom. That’s alright, because even her imperfection is inspiring. When I was growing up, her humanity empowered me. It still does. She’s stronger than she knows, more beautiful. She grew up at a time when suburban assimilation was expected; she raised me to be my weird, larger-than-life self. To revel in my uniqueness, because that uniqueness was my ticket to an interesting life.

She’s always been fun (and funny!) and open. She’s adventurous but won’t admit it, even when she’s in the middle of doing something totally awe-inspiring. She’s wickedly creative when it comes to this thing called life; always has been, always will be. She’s shy, like me, but passionate and vocal about her convictions (hmm, also like me). She gave me my love of reading and tea and art and half of the other important, beautiful things I hold so dear. My mom, this woman named Kay, has made it possible for me to look in the mirror and say, “I like who I am.” It’s true: I like who I am. But I love her. Mom, you are the best: the best parent, the best friend, the best role model I could ever hope for. You still inspire me. Happy Birthday!

Why, yes, it was the 1970s!

Why, yes, it was the 1970s!

 

Also born on 25 April: Al Pacino, Ella Fitzgerald, Oliver Cromwell, Edward R. Murrow, Renee Zellweger, William J. Brennan, Jr., Edward II and Guglielmo Marconi (which is odd, because I was born on Tesla’s birthday).

A Year in Books/Day 114: Camille Pissarro Letters to His Son Lucien

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  • Title: Camille Pissarro Letters to His Son Lucien
  • Edited by: John Rewald
  • Year Published: 1943/This Edition: 2002 (MFA Publications)
  • Year Purchased: 2006
  • Source: Half Price Books
  • About: Camille Pissarro, the “father of Impressionism”, was the heart and soul of that loose collective of friends and acquaintances. Every week for twenty years, he wrote his son Lucien a letter. Read together, they are better than any art history class on Impressionism could ever be. His intelligence, dedication, humour and wisdom burst from every page. He was a quiet rebel who deliberately chose to live outside the bounds of acceptable society, knew everyone within the art community that there was to know, was never complacent in his search for artistic growth- all while remaining a rock for his (slightly) younger artist friends. The landscape of art history (ha!) would be entirely different without his very serious contributions.
  • Motivation: Starting when I was a girl-very young, just a few years-I would spend hours flipping through my Mom’s books. My favourite was a handsome folio of Impressionist paintings. It was then that I formed a connection to the work of Camille Pissarro that has never waned. He remains the only Impressionist painter whose work I truly love. Bonus: We share a birthday.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 132: “I had a long conversation with Renoir. He admitted to me that everybody, Durand and his former collectors attacked him, deploring his attempts to go beyond his romantic period. He seems to be very sensitive to what we think of his show; I told him that for us the search for unity was the end towards which every intelligent artist must bend his efforts, and even with great faults it was more intelligent and more artistic to do this than to remain enclosed in romanticism. Well, now he doesn’t get any more portraits to do.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10
    Landscape at Pontoise, 1874

    Landscape at Pontoise, 1874 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

A Year in Books/Day 113: Maria Callas

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  • Title: Maria Callas an Intimate Biography
  • Author: Anne Edwards
  • Year Published: 2001 (St. Martin’s Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2004
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: I’m always skeptical about any biography with the word ‘intimate’ in the title. It holds scuzzy connotations for me, as if I’m about to read the unnecessarily shameful details of a dead person’s life. If you’ve been following my Project 366, you know that I love, love, love a good biography; just not the sordid kind. As it turned out, there was nothing to worry about: there is no enumeration of distressing personal habits or focus on gross minutiae. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything to celebrate either. This book is entirely middle-of-the road. It is neither offensive nor illuminating. It’s a quick, surface study of the great singer. If you don’t know much about Callas , it’s probably a perfectly utilitarian introduction. The photo section is the best part.

    Publicity photo of Maria Callas (December 2, 1...

    Publicity photo of Maria Callas (December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) as Violetta in La Traviata by Houston Rogers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Motivation: I needed 7 or 8 books for a long vacation. I bought this to round out the more intellectual fare I’d already purchased. This was my “easy, fun” read. Maria Callas was a diva when being a diva was something more complex and less hollow than it is now: talented, dynamic, demanding, always-changing, never boring. A great subject for the dull leg of a long car trip.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 53: “Maria knew no one on this boat, or the SS Stockholm, and had not yet learned where her father or Dr Lantzounis lived. She could think of no one else to contact in New York. In her purse were $100, her entire personal wealth. Yet she felt free for the first time in eight years. She was saying goodbye to Maria Kalogeropoulou. As her American passport stated, she was now Maria Callas.”
  • Happiness Scale: 7

Some Book Recommendations for When You are Stuck in a Car for Way Too Long

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The lovely Elisa of Fun & Fabulousness-she of the impeccable eye-asked if I could recommend some books appropriate to read on a looong car ride. Specifically, five. Five books, so she can choose one for her trip.

Painting by Carl von Steuben

(Painting by Carl von Steuben)

I’m honored; naturally, I said yes! I promptly got to work. It was all downhill from there. What happened? Continue reading →

A Year in Books/Day 112: Louise Bogan A Portrait

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  • Title: Louise Bogan A Portrait
  • Author: Elizabeth Frank
  • Year Published: 1985 (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • Year Purchased: 2000
  • Source: The Book Harbor, Westerville, Ohio
  • About: Louise Bogan was the fourth Poet Laureate of the United States. That’s probably news to all but the most passionate poetry fans. This needs to change*; although more than a quarter century old, this biography is a fine start for anyone wanting to learn more. This fascinating, meticulous study was my crash course on the life and work of the New England poet. Prior to that, she was merely a name and a footnote to the more famous greats of twentieth century literature. Whatever your approach to the subject-as a fan of poetry, literary or social culture, history, women’s studies-you will find much to admire in the sad yet triumphant voice and life of this too-neglected talent.
  • Motivation: At the time I bought this book, I was just beginning to write about one of my now-favourite subjects: female wordsmiths of the first half of the last century.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 5: “In 1884, when May was only nineteen, a son, Charles Joseph, was born. The years between his birth and Louise’s are a blank, except that in between there was a second boy, named Edward, born nobody knows what year, who died at the age of four or five months.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10
    Louise Bogan (1897–1970), US-american Poet

    Louise Bogan (1897–1970), US-american Poet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    *Nameberry.com recently listed their choices for the best poet-based names for 2012 babies. First on the list? Bogan.

A Year in Books/Day 111: 1700 Scenes from London Life

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  • Title: 1700 Scenes from London Life
  • Author: Maureen Waller
  • Year Published: 2000 (Four Walls Eight Windows)
  • Year Purchased: 2002/2003
  • Source: History Book Club
  • About: This is a biography/history of a very specific time and place. What was it like to live in London at the start of the eighteenth century? If you had walked its streets and slept in one of its tall, cramped terraced houses, what could you expect from life? What did you eat and drink? What did you do with your scant leisure time? What did you wear and how did you worship? Waller addresses as many of these questions as possible, bringing us several paces closer to knowing what life was like as a Londoner three centuries ago.
  • Motivation: History. London. Rinse and repeat; you’ve all read this explanation before.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 57: “For babies of poorer parents left behind in the disease-ridden capital with its smoke-choked skies and contaminated water, life was just as perilous. Many died from neglect, the unsanitary conditions, and from being smothered in bed by their mothers-whether by accident or intent it was never easy to determine.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8 1/2

A Year in Books/Day 110: Ansel Adams An Autobiography

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  • Title: Ansel Adams An Autobiography
  • Author: Ansel Adams
  • Year Published: 1985/This Edition:1996 (Little, Brown and Company)
  • Year Purchased: 2000/2001
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: Iconic is an over used word and idea. Very few people truly and permanently achieve that status. Ansel Adams, the Californian known for his crisp black and white nature photography, certainly deserves the label. His expansive, down-to-earth and gruff nature flies off the page, making 82 years of wide experience seem fresh, lively and interesting. For eight decades, he witnessed the extremes of a rapidly changing America; as a pioneering artist and activist, he was responsible for much of that transformation.

    A photo portrait of photographer Ansel Adams, ...

    A photo portrait of photographer Ansel Adams, which first appeared in the 1950 Yosemite Field School yearbook. Deutsch: Portrait des Fotografen Ansel Adams, erstmals 1950 im Jahrbuch der Yosemite Field School erschienen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Motivation: I love to learn what drives and shapes creative people and their processes.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 55: “The snapshot is not as simple a statement as some may believe. It represents something that each of us has seen-more as human beings than photographers-and wants to keep as a memento, a special thing encountered. The little icons that return from the photo-finisher provide recollections of events, people, places; they stir memories and create fantasies. Through the billions of snapshots made each year a visual history of our times is recorded in enormous detail.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9 1/2

A Year in Books/Day 109: Blue Highways

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  • Title: Blue Highways A Journey Into America
  • Author: William Least Heat Moon
  • Year Published: 1982/This Edition: 1985 (A Fawcett Crest Book Published by Ballantine Books)
  • Year Purchased: 1987
  • Source: Likely Waldenbooks.
  • About: In the late 1970s, teacher William Least Heat Moon lost his job and his love. Instead of wallowing, he set out on one of those Great Journeys of personal and cultural discovery that Americans are so famous for; this book is the result of that trip. It rightfully spent months atop the New York Times Best Seller List. Blue Highways had such a profound impact on my early adolescence that it begs for a separate entry; I promise to do that soon. Until then, consider this volume worth every penny. It’s a classic.
  • Motivation: Honestly, I have no idea. I think that I heard about this somewhere and decided to buy it (or, to be accurate, ask my Mom to buy it for me) to read on a summer road trip out West.
  • Times Read: A very profound 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 59: “Maybe she was right that tourists want half-timbered facades and stained-plastic windows; maybe they want an Elizabethan town even when the real Manteo had been clapboard and shingles. Progress, retrogression-the Duchess knew best. But for me, I headed toward the town that hadn’t seen neon light.”
  • Happiness Scale: Off the charts.