- Title: Vermeer The Complete Paintings
- Author: Norbert Schneider
- Year Published: 2001 (Taschen)
- Year Purchased: 2002/2003
- Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
- About: Mid-way between a coffee table book and scholarly treatise, this small, slim volume is a surprisingly stunning study of the legendary Dutch master’s entire output (35 paintings). Norbert Schneider has serious chops as an art historian, yet manages to present technical details, sociological factors and biographical information in a straightforward and engaging manner. He takes you considerably deeper than ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’. His beautifully nuanced precision is well worthy of Vermeer.
- Motivation: I have wildly eclectic taste. Though my preferences twist and turn, slither and lurch to a thousand and one different places, doubling back before shooting off in another hundred seemingly random, sometimes contradictory directions, one thing is always indisputable: I like what I like. And I like Vermeer. In fact, I have an overall fondness for Dutch painting. A quick thumb-through of this lush little gem and I was sold.
- Times Read: Countless
- Random Excerpt/Page 36: ” A peeled lemon in ‘Woman and two men’ lies on a silver dish next to a jug which has been placed on a white cloth in an arrangement which is almost like a still life; the purpose if the lemon was to reduce the effect of love potions.”
- Happiness Scale: 10++
The Dead Writers Round-Up: 19th-23rd January
- Edgar Allan Poe was born on 1/19/1809. “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
- Robinson Jeffers died on 1/20/1962. “Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.” (Shine, Perishing Republic, 1941)
- Lytton Strachey died on 1/21/1932. Strachey revolutionized the genre of biography, finally bringing it out of the Victorian era by infusing his profiles with wit and genuine human emotions.
- George A. Moore died on 1/21/1933. “Art must be parochial in the beginning to be cosmopolitan in the end.”
- George Orwell died on 1/21/1950. “Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”
- Lord Byron was born on 1/22/1788. “Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.”
- August Strindberg was born on 1/22/1849. Strindberg was an artistic triple-threat, engaging in painting and photography as well as the writing for which he is known. He also fancied himself an alchemist.
- Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) was born on 1/23/1783. “A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.“
A Year in Books/Day 41: Mary Queen of Scots
- Title: Mary Queen of Scots
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
- Year Published: First Edition-1934/This Edition: 1971 (Sphere Books Limited)
- Year Purchased: 2001
- Source: Book Harbor, Westerville, Ohio
- About: A fine biography that gives the Scots queen her full due. A true classic.
- Motivation: I have a largish collection of Tudor-themed books. Although I have never been strongly attached to Elizabeth’s cousin, I thought it was time to give a few feet of shelf space to the House of Stuart. I’m glad I did.
- Times Read: 1
- Random Excerpt/Page 200: “It was Sir Henry Killigrew who brought the official warning and the secret complaint to Edinburgh. He had his notes to make on the affairs, domestic and politic, of the young Queen of Scots who should, by the birth of her son, have been at the height of her triumph.”
- Happiness Scale: 10
A Year in Books/Day 40: The World’s Most Notorious Women
- Title: The World’s Most Notorious Women Secrets, lies, murders, and scandals….The Notorious Acts of Women
- Author: None listed. I cannot say that I blame them (see below).
- Year Published: 2001/This Edition 2002 (ALVA PRESS)
- Year Purchased: 2003/2004
- Source: Via mail/unknown source
- About: When I bought this book for a dollar or two, my hopes were admittedly pretty low. I thought it would be an easy, quick, silly beach-type read. Little did I know then how wrong I was. This is, without any doubt, the shoddiest book I have ever seen or read. If writing 2,000 words enumerating exactly how awful it is, in every damn way, was not wildly out of proportion to its inherent insignificance, I would probably do so. Continue reading
A Year in Books/Day 39: Elizabethan Cross Stitch
- Title: Elizabethan Cross Stitch
- Author: Barbara Hammet
- Year Published: 2004 (A David & Charles Book)
- Year Purchased: 2005
- Source: Likely a book club of some sort
- About: Yes, this is a craft book. It contains 25 cross stitch patterns based on Elizabethan designs. Scintillating, I know.
- Motivation: The Elizabethan is one of my favorite eras. I was piqued by the ever-so-slight historical bent. As an adult I can barely sew on a button. As a child, I was a very intermittent but quite excellent cross stitcher. Also, deep down, I know that there is a craft-beast waiting to be unleashed. If only I had the time. Apparently, I don’t. I completed a stunning pin cushion for my Grandma circa 2007. My second project ( a pillow based on a garden) has been in the planning stages since then. Sigh.
- Times Read: 1 (or, as much as you can actually read a book containing cross stitch patterns)
- Random Excerpt/Page 5: “The embroidery of the Elizabethan period is characterized by great richness and originality. The works are often more complex than modern ones, often on a finer scale and frequently allude to historical figures, but in them we recognize the beginning of all the embroidery we know today.”
- Happiness Scale: 7
Intermezzo: Like a Yoko in the Night
Yoko Ono stole my commission. Behind that sweet face is a heart sated with greed. She walked away with three of my customers. Each time I stood there, mouth hanging open mid-sentence, she just kept on smiling. Saying soothing things to them, never missing a beat; her theft audacious under the fluorescent lights. Wide-eyed, brown-eyed, soul-eyed. No hint of wrong-doing troubled her placid face. She took their sales, pocketed their money, said strange things and sent them on their way as if nothing was wrong in her world. It wasn’t. Each time she turned to me, pirouetted, and grinned. “This is how it is done. This is how you make a sale. It’s easy. Follow my lead and you’ll be just like me, my dear.” I kept tumbling after her, now sure that she was right: I really could learn a lot by watching her. She’s crafty, serene, enigmatic. I suddenly, forcefully knew that she isn’t driven by greed at all. A few seconds later I looked over, expecting to be gifted with her smile and odd natural wisdom. She wasn’t there. The sun was hitting my face.
A Year in Books/Day 38: Bedside Book of Famous French Stories
- Title: Bedside Book of Famous French Stories
- Edited By: Belle Decker and Robert N. Linscott
- Year Published: 1945 (Random House)
- Year Purchased: 1991
- Source: Columbus Public Library, library sale
- About: A compilation of French short stories by such heavyweights as Honore de Balzac, Prosper Merimee, George Sand, Anatole France, Emile Zola and Jean-Paul Sartre.
- Motivation: Even as a teenager, I had an affinity for short stories. I think I knew that, as a writer, it would be my most natural (fiction) medium. This book was my introduction to the work of those listed above. Prior to that, they were just enticing but empty names. I also really love old books. I picked up an 80-year-old copy of Zola’s ‘Nana’ at the same sale. It was a good day.
- Times Read: 1
- Random Excerpt/Page 23: “The old lady meanwhile, passive as a child and almost dazed, sat down on her chair again. But the honest pastry-cook came back directly. A countenance red enough to begin with, and further flushed by the bake-house fire, was suddenly blanched; such terror perturbed him that he reeled as he walked, and stared about him like a drunken man.”
- Happiness Scale: 7 1/2
A Year in Books/Day 37: The Reel List
- Title: The Reel List An Irreverent Guide Arranged by Uncommon Categories, from Rock ‘n’ Roll to Revisionist Westerns
- Author: Lynne Arany, Tom Dyja, and Gary Goldsmith
- Year Published: 1995 (A Detal Book/Published by Dell Publishing)
- Year Purchased: 1996/1997
- Source: Little Professor Book Company
- About: The subtitle gets to the point better than I could. I’ll add that some of the categories are a hoot, and let them ‘speak’ for themselves-The Butler Did It; Hot Rock Rip-Offs & Other Capers; The Aesthetics of Elvis; Adulteries to Remember.
- Motivation: One of the points you will see me assert repeatedly is how much I love movies. I really, really do. Mostly old ones, but I digress. I also love lists. No, let me take that a step of 932 further: I need lists. They are a lifelong and basic requirement to my happiness and well-being, one of the tools I use to keep my untidy and wildly fertile mind in some semblance of order. This book is a winner on dual fronts.
- Times Read: 2
- Random Excerpt/Page 110: “The best thing about movie cats is that precious few of them belong to sensitive tykes with no friends. These cats have sex, work for the FBI, come from outer space, even rise from the dead, and the last thing they’d ever do is wander cross-country to find a beloved owner. Apparently these inert lumps of fur can be interesting when they want to be.
Inspiration Board-8 February 2012
- The work of the late Cincinnati (and internationally famous) artist, Charley Harper. I’ve never been a big fan of animal art (or puns) but there is something about his clean lines and mid-century modern aesthetic (which he dubbed “minimal realism”) that has been drawing me in, almost unwillingly. Any previously declared distaste for animals-in-art has been sliding slowly away, in the face of his compelling creations. I don’t love them all (far from it, actually) but am seriously enamored of some of the pieces.
- Although this is hardly new, or cutting edge, I’m slightly obsessed with Jane Wiedlin‘s acoustic version of ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’. I love kooky chicks; for this reason alone she has always been my favorite member of the Go-Go’s. When I was very young, my Aunt Linda gave me her copy of ‘Beauty and the Beat’. Ah, nostalgia, right? Not entirely. I almost prefer this version to the original; maybe it’s just because the stripped-down sound goes better with winter’s quiet ways.
- Margaritas. Maybe I’m terribly eager for warm weather but I have been ordering this salt-rimmed concoction at every available opportunity, instead of my usual Scotch.
- The book reviews in the current (FEB/MAR 2012) issue of ‘BUST’. There are so many compelling entries. I want to read them all, particularly ‘Agorafabulous!: Dispatches From My Bedroom’ by Sara Benincasa (William Morrow), ‘Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality’ by Hanne Blank (Beacon) and ‘Treasure Island’ by Sara Levine (Europa).
A Year in Books/Day 36: Shadows, Fire, Snow
- Title: Shadows, Fire, Snow The Life of Tina Modotti
- Author: Patricia Albers
- Year Published: 1999 (Clarkson Potter/Publishers)
- Year Purchased: 2002
- Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
- About: Tina Modotti, though little recognized today, was a woman of many talents: she worked as an actress, artisan, photographer (which is her main claim to immortality) and communist revolutionary. Her fierce abilities, ideals and passions took her from her native Italy to the shores of America, Mexico and Russia.
- Motivation: I love strong, artistic, intelligent women. Her photography is stunning, never-to-be-forgotten.
- Times Read: 2
- Random Excerpt/Page 32: “Meanwhile, the military debacle had cut off communications with the family in Italy, leaving Tina, Mercedes, and Giuseppe frantic with anxiety. Was Tina also experiencing guilt that she had been absorbed in playacting as her loved ones suffered? If so, it was not the last time she would anguish over the thought of art making in the face of human affliction.”
- Happiness Scale: 10

