From Rootabaga Stories
This is thoroughly American.
Voices from the Grave #58: Carl Sandburg Reading ‘How Six Pigeons Came Back to Hatrack the Horse After Many Accidents and Six Telegrams’
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Tag Archives: Writing
The Dead Writers Round-Up: February 10th
- Sir John Suckling was born on 2/10/1609. “Out upon it I have lov’d/Three whole days together;/And am like to love three more,/If it prove fair weather.” (Ballad Upon a Wedding; Aglaura)
- Baron de Montesquieu died on 2/10/1755. “Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.” (Persian Letters; The Temple of Gnide)
- Charles Lamb was born on 2/10/1775. “I love to lose myself in other men’s minds…Books think for me.” (Blank Verse; Tales from Shakespeare; The Adventures of Ulysses; Essays of Elia)
- Boris Pasternak was born on 2/10/1890. “Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.” (My Sister, Life; Themes and Variations; Safe Conduct; Doctor Zhivago)
- Bertolt Brecht was born on 2/10/1898. “Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.” (Happy End; Saint Joan of the Stockyards; Don Juan; Trumpets and Drums; The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre)
- Laura Ingalls Wilder died on 2/10/1957. “It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” (Little House in the Big Woods; Little House on the Prairie; On the Banks of Plum Creek)
- Alex Haley died on 2/10/1992. “In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.” (The Autobiography of Malcolm X; Roots: The Saga of an American Family)
- Arthur Miller died on 2/10/2005. “A playwright lives in an occupied country. And if you can’t live that way you don’t stay.” (All My Sons; Death of a Salesman; The Crucible; A View from the Bridge; After the Fall; Mr. Peter’s Connections; Resurrection Blues)
Sir John Suckling
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
Charles Lamb, 1798
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Alex Haley in the U.S. Coast Guard
Daily Diversion #92: Duncan MacDogg
Duncan does not have literary interests like his feline sister. He prefers to run around like a cyclone, chasing shadows. He’s hard to photograph because he is rarely still. Even when caught in a moment of relaxation, he starts bouncing around as soon as he sees the glint of the phone or camera, trying to find, then kill, the light source. Thank goodness for the existence of the burst shot.
Duncan in a moment of stillness.
“Not Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Astor together could have raised money enough to buy a quarter share in my little dog.”-Ernest Thompson Seton
[Book Nerd News] What Really Killed Pablo Neruda?
Pablo Neruda To Be Exhumed In Chile [courtesy of Huff Post Books]
Daily Diversion #91: At My Window, Sad and Lonely*
There lives a tree, just outside my window…
Lonely Tree, Take One
He stands watch over our urban street, nature’s guardian lost in a maze of manufacturing buildings. If he moves his branches just so, other trees come within view. Across the way, down the road. They have their own concerns; he is alone.
Lonely Tree, Take Two
Telephone poles, wires, patchy squirrels, delicate birds, and empty water bottles interact with him fleetingly, coldly. I wonder if they even speak the same language? Continue reading
Everyday I Love You
It’s no secret that I love notebooks. They are tools of my trade, a bit old-fashioned, perhaps, but useful, evocative of an earlier time, and beautiful. I usually walk around with tiny Moleskines hidden in my purse and crumpled scraps stuffed perilously in coat or skirt pockets. Spirals of cheap school paper are stacked in the studio and by my bed. Since quantity counts, I cannot afford to be too discerning. I run through paper at an appalling pace (no need to worry, darlings, I recycle), and play a continuous game of hide and seek with the surviving notebooks. Fortunately, I came into a spot of luck back in January by winning this sexy guy:
Everyday I Love You Notebook from Smythson
Isn’t he divine? He originated in London and was sent to me via Austria, from the fabulously chic Nadine of The Flamboyante. The stars surely aligned when I won her December Smythson Notebook Giveaway. This match is meant to be: he’s already an important part of my creative process and is an inspiration in his own right. An unexpected bonus? I feel a lot more elegant dashing off notes on the fly. Maybe Nadine sprinkled magic dust on the notebook before mailing it off. I’ll never know.
Books in Art: Oleanders by Vincent van Gogh
Oleanders (Vase with Oleanders and Books) by Vincent van Gogh, 1888
The book on top is La Joie de vivre by Émile Zola. A framed copy of this painting hangs in my kitchen. The original, a gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Loeb, is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Dead Writers Round-Up: 8th-9th February
- Jules Verne was born on 2/8/1828. “Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.” (A Journey to the Center of the Earth; From the Earth to the Moon; Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; Around the World in Eighty Days)
- Kate Chopin was born on 2/8/1850. “A person can’t have everything in this world; and it was a little unreasonable of her to expect it.” (Bayou Folk; A Night in Acadie; The Awakening)
- Elizabeth Bishop was born on 2/8/1911. “If after I read a poem the world looks like that poem for 24 hours or so I’m sure it’s a good one-and the same goes for paintings.” (North & South; Poems: North & South. A Cold Spring; The Complete Poems)
- Iris Murdoch died on 2/8/1999. “We can only learn to love by loving.” (Under the Net; The Bell; The Sea, The Sea; The Green Knight)
- Amy Lowell was born on 2/9/1874. “Happiness, to some, elation; Is, to others, mere stagnation.” (A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass; Sword Blades and Poppy Seed; Legends; A Critical Fable) Continue reading
[Book Nerd Links] 10 of the World’s Greatest Hotels Inspired by Literature
10 of the World’s Greatest Hotels Inspired by Literature [courtesy of Flavorwire]
Where do you want to stay?
[Intermezzo] Not Quite a Fairy Tale, in Four Lines
I’m Facebook friends with a garden gnome. His name is Robert. He plays Jazz guitar. True story.
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 