Tag Archives: Writing

Shopping for the Bookworm: Dorothy Parker Edition

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We’ll let Dorothy Parker’s wit speak for itself, in the form of these Etsy goodies. Enjoy!

Dorothy Parker Poster by Kayci Wheatley

Dorothy Parker Poster by Kayci Wheatley-$22.00

I love the graphic pink and white design of this poster. It is a nice contrast to Parker’s acerbity. Continue reading →

[Intermezzo] A Howling Phantasma or, Is That You, Allen Ginsberg?

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I met Allen Ginsberg today. Thirty year old, Howl-era Ginsberg. Pre-beard, lean-faced, second-hand button down shirt and wrinkly chinos Ginsberg. Passionate, open, distilled, intellectual. Chatty, with a beatific smile. Slight yet strong, like a controlled exhalation. He didn’t seem to know who he was, the great Ginsberg unaware of his greatness. How could that happen? Modesty is not one of his virtues. There’s a sturdy ego beneath that skull, that nose, those glasses. He was there, but not there. Present yet absent. The voice, the words, the attitude-all off. Wrong. He was fading, chimerical. If I blinked one more time, would he be gone, disappear into nothing, recede into my brain cells? No, he was still there. Moving to the door, thanking me. Thanking me for the package carried in his hand. Only now his shirt was too smooth, the chinos too crisp, the shoes too smart. The accent was all wrong, there was no poetical thought behind the eyes. Just a nice man, polite. Grateful. Gone. Gone, with his casual canniness worn like smooth skin, neither pondered nor known.

A Year in Books/Day 151: Roget’s Descriptive Word Finder

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  • Title: Roget’s Descriptive Word Finder A Dictionary Thesaurus of Adjectives
  • Author: Barbara Ann Kipfer, Ph.D.
  • Year Published: 2003 (Writer’s Digest Books)
  • Year Purchased: 2003/2004
  • Source: Writer’s Digest Book Club
  • About: The title is its own best review. All I will add is that this book is helpfully broken down into alphabetized categories, from Abandonment to Zoology. It also includes, as an addendum, a Quick Word Finder. As with all good reference books, it is practical and easy to use. Its highly specific nature-the twist of being composed entirely of adjectives and adverbs- is what gives it an edge
  • Motivation: Writers need reference books. Although I use modern technology daily, I am comforted and nourished by old-school reference materials. I love them and, as far as my personal collection goes, I say “the more the merrier.”
  • Times Read: Cover-to-cover: 1/As reference: countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 1: “This book contains thousands of entries for describing people, places and things with adjectives. It is a combination dictionary and thesaurus exclusively for adjectives and adverbs. Writers can avoid clichés by using fresh, accurate details and by finding the most evocative word or phrase for what they want to describe.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8

A Reading List a Mile Long: Bas Bleu Summer 2012 Edition

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When it comes to books, I am straight-up greedy. I offer no apologies, only slow, regretful sighs that I cannot own all the books I want to read. Or read all the books I want to read. I could probably spend all of my waking time reading, until it carried over into my dreams, making my life a soft, sweet, contented whirl of words. Other people’s words. Oh. At this point, I would cease to be a writer. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all, but you get my drift. Books-I need them in my life. These are the volumes and literary-related goodies making me drool and pant and dream. Enjoy! Continue reading →

The Dead Writers Round-Up: 6th-8th June

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  • Thomas Mann was born on 6/6/1875. “A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.”
  • Elizabeth Bowen was born on 6/7/1899. “Art is one thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting.”
  • Gwendolyn Brooks was born on 6/7/1917. “Art hurts. Art urges voyages-and it is easier to stay at home.”
  • Dorothy Parker died on 6/7/1967. “I shall stay the way I am because I do not give a damn.”
  • E.M. Forster died on 6/7/1970. “America is rather like life. You can usually find in it what you look for. It will probably be interesting, and it is sure to be large.”
  • Henry Miller died on 6/7/1980. “An artist is always alone-if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.”
  • Thomas Paine died on 6/8/1809. “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”
  • George Sand died on 6/8/1876. “Admiration and familiarity are strangers.”
  • Marguerite Yourcenar was born on 6/8/1903. “A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.”

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[All images are in the Public Domain and are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.]

 

A Year in Books/Day 146: A Memoir of Jane Austen

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  • Title: A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections
  • Author: J.E. Austen-Leigh
  • Year Published: 1870/This Edition: 2002 (Oxford University Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2002/2003
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: J.E. Austen-Leigh was Jane’s nephew, the son of her eldest brother. He was nineteen when his famous aunt died; his impressions of her were published 53 years later. Although there are more scrupulous works of scholarship available, this memoir is the closest we will ever get to the ‘real’ woman (other than her surviving letters and fiction). On the other hand, one can argue that a writer’s works are the best representative of their true self and that everything else-character, mannerisms, speech patterns, habits, loves, hates and proclivities-is the fiction. That is a bit deeper than I want to dive in this mini-review, so hold on to that thought if you’d like; I’m sure I will cover it here some other day. Where were we? Ah, yes! Jane as presented in the bosom of her family hearth and home, by her nephew. As biased as it obviously is, it is a really fantastic book. It is of key importance to Austen scholars and fans alike. This edition also includes reminiscences by her brother Henry and nieces Anna and Caroline, which is a touch that nicely rounds out the portrait of this truly compelling woman.
  • Motivation: I love Jane Austen. Pick your jaw up off of the floor, you must be shocked.
  • Times Read: 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 1: “More than half a century has passed away since I, the youngest of the mourners, attended the funeral of my dear aunt Jane in Winchester Cathedral; and now, in my old age, I am asked whether my memory will serve to rescue from oblivion  any events of her life or any traits of her character to satisfy the enquiries of a generation of readers who have been born since she died.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

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

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  • Thomas Hardy was born on 6/2/1840. “And yet to every bad there is a worse.”
  • Barbara Pym was born on 6/2/1913. “My thoughts went round and round and it occurred to me that if I ever wrote a novel it would be of the ‘stream of consciousness’ type and deal with an hour in the life of a woman at the sink.”-Excellent Women
  • George S. Kaufman died on 6/2/1961. “When I invite a woman to dinner, I expect her to look at my face. That’s the price she has to pay.”
  • Franz Kafka died on 6/3/1924. “A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.”
  • Allen Ginsberg was born on 6/3/1926. “America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?”-America
  • Harry Crosby was born on 6/4/1898. “When I like people immensely, I never tell their names to anyone. It is like murdering a part of them.”
  • Arna Bontemps died on 6/4/1973. “There will be better days when I am gone And healing pools where I cannot be healed”-Nocturne at Bethesda

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[All images are in the Public Domain and are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]