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- “When I get into that studio, I’m in another world. I love it. When I’m performing, that’s the real me.” — Billy Lee Riley
- “If someone spends his life writing the truth without caring for the consequences, he inevitably becomes a political authority in a totalitarian regime.” — Václav Havel
- “All my life I have been happiest when the folks watching me said to each other, `Look at the poor dope, wilya?” — Buster Keaton
- Temporary
- “The problem with taking amps to a shop is that they come back sounding like another amp.” — Stevie Ray Vaughan
- “That cat was royalty, man.” — Mick Jagger on Eddie Cochran
- “I’ve been to every big city and many little towns in the USA. I really try to soak it in. I love all these little towns – the people and the places. I feel so lucky to see all these places and I truly have a hunger to see and experience them.” — G. Love
- R.I.P. Kris Kristofferson
- “I put my soul through the ink.” — Proof
- “I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.” — Truman Capote
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- Melissa Sutherland on Temporary
- sheila on “I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.” — Truman Capote
- kristen on “I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.” — Truman Capote
- Kimberly McNair on “I put my soul through the ink.” — Proof
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- sheila on R.I.P. Maggie Smith
- Gemstone on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- Gemstone on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- Aisha Sharma on R.I.P. Maggie Smith
- sheila on “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- Matheus on Two Eminem News Items
- Gemstone on “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King
- Lyrie on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- sheila on The Books: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, ‘You Are There’, by Anne Fadiman
- Seth Daniel Watson on The Books: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, ‘You Are There’, by Anne Fadiman
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
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Author Archives: sheila
“Either be hot or cold. If you are lukewarm, the Lord will spew you forth from his mouth.” — The Killer
“There is more of the Devil and of salvation — of the power of the eternal idea of those forces — implicit in that kicking than in all their crying unto heaven combined. And in this age of safe sex … Continue reading
Substack: Interview with Jeremy Richey about Sylvia Kristel
Today is Sylvia Kristel’s birthday, the Dutch actress mostly known for the notoriously soft-core Emmanuelle (1974)- but she did a lot more and worked with some of the greatest directors and actors of her era (70s). In his book about … Continue reading
R.I.P. Maggie Smith
I’m sometimes inconsistent in my tributes here but it doesn’t mean I don’t have thoughts about those I didn’t write about! James Earl Jones died on September 9 and I didn’t write anything here because I was in Scotland and … Continue reading
Review: Amber Alert (2024)
A re-make – sort of – of the 2012 film, directed by the same person. It has its good points, but then gets a little dumb. I reviewed for Ebert.
“Sunlight on a broken column.” — T.S. Eliot
It’s T.S. Eliot’s birthday. Poets like William Carlos Williams and Hart Crane both said that they needed to forcibly divorce themselves from Eliot’s influence in order to be able to write. His language and influence had that strong a pull. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Algernon Charles Swinburne, Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, E.M. Forster, Edith Sitwell, Edmund Spenser, Elizabeth Bishop, George Orwell, Harold Bloom, Harriet Monroe, Hart Crane, Henry James, Jeanette Winterson, John Dryden, John Milton, Lord Byron, Marianne Moore, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Philip Larkin, poetry, Rebecca West, Robert Graves, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, William Blake, William Carlos Williams
22 Comments
“Our humour is armour… a shield used to deflect doom and gloom.” — John Lynch on Irish-ness
It’s the birthday of the fine Irish actor John Lynch. He hails from Northern Island (County Armagh), and made a very striking debut in Cal, based on the novel by Bernard MacLaverty, a novel of “the Troubles”. Lynch plays a … Continue reading
“Paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.” — William Faulkner on his writing requirements
“The writer’s only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. … Continue reading
“Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
So you see that old libel that we were cynics and skeptics was nonsense from the beginning. On the contrary we were the great believers. — F. Scott Fitzgerald, “My Generation” It’s his birthday today. First off, here’s a piece … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Baz Luhrmann, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
20 Comments
Happy Birthday, “Blind” Lemon Jefferson
“Although he was supposed to be completely blind, I still believe he could see a little bit. If he couldn’t, he darn sure could feel his way ’round — the old wolf!” – blues singer Victoria Spivey on Texas bluesman … Continue reading
Posted in Music, On This Day
4 Comments
“I couldn’t accept the possibility that the life of the woman would not, or could not, be named in the poetry of my own nation.” — Eavan Boland
“I began to know that I had to bring the poem I’d learned to write near to the life I was starting to live. And that if anything had to yield in that process, it was the poem not the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Eavan Boland, Ireland, Michael Schmidt, poetry
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