Happy Birthday, Library of Congress

Posted on April 24, 2023 by sheila

As the daughter of a librarian, I had to write a post in tribute. This post is for my dad.

On this day, in 1800, President John Adams approved legislation that appropriated $5,900 to purchase the books that would create the Library of Congress. The bill also approved the moving of the capitol from Philadelphia to Washington, and to create a “reference library” with “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress — and for putting up a suitable apartment for containing them therein …”


The Library of Congress, 1902.

Books were acquired from all over the world for this reference library. When Thomas Jefferson became President, he created the position of “librarian of Congress.” Jefferson took a huge interest in the Library (no surprise: the guy went into massive lifelong debt because of his book-buying addiction, actually more like a compulsion. I relate.). His own personal library at Monticello was known as the greatest in the country.

During the War of 1812 – which actually should be called the War of 1812-1815, the British invaded Washington and burned the joint to the ground, and it was such a surprise attack coming with no warning that First Lady Dolly Madison had to literally flee the White House at the very last minute, the flames licking at her heels – but picture her having the presence of mind in such a situation to cut the famous portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart out of its frame, taking it with her, saving it from destruction. Thank you, Dolly.

(Side note: I grew up a 10-minute drive away from Gilbert Stuart’s birthplace. If you’re ever in the area, it’s a well worth while museum, set in a beautiful spot.)

In 1814, the British burned the 3,000 volumes that then made up the Library of Congress. It’s really devastating to think of that loss … one thinks of the Library of Alexandria. Only one book survived, and that’s because a British officer pocketed it as a souvenir of his totally awesome act of arson. The book – an account book of government spending at the time – sat in this dude’s house for over a century until his family returned it to the United States, right before WWII started. I love history.

Back to the War of 1812-15: Jefferson was no longer President at the time: he was living in retirement at Monticello. Jefferson offered to sell Congress his private library (almost 6,500 books) as a starting point to building up the Library of Congress collection again. The original Library of Congress had a narrow focus: law, economics, and history. With the new books from Jefferson, the national collection gained breadth and depth: architecture, botany, geography, classical literature, science. To show that nothing ever really changes, there were some objections to Jefferson’s collection which was not quite as Christian as the Christians would have liked. Oh, Christians, never change with your anti-science ignorance and your busybody desire for the rest of us to love ignorance as much as you do. Christians who might be offended by my words? Too bad. Here’s a suggestion: Call out your fellow Christians on that bullshit, publicly. And don’t blame ME for talking about what actually happened.

The objections overruled, Jefferson’s collection sat in a reading room in Congress for most of the 19th century, until 1871 when plans were approved to build a separate building for the Library of Congress. The project was approved by Congress in 1886, and construction began. At the time, it was the largest (and costliest) library building in the world.


Construction of the Thomas Jefferson Building from July 8, 1888 to May 15, 1894 – from Wikipedia

All of this makes me think of three things:

Every year, my middle-school-teacher sister Jean does a big “monument project” with her students, and I love to hear her talk about it.

Recently, as in April 3rd, as in post-sheltering-in-place, Manohla Dargis wrote a wonderful piece for The New York Times about all of the film treasures held at the Library of Congress, with an accompanying list of all of the streaming options – the FREE streaming options – the Library of Congress has made available. If John Adams only knew what he had wrought. It would blow his mind.

And finally, this story makes me think of one of my favorite letters Thomas Jefferson wrote. In 1771, a friend, Robert Skip, asked Jefferson to write up a catalog of books that every “gentleman” should have in his library. Methinks Mr. Skip may have gotten more than he bargained for in Jefferson’s reply, but thankfully we still have the letter, printed in full below. (One ELOQUENT observation: please note the category under which Jefferson placed the Bible.)

Thomas Jefferson to Robert Skip with a List of Books, Aug. 3, 1771

I sat down with a design of executing your request to form a catalogue of books to the amount of about 50 lib. sterl. But could by no means satisfy myself with any partial choice I could make. Thinking therefore it might be as agreeable to you I have framed such a general collection as I think you would wish and might in time find convenient to procure. Out of this you will chuse for yourself to the amount you mentioned for the present year and may hereafter as shall be convenient proceed in completing the whole. A view of the second column in this catalogue would I suppose extort a smile from the face of gravity. Peace to its wisdom! Let me not awaken it. A little attention however to the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments of fiction are useful as well as pleasant. That they are pleasant when well written every person feels who reads. But wherein is its utility asks the reverend sage, big with the notion that nothing can be useful but the learned lumber of Greek and Roman reading with which his head is stored?

I answer, everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue. When any original act of charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and grateful acts also. On the contrary when we see or read of any atrocious deed, we are disgusted with it’s deformity, and conceive an abhorence of vice. Now every emotion of this kind is an exercise of our virtuous dispositions, and dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body acquire strength by exercise. But exercise produces habit, and in the instance of which we speak the exercise being of the moral feelings produces a habit of thinking and acting virtuously. We never reflect whether the story we read be truth or fiction. If the painting be lively, and a tolerable picture of nature, we are thrown into a reverie, from which if we awaken it is the fault of the writer. I appeal to every reader of feeling and sentiment whether the fictitious murther of Duncan by Macbeth in Shakespeare does not excite in him as great a horror of villany, as the real one of Henry IV. by Ravaillac as related by Davila? And whether the fidelity of Nelson and generosity of Blandford in Marmontel do not dilate his breast and elevate his sentiments as much as any similar incident which real history can furnish? Does he not in fact feel himself a better man while reading them, and privately covenant to copy the fair example? We neither know nor care whether Lawrence Sterne really went to France, whether he was there accosted by the Franciscan, at first rebuked him unkindly, and then gave him a peace offering: or whether the whole be not fiction. In either case we equally are sorrowful at the rebuke, and secretly resolve we will never do so: we are pleased with the subsequent atonement, and view with emulation a soul candidly acknowleging it’s fault and making a just reparation. Considering history as a moral exercise, her lessons would be too infrequent if confined to real life. Of those recorded by historians few incidents have been attended with such circumstances as to excite in any high degree this sympathetic emotion of virtue. We are therefore wisely framed to be as warmly interested for a fictitious as for a real personage. The field of imagination is thus laid open to our use and lessons may be formed to illustrate and carry home to the heart every moral rule of life. Thus a lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity that ever were written. This is my idea of well written Romance, of Tragedy, Comedy and Epic poetry. — If you are fond of speculation the books under the head of Criticism will afford you much pleasure. Of Politics and Trade I have given you a few only of the best books, as you would probably chuse to be not unacquainted with those commercial principles which bring wealth into our country, and the constitutional security we have for the enjoiment ofthat wealth. In Law I mention a few systematical books, as a knowledge of the minutiae of that science is not neces-sary for a private gentleman. In Religion, History, Natural philosophy, I have followed the same plan in general, — But whence the necessity of this collection? Come to the new Rowanty, from which you may reach your hand to a library formed on a more extensive plan. Separated from each other but a few paces the possessions of each would be open to the other. A spring centrically situated might be the scene of every evening’s joy. There we should talk over the lessons of the day, or lose them in music, chess or the merriments of our family companions. The heart thus lightened our pillows would be soft, and health and long life would attend the happy scene. Come then and bring our dear Tibby with you, the first in your affections, and second in mine. Offer prayers for me too at that shrine to which tho’ absent I pray continual devotions. In every scheme of happiness she is placed in the foreground of the picture, as the princi-pal figure. Take that away, and it is no picture for me. Bear my affections to Wintipock clothed in the warmest expressions of sincerity; and to yourself be every human felicity.

Adieu.

FINE ARTS.

Observations on gardening. Payne. 5/
Webb’s essay on painting. 12mo 3/
Pope’s Iliad. 18/
——- Odyssey. 15/
Dryden’s Virgil. 12mo. 12/
Milton’s works. 2 v. 8vo. Donaldson. Edinburgh 1762. 10/
Hoole’s Tasso. 12mo. 5/
Ossian with Blair’s criticisms. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Telemachus by Dodsley. 6/
Capell’s Shakespear. 12mo. 30/
Dryden’s plays. 6v. 12mo. 18/
Addison’s plays. 12mo. 3/
Otway’s plays. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Rowe’s works. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Thompson’s works. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Young’s works. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Home’s plays. 12mo. 3/
Mallet’s works. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Mason’s poetical works. 5/
Terence. Eng. 3/
Moliere. Eng. 15/
Farquhar’s plays. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Vanbrugh’s plays. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Steele’s plays. 3/
Congreve’s works. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Garric’s dramatic works. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Foote’s dramatic works. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Rousseau’s Eloisa. Eng. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
—– Emilius and Sophia. Eng. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Marmontel’s moral tales. Eng. 2 v. 12mo. 12/
Gil Blas. by Smollett. 6/
Don Quixot. by Smollett 4 v. 12mo. 12/
David Simple. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Roderic Random. 2 v. 12mo. 6/ these are written by Smollett
Peregrine Pickle. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Launcelot Graves. 6/
Adventures of a guinea. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Pamela. 4 v. 12mo. 12/ these are by Richardson.
Clarissa. 8 v. 12mo. 24/
Grandison. 7 v. 12mo. 9/
Fool of quality. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Feilding’s works. 12 v. 12mo. pound 1.16
Constantia. 2 v. 12mo. 6/ by Langhorne.
Solyman and Almena. 12mo. 3/
Belle assemblee. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Vicar of Wakefeild. 2 v. 12mo. 6/. by Dr. Goldsmith
Sidney Bidulph. 5 v. 12mo. 15/
Lady Julia Mandeville. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Almoran and Hamet. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Tristam Shandy. 9 v. 12mo. pound 1.7
Sentimental journey. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Fragments of antient poetry. Edinburgh. 2/
Percy’s Runic poems. 3/
Percy’s reliques of antient English poetry. 3 v. 12mo. 9/
Percy’s Han Kiou Chouan. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Percy’s Miscellaneous Chinese peices. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Chaucer. 10/
Spencer. 6 v. 12mo. 15/
Waller’s poems. 12mo. 3/
Dodsley’s collection of poems. 6 v. 12mo. 18/
Pearch’s collection of poems. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Gray’s works. 5/
Ogilvie’s poems. 5/
Prior’s poems. 2 v. 12mo. Foulis. 6/
Gay’s works. 12mo. Foulis. 3/
Shenstone’s works. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Dryden’s works. 4 v. 12mo. Foulis. 12/
Pope’s works. by Warburton. 12mo. pound 1.4
Churchill’s poems. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Hudibrass. 3/
Swift’s works. 21 v. small 8vo. pound 3.3
Swift’s literary correspondence. 3 v. 9/
Spectator. 9 v. 12mo. pound 1.7
Tatler. 5 v. 12mo. 15/
Guardian. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Freeholder. 12mo. 3/
Ld. Lyttleton’s Persian letters. 12mo. 3/

CRITICISM ON THE FINE ARTS.

Ld. Kaim’s elements of criticism. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Burke on the sublime and beautiful. 8vo. 5/
Hogarth’s analysis of beauty. 4to. pound 1.1
Reid on the human mind. 8vo. 5/
Smith’s theory of moral sentiments. 8vo. 5/
Johnson’s dictionary. 2 v. fol. pound 3
Capell’s prolusions. 12mo. 3/

POLITICKS, TRADE.

Montesquieu’s spirit of the laws. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Locke on government. 8vo. 5/
Sidney on government. 4to. 15/
Marmontel’s Belisarius. 12mo. Eng. 3/
Ld. Bolingbroke’s political works. 5 v. 8vo. pound 1.5
Montesquieu’s rise & fall of the Roman governmt. 12mo. 3/
Steuart’s Political oeconomy. 2 v. 4to. pound 1.10
Petty’s Political arithmetic. 8vo. 5/

RELIGION.

Locke’s conduct of the mind in search of truth. 12mo. 3/
Xenophon’s memoirs of Socrates. by Feilding. 8vo. 5/
Epictetus. by Mrs. Carter. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Antoninus by Collins. 3/
Seneca. by L’Estrange. 8vo. 5/
Cicero’s Offices. by Guthrie. 8vo. 5/
Cicero’s Tusculan questions. Eng. 3/
Ld. Bolingbroke’s Philosophical works. 5 v. 8vo. pound 1.5
Hume’s essays. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Ld. Kaim’s Natural religion. 8vo. 6/
Philosophical survey of Nature. 3/
Oeconomy of human life. 2/
Sterne’s sermons. 7 v. 12mo. pound 1.1
Sherlock on death. 8vo. 5/
Sherlock on a future state. 5/

LAW.

Ld. Kaim’s Principles of equity. fol. pound 1.1
Blackstone’s Commentaries. 4 v. 4to. pound 4.4
Cuningham’s Law dictionary. 2 v. fol. pound 3

HISTORY. ANTIENT.

Bible. 6/
Rollin’s Antient history. Eng. 13 v. 12mo. pound 1.19
Stanyan’s Graecian history. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Livy. (the late translation). 12/
Sallust by Gordon. 12mo. 12/
Tacitus by Gordon. 12mo. 15/
Caesar by Bladen. 8vo. 5/
Josephus. Eng. 1.0
Vertot’s Revolutions of Rome. Eng. 9/
Plutarch’s lives. by Langhorne. 6 v. 8vo. pound 1.10
Bayle’s Dictionary. 5 v. fol. pound 7.10.
Jeffery’s Historical & Chronological chart. 15/

HISTORY. MODERN.

Robertson’s History of Charles the Vth. 3 v. 4to. pound 3.3
Bossuet’s history of France. 4 v. 12mo. 12/
Davila. by Farneworth. 2 v. 4to. pound 1.10.
Hume’s history of England. 8 v. 8vo. pound 2.8.
Clarendon’s history of the rebellion. 6 v. 8vo. pound 1.10.
Robertson’s history of Scotland. 2 v. 8vo. 12/
Keith’s history of Virginia. 4to. 12/
Stith’s history of Virginia. 6/

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. NATURAL HISTORY &c.

Nature displayed. Eng. 7 v. 12mo.
Franklin on Electricity. 4to. 10/
Macqueer’s elements of Chemistry. 2 v. 8vo. 10/
Home’s principles of agriculture. 8vo. 5/
Tull’s horse-hoeing husbandry. 8vo. 5/
Duhamel’s husbandry. 4to. 15/
Millar’s Gardener’s diet. fol. pound 2.10.
Buffon’s natural history. Eng. pound 2.10.
A compendium of Physic & Surgery. Nourse. 12mo. 1765. 3/
Addison’s travels. 12mo. 3/
Anson’s voiage. 8vo. 6/
Thompson’s travels. 2 v. 12mo. 6/
Lady M. W. Montague’s letters. 3 v. 12mo. 9/

MISCELLANEOUS.

Ld. Lyttleton’s dialogues of the dead. 8vo. 5/
Fenelon’s dialogues of the dead. Eng. 12mo. 3/
Voltaire’s works. Eng. pound 4.
Locke on Education. 12mo. 3/
Owen’s Dict. of arts & sciences 4 v. 8vo. pound 2.

It’s not too far a leap from there … to here.

Looks like quite a “suitable apartment,” doesn’t it.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Books, Founding Fathers, On This Day | Tagged | 11 Comments

Review: Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023)

Posted on April 23, 2023 by sheila

I reviewed the new Little Richard documentary – Little Richard: I Am Everything – for Ebert.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Movies, Music | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

I agree with you, kid. I say yes to those movies too.

Posted on April 15, 2023 by sheila


The Queen’s Gambit

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Criterion July releases announced: After Hours

Posted on April 14, 2023 by sheila

I can finally talk about what has been taking up all my time in February/March/start of April. I wrote the booklet essay for the VERY EXCITING Criterion release of Martin Scorsese’s existential-angst-comedy-parody After Hours, in a brand new 4k digital restoration. Judging from the reaction to the announcement, this film has legions of fans, many of whom consider it their all-time favorite film, many of whom have suffered – for decades, really – at its not being given the credit or visibility they think it deserves. There are many reasons why After Hours sits in a strange spot in the culture, in Scorsese’s filmography, in ’80s cinema … it fits, but … not quite. I had a conversation with my Gen Z nephew about the movie and he said that his peers all FLIP over it. It HITS with that age demographic (speaking generally and anecdotally). We had a good conversation about why this might be the case, generationally. It’s exciting to hear because … good art TRAVELS, ya know what I’m saying? It TRAVELS out of its own time.

Anyway. This will be my 7th booklet essay for Criterion, and this one – like my Raging Bull video-essay – had to be approved by the man himself. Not every piece you write has to be approved by a living legend before it can go to print.

Drusilla Adeline’s cover design artwork is so beautiful! Dreamy-nightmare-beautiful, capturing the swarming world of the film.

I had so much fun writing about After Hours and I’m really excited for this deluxe release. It’s been really heart-warming the response to the announcement: people really LOVE this movie. Details here.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Review: Everything Went Fine (2023)

Posted on April 14, 2023 by sheila

I reviewed the latest by François Ozon.

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“There fell upon the ear the most terrible noise that human beings ever listened to – the cries of hundreds of people struggling in the icy cold water, crying for help with a cry we knew could not be answered.” – Ruth, Titanic survivor

Posted on April 14, 2023 by sheila

On the night of April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic of the White Star Line hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank, killing 1,517 people, due to not enough lifeboats for all the passengers (and numerous other perfect-storm conditions).

For me, it is not so much the sinking of the ship that is the horrifying thing to contemplate (although that is definitely awful). It is the aftermath (described so vividly in the title of this post by “Ruth”): 1,500 people thrashing about in freezing ocean, miles and miles from anywhere, with lifeboats full (or half-full) of people bobbing nearby, listening to the sounds of the death throes.

Thomas Hardy wrote a poem about Titanic called “The Convergence of the Twain”. The title alone brings a chill of dread.

The Convergence of the Twain
by Thomas Hardy

I
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II
Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III
Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls-grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV
Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V
Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: “What does this vaingloriousness down here?”…

VI
Well: while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII
Prepared a sinister mate
For her – so gaily great –
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

VIII
And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX
Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

X
Or sign that they were bent
by paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

XI
Till the Spinner of the Years
Said “Now!” And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

The great Irish poet Derek Mahon (wrote a little bit about him here) wrote a brilliant poem about J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line, who, famously and infamously, survived. Much to his enduring shame. Most employees were manly enough to go down with the ship. Not Ismay. The scandal dogged him the rest of his days.

After the Titanic
by Derek Mahon

They said I got away in a boat
And humbled me at the inquiry. I tell you
I sank as far that night as any
Hero. As I sat shivering on the dark water
I turned to ice to hear my costly
Life go thundering down in a pandemonium of
Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches,
Boilers bursting and shredded ragtime. Now I hide
In a lonely house behind the sea
Where the tide leaves broken toys and hatboxes
Silently at my door. The showers of
April, flowers of May mean nothing to me, nor the
Late light of June, when my gardener
Describes to strangers how the old man stays in bed
On seaward mornings after nights of
Wind, takes his cocaine and will see no one. Then it is
I drown again with all those dim
Lost faces I never understood, my poor soul
Screams out in the starlight, heart
Breaks loose and rolls down like a stone.
Include me in your lamentations.

And The Self-Styled Siren outdoes herself with a post on The Titanic, in three movies.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in On This Day | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Review: Showing Up (2023)

Posted on April 7, 2023 by sheila

I reviewed Kelly Reichardt’s latest, Showing Up, for Ebert.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

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Ten Years.

Posted on April 5, 2023 by sheila


Me on New Years Eve, Memphis, December 31, 2012. Sitting outside of my hotel with a plastic cup of champagne. Alone.

It’s been 10 years since Roger Ebert died. He emailed me to ask me to write for him on the same day I got diagnosed with bipolar. I’m sitting in the mood clinic, a wild-eyed maniac, and I get the email. He had less than two months left to live. How it all went down: He read a piece I wrote on Ben Gazzara. It wasn’t a recent piece, which suggested Roger had been scrolling around on my site. I think I wrote it when Gazzara died. Roger somehow found it. He then linked to it on Twitter, and the traffic crashed my site’s server for about an hour. I had no idea what was going on, though, since I was extremely busy acting like a lunatic in a mood disorder clinic on east 52nd street. My friend Steven Boone texted me saying “hey, congrats” and since I wasn’t on Twitter I didn’t know what had happened. So Steven was the one to inform me that Roger Ebert linked to a piece I wrote. Within a couple of hours, I got the email from Roger. Just a reminder: all of this is happening as I am going through an intake at a mood disorder clinic, yelling at the doctor “you people are just running a racket” and, my finest moment, “If anyone tells me I have to stop writing about Elvis, we are DONE here.” I’m doing THAT and texting Steven in between filling out forms – Text: “wait – what? Roger knows who I am?” – Yelling at the doctor, pacing – back to texting – back to answering questions about what the hell I was doing in Memphis all by myself for 10 days – back to my phone – back to the intake: “I sleep about 3 hours a night. Why, is that weird?” Back to my phone. Steven sending LOLs and emojis and hearts – so warm, so kind, so supportive. (Honestly, I haven’t thought about that in a long time, I haven’t thought about it at all until writing this, how Steven was there for me on that day, and he had no idea he was messaging me in the middle of a BRAIN STORM.

My mother came to stay with me during the crisis. I was afraid of opening mail. I was in a complete STATE, the illness had me in its grip. Wild buckling moods. A sense of crisis, of now or never, of life or death. I was committed to getting well now that I knew something was really wrong. I took time off of work. And I was freelancing, so this was a financial burden. As all of this was going on, I started writing for Roger. Literally, simultaneously. I reviewed two movies “for him”, with him editing them. My first review was of Christian Petzold’s Barbara. Mum was there as I hit “send”. Ten minutes later I received an email from Roger. “I love how you start with the details.” I burst out sobbing, and Mum started crying, and it was this wild moment of triumph, heightened by the fact that I was now in serious treatment for a deadly ailment, as I am writing that review. Wild. It is so so special to me that Mum was THERE as I pressed “send”, that I didn’t go through that moment alone, as I have gone through everything else, alone. She was there. Next was my review of Gimme the Loot – which ended up being quoted in the movie ad in the New York Times. (Kerry was the one who alerted me to that, via text. “You’re quoted in the Times.” Roger would send me comments, telling me what he liked about what I was doing. From his death bed.

Everything changed in 2013. It doesn’t feel like a bunch of separate events. It feels like all one event. I never got to meet Roger in person, but I will treasure the two months of our correspondence, and am grateful to him for recognizing something in me based on the years-old post about Ben Gazzara. He saw something of value. He had no idea he was emailing me in the middle of a mental crackup taking place in the east 50s. I of course didn’t tell him. I was so out of it, and so IN the illness, I wondered if I was making it up. But Steven was there, reminding me it was reality.

A month after Roger died, I flew to Champaign-Urbana to attend my first Ebertfest. Mum came with me. Thank God. I still was far from well. We had this mother-daughter adventure. I faced doing all these new things. Appearing on panels. Attending parties. The whole thing. Nobody knew what was going on with me. It was fine they didn’t know. I was not well enough to truly appreciate how far I had already come. Getting this diagnosis, so late in life, and then immediately having to do all these new things, things I had never done before, was a LOT. My anxiety often got the better of me. I was still in serious treatment, weekly sessions with a doctor and a therapist. I had no insurance. My family pooled their money to pay for it. This was how bad it was. But I accepted the New. It seemed I had no choice. I couldn’t NOT go to Ebertfest. I HAD to do all these new things out in the world, as hard, as impossible as it seemed. I think I comported myself quite well, all things considered.

I have been writing for Rogerebert.com for ten years. Hundreds and hundreds of reviews, 4 a month on average, plus interviews, some obits … and in 2017 I had the GREAT honor of screening the short film I wrote at Ebertfest. Life has a way of moving on in ways you just could never anticipate.

I didn’t go to film school. I didn’t study film in college. I never took a film history class. My education was Roger’s books, which I pored through as a kid. He is how I learned about Werner Herzog and John Cassavetes and Kurosawa and Bergman. He was my film education and it was a good one.

My posts round these here parts in 2012 – September to December – are extremely alarming. I posted all through it. I was suicidal in November. My birthday month. Historically a terrible month for me. I was all alone. My friend David told me he was trying to come to peace with the fact that I probably wasn’t going to make it. I remember feeling very alarmed but I also felt the same way. He was letting me go. I was almost relieved. I went to Memphis after Christmas, 2012. While I was there, my family orchestrated an intervention. When I came back to New York, everything was different. My entire life was in crisis mode. All out in the open. I had to go see doctors and specialists. It was being paid for, so I couldn’t blow it off. I was obligated to other people. I couldn’t have afforded any of it. I recognize how lucky I am. This shit is expensive and not covered by insurance. I wasn’t insured anyway. I wasn’t allowed to be alone. I thought this was over-kill. Now I understand.

So I’m dealing with all of this and then Roger emails me.

I honestly don’t know if I would be here now if I hadn’t gotten the diagnosis and help from what basically was a fully-loaded care team. I just wanted the doctor to give me a shot and put me out of my misery. Keats called melancholy “wakeful anguish”: there are few phrases which capture the feeling better (although Gerard Manley Hopkins, who loved Keats, comes close in his so-called “dark sonnets”). David Foster Wallace called the experience “lurid”. “Lurid” is so right on, chillingly right on. Only a person who KNOWS would use the word “lurid”. The experience is not sadness. It’s lurid agony. Words don’t do it justice. It’s impossible to convey what it’s like. The crisis was – as I can see now – extreme and I am lucky I am alive. My doctor told me much later that the first time he met me he said I was like a “wild stallion” in his office. I just wanted to be strapped to a bed and drugged until I emerged feeling better.

I described above the day I got the diagnosis. I left his office, buzzing with the texts from Steven about Roger, and buzzing from the diagnosis handed down. I felt like a burden was lifted. IT had a name. I don’t know why I didn’t clock it earlier. After going through this intense intake process, where I had to talk about every single day I’d ever lived in my whole life, he guessed my first crackup was when I was 12, a year I remember well. I cried every day for four months. I was in so much agony I wanted to die. I was a cutter, too. Before there was even a word for it. I wore long sleeves. I was in seventh grade. Just one year before, I was this child:

I got my period for the first time and bipolar slipped through the door. This is how it often happens for girls, I was told by my doctor. Puberty hit me like a Mack truck. The happy flamboyant tomboy child I was vanished almost overnight. I would bind my budding wee breasts to keep them from growing in, wrapping T-shirts and Ace bandages around myself until I couldn’t breathe. This makes me so so sad to think about now. In my 20s I grew to love my boobs and wore low-cut cleavage even in inappropriate settings because fuck it I was young and I had a rack and I loved it and so did the boys who loved me. I embraced it all. I wore combat boots and shaved my head but I still embraced my stacked figure. But when I was 12, boobs were the end of the world. I felt a sense of total dread at what was happening. I wanted to go backwards. Lost Eden just behind me. An Eden where I was free. And yeah, there was also that hidden enemy bipolar, ravaging my mind as my body started to develop. Good times.

I had been walking around with this thing forever. It was totally normal for me to go periodically insane, and the doctor created a chart showing me the cycles, the ups, the downs. Every four years I would lose it. I could almost set my watch by it. I just somehow didn’t perceive the pattern. It always was connected to an event, some disappointment, and my reaction would be this outsized THING that took over half a year. I just didn’t think I was sick. I thought life was just like that.

I walked across town after receiving the diagnosis at the mood disorder clinic, headed for the bus station. I felt this weird lightness. I knew I had a long hard road ahead of me to try to course-correct, my moods were still a buckling jump-rope, completely out of my control. It was a spring-like night and I walked by Rockefeller Center and 30 Rock, my old stomping grounds when I worked at the Today Show. The trees around the ice rink were strung with blue lights. It was so beautiful. Magical.

I went to take a picture and a voice came, not one of the bad voices, this was a good voice, saying: “Put the camera down for a second. Just look. Just be.’ So I did. For a while I let my brain empty out, and stood there looking up at those whimsical fairy-blue lights.

Then I took a picture because I did feel – I couldn’t help it, the thought WOULD come – that maybe my life was about to change and maybe I should take a picture to have a record of it.

Posted in Personal | 41 Comments

March 2023 Viewing Diary

Posted on April 2, 2023 by sheila

March was a bitch. Working on a big single project which sucked up all of my attention. Marathon not a sprint. I can’t do things half-way. This project was never ever out of my mind. I’m close to the finish line now, and of course … I got sick. Just like mid-term season in college all over again. I wore myself out. Just the way it goes. Hence, the truncated viewing list for this month.

Supernatural, Season 6, episode 9, “Clap Your Hands if You Believe” (2010; d. John F. Showalter)
I’m embarrassed I had never heard of the Plaidcast before. A podcast devoted to a rewatch of Supernatural (started in 2015 by Bethany Marroquin and Michelle Drake, two English teachers – and still going strong)! I am DIGGING it. I was alerted to it by a recent comment on my site on one of my Supernatural posts, saying I had been mentioned on the podcast and that’s why this person sought out my posts. I had no idea. So just out of curiosity I started listening. I was almost embarrassed at how many times I was mentioned, on how often the blog was referenced, even to them reading out sections of my analysis. FLATTERED. But beyond that aspect, I love the dynamic of these two women: their intelligence, and their approach, coming from a literature background. Dig it.) So this inspired me to re-watch one of my favorite episodes. With perhaps my favorite moment in the whole entire series.

Supernatural, Season 6, episode 12 “Like a Virgin” (2011; d. Philip Sgriccia)
I re-watched this one for this sequence alone:

Honor Among Lovers (1931; d. Dorothy Arzner)
I hadn’t seen this one! It showed up in the Pre-Code collection on Criterion Channel. I’ve always loved her films: Christopher Strong, The More the Merrier, The Bride Wore Red and Dance Girl Dance (released by Criterion with essay by yours truly). Honor Among Lovers is a charming film, featuring an inappropriate relationship between a boss and his right-hand woman (lol) – I mean, she really should be an executive. Fredric March carries a torch for Claudette Colbert, and they’re both just so appealing you fall in love with them. Arzner’s films are very character-focused and, of course, performance-focused. This is pretty early, cameras are still huge, but still: Arzner was innovative, her camera moves.

Unwelcome (2022; d. Jon Wright)
Strong start. Some silliness later. I reviewed for Ebert.

Fuck Me, Richard (2023; d. Lucy McKendrick, Charlie Polinger)
I wrote about this beautiful and VERY strong short film for my Substack.

MH370: The Plane That Disappeared (2023; d. Louise Malkinson)
This story has the potential to take over your whole life.

Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game (2023; d. Austin Bragg, Meredith Bragg)
I liked this. It’s a little movie about a little story, and – when done well – I appreciate these more and more. We’re in a stage of gigantism in our current entertainment landscape. Gigantism or message-driven. It’s such a bore. So I really dug this. And it cares about character development. I reviewed it for Ebert.

Ted Lasso, episode 1-3 (2023; d. M.J. Delaney, Destiny Ekaragha)
Watched with Allison. She was the one who introduced me to the series in the first place. Season 2, for reasons I can’t even remember right now, fed some need in me, some hunger? I don’t know. I watched it over and over again. I remember sitting in my bedroom watching it on my laptop which brings back the first couple of months in my new place. It took me MONTHS to get my house in order. I was completely stymied by the task. I hit a wall. I am not sure what was going on, but my “living room” was completely filled with boxes for EVER, because there were like 5 things I had to get done in order to put away the books, set stuff up. So I basically lived out of the OTHER room until I finally got my shit together and got my place set up. (Oh, and I’m about to move AGAIN. Maybe there’s a reason I resisted moving in.) Anyway, my life was chaos. I moved TWICE that year. I guess I just had had it. So I sat and watched Ted Lasso, season 2, maybe three times through? Over and over? There’s a larger story about Ted Lasso – why it hit, and why WHEN it was released (2020) was so key – and it’s been covered. But season 2 did that for me. I needed that comfort. I was so looking forward to season 3! And I was completely underwhelmed by the first two episodes. Not enough Ted! So much on Kiely’s new company, and her employees – I don’t care! Where are all the PLAYERS? Why isn’t Nate in every single episode? I mean … why do we only see him in one scene in the first episode? Don’t you realize how much we want to see how NATE is doing? Why are we focusing on all these side stories? Get me into the locker room. It felt very un-focused, and none of the storylines were grabbing me. Finally, in episode 3, some conflicts were introduced – conflicts having to do with Ted, and with Jamie Tartt (my favorite), and with a couple of the PLAYERS – and it feels like we’re getting somewhere finally. They seem pretty determined to give Kiely’s office a central storyline and it’s frustrating. More on TED, too. How’s TED doing? So. Episode 3. I felt a little bit more confident in what they were doing.

Slings and Arrows, Season 1, episodes 1-3 (2003; d. Peter Wellington)
God, I love this show. It’s been years since I’ve seen it. I remember almost every line. I adore it. “I’m Darren Nichols. DEAL with THAT.”

The Lost King (2022; d. Stephen Frears)
I could have done without the ghost of Richard III but it’s such an interesting story. And it’s still unfolding. NOW we need to know what happened to the two princes. Good GOD SOMEone has to know. I reviewed for Ebert.

Old Joy (2006; d. Kelly Reichardt)
I haven’t seen this since its first release. I love it.

Enys Men (2023; d. Mark Jenkin)
I can’t get this one out of my head. The film has as stubborn a hold on me as lichen. LICHEN, PEOPLE. WHAT IS IT. I reviewed for Ebert.


Alice Darling (2022; d. Mary Nighy)
I’ve been in New York for the last week or so and Allison and I watched this one. I thought it was extremely well observed: a story like this depends on the details and on the characters. Otherwise you just get your regular garden-variety “oooh scary controlling boyfriend” story. I really appreciated the care brought to this story. It’s abuse, but not physical. It’s coercive control, relationship as Cult, it’s truly chilling. And the FRIENDS. The film is really the story of this group of friends, and how two of them notice what’s happening, and exchange glances, and try to pull their friend out of the situation – a friend who doesn’t WANT to be pulled out. Every single moment is so specific. I have been pretty much every person on that screen (except the controlling boyfriend). I’ve been the friend exchanging worried glances and trying to draw a friend out. I’ve been the friend, in a complete state of crisis, and yet totally in denial and FURIOUS at the people who are worried about me. The film is quite quiet. The acting is excellent. Allison and I really liked this one and had lots of good talks as we watched.

Showing Up (2023; d. Kelly Reichardt)
My next review. Hence: my stroll down Reichardt lane in the past week. So I’ll say no more on that.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Review: Enys Men (2023)

Posted on March 31, 2023 by sheila

The trailer is not representative of the actual experience of the film. So feel free to check it out but just know going in that Enys Men carries the trappings of a horror – and it is at times legit frightening – but that’s not all there is. Mark Jenkin is a Cornish film-maker and Enys Men is his second film. I kind of can’t stop thinking about it. I reviewed for Ebert.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , | 4 Comments