Categories
Archives
-
Recent Posts
- “All my work is about uncovering, especially uncovering of voices that speak without governance, or that speak without being heard.” — Seamus Deane
- “If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.” – Happy Birthday, Brendan Behan
- How it’s going
- For James Dean’s Birthday
- The First Glimpse of The Guy Who Started It All
- “Since we do float on an unknown sea I think we should examine the other floating things that come our way very carefully.” — poet Elizabeth Bishop
- “The only people who ever called me a rebel were people who wanted me to do what they wanted.” — Nick Nolte
- Reviews: Suze (2025)
- “Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” — Charles Dickens
- “For I, the chiefest lamp of all the earth…” — Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine
Recent Comments
- Gemstone on How it’s going
- Mike Molloy on “All my work is about uncovering, especially uncovering of voices that speak without governance, or that speak without being heard.” — Seamus Deane
- Tom on How it’s going
- Melissa Sutherland on “Since we do float on an unknown sea I think we should examine the other floating things that come our way very carefully.” — poet Elizabeth Bishop
- Mike Molloy on “If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.” – Happy Birthday, Brendan Behan
- sheila on “The only people who ever called me a rebel were people who wanted me to do what they wanted.” — Nick Nolte
- Roger O Green on February 3, 1959: The Day the Music Died
- Maddy on “The only people who ever called me a rebel were people who wanted me to do what they wanted.” — Nick Nolte
- sheila on December 2024 Viewing Diary
- Todd Restler on December 2024 Viewing Diary
- sheila on February 3, 1959: The Day the Music Died
- sheila on December 2024 Viewing Diary
- sheila on January 2025 Viewing Diary
- Kelly C Sedinger on February 3, 1959: The Day the Music Died
- Bill on All That Jazz: Remembering and Loving Erzebet Foldi
- Johnny on December 2024 Viewing Diary
- Todd Restler on January 2025 Viewing Diary
- sheila on “Since the beginning, I’ve said, ‘I’m not going to get involved with my image.’” – Charlotte Rampling
- sheila on “Since the beginning, I’ve said, ‘I’m not going to get involved with my image.’” – Charlotte Rampling
- sheila on “Often I pretended to a cameraman to know less than I did. That way I got more cooperation.” — Ida Lupino
-
Category Archives: Books
“All my work is about uncovering, especially uncovering of voices that speak without governance, or that speak without being heard.” — Seamus Deane
“So broken was my father’s family, that it felt to me like a catastrophe you could live with only if you kept it quiet, let it die down of its own accord like a dangerous fire … I felt we … Continue reading
“Since we do float on an unknown sea I think we should examine the other floating things that come our way very carefully.” — poet Elizabeth Bishop
“All the intellectuals were communist except me. I’m always very perverse so I went in for T.S. Eliot and Anglo-Catholicism.”– Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Bishop, born on this day, is one of my favorite poets. She didn’t write all that many … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Elizabeth Bishop, Harriet Monroe, Joseph Cornell, Marianne Moore, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Seamus Heaney
13 Comments
“Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” — Charles Dickens
DICKENS MISCELLANIA: QUOTES AND APPRECIATIONS My favorite Dickens? Oliver Twist was my gateway drug. I read it when I was 11. Because I was obsessed with the movie. Tale of Two Cities came next. Read when I was 15 in … Continue reading
“Guilt pins a fig-leaf; Innocence is its own adorning.” — poet Anne Spencer
Anne Bethel Scales Bannister Spencer was yet another poet-librarian, like Dudley Randall, and many others. It was part of a tradition, one worthy of more study (there are websites devoted to it!). As the daughter of a librarian, I am … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Anne Spencer, H.L. Mencken, Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson, poetry
4 Comments
“and I / spoke with tongues that sent their devotees / out of this world!” — poet Melvin B. Tolson
“I, as a black poet, have absorbed the Great Ideas of the Great White World, and interpreted them in the melting-pot idiom of my people. My roots are in Africa, Europe, and America.” – Melvin B. Tolson, 1965 interview It’s … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Melvin B. Tolson, poetry
Leave a comment
On This Day: February 2, 1882/1922
“I was on the platform, my heart going like the locomotive, as the train from Dijon came slowly to a standstill and I saw the conductor getting off, holding a parcel and looking around for someone — me. In a … Continue reading
“I want a fever, in poetry: a fever, and tranquillity.” — poet James Dickey
“a fever and tranquility” – an intriguing combination. James Dickey is probably most well-known for his novel Deliverance – but even there, it was really the film of said book that made him a household name. Dickey wrote the screenplay … Continue reading
“The mood of the Blues is almost always despondency, but when they are sung people laugh.” — Langston Hughes
The Blues always impressed me as being very sad, sadder even than the Spirituals, because their sadness is not softened with tears, but hardened with laughter … of a sadness where there is no god to appeal to. — Langston … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Countee Cullen, Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Melvin B. Tolson, Michael Schmidt, poetry
5 Comments
“The notion of ‘building a career’ had never been heard or dreamed of when I was young.” — Vanessa Redgrave
My friend Dan Callahan wrote the first major biography of Vanessa Redgrave, and he is voluminous on the topic: her career, her gift as an actress. Dan is one of the best writers today on the art of acting (and … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Movies, On This Day, Television, Theatre
Tagged England, friends
3 Comments
“I doubt sometimes whether a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me–yet I sometimes long for it.” — Lord Byron
— And who is the best poet, Heron? asked Boland. — Lord Tennyson, of course, answered Heron. — O, yes, Lord Tennyson, said Nash. We have all his poetry at home in a book. At this Stephen forgot the silent … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, Dorothy Parker, Elizabeth Bishop, Elvis Presley, England, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, Jane Austen, Jeanette Winterson, L.M. Montgomery, Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Percy Bysshe Shelley, poetry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Robert Graves, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Six Centuries of Great Poetry, Tennessee Williams, W.H. Auden, Walter Savage Landor, war, William Hazlitt
10 Comments