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- “That’s the way I work: I try to imagine what I would like to see.” — Sofia Coppola
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- “Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it.” — Stevie Wonder
- “I was a sinister child, lazy and cynical.” — Eve Babitz
- Elvis takes New Orleans: talking King Creole on the Guide for the Film Fanatic podcast
- Miscast? Mayyyybe.
- “I don’t care how afraid I may be inside — I do what I think I should.” — Katharine Hepburn
- “I think a fear of portraying something negatively ends up creating more stereotypes.” — Sophia Takal
- “My dear child, I’m sure we shall be allowed to laugh in Heaven!” — Edward Lear
- “I know that for myself, what is deeper than I understand is often the most pertinent to me and the most lasting.” — Lorine Niedecker
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- Jessie on “I just love telling stories. That’s what we do and it’s a good business to be in, especially if you know you have talent.” –Jensen Ackles
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- Jessie on “You are not acting so much as being. The result is realism.” — Gary Cooper
- sheila on “You are not acting so much as being. The result is realism.” — Gary Cooper
- sheila on “As long as politics is this confused and evil, turning away from it would be cowardly.” — 20th century hero Sophie Scholl
- sheila on Miscast? Mayyyybe.
- Melissa Sutherland on Miscast? Mayyyybe.
- Maddy on “Maybe it’s a generational thing but I never wanted to be the best black dancer in the world. I wanted to be the best.” — Judith Jamison
- Maddy on “You are not acting so much as being. The result is realism.” — Gary Cooper
- Maddy on “As long as politics is this confused and evil, turning away from it would be cowardly.” — 20th century hero Sophie Scholl
- sheila on “A lot of people try to equate me with guys like Frankie Avalon and Fabian, but in the old days I sold a lot of records over a period of time, and you can’t sustain that by being just another pretty face.” — Ricky Nelson
- mutecypher on “A lot of people try to equate me with guys like Frankie Avalon and Fabian, but in the old days I sold a lot of records over a period of time, and you can’t sustain that by being just another pretty face.” — Ricky Nelson
- sheila on “A lot of people try to equate me with guys like Frankie Avalon and Fabian, but in the old days I sold a lot of records over a period of time, and you can’t sustain that by being just another pretty face.” — Ricky Nelson
- sheila on “You are not acting so much as being. The result is realism.” — Gary Cooper
- mutecypher on “A lot of people try to equate me with guys like Frankie Avalon and Fabian, but in the old days I sold a lot of records over a period of time, and you can’t sustain that by being just another pretty face.” — Ricky Nelson
- Maddy on “You are not acting so much as being. The result is realism.” — Gary Cooper
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: As You Like It
- mutecypher on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: As You Like It
- sheila on “A woman came up to me after one of the screenings with tears pouring down her face and sobbed, You’ve defined my entire life for me on the screen.” –Jill Clayburgh
- Brett Hetherington on The Books: A Collection of Essays, ‘Charles Dickens’, by George Orwell
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Category Archives: Books
“Silence is necessary to tyrants and occupiers, who take pains to have their actions accompanied by quiet.” — Ryszard Kapuściński
It’s the birthday today of one of my favorite writers, Polish journalist and author Ryszard Kapuściński. His death in 2007 was devastating to me. I went to the memorial tribute at the New York Public Library, hosted by his close … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Ethiopia, Iran, nonfiction, Poland, politics, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, war
7 Comments
“I was going upstream, against the current. I was coming from the North before the North had broken”. — John Montague
It’s his birthday today. John Montague has great sentimental value to me. He was one of my father’s favorite poets. I remember being at home – some years ago, it had to be pre-covid (sob) – and Mum pulled out … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Ireland, Irish poetry, John Montague, poetry
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“What a writer asks of his reader is not so much to like as to listen.” — poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“He suffered excessive popularity; he has now suffered three quarters of a century of critical neglect.” – Michael Schmidt, Lives of the Poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on this day in 1807, in Portland, Maine. He was the first … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Harold Bloom, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, L.M. Montgomery, Michael Schmidt, Paul Revere, poetry, Walt Whitman
6 Comments
“I recognize no rights but human rights.” — Angelina Weld Grimké
“The ground upon which you stand is holy ground: never never surrender it.” — Angelina Weld Grimké Poet/playwright Angelina Weld Grimké, born on this day in 1880, had a powerful familial legacy. Her paternal grandparents were a white slave owner … Continue reading
“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.” — David Foster Wallace
“Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.” — David Foster Wallace It’s his … Continue reading
“I love humanity but I hate people.” — poet Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay was born on this day in 1892 in Rockland, Maine. “Boys don’t like me anyway because I won’t let them kiss me. It’s just like this: let boys kiss you and they’ll like you but you … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elinor Wylie, Elizabeth Bishop, poetry
16 Comments
“Never write from your head; write from your cock.” — Wystan Hugh Auden
W.H. Auden was born on this day in York, England, 1907. I first encountered Auden in my “Humanities” class, senior year in high school. I got a lot out of that class, and I remember we analyzed Auden’s famous most-anthologized … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, England, George Orwell, Hamlet, Harold Bloom, Hugh MacDiarmid, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord Tennyson, Louis MacNeice, Marianne Moore, Michael Schmidt, Philip Larkin, poetry, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden, William Shakespeare
23 Comments
Substack: Interview with author Julia Cooke
Julia Cooke’s Starry and Restless: Three Women Who Changed Work, Writing, and the World comes out at the end of this month and I snagged an advance copy. I fell so in love with the book I reached out to … Continue reading
January 2026 Snapshots
January has lasted four months. What a terrible month. I mean, good stuff happened but the stress and dismay is constant. It’s been really cold – colder than it’s been in years – and we had two big storms in … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Movies, Personal
Tagged Frankenstein, friends, Guillermo del Toro, Jafar Panahi, Mary Shelley, snapshots
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“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