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- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- “I don’t represent anything.” — Liz Phair
- “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- “Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
- “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin
- “As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.” — Reed Morano
- “Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing
- “It’s just one of the mysteries of filmmaking that sometimes you do something that you don’t even think it’s important, then it turns out to be.” — Lili Horvát
- “Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
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- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
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- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Scott Abraham on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on March 2026 Snapshots
- sheila on “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- Jessie on March 2026 Snapshots
- Helen Erwin Schinske on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Maddy on “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- sheila on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Helen Erwin Schinske on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Joseph Pedulla on Susan Hayward Sleeps Raw
- sheila on “For I am of the seed of the WELCH WOMAN and speak the truth from my heart.” — Christopher Smart
- P Nickel on “The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing.” — Jean Toomer
- Melissa Sutherland on “For I am of the seed of the WELCH WOMAN and speak the truth from my heart.” — Christopher Smart
- Bryce on The Books: “Nine Stories”- ‘The Laughing Man’ (J.D. Salinger)
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Category Archives: Art/Photography
“Reality is always extraordinary.” — Mary Ellen Mark
It’s her birthday today. My first job was as a page at a local library. I would go there after school, shelve books for a couple of hours, and then head home. I ended up working there all through high … Continue reading
“Make the most of what you have and enjoy being female; enjoy being you.” — Bunny Yeager
“I want to show off how beautiful my subjects are, whether its a cheetah or a live girl or two of them together.” — Bunny Yeager It’s the birthday of model and pin-up photographer Bunny Yeager. She is most famous … Continue reading
“I wish I had not been so reserved.” — Joseph Cornell’s final words
Today is the birthday of artist Joseph Cornell. “Cornell is superb. I first saw the Medici Slot Machine when I was in college. Oh, I loved it. To think one could have bought some of those things then. He was … Continue reading
Posted in Art/Photography, On This Day
Tagged art, Elizabeth Bishop, Joseph Cornell, Lauren Bacall
7 Comments
“Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.” — poet/engraver/visionary William Blake
“I mean, don’t you think it’s a little bit excessive?” “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. William Blake.” Pause. “William Blake?” “William Blake!” “William Blake???” “William Blake!!!” — Bull Durham William Blake was a poet virtually … Continue reading
“If the thing is there, why, there it is.” Happy Birthday, Walker Evans
That last photo is Walker Evans’ innovative perspective of the parade for Charles Lindbergh after Lindbergh successfully crossed the Atlantic in 1927. It’s one of the first photos Evans took, and shows that he had a “good eye” from the … Continue reading
“A vast amount of rubbish is published in the name of art. A man should let his work talk for him. ” — Charles Dana Gibson
It’s his birthday today. Old-timers will remember when my blog-design was Gibson-Girl inspired. My favorite haughty Gibson Girl was in the blog banner for years! The only vestige of the Gibson Girl origin-story of this site is in the email … Continue reading
Posted in Art/Photography, Books, On This Day
Tagged art, Charles Dana Gibson, Gibson Girls
17 Comments
“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” — Edward Hopper
It’s his birthday today. I wrote about Edward Hopper quite a bit in my Present Tense column at Film Comment, detailing the Hopper-y vibe of Tom Noonan’s great film about urban loneliness, What Happened Was… In fact, I have a … Continue reading
Posted in Art/Photography, On This Day
Tagged art, Edward Hopper, Terrence Malick, What Happened Was
36 Comments
“I paint the things I see and believe.” — Henry Ossawa Tanner
It’s his birthday today. When I lived in Philadelphia – a million years ago, with my boyfriend who was in law school at U. Penn – I became intimately familiar with Henry Ossawa Tanner’s paintings since so many of them … Continue reading
“It’s an absolute miracle that I’m still around.” — Dennis Hopper
It’s his birthday today. I’m so glad I used one of my columns at Film Comment -now on hiatus – to sing the praises of Dennis Hopper’s wild and nihilistic Out of the Blue, starring Linda Manz and Hopper. Of … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Art/Photography, Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Actors Studio, Croatia, Dennis Hopper, Out of the Blue, photography
2 Comments

