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- June 28, 1914: “But if ever a man went anywhere of his own free will, Franz Ferdinand went to Sarajevo.”
- “I know why the caged bird sings, ah me…” — poet Paul Laurence Dunbar
- “[Poetry is] a way of trying to come to peace with the world.” — poet Lucille Clifton
- “The films that I love are very straightforward stories, like really old-fashioned stuff.” — Paul Thomas Anderson
- A Personal Memory: or: What Dog Day Afternoon Means to Me
- Happy Birthday, Hediyeh Tehrani
- “All I actually wanted was for my work to be useful.”–Claudius Afolabi Siffre
- “I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts.” — George Orwell
- “People are always asking me if I thought Elvis was a handsome man and my answer is ‘I am not blind you know’!” — Millie Kirkham
- Physical Media Booklet Essay: The Podcast
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Category Archives: On This Day
“Being an actor means being an instrument for someone else. I want to give myself completely.” — Catherine Deneuve
It’s her birthday today. She was great right out of the gate. One of the unique things about her career (and she has few peers here) is that she has regularly been regaled as one of the most beautiful women … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Catherine Deneuve, France, Repulsion, Roman Polanski
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“I hope I’ll die on stage at the age at 105, playing Peter Pan.” — Joan Fontaine
A re-post of the tribute I wrote about Joan Fontaine when she died in December of 2013. She almost made it to her goal. She was 96 years old. It’s her birthday today. While filming “The Women”, in 1939, Joan … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Joan Crawford, Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Olivia de Havilland, Rosalind Russell
25 Comments
“If I could make every movie with Richard Linklater, I would.” — Glen Powell
It’s his birthday today. I love it when someone hard-working and deserving becomes the new It-Boy. Correction: Glen Powell isn’t an It-BOY. He is an It-MAN. I love how he seems to be really enjoying his moment, humorous about it, … Continue reading
“My thoughts bustle along like a Surinam toad, with little toads sprouting out of back, side, and belly, vegetating while it crawls.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
He looked at his own Soul with a telescope. What seemed all irregular, he saw and shewed to be beautiful Constellations: and he added to the Consciousness hidden worlds within worlds. –Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notebooks It’s his birthday today. I’ll … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Anne Fadiman, Ben Jonson, Camille Paglia, Charles Lamb, Derek Mahon, Edmund Spenser, Elizabeth Bishop, England, Jane Langton, John Donne, John Dryden, John Keats, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Lord Byron, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Stevie Smith, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Carlyle, William Hazlitt, William Wordsworth
29 Comments
“If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.” — Carrie Fisher
It’s her birthday today. I miss her. Here is the tribute I wrote to Fisher when she died, focusing primarily on her writing. I also reviewed the documentary, Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. Thank you … Continue reading
“Name and name and name the obscure places, people, or events.” — Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh, titanically angry Irish poet, was born on this day in 1904. He came of age during the Celtic Renaissance and he thought it was all a bunch of bullshit. That is not a direct quote. He was much … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Austin Clarke, Eavan Boland, Ireland, Irish poetry, Michael Schmidt, Patrick Kavanagh, poetry, Seamus Heaney
5 Comments
“The other girls weren’t singing quite like I was.” — Wanda Jackson
It’s her birthday today. She was a pioneer. One of the few women in that original “class”. Rockabilly was a boys’ game. She changed that game. She looked around in 1954/55, and thought, “Hey. All these songs are written by … Continue reading
“Acting gives me permission that maybe I don’t give myself in real life.” — Gillian Jacobs
Photography by Mark Segal. Styled by Sally Lyndley. It is her birthday. Hers is my favorite kind of career. It is both modern – she does it all – but it is also a throwback, to the 70s, when quirky … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, On This Day
2 Comments
Today, the Sheila Variations turns 23.
I don’t even know what to say. And now I will proceed to say some shit. The above pic of me – taken by Michael – graced the top of my original blog, when I set it up 23 years … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Personal
Tagged Block Island, Cary Grant, Croatia, Dean Stockwell, Elvis Presley, family, friends, Hope, Humphrey Bogart, Iran, Ireland, Jafar Panahi, Joanna Hogg, July and Half of August, Martin Scorsese, Memphis, politics, Raging Bull, September 11, Supernatural, Tilda Swinton, war
127 Comments
“Respect isn’t enough. You’ve got to have a proprietary interest.” — Chuck Berry
“The epitome of what it is to be a rock ‘n’ roll guitar player, songwriter and singer.” — Joan Jett Listen, he was not a good person, nor was he well-liked, but legends don’t have to be good morally upstanding … Continue reading