Categories
Archives
-
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- 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
Recent Comments
- 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
- Scott Abraham on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- 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)
-
Tag Archives: Balkans
“I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.” — Rebecca West
It’s her birthday today. It is hard to talk about her without referencing the generations of writers she inspired, all of whom admit their debt. Robert Kaplan is the most open about it (in Balkan Ghosts, which launched his career, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Austria, Balkans, D.H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford, France, George Bernard Shaw, Germany, Katherine Mansfield, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, nonfiction, politics, Rebecca West, Roman empire, Russia, Serbia, W.B. Yeats, war, Warren Beatty, Yugoslavia
21 Comments
June 28, 1914: “But if ever a man went anywhere of his own free will, Franz Ferdinand went to Sarajevo.”
June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie – setting out in their motorcade in Sarajevo that fateful morning, as the assassins, unseen, move into position. Here are two excerpts from Rebecca West’s towering Black Lamb and Grey … Continue reading
Emir Kusturica
This Bosnian-born Serbian filmmaker has my love for his film Arizona Dream, his first American film, starring Faye Dunaway, Johnny Depp, Lili Taylor, Jerry Lewis, and Vincent Gallo. I wrote about it for my Film Comment column. The film was … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Arizona Dream, Balkans, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Depp, Lili Taylor, Serbia, Yugoslavia
3 Comments
R.I.P. Dubravka Ugrešić
I return to her The Museum of Unconditional Surrender again and again. A classic in the canon of books dealing with being forced to live in exile. But there are so many other books: Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, Culture … Continue reading
Posted in Books, RIP, writers
Tagged Balkans, Croatia, Dubravka Ugrešić, politics, war, Yugoslavia
Leave a comment
2021 Books Read
I lived at three addresses this year. I moved twice. In the middle of a pandemic. It’s been a year of upheaval, transition, as well as endurance. For most of this year, the majority of my stuff was in storage. … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, Balkans, Billy Wilder, Biography, books read, Cary Grant, Croatia, Czeslaw Milosz, David McCullough, Dubravka Ugrešić, Edvard Radzinsky, Elinor Lipman, England, essays, Eve Babitz, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hitler, Howard Hawks, Ireland, Italy, Liz Phair, Memoirs, Nancy Lemann, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Poland, politics, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Russia, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, Sweden, Thomas Mann, Tom Wolfe, Vladimir Nabokov, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
1 Comment
November 2021 Viewing Diary
The Wire, half of Season 3 This is the busiest time of year in re: film-critic-land, so had to stop my re-watch of The Wire to make room for new releases. I’ll get back to it! All Is Forgiven (2007; … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Amy Heckerling, Balkans, Dean Stockwell, documentary, drama, Ethan Hawke, Eugene O'Neill, France, Ingmar Bergman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Japan, Katharine Hepburn, literary adaptation, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Mexico, Mia Hansen-Løve, Mia Wasikowska, New Zealand, Paul Thomas Anderson, Quantum Leap, Rebecca Hall, Sidney Lumet, Spain, Sweden, The Beatles, Will Ferrell, women directors
22 Comments
Recommended Books: Non-Fiction
I have been meaning to do a Part 2 to my Recommended Books: Fiction list – put together years ago. I wanted to recommend non-fiction, from history books to biographies to essays to whatever. Here is the Non-Fiction list. I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Founding Fathers, Theatre
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Afghanistan, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Hamilton, Austria, Balkan Ghosts, Balkans, baseball, Belfast, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Catherine Drinker-Bowen, Central Asia, China, Crowds and Power, Dava Sobel, David McCullough, Edmund Burke, Edvard Radzinsky, Elias Canetti, Elvis Presley, England, Federalist Papers, Founding Brothers, France, Germany, Group Theatre, Gulag Archipelago, Hitler, Hunter S. Thompson, Imperium, Ireland, Iris Chang, Isaac Newton, James Madison, Janet Malcolm, Japan, Joseph Ellis, Michael Schmidt, Miracle at Philadelphia, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Philip Gourevitch, poetry, Primo Levi, Rasputin, Rebecca West, Red Sox, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Rwanda, Ryszard Kapuściński, science, Serbia, Stalin, The Great Terror, The Soccer War, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Ukraine, Vincent Bugliosi, William Shakespeare, WWI, WWII, Yugoslavia
19 Comments
Bookshelf Tour #9
The books of Robert Conquest: first and foremost his masterpiece, one of the most important books of the 20th century: The Great Terror: A Reassessment, but also Reflections on a Ravaged Century, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Afghanistan, Balkans, bookshelves, politics, Robert Conquest, Russia, The Great Terror, war
9 Comments
The Books: Arguably, ‘Rebecca West: Things Worth Fighting For’, by Christopher Hitchens
On the essays shelf: Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens How do you “explain” Rebecca West? Especially to those who haven’t heard of her? Never mind the fact that it’s so strange and wrong that her name doesn’t resonate at the … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Arguably, Balkans, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Christopher Hitchens, essays, Rebecca West, war, Yugoslavia
3 Comments
2013 Books Read
It’s been a hell of a year. Devastating as well as redemptive. I started it out in Memphis, and end it here in New Jersey. And now my new niece Pearl has arrived! It’s been both a busy year as … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Anne Fadiman, Annie Proulx, Arthur Koestler, Balkans, books read, Darkness at Noon, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Edvard Radzinsky, Elinor Lipman, England, friends, George Eliot, H.L. Mencken, Henry James, Herman Melville, Hungary, Ireland, J.D. Salinger, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Acocella, Joan Didion, John Banville, Joseph Heller, Joshua Ferris, Lester Bangs, Lorrie Moore, Patricia Highsmith, Philip K. Dick, Russia, Sam Cooke, Stalin, Tana French, The Netherlands, The Only Game In Town, Thomas Carlyle, Victor Serge, William Shakespeare, Yugoslavia
33 Comments