Categories
Archives
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” — Willie Nelson
- “I don’t cook and I don’t care.” — Ann-Margret
- “Sometimes I think no matter how one is born, no matter how one acts, there is something out of gear with one somewhere, and that must be changed. Life at its best is a grand corrective.” –Jessie Redmon Fauset
- “I’ve had my best times trailing a Mainbocher evening gown across a sawdust floor. I’ve always loved high style in low company.” — Anita Loos
- “I only began to sing because I couldn’t get a job as an actress.” — Barbra Streisand
- “I would rather take a photograph than be one.” — Lee Miller
- When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, / Hath put a spirit of youth in everything …
- “We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.” — Louise Glück
- “True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.” — John Waters
- “After all, when God created Adam and Eve, they were stark naked. And in the Garden of Eden, God was probably naked as a jaybird too!” — Bettie Page
Recent Comments
- Israel Rivera on The Books: “Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah” (Richard Bach)
- Bill Wolfe on “The reminder that there are people who have worse troubles than you is not an effective pain-killer.” — Mary Astor
- sheila on When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, / Hath put a spirit of youth in everything …
- sheila on “I don’t cook and I don’t care.” — Ann-Margret
- Maddy on “I don’t cook and I don’t care.” — Ann-Margret
- sheila on “I only began to sing because I couldn’t get a job as an actress.” — Barbra Streisand
- Kristen Westergaard on “I only began to sing because I couldn’t get a job as an actress.” — Barbra Streisand
- sheila on “I only began to sing because I couldn’t get a job as an actress.” — Barbra Streisand
- Kristen on “I only began to sing because I couldn’t get a job as an actress.” — Barbra Streisand
- sheila on “I only began to sing because I couldn’t get a job as an actress.” — Barbra Streisand
- sheila on “I only began to sing because I couldn’t get a job as an actress.” — Barbra Streisand
- Stevie on “I only began to sing because I couldn’t get a job as an actress.” — Barbra Streisand
- sheila on 2024 Books Read
- Thomas Murphy on When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, / Hath put a spirit of youth in everything …
- Larry Aydlette on 2024 Books Read
- Lyrie on March 2025 Supernatural Viewing Diary Season 15-12, working backwards
- Lyrie on March 2025 Supernatural Viewing Diary Season 15-12, working backwards
- sheila on March 2025 Supernatural Viewing Diary Season 15-12, working backwards
- sheila on March 2025 Supernatural Viewing Diary Season 15-12, working backwards
- Lyrie on March 2025 Supernatural Viewing Diary Season 15-12, working backwards
-
Tag Archives: Christopher Hitchens
“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, Shakespeare, Ted Hughes, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden
23 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
“It is a pity that the poet should be compelled to impart interest and force to his subject, instead of receiving them from it.” — poet and critic Matthew Arnold
“My poems represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day as people become conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind is, and … Continue reading
“[I wish] to trace the gradual action of ordinary causes rather than exceptional.” — George Eliot
“What do I think of Middlemarch? What do I think of glory?” — Emily Dickinson I came to George Eliot late. As in, during the lifespan of this blog. I read Middlemarch (more like devoured it) in 2005, and wrote … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Christopher Hitchens, Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Acocella, L.M. Montgomery, W.H. Auden
2 Comments
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
— Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere, by Christopher Hitchens There are a couple of his collections of older pieces – pre 9/11 – I haven’t read before. Many of these pieces were put in later collections (Arguably, and … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Christopher Hitchens, England, essays, Ireland, Oscar Wilde, stuff I've been reading
2 Comments
“Sunlight on a broken column.” — T.S. Eliot
It’s T.S. Eliot’s birthday. Poets like William Carlos Williams and Hart Crane both said that they needed to forcibly divorce themselves from Eliot’s influence in order to be able to write. His language and influence had that strong a pull. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Algernon Charles Swinburne, Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, E.M. Forster, Edith Sitwell, Edmund Spenser, Elizabeth Bishop, George Orwell, Harold Bloom, Harriet Monroe, Hart Crane, Henry James, Jeanette Winterson, John Dryden, John Milton, Lord Byron, Marianne Moore, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Philip Larkin, poetry, Rebecca West, Robert Graves, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, William Blake, William Carlos Williams
22 Comments
“One day I hope I can write happier poems, but most of the things I think about aren’t very cheerful.” — poet Philip Larkin
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, one doesn’t STUDY poets! You READ them and think, That’s marvelous, how is it done, could I do it? and that’s how you learn. At the end of it you can’t say, That’s Yeats, that’s Auden, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Christopher Hitchens, Elizabeth Bishop, England, Michael Schmidt, Philip Larkin, poetry
11 Comments