Tag Archives: Dorothy Parker

“A ‘smartcracker’ they called me, and that makes me sick and unhappy.” — Dorothy Parker

“Oh, good Lord, what’s the matter with women, anyway?” “Please don’t call me ‘women,’” she said. “I’m sorry, darling,” he said. “I didn’t mean to use bad words.” — Dorothy Parker, “Dusk Before Fireworks” It’s her birthday today. I cannot … Continue reading

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“Tennyson’s rank is too well fixed and we love him too much.” — Oscar Wilde

He was not only a minor Virgil, he is also with Virgil as Dante saw him, a Virgil among the Shades, the saddest of all English poets. – T.S. Eliot It’s Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s birthday, born on August 6, 1809. … Continue reading

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“Poets, the best of them, are a very chameleonic race.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to … Continue reading

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“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

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“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

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“I find that I cannot exist without poetry—without eternal poetry—” –John Keats

I was just beautifying him, don’t you know. A thing of beauty, don’t you know. Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says. – James Joyce, Ulysses Born in 1795 on this day, John Keats was orphaned at fifteen. Because his … Continue reading

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January 2023 Viewing Diary

Friday Night Lights No time like the present. I binged this entire series in a couple weeks. This took commitment, and a couple days of sick leave, while trapped in my hotel room in Memphis, too sick to move. I … Continue reading

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2019 Books Read

It’s been such a busy year for me as a writer. The busiest. I’ve had to “make time” for reading stuff that has nothing to do with anything writing-wise. I need to read for pleasure. Many of the books I … Continue reading

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Stuff I’ve Been Reading

— “The Secret Oral History of Bennington: The 1980s’ Most Decadent College” is so freakin’ lit. I don’t even know what else to say. — Nick Pinkteron and C. Spencer Yeh have a lengthy conversation about the Marvel movies. It’s … Continue reading

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The Books: Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink; edited by David Remnick; ‘But the One on the Right–’, by Dorothy Parker

Next up on the essays shelf: Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink, edited by David Remnick Secret Ingredients is a collection of food writing from The New Yorker. I love these collections. So far, we have … Continue reading

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