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- “Rock n’ roll! It’s the music of puberty.” — Suzi Quatro
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Twelfth Night: or, What You Will
- “Literature is the written expression of revolt against expected things.” Happy Birthday to the least happy man ever, Thomas Hardy
- “I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Marilyn Monroe
- “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- “I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.” — Agnès Varda
- “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- “If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.” — poet Countee Cullen
- Reviews: Currents (2026)
- Reviews: Forge (2026)
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- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
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- Jincy Willett on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- Biff Dorsey on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- Dave on Review: The Chronology of Water (2025)
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Tag Archives: Emily Dickinson
“[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
“I like to think that eventually he will shame us into becoming Americans again.” — Guy Davenport on Walt Whitman Whitman is the organizing principle behind my review of Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue. Bob Dylan quotes Whitman all the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Algernon Charles Swinburne, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Camille Paglia, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, Frank O'Hara, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, Hart Crane, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Baldwin, Michael Schmidt, Oscar Wilde, poetry, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams
5 Comments
November 2025 Snapshots
Started off November with a book signing event at the Barnes & Noble near my house in my home state. It was very meaningful for me because my friends could come, my family, my mother, my aunts and a couple … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged Emily Dickinson, family, Frankenstein, friends, Robert Kaplan, snapshots
5 Comments
October 2025 Snapshots
This fall was way too busy for me to write anything, anywhere. I spent three weeks in New York in October, a lot of back and forth, for screenings, meetings with friends, and then the Frankenstein New York premiere where … Continue reading
Posted in James Joyce, Personal
Tagged Emily Dickinson, Frankenstein, friends, Guillermo del Toro, nonfiction, poetry, Robert Kaplan, sci-fi, snapshots, Ulysses
11 Comments
“Every day life feels mightier, and what we have the power to be, more stupendous.” — Emily Dickinson
“If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know … 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, fiction, George Eliot, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Acocella, L.M. Montgomery, W.H. Auden
2 Comments
June 2025 Snapshots
I took a right-hand turn and found myself driving in the Pride parade in the small beach town next to mine. I was on my way somewhere else but could not escape so I just went with it, waving and … Continue reading
Posted in Movies, Personal
Tagged Czechoslovakia, Emily Dickinson, family, Jane Austen, Matthew Arnold, Pride and Prejudice, snapshots
2 Comments
Year in Review: Running my mouth in 2019
Thanks, everyone, who hangs out here, who likes what I do, whether you’re an Elvis fan, a Supernatural fan, a general cinephile, a book-lover, or just someone who’s been checking in periodically for 17 years – WHAT? – I appreciate … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, James Joyce, Movies, Television
Tagged Agnes Varda, animation, Anna Karina, backting, Badlands, Belfast, Bibi Andersson, Bob Dylan, Bong Joon-Ho, Canada, Charlotte Rampling, comedy, Dennis Hopper, documentary, Doris Day, drama, Dubliners, Elvis Presley, Emily Dickinson, Frank O'Hara, friends, Gaspar Noe, George Stevens, Gold Diggers of 1933, horror, Ireland, Jean Arthur, Joanna Hogg, Joe Berlinger, Joel McCrea, John Ford, Kristen Stewart, Leonardo DiCaprio, Linda Manz, Marlon Brando, Martin Scorsese, Mary Oliver, Matthias Schoenaerts, Myrna Loy, Nick Nolte, Nick Tosches, Nicolas Roeg, Out of the Blue, Paraguay, Paul Thomas Anderson, poetry, Poland, Present Tense, Robert Evans, Sandrine Bonnaire, sci-fi, Sophia Takal, Sucker Punch, Supernatural, Sylvia Plath, Terrence Malick, Tom Noonan, What Happened Was, William Powell, Willie Nelson, women directors, year in writing, Zac Efron
1 Comment
April 2019 Viewing Diary
I have had an extremely challenging month. Things got slightly spooky. This looks INSANE when written out like this. And believe it or not, I was super busy this month. I wrote like 5 gigantic pieces, and somehow managed to … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Alain Delon, Bob Fosse, Charlotte Rampling, documentary, Emily Dickinson, England, Fritz Lang, Germany, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Jodie Foster, Joe Berlinger, Laura Dern, Martin Scorsese, Patricia Highsmith, Paul Schrader, Richard Gere, Robert De Niro, Sam Rockwell, Supernatural, Willie Nelson, women directors, Zac Efron
19 Comments
Review: Wild Nights with Emily (2019)
I absolutely loved Madeleine Olnek’s Wild Nights with Emily, starring Molly Shannon as Emily Dickinson, Susan Zeigler as the famous (and famously erased) “Sue” of Dickinson’s poems, and Amy Seimetz (whom I just met last fall when we were both … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged biopic, comedy, Emily Dickinson, poetry, reviews, women directors
3 Comments
Films I Loved in 2017
… and if I’ve written about them, I’ll include links. My “Top 10′ is included over at Ebert but I’m honestly not into rankings. Silly to do with art. Here are some of the films I’ve loved. And I missed … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged Agnes Varda, Angelina Jolie, animation, Aubrey Plaza, Ben Stiller, comedy, coming of age, Cristian Mungiu, documentary, drama, Dustin Hoffman, Emily Dickinson, England, France, Garrett Hedlund, Georgia, Greta Gerwig, Harry Dean Stanton, historical drama, Ireland, Kristen Stewart, Martin Scorsese, Matthias Schoenaerts, Meryl Streep, musicals, Paul Thomas Anderson, religious movies, Romania, sci-fi, Sofia Coppola, Star Wars, Steven Spielberg, Terrence Malick, Tiffany Haddish, Tom Hanks, Turkey, women directors
11 Comments