Tag Archives: essays

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

Posted on August 22, 2026 by sheila

“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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“Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope.” — Walter Benjamin

Posted on July 15, 2026 by sheila

“Often an era most closely brands with its seal those who have been least influenced by it, who have been most remote from it, and who therefore have suffered most. So it was with Proust, with Kafka, with Karl Kraus, … Continue reading →

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“Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.” — Janet Malcolm

Posted on July 8, 2026 by sheila

It’s her birthday today. She died in 2021. I started out with The Silent Woman, many years ago, her book on the challenges of writing about Sylvia Plath, particularly in lieu of the draconian Plath estate, run – Shakespearean-ly – … Continue reading →

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“I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts.” — George Orwell

Posted on June 25, 2026 by sheila

Orwell was born on this day. When Animal Farm was released in a new edition, Christopher Hitchens wrote specifically about the quote from Orwell shown in the title above. Very few people can “face unpleasant facts”. Hitchens: A commissar who … Continue reading →

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“I was a sinister child, lazy and cynical.” — Eve Babitz

Posted on May 13, 2026 by sheila

“What I wanted, although at the time I didn’t understand what the thing was because no one ever tells you anything until you already know it, was everything. Or as much as I could get with what I had to … Continue reading →

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“Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella

Posted on April 13, 2026 by sheila

Joan Acocella, longtime dance critic for The New Yorker, and regular contributor to the New York Review of Books died in 2024 at the age of 78, and I did not mark her passing. It’s her birthday today. Acocella brought … Continue reading →

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“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.” — David Foster Wallace

Posted on February 22, 2026 by sheila

“Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.” — David Foster Wallace It’s his … Continue reading →

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2025 Books Read

Posted on December 30, 2025 by sheila

I ended last year with a flurry of Oscar Wilde’s short stories, declaring I’d read all the plays in 2025. I mean, there were only five, sadly, due to the homophobic violence of his own society. I know these plays … Continue reading →

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“Here I was, stuck in the middle of a dying nation with all these funny looking children who didn’t even realize the world was coming to an end, and now on top of everything else they expected me to turn my room into a hippie crash pad!” — Lester Bangs

Posted on December 14, 2025 by sheila

It’s his birthday today. A lot of ink has been spilled on Lester Bangs, including on this site. My feelings for him are as chaotic as his writing style. There are times I read him and I think, almost wildly, … Continue reading →

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“When religion defines morality, the wall between church and state comes to be seen as immoral.” — Ellen Willis

Posted on December 14, 2025 by sheila

Ellen Willis’ years as a rock critic were a blip, comparatively, to the rest of her work, deep and engaging pieces on feminism, economics, anti-Semitism, revolution, mass consumption, Marxism, and … believe it or not … pleasure. Pleasure was a … Continue reading →

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