Categories
Archives
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- “I never told a joke in my life.” — Andy Kaufman
- “In France, I’m an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain; a genre film director; and, in the USA, a bum.” — John Carpenter
- Shadow and pools of light
- “Precision and accuracy are necessary for both white and black writers. ‘A black aesthetic’ should not be an excuse for sloppy writing.” — poet and publisher Dudley Randall
- “When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don’t know how to talk about it now because it’s too mindblowing. It’s so unreal, and yet it’s real.” — Faye Dunaway
- Mirrors #24
- Turn on the goose
- “As long as they pay me my salary, they can give me a broom and I’ll sweep the stage. I don’t give a damn. I want the money.” – Kay Francis
- “Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on.” — White Fang, by Jack London
- “I can pick a good song, but I sure couldn’t pick a good man.” — Ruth Brown
Recent Comments
- Melissa Sutherland on “I never told a joke in my life.” — Andy Kaufman
- Leena Myller on “It wasn’t there, and then it was there.” David Lynch on Elvis
- Leena Myller on “It wasn’t there, and then it was there.” David Lynch on Elvis
- sheila on “When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don’t know how to talk about it now because it’s too mindblowing. It’s so unreal, and yet it’s real.” — Faye Dunaway
- Maddy on “When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don’t know how to talk about it now because it’s too mindblowing. It’s so unreal, and yet it’s real.” — Faye Dunaway
- sheila on “When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don’t know how to talk about it now because it’s too mindblowing. It’s so unreal, and yet it’s real.” — Faye Dunaway
- Maddy on “When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don’t know how to talk about it now because it’s too mindblowing. It’s so unreal, and yet it’s real.” — Faye Dunaway
- sheila on “I can pick a good song, but I sure couldn’t pick a good man.” — Ruth Brown
- Clary on “I can pick a good song, but I sure couldn’t pick a good man.” — Ruth Brown
- sheila on Colm Tóibín, Gary Indiana, and Los Angeles
- Maddy on Colm Tóibín, Gary Indiana, and Los Angeles
- sheila on Colm Tóibín, Gary Indiana, and Los Angeles
- sheila on Colm Tóibín, Gary Indiana, and Los Angeles
- Scott Abraham on Colm Tóibín, Gary Indiana, and Los Angeles
- sheila on Colm Tóibín, Gary Indiana, and Los Angeles
- Scott Abraham on Colm Tóibín, Gary Indiana, and Los Angeles
- sheila on “Boredom is very important in life. It helps you feel when something is wrong.” — John Strasberg
- Marta on “Boredom is very important in life. It helps you feel when something is wrong.” — John Strasberg
- sheila on “We’re not breaking new ground. We’re trying to be entertaining within a format that’s familiar.” — Walter Hill
- Dan on “We’re not breaking new ground. We’re trying to be entertaining within a format that’s familiar.” — Walter Hill
-
Tag Archives: George Orwell
Orwell’s “nightmare world”
From George Orwell’s essential essay “Looking Back on the Spanish War”, where he reflects on all the lies and falsifications of that essential conflict, the rehearsal for Hitler-Stalin and all the monstrousness that followed. (It is the Spanish civil war … Continue reading
“Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination…think twice before you think.” — E.E. Cummings
It’s his birthday today. I responded to E.E. Cummings in a visceral way when I first had to read his stuff in high school. I didn’t know what it was all about, but I loved the syntax, the unmistakable look … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged E.E. Cummings, Elizabeth Bishop, George Orwell, Harriet Monroe, Michael Schmidt
9 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
“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
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Camille Paglia, Dorothy Parker, Ellen Terry, England, Ezra Pound, George Orwell, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, Ireland, Jeanette Winterson, L.M. Montgomery, Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Oscar Wilde, Philip Larkin, poetry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ralph Waldo Emerson, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden
9 Comments
“I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts.” — George Orwell
Orwell was born on this day. When Animal Farm was released in a new edition, Christopher Hitchens (one of THE people you need to read if you want to understand Orwell, besides Orwell himself), wrote specifically about the quote from … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged 1984, Animal Farm, England, George Orwell, politics, Russia, war
6 Comments
“My dear child, I’m sure we shall be allowed to laugh in Heaven!” — Edward Lear
Edward Lear (the “father of nonsense”) was born on this day in 1812 in London. I could recite from memory a lot of his stuff when I was pretty close to the age I was in the “candid” photo above. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Edward Lear, England, George Orwell, poetry
15 Comments
“I did not begin to write poetry in earnest until the really emotional part of my life was over.” — poet A.E. Housman
OUCH, A.E. OUCH. He was born in 1859 and he died in 1936. That generation saw so much change it boggles the mind, and I say that as a member of a generation which grew up sans internet – who … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged England, George Orwell, Harold Bloom, Hugh MacDiarmid, Lanford Wilson, Michael Schmidt, Philip Larkin, poetry, William Faulkner
Leave a comment
Happy Birthday, Wystan Hugh Auden: “The enlightenment driven away / The habit-forming pain”
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