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- “One day I hope I can write happier poems, but most of the things I think about aren’t very cheerful.” — poet Philip Larkin
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- On This Day: August 7, 1934: “It must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.”
- “These kids only want to talk about acting method and motivation. in my day all we talked about was screwing and overtime.” — Robert Mitchum
- “I wrote as much as seventy lines at one time, and used to go shouting them about the fields after dark.” — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Podcast: Jen Johans and I discuss Dana Andrews
- “Poets, the best of them, are a very chameleonic race.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley
- “There is one Metallica. We have many styles, it’s called Metallica.” — James Hetfield
- “The trouble with Hollywood is everybody is crazy for money.” — Ann Dvorak
- “He who has never felt, momentarily, what madness is has but a mouthful of brains.” — Herman Melville
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Tag Archives: Jane Austen
“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
2025 Books Read
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
Posted in Books
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Austria, books read, Charles Lamb, children's books, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, David Lynch, Dubravka Ugrešić, England, essays, fiction, France, Frankenstein, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hungary, Ireland, Jane Austen, Janet Malcolm, John Keats, Lord Byron, Mark Danielewski, Mary Gaitskill, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Memoirs, nonfiction, Oscar Wilde, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Roald Dahl, Robert Kaplan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Russia, sci-fi, Scotland, scripts, Spain, The Beatles, Twin Peaks, William Shakespeare, Yugoslavia
12 Comments
“Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.” — W.H. Auden on Jane Austen
“The little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush.” — Jane Austen on her writing In 2020 – which feels like it was 1,000 years ago, I reviewed the new film adaptation … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, fiction, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, Truman Capote, W.H. Auden
6 Comments
June 2025 Viewing Diary
The last couple of months – really since the beginning of the year – I’ve only had room in my head for re-watches of stuff I already know. It was crunch time for the Frankenstein book. Plus politics and pretty … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged documentary, Jane Austen, Jensen Ackles, New Zealand, romantic drama, sci-fi, thrillers, women directors, X-Files
10 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
2020 Books Read
What a year, huh. What a dumpster-fire year. I read a lot, mostly in the mornings, and it helped create rituals for the days, which often seemed endlessly the same, interchangeable. I read a lot of long and challenging books … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, ballet, Ballets Russes, Belfast, Biography, books read, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, dance, Dubravka Ugrešić, Elinor Lipman, Elizabeth Bishop, Eminem, essays, Ezra Pound, fiction, H.D., Hannah Arendt, Hitler, Ireland, Jane Austen, Jean Arthur, Marcel Proust, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shirley Jackson, Stalin, true crime, Ukraine, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
38 Comments
Year in Review: Running my mouth in 2020, Part 1
What a year. Hard to say “the worst” because I was at least somewhat mentally stable during 2020, but this year was an assault. An assault after a couple of years of exhausting assault. It was an assault on us … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Directors, Movies, RIP
Tagged Arizona Dream, Aubrey Plaza, Australia, Derek Mahon, Dorothy Arzner, Eavan Boland, England, Faye Dunaway, Germany, H.D., hockey, Iranian film, Jane Austen, Jean Arthur, Jerry Lewis, John Sturges, Johnny Depp, Jonathan Demme, Josephine Decker, Kurt Russell, Lili Taylor, Linda Manz, Little Richard, Lucille Ball, Martha Coolidge, Maureen O'Hara, miracle on ice, Nick Nolte, Patricia Bosworth, Shirley Jackson, Steve McQueen, Supernatural, women directors, year in writing
2 Comments
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
— Finally getting to Olivia Laing’s debut, To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface (Canons). I fell in love with her because of the one-two punch of The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone (which I … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged fiction, Jane Austen, Marcel Proust, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, poetry, stuff I've been reading
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Watch What You Want. Find Comfort Where You Can.
I originally posted this on Facebook. It is not directed (as far as I know) to anyone who reads me here. But I still think it’s important to share, as a general commentary on the VIBE I have noticed post … Continue reading