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- “I’ve had my best times trailing a Mainbocher evening gown across a sawdust floor. I’ve always loved high style in low company.” — Anita Loos
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- “There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad.” — Charlotte Brontë
- “Good acting is thinking in front of the camera. I just do that and apply a sense of humor to it. You have to trust the audience to get it.” — Charles Grodin
- “The only cause I espouse is man’s right to find his own centre, stand firm, speak out, then be kind.” — Michael Davitt, “Dissenter”
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Tag Archives: Joan Acocella
“Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
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
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged ballet, Bob Fosse, dance, Dorothy Parker, H.L. Mencken, Joan Acocella, Martha Graham, Nureyev, Primo Levi
2 Comments
“Attention equals Life.” — Frank O’Hara
“I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.” – poet Frank O’Hara It’s his birthday today. First up: I launched my column at Film Comment with a piece about American poet Frank O’Hara’s love of … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Elizabeth Bishop, Frank O'Hara, Joan Acocella, Lana Turner, Michael Schmidt
18 Comments
“[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, George Eliot, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Acocella, L.M. Montgomery, W.H. Auden
2 Comments
Bookshelf Tour #10
An extremely dog-eared section of my library. These books are rarely on the shelf since I dip into them so often. — The mighty Joan Acocella, dance critic for The New Yorker, but also so much more. Her dance writing … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged bookshelves, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Orwell, H.L. Mencken, Joan Acocella, Lester Bangs, William Hazlitt
4 Comments
2013 Books Read
It’s been a hell of a year. Devastating as well as redemptive. I started it out in Memphis, and end it here in New Jersey. And now my new niece Pearl has arrived! It’s been both a busy year as … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Anne Fadiman, Annie Proulx, Arthur Koestler, Balkans, books read, Darkness at Noon, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Edvard Radzinsky, Elinor Lipman, England, friends, George Eliot, H.L. Mencken, Henry James, Herman Melville, Hungary, Ireland, J.D. Salinger, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Acocella, Joan Didion, John Banville, Joseph Heller, Joshua Ferris, Lester Bangs, Lorrie Moore, Patricia Highsmith, Philip K. Dick, Russia, Sam Cooke, Shakespeare, Stalin, Tana French, The Netherlands, The Only Game In Town, Thomas Carlyle, Victor Serge, Yugoslavia
33 Comments
The Books: Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, ‘Perfectly Frank’, by Joan Acocella
On the essays shelf: Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays by Joan Acocella. Unlike a lot of poets, I feel that I know everything I need to know about Frank O’Hara by reading his work. He emerges, there, on the … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged essays, Frank O'Hara, Joan Acocella, Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints
3 Comments
The Books: Twenty-Eight Artist and Two Saints, ‘Finding Augie March’, by Joan Acocella
On the essays shelf: Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays by Joan Acocella. I have some huge gaps in my reading history – and one of them is mid-late 20th century American authors. I have read Joseph Heller, J.D. Salinger, … Continue reading
The Books: Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, ‘Feasting on Life’, by Joan Acocella
On the essays shelf: Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays by Joan Acocella. I’m not that much of a foodie, and so I am not familiar with M.F.K. Fisher’s food writing, although everything I have heard makes me want to … Continue reading
The Books: Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, ‘After the Laughs’, by Joan Acocella
On the essays shelf: Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays by Joan Acocella. Known for her wit, one-liners, and caustic attitude, Dorothy Parker is one of those rare writers who didn’t write all that much during her lifetime (her last … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Dorothy Parker, essays, Joan Acocella, Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints
2 Comments
The Books: Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, ‘On the Contrary’, by Joan Acocella
On the essays shelf: Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays by Joan Acocella. Oh, Mencken. Along with Alexander Hamilton, I have been known to refer to him as “my dead boyfriend”. I have not read all of his stuff (that … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged essays, H.L. Mencken, Joan Acocella, politics, Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints
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