Categories
Archives
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- Happy Birthday, Rhode Island’s first poet laureate, Michael Harper
- “If it hadn’t been for the videocassette, I may not have had a career at all.” — Kurt Russell
- Sláinte! “Hear Dublin Roar!”
- “A pas de deux is a dialogue of love. How can there be conversation if one partner is dumb?” — Rudolf Nureyev
- “The Greeks already understood that there was more interest in portraying an unusual character than a usual character – that is the purpose of films and theatre.” — Isabelle Huppert
- “Life was bitter and I was not. All around me was poverty and sordidness but I refused to see it that way. By turning it into jokes, I made it bearable.” — Max Shulman
- “I couldn’t keep a dog and a James Joyce and a bookshop.” — Sylvia Beach
- March 2025 Supernatural Viewing Diary Season 13, 12, working backwards
- “Make the most of what you have and enjoy being female; enjoy being you.” — Bunny Yeager
- “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” — Jack Kerouac
Recent Comments
- Lyrie on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- Michael James Cobb on “I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.” — Truman Capote
- Jessie on March 2025 Supernatural Viewing Diary Season 13, 12, working backwards
- Lyrie on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- Lyrie on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- Jessie on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- Wesley on “If you feel blocked, do not turn to others, but look inside, in silence, for the enemy of your progress.” — Jeff Buckley
- sheila on “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” — Jack Kerouac
- Mike Molloy on “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” — Jack Kerouac
- sheila on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- Lyrie on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- Lyrie on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- sheila on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- Lyrie on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- Lyrie on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- sheila on Snapshots
- Mike Molloy on Snapshots
- sheila on For International Women’s Day: Ladies I Love
- sheila on February 2025 Viewing Diary
- Larry Aydlette on February 2025 Viewing Diary
-
Tag Archives: Mark Twain
“I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.” — Rebecca West
It’s her birthday today. It is hard to talk about her without referencing the generations of writers she inspired, all of whom admit their debt. Robert Kaplan is the most open about it (in Balkan Ghosts, which launched his career, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Austria, Balkans, D.H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford, France, George Bernard Shaw, Germany, Katherine Mansfield, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, politics, Rebecca West, Roman empire, Russia, Serbia, W.B. Yeats, war, Yugoslavia
21 Comments
2014 Books Read
2014 was a good reading year. I re-read a lot of favorites, including Rebecca West’s 1200 page Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. There was a fun mix of re-reads and new stuff, of fiction and non-fiction. My year of being … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged 1984, Amongst Women, Anjelica Huston, August Strindberg, books read, E.B. White, England, Evelyn Waugh, friends, George Orwell, Henry James, In Cold Blood, Inherent Vice, Ireland, John Cassavetes, John McGahern, Love Streams, Mark Helprin, Mark Twain, Patrick O'Brian, Rebecca West, Roger Angell, Seamus Heaney, Sweden, Truman Capote, Wales, war
9 Comments
Year in Review: Running my mouth in 2014
I may write some magnum opus in the next two days, you never know, but here are links to some of the things I’ve written in 2014, here and elsewhere. I have worked hard to keep my site an eclectic … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Movies, Music, Personal
Tagged Alfred Wertheimer, Anna Magnani, Austria, Carroll Baker, Christopher Hitchens, Claude Rains, Eli Wallach, Elvis Presley, Eminem, France, friends, Gena Rowlands, Germany, Harry Potter, Howard Hawks, Inherent Vice, Iran, Iranian film, Israel, Italy, Jafar Panahi, Japan, Jim Jarmusch, Joan Crawford, John Cassavetes, Juliette Binoche, Kristen Wiig, Kwik Stop, Lars von Trier, Lauren Bacall, Lester Bangs, Liv Ullmann, Lon Chaney, Love Streams, Mark Twain, Martin Scorsese, Nicolas Cage, Orpheus Descending, Palestine, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Poland, Richard Linklater, Romania, Russia, Seth Rogen, Seymour Cassel, Sudden Fear, Supernatural, Sweden, Tennessee Williams, The Beatles, The Everly Brothers, Tommy Lee Jones, Trotsky, war, year in writing, Zac Efron
14 Comments
The Books: The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, ‘Down the Rhône’
On the essays shelf: The Complete Essays Of Mark Twain I’m not sure when this essay was published, or if it was. It recalls a boat-trip that Mark Twain took “down the Rhône” in 1891. He had been going strong … Continue reading
The Books: The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, ‘A Memorable Assassination’
On the essays shelf: The Complete Essays Of Mark Twain Mark Twain was in Austria in 1898. He wrote an incredible piece about a rowdy and disturbing meeting of the Parliament, called “Stirring Times in Austria” (excerpt here). As a … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, essays, Mark Twain, The Complete Essays of Mark Twain
Leave a comment
The Books: The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, ‘The Turning Point of My Life’
On the essays shelf: The Complete Essays Of Mark Twain In Mark Twain’s long Socratic dialogue essay “What Is Man?” (excerpt here), he states the theory (over and over again) that everything in man can be connected to outside influences, … Continue reading
The Books: The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, ‘Is Shakespeare Dead?’
On the essays shelf: The Complete Essays Of Mark Twain Whatever you may think of the Shakespeare author controversy, it sure is interesting. I don’t follow along with all the scholarship (that would be a full-time job and I am … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged essays, Mark Twain, Shakespeare, The Complete Essays of Mark Twain
9 Comments
The Books: The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, ‘What Is Man?’
On the essays shelf: The Complete Essays Of Mark Twain Mark Twain felt that this long essay was so potentially explosive, and so potentially upsetting to the audience that loved him, that he printed it privately in 1905, in a … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Alexander Hamilton, essays, Mark Twain, The Complete Essays of Mark Twain
4 Comments
The Books: The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, ‘Saint Joan of Arc’
On the essays shelf: The Complete Essays Of Mark Twain In these essays, one of Mark Twain’s ongoing themes, one of the philosophical questions he keeps worrying over, reiterating, going back to, is where great-ness or exceptionalism comes from. His … Continue reading
The Books: The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, ‘Concerning the Jews’
On the essays shelf: The Complete Essays Of Mark Twain In 1898, Mark Twain’s essay about a raucous Parliament-meeting in Austria was published. (It’s a hell of a piece of journalism.) As can be imagined, the response to the piece … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, essays, Mark Twain, The Complete Essays of Mark Twain
Leave a comment