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- “When I get into that studio, I’m in another world. I love it. When I’m performing, that’s the real me.” — Billy Lee Riley
- “If someone spends his life writing the truth without caring for the consequences, he inevitably becomes a political authority in a totalitarian regime.” — Václav Havel
- “All my life I have been happiest when the folks watching me said to each other, `Look at the poor dope, wilya?” — Buster Keaton
- Temporary
- “The problem with taking amps to a shop is that they come back sounding like another amp.” — Stevie Ray Vaughan
- “That cat was royalty, man.” — Mick Jagger on Eddie Cochran
- “I’ve been to every big city and many little towns in the USA. I really try to soak it in. I love all these little towns – the people and the places. I feel so lucky to see all these places and I truly have a hunger to see and experience them.” — G. Love
- R.I.P. Kris Kristofferson
- “I put my soul through the ink.” — Proof
- “I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.” — Truman Capote
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- sheila on “I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.” — Truman Capote
- kristen on “I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.” — Truman Capote
- Kimberly McNair on “I put my soul through the ink.” — Proof
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- sheila on R.I.P. Maggie Smith
- Gemstone on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- Gemstone on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- Aisha Sharma on R.I.P. Maggie Smith
- sheila on “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- Matheus on Two Eminem News Items
- Gemstone on “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King
- Lyrie on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
- sheila on The Books: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, ‘You Are There’, by Anne Fadiman
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- sheila on “I didn’t think then, and I still don’t, that I was actually sick.” — Frances Farmer
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Tag Archives: Ryszard Kapuściński
“Sometimes, in describing what I do, I resort to the Latin phrase ‘silva rerum’: the forest of things. That’s my subject: the forest of things.” — Ryszard Kapuściński
One of my favorite writers. His death in 2007 was devastating to me. I went to the memorial tribute at the New York Public Library, hosted by his close personal friend Salman Rushdie. I am not sure I can sufficiently … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Armenia, Ethiopia, Iran, Poland, politics, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, war
3 Comments
2022 Books Read
Some re-reads this year, but a lot of new-to-me authors as well. New novels written by faves. Been a year of upheaval and transitions. I’ve managed to keep up my regular reading schedule. I just don’t feel right if I’m … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Alfred Hitchcock, Anne Fadiman, art, Australia, Biography, books read, Canada, Christopher Hitchens, culture, Edmund Burke, Elinor Lipman, England, entertainment biography, essays, Eve Babitz, fiction, friends, Germany, Greece, history, Hitler, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Janet Malcolm, Joan Didion, Joseph Cornell, Lorrie Moore, Machiavelli, Master and Margarita, Memoirs, Michael Curtiz, Mikhail Bulgakov, Mitfords, nonfiction, novel, Paul Zindel, politics, Quentin Tarantino, Robert De Niro, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shakespeare, The Beatles, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Victor Klemperer, Victor Serge, war, William Hazlitt, William Wordsworth, WWII, YA fiction
10 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, culture, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, dance, Dubravka Ugrešić, Elinor Lipman, Elizabeth Bishop, Eminem, essays, Ezra Pound, fiction, H.D., Hannah Arendt, history, Hitler, Ireland, Jane Austen, Jean Arthur, Marcel Proust, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Robert Kaplan, Robert Lowell, Roman empire, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shirley Jackson, Stalin, true crime, Ukraine, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
38 Comments
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
2020 has been heavy, ain’t it. “This shit’s about to get heavy” (I worked so long on that Eminem piece, his lyrics are still buzzing through me). When things get heavy, escapes are great, momentary respites are important. I have … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged ballet, Croatia, Dubravka Ugrešić, fiction, history, Memoirs, Nijinsky, Robert Kaplan, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, stuff I've been reading, Ukraine, Yugoslavia
7 Comments
“Superfluous people in the service of brute power….” — Ryszard Kapuściński
“It is an interesting subject: superfluous people in the service of brute power … these people to whom no one pays attention, whom no one needs, can form into a crowd, a throng, a mob, which has an opinion about … Continue reading
Recommended Books: Non-Fiction
I have been meaning to do a Part 2 to my Recommended Books: Fiction list – put together years ago. I wanted to recommend non-fiction, from history books to biographies to essays to whatever. Here is the Non-Fiction list. I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Founding Fathers, Theatre
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Afghanistan, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Hamilton, Austria, Balkan Ghosts, Balkans, baseball, Belfast, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Catherine Drinker-Bowen, Central Asia, China, Crowds and Power, cults, culture, Dava Sobel, David McCullough, Edmund Burke, Elias Canetti, Elvis Presley, England, Federalist Papers, Founding Brothers, France, Germany, Group Theatre, Gulag Archipelago, history, Hitler, Hunter S. Thompson, Imperium, Ireland, Iris Chang, Isaac Newton, James Madison, Janet Malcolm, Japan, John Jay, Joseph Ellis, Mark Bowden, Michael Schmidt, Miracle at Philadelphia, Olivia Laing, Philip Gourevitch, poetry, Primo Levi, psychopaths, Rasputin, Rebecca West, Red Sox, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Rwanda, Ryszard Kapuściński, science, Serbia, Shakespeare, Somalia, Stalin, The Great Terror, The Soccer War, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Ukraine, Vincent Bugliosi, WWI, WWII, Yugoslavia
19 Comments
2018 Books Read
2018 Books Read 1. Tamburlaine, Part 1, by Christopher Marlowe I finished 2017 with Paradise Lost, in the mood to continue with rigorous challenging poetry. I decided to read the complete plays of Christopher Marlowe (re-read in most cases). The … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce
Tagged Annie Proulx, books read, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Marlowe, Clifford Odets, Edgar Allan Poe, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Finnegans Wake, friends, George Orwell, H.L. Mencken, Hunter S. Thompson, Ian McEwan, Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, Kirov, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Pauline Kael, poetry, Poland, politics, Robert Kaplan, Romania, Ron Chernow, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Stalin, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Truman Capote, Victor Serge
7 Comments
Bookshelf Tour #8
Welcome to the Tyranny section of my bookshelves. First up: Collapse of Communism by the correspondents of The New York Times. A really interesting in-real-time book about the various gigantic events which signaled the crackup of the Soviet Union, as … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Afghanistan, bookshelves, Hannah Arendt, Iran, Iris Chang, Mark Bowden, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński
4 Comments
Book Questionnaire Full of Shame, Loathing and Lying
I can’t remember where I initially found this questionnaire, but in re-doing my Categories I found the questions saved in Drafts. I had obviously seen them somewhere, and wanted to answer them eventually. Thought I’d bring it out now. Haven’t … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A Tale of Two Cities, Billy Budd, By the Lake, Charles Dickens, Hopeful Monsters, John McGahern, Paul Zindel, Richard Bach, Ryszard Kapuściński, The Bridge Across Forever, The End of the Affair, The Great Gatsby, The Pigman, The Shipping News, War and Peace, We Need To Talk About Kevin
39 Comments
Rebecca West on Goering
I’ve got a couple of what I call “intellectual idols”, people who analyze and parse the world and its events, in a way that seems singular, important, and (in some cases) life-altering (for me). I was one way before I … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged George Orwell, Germany, Rebecca West, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Ryszard Kapuściński, war, WWII
19 Comments