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- “I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Marilyn Monroe
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- Reviews: Currents (2026)
- Reviews: Forge (2026)
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Tag Archives: Shirley Jackson
“I have written myself into the house.” — Shirley Jackson, during her 1962 breakdown
“When I first used to write stories and hide them away in my desk, I used to think that no one had ever been so lonely as I was and I used to write about people all alone…I thought I … Continue reading
2020 Movie Recommendations
I’m probably missing some. And there are still a couple of foreign films I haven’t seen. The Assistant (2020; d. Kitty Green)- It’s so so good, and so “of our moment” it’s almost eerie. But it’s the WAY that Kitty … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged Alexander Hamilton, animation, Aubrey Plaza, Australia, Brazil, comedy, documentary, drama, England, friends, Germany, hockey, horror, Italy, musicals, Romania, Russia, Shirley Jackson, Sofia Coppola, South Korea, Spike Lee, women directors
3 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
Review: Shirley (2020)
Josephine Decker is one of my favorite new-ish filmmakers. I have been watching her very closely. Her latest is her most ambitious: a semi-fictionalized (based on a semi-fictionalized novel) film about Shirley Jackson, who is played by Elizabeth Moss. I … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged biopic, drama, Josephine Decker, reviews, Shirley Jackson, women directors
4 Comments
May 2020 Viewing Diary
Homeland, Season 1-6 I finally caught up with Homeland, binge-watching it as I endured my lonely quarantine. Binge-watching has been a comfort. I’m having a hard time absorbing new things. I’ve been re-reading books. Re-watching things. Or, succumbing to the … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged David Lynch, documentary, drama, Germany, Robert Aldrich, sci-fi, Shirley Jackson, silent films, Twin Peaks, women directors
26 Comments
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
— Grant, by Ron Chernow. He’s such an elegant writer, such a good storyteller. His interests as a writer have always been clear. I’ve read them all – except for this one, and his Washington biography which came out recently … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Evelyn Waugh, Ron Chernow, Shirley Jackson, stuff I've been reading
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2017 Books Read
I got into a good rhythm with reading this year. I did a lot of re-reading, going back to books I haven’t read in 20 years or whatever. It was fun, like a reunion with an old friend. Much of … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged 1984, A.S. Byatt, Bette Davis, books read, Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, Edgar Allan Poe, England, France, George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Herman Melville, Hitler, Ireland, Jack London, Janet Malcolm, Jean Renoir, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Crawford, Joan Didion, John Milton, Kim Stanley, Mark Danielewski, Mary Astor, Mary Gaitskill, Olivia Laing, Poland, politics, Robert Altman, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Russia, S.E. Hinton, Shirley Jackson, Tana French, Tennessee Williams, The Great Terror, war
4 Comments
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
— I have been obsessed with the meltdown going on at Gawker. As with most things at Gawker, it may only be of interest to people from the media who have been obsessed with what is going on, on a … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Channing Tatum, Norman Rush, Paul Theroux, Red Sox, Shirley Jackson, stuff I've been reading
17 Comments