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- Review: The Ugly Stepsister (2025)
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- “Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
- “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin
- 92nd Street Y: April 29th, Liberties panel
- April 2025 Viewing Diary, Supernatural Season 7
- “As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.” — Reed Morano
- March 2025 Viewing Diary, Supernatural Season 8
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Tag Archives: war
“As an outsider I was free to pick my own literary traditions, to build my own system of literary values.” — Dubravka Ugrešić
“Retouching is our favourite artistic device. Each of us is a curator in his own museum…Uncover A, cover up B. Remove all spots. Keep your mouth shut. Think of your tongue as a weapon. Think one thing and say another. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Croatia, Dubravka Ugrešić, war, Yugoslavia
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“Silence is necessary to tyrants and occupiers, who take pains to have their actions accompanied by quiet.” — Ryszard Kapuściński
It’s the birthday today of one of my favorite writers, Polish journalist and author Ryszard Kapuściński. His death in 2007 was devastating to me. I went to the memorial tribute at the New York Public Library, hosted by his close … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Armenia, Ethiopia, Iran, Poland, politics, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, war
7 Comments
“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
“And the world Is gonna know your name. What’s your name, man?” “Alexander Hamilton.”
Except for the opening paragraph, this post was (mostly – there are some updates) written in 2008, years before “Hamilton” mania overtook the world. I almost can’t believe it’s happened. To all of you newcomers to Hamiltonia, I say, Welcome … Continue reading
Posted in Founding Fathers, On This Day
Tagged Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, politics, war
20 Comments
“Carelessness on the part of revolutionaries has always been the best aid the police have.” — Victor Serge
Ever since my late-in-the-day discovery of Victor Serge (whose birthday it is today), a man I should have discovered much MUCH earlier, considering my interest in totalitarian regimes / dissident voices / revolution / Russia – I have read as … Continue reading
“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
For Busby Berkeley’s birthday: Remember My Forgotten Man and Sucker Punch
I wrote a piece originally for the Musings blog at Oscilloscope (it was included in a book!), and now lives on my site (since it’s off the Musings blog). It’s about the similarities between Busby Berkeley’s Gold Diggers of 1933 … Continue reading
Posted in Movies, On This Day
Tagged Busby Berkeley, dance, Gold Diggers of 1933, Joan Blondell, Mervyn LeRoy, musicals, Sucker Punch, war, WWI
15 Comments
Review: No Other Land (2024)
A very tough challenging watch. But it should be watched. (In my review for Ebert I mention Green Border, directed by Polish master Agnieszka Holland, released earlier this year. See it. One if fictional – but barely – it’s really … Continue reading
Today, the Sheila Variations turns 22. wtf.
The above pic of me – taken by Michael – graced the top of my original blog, when I set it up 22 years ago today. I never should have put my picture up on my site – it led … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Personal
Tagged Block Island, Cary Grant, Croatia, Dean Stockwell, Elvis Presley, family, friends, Hope, Humphrey Bogart, Iran, Ireland, Jafar Panahi, Joanna Hogg, July and Half of August, Martin Scorsese, Memphis, politics, Raging Bull, September 11, Supernatural, Tilda Swinton, war
117 Comments
“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
“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” — Václav Havel Václav Havel, whose birthday … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Theatre, writers
Tagged Czechoslovakia, Golshifteh Farahani, Iran, Iranian film, Jafar Panahi, Shabnam Toloui, Vaclav Havel, war
2 Comments