I’m indebted to my friend Beverly, a retired travel agent, for turning me on to this hilariously serious book. The NY Review of Books summarized the 1956 travel novel this way: “‘Take my camel, dear,’ said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.” So begins The Towers of Trebizond, the greatest novel by Rose Macaulay, one of the eccentric geniuses of English literature. In this fine…
I had no idea how much of my life Femme au chapeau would consume. Not just the plugging and blogging; there’s the order filling and inscribing and carrying around copies in great big handbags that make me look like Mary Poppins. I feel the need for a great big umbrella more and more. Perhaps if I were Mary Poppins, I could rise up into the sky over the city and sprinkle Femme au chapeau in…
Saw a documentary on the friendship between Matisse and Picasso which showed the turning point in modern art when Matisse painted Femme au chapeau and outraged convention in such a way as to galvanize the young Picasso. Gertrude Stein and her family bought the painting. I wonder who owns it now. The Museum said it’s a private owner who chooses to be anonymous. Lady With Hat (translation) still travels into surprising territory. It was a…
Kay Day is doing something remarkable: creating a book on her blog. She has a story to tell about an incarcerated young man who hasn’t been given a fair deal, and she just can’t wait for the traditional print publishing process to get it out. Her blog, One Night for Life, tells of 18-year-old Taylor Wells’ crime and punishment is double-layered: the story of a young man unfairly sentenced and of a writer, a complete…
There they were on the doorstep: two small cartons. I couldn’t remember having ordered anything, so I opened them later, after taking a walk. Shirts for David, I thought, or a special order of vitamins I had a mental lapse about having requested. Or, could I really have gone that nuts at Amazon as to require two cartons of stuff that I will now regret when the little envelope with my Visa bill arrives? And…
Now it’s getting a little weird. I dreamed last night of a way to revise my book. Of course it was couched in terms of a conversation — can’t remember with whom, probably some subconscious version of my agent, who’s kind of like the Good Mother archetype, even though she’s younger than I am. Anyway, I was listening to whoever it was tell me, with some enthusiasm, that I had finally gotten it right. I…
Where have I been? I have this little book of Transtromer’s translated by Robert Bly. It’s been sitting on my shelf for years, and the last time I remember opening it, it was impenetrable and dull, an unforgivable combination. I suppose I was just impenetrable and dull that day, because today I opened it in desperation to read some kind of poetry with something that sparks, and — top-of-head-blowing-off. Bly’s translations seem a bit breathily…
I’ve been trying to find auspicious things for May 11 online, and came across this blog called The Human Flower Project, thanks to The Bookish Gardener. (The site’s title makes me want to write a poem.) Nice to know it’s an auspicious day in India, and that according to the Vedas, the day is lit with celestial favor. I count it a celestial favor to see the sun, after days of freakish May rains (freakish…
Have you ever googled your birthday and the phrase “this day in history”? I learned that on May 11, 1949, the day of my birth, Siam changed its name to Thailand. Well, if that doesn’t set the tone for a whole life, I don’t know what does. Could the name change be the reason I’ve never found the twin I’ve always suspected I was separated from at birth. Should you want to try this experiment,…
I’m very pleased with the results of my guest editing stint at Stirring. Take a look at the May issue. Erin Elizabeth invited me to join the editorial group for this issue, which involved reading and commenting briefly on about thirty-five poems. After the initial hurdle of trying to come up with pithy things to say about murky responses to many of the submissions, I got into the swing. I’m pleased with the issue and…