December 31, 2010
I was thinking that putting a picture from The Poseidon Adventure on my New Year’s blog entry might be too foreboding but what the hell!
I love the movie– you know, massive tidal wave flips over a cruise ship and survivors, including Shelley Winters, Red Buttons, and Pamela Sue Martin, have to climb their way to the top, er, now bottom of the ship.
Great Fun!
In any case, I’m hoping 2011 will bring a full-time teaching job for me; a substantial draft of my book; much creative inspiration; new friends and stronger ties to current friends; travel; bigger things for the writing community in San Diego; even greater love, closeness and appreciation for my wonderful husband, Ted; a vintage letterpress (anyone know where I can get one?); more visits with family; more reading for pleasure (so many books, so little time); more time spent in NYC; patience and understanding; health and prosperity; peace.
Below are some of my favorite photos and memories from the year (especially the bloody Justin Bieber that I made with a faux-wood stamp! and Hermia, my cat, 1991-2010).
Posted in Movies, art, books, cats, collage, crafts, cute photos of me, fiction, hermia, postcards, ted, vintage books, writers 
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December 29, 2010
So I’ve decided to read Cleopatra: A Life, a biography of the queen of eyeliner (of the Nile, I mean) by Stacy Schiff before I read the other book. Ted’s aunt gave it to me for Christmas and I’m very excited about it.
I was obsessed with Egypt as a kid. This was during the King Tut craze of the mid-70s. It was King Tut mania! And then there was the Agatha Christie movie, Death on the Nile (still a favorite for the batty performance by Angela Lansbury and the blue-eyed charm of Simon MacCorkindale). I wanted so badly to go to Egypt and see the pyramids and ride a camel. Maybe one of these days.
And, I’ve always loved the musical number, Cleopatterer, performed by June Allyson and Ray McDonald in the MGM Jerome Kern biopic Till the Clouds Roll By (itself a number from the Kern musical Leave it to Jane). The sounds a bit off, but click the picture to watch it. June at her husky-voiced best.
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December 24, 2010
Christmas Eve: My Mother Dressing
by Toi Derricotte
My mother was not impressed with her beauty; once a year she put it on like a costume, plaited her black hair, slick as cornsilk, down past her hips, in one rope-thick braid, turned it, carefully, hand over hand, and fixed it at the nape of her neck, stiff and elegant as a crown, with tortoise pins, like huge insects, some belonging to her dead mother, some to my living grandmother.
Sitting on the stool at the mirror,
she applied a peachy foundation that seemed to hold her down, to trap her, as if we never would have noticed what flew among us unless it was weighted
and bound in its mask.
Vaseline shined her eyebrows,
mascara blackened her lashes until they swept down like feathers; her eyes deepened until they shone from far away.
Now I remember her hands, her poor hands, which, even then were old from
scrubbing,
whiter on the inside than they should have been, and hard, the first joints of her fingers, little fattened pads, the nails filed to sharp points like old-fashioned ink pens, painted a jolly color.
Her hands stood next to her face and wanted to be put away, prayed for the scrub bucket and brush to make them useful.
And, as I write, I forget the years I watched her pull hairs like a witch from her chin, magnify every blotch–as if acid were thrown from the inside.
But once a year my mother
rose in her white silk slip,
not the slave of the house, the woman,
took the ironed dress from the hanger–
allowing me to stand on the bed, so that my face looked directly into her face, and hold the garment away from her as she pulled it down.
“Christmas Eve: My Mother Dressing” by Toi Derricotte, from Captivity. (c) University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989. Reprinted with permission. (from The Writer’s Almanac)
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December 22, 2010
I’m off for about three and a half weeks, which means writing and reading and being creative.
I’m almost finished reading the book I spoke about in my previous post (The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me) and I’m eying a stack of books by my bed. Which one next? The Pure Lover by David Plante? Model Home by Eric Pucher? A Case for God (got this last Christmas but still haven’t read it!) by Karen Armstrong? Great House by Nicole Krauss ? I absolutely loved The History of Love, her last book. I’m thinking I might start with A Case for God; every time I see it on my shelf I think about pulling it down and reading it. I’m compelled yet maybe intimidated by it. Time to do it!
In addition to reading, though, I’m finally getting back to the book I’m writing. It’s not a lot of time, three and a half weeks, but more than I usually have so I’m hoping to make some more progress. Lately I’ve been writing chapters involving a brand new character in the book–Limpie, a 17 year-old Shivwit Indian boy– well, he’s been in the book since the first chapter but I’m finally telling his story, as it were, in his chapters. His story actually comes through by means of an essay he’s writing in school, and so pieces from his essay, which read like letters to his teacher (he’s writing this essay as an extra credit assignment over the summer so he can graduate from high school), are in between the more traditional narrative. I’m finding so much heart and humor in Limpie who originally was going to just play a very minor part in the book.
Finally, I’m hoping to do some more creating–with my hands, but not just typing up my novel. I’ve got a few projects I’m working on or planning. Stuff to do in my little craft station out in the garage. One project involves these little freckled doll heads. I’m thinking of doing something like this. It involves plaster of paris! Unless someone out there has better ideas?
I’d also like to do something with these orange guns. Not sure what, though. Or maybe something with these cool old iron-on transfers from the 1940s (this one is of Van Johnson). And then I have all of those beautiful old window frames with the glass in them that I’d like to play around with.
Sigh.
Posted in art, books, crafts, fiction, my writing, nonfiction, writers 1 Comment »
December 10, 2010
The end of my semester. How it flew by– but doesn’t it always? I taught at a new school this semester and enjoyed it immensely. There’s a full-time position opening up that i’m applying for… cross fingers for me.
I can’t believe it’s my winter break (and Christmas!). Cannot wait to get to some serious writing again, and reading.I’d like to read a book a week… can I do it?
Right now reading this terrific little book, The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me: Six Months on the Set with Marilyn and Olivier. It’s the journal entries of a young British man, Colin Clark, who was the 3rd Assistant Director (read: Go-Fer) on the film The Prince and the Showgirl, which starred (and was directed by) Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe in 1956. The book was written in the mid-90s and I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I think Clark was in his early 20s when he wrote the journal entries; they detail the day-to-day antics on the set. The problems with Marilyn, her lateness but also her vulnerability. She was a wreck on set but for some reasons when they looked at the dailies (that’s film talk for the footage shot every day) she was amazing. His journal entries are incredibly frank; he suspects (quite often) that Marilyn is high on drugs or alcohol, and says so often. But still through all of the trouble and anguish he has a deep admiration (not to mention lust) for her.
Clark also talks about Olivier’s frustrations, his marriage to Vivien Leigh, the parties, with sly hints at the director/star’s sexuality. Arthur Miller is an imposing figure as well.
The book is a hoot, full of hysterical (and historical) tidbits about the shooting, and especially the Brits impressions of us and our ‘Hollywood’ doings. Not to mention it’s really helpful for me as the book I’m writing takes place on a film set/shooting in 1954, albeit in America; but still, the way a film is shot (not chronologically) the amount of people on a set, the terminology (though have to make sure they’re not British terms), etc.
Here’s one particularly funny (or is it tragic?) passage from his diary. Well, it had me in laughing throughout:
MM (Marilyn) doesn’t really forget her lines. It is more as if she had never quite learnt them–as if they are pinned to her mental noticeboard so loosely that the slightest puff of wind will send them floating to the floor.
This is very disconcerting to the other actors. Like going down a familiar staircase and missing a step, MM is suddenly not there. She can be in mid-speech, and then she gives a little frown, her lips part, her eyes look puzzled, and she stops. She doesn’t say “Oh drat, what is the next line?” or anything. She just stops.
You can see the trailer here.
Apparently there was a BBC documentary made about the book/film. Which you can see some of here.
Posted in Movies, Uncategorized, books, my writing, nonfiction, writers 2 Comments »
December 3, 2010
I don’t know how I came across this– oh yes I do, I was procrastinating doing my work– but I love that someone is hawking Hemingway Shoes. Not his actual shoes, unfortunately, but shoes ‘inspired’(?) by Ernest Hemingway.
The Ernest Hemingway Collection is made up mostly of loafers…
Then of course I looked online for other writers and their shoes. Not that I have a foot fetish or anything (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I feel like somewhere I’ve seen a picture of either Kerouac or Ginsberg in a pair of high top sneakers, Chuck Taylors or Converse. Has anyone out there seen that picture? Or maybe it’s someone else wearing them?
The closest I could find online was a Jonas Brother– Nick Jonas?– in a pair.
Anyone who knows me knows that I wear my Converse All-Stars all the time. I have lots of pairs of shoes but for some reason I’m most comfortable in my Converse. So when they do the magazine spread of me it will feature me in my Converse.
Speaking of Chuck Taylors: Threadless Tshirts has the most awesomest T-shirt yet, called Woodchucks.
All shirts are on sale– $5, $10, $15. Can’t wait to get it.
And finally, of course, a poem:
Shoes by Charles Bukowski
when you’re young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you’re old
it’s just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.
Posted in poetry, shopping, t-shirts, writers 1 Comment »
November 27, 2010
I’m always interested in the writing spaces of other writers. The Guardian UK has been doing a series called Writer’s Rooms for a while now. Entertainment Weekly infrequently features writer’s spaces. And this month, Poets & Writers magazine online has writer John Casey‘s workspace–annotated!
Not as fancy, and probably messier, here is a picture, taken today, of my own writing space at home (I also have an office that Ted and I share downtown).
Some of the highlights: an issue of Movie Teen magazine from 1949 featuring Montgomery Clift
A Public Space magazine– a must read!
One of my many notebooks.
Ok, mine’s not nearly as exciting…
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November 23, 2010
Yet more wonderfulness from The Writer’s Almanac on NPR. I want to schedule all of my teaching so that it ends at 7 and I can drive home to The Writer’s Almanac.
Sunday it was the birthday of George Eliot, born Mary Anne Evans near Nuneaton, England (1819). Author of Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, and others. She was a serious little girl. At a birthday party, an adult asked nine-year-old Mary Anne if she was having a good time and she said,
‘No, I am not. I don’t like to play with children, I like to talk to grown-up people.’
She spent hours in her bedroom, reading novels — by the time she was eight years old she had read The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith, and The History of the Devil by Daniel Defoe. A neighbor lent a copy of Sir Walter Scott’s Waverleyto her older sister, and Mary Anne was in the middle of reading it when the book was returned. She was so disappointed that she decided to resurrect it by writing the story out for herself, as she remembered it, beginning with the opening scene.
Wow.
When she was eight she had read Bunyan, Goldsmith and Defoe. When I was eight I wrote a novel called It Ain’t Easy Being a Sunflower Seed.
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November 21, 2010
Today was writer Beryl Bainbridge’s birthday, born in Liverpool in 1932. She died last summer. I’ve always loved the name Beryl. It sounds so English. And it also sounds like something that grows on a tree. Or a vine.(photo from the Daily Mail UK).
She was a dry, funny writer. Sort of a British Dorothy Parker, I think. Check out this great article, “The Day I Was Nearly Shot Dead by My Mother-in-Law.”
She famously said:
Everything else you grow out of, but you never recover from childhood.
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November 6, 2010
Perfectionism is a primary writer’s block. We want to write–we just want to do it perfectly. Deliberately indulge in some “bad writing.” The danger of writing and rewriting at the same time is that it is tied in to mood. In an expansive mood, whatever we write is good. This makes writing a roller coaster of judgment and indictment: guilty or innocent, good or bad, off with its head or allowed to go scot-free. The computer, with its deadly ‘delete’ button, should be seen as a clear and present enemy. Most often, a small scrap of writing that we are tempted to send to oblivion can be saved in a ‘slush’ file and found to fit perfectly later.
From The Writer’s Life: Insights from The Right to Write, by Julia Cameron.
I struggle with this idea of perfectionism. That every sentence has to be just perfect. Every word has to be the right fit, the best word ever. But I’m trying to get past that as I work on this draft of my novel.
Recently I wrote a new scene for the book while in a drop-in writing group. The scene (the first time I put it to paper in my Fabriano Classic Artist’s Journal) is brief, only a couple of pages. In the scene, a character named Limpie, a 17 year-old Native American boy in 1954 Southern Utah, is describing a short story he read in his English class. The story is “Araby” by James Joyce; a story that had me spellbound the first time I read it. Do you remember the first time you read a really fantastic story? One that moved you and changed you and made you think about it for a long time after? (this happened with Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” also).
Remember Joyce’s first line? I can almost recite it from memory (I should be able to do that, right? But I’m getting to old to memorize things effectively).
“North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers’ School set the boys free.”
That word ‘blind,’ which, in the literal sense means a dead end street, but of course we know after reading the story that Joyce plays with the themes of light and dark, sight and blindness, seeing things as they really are as opposed to what we would like them to be.
In the scene in my book, Limpie is telling the reader, actually, about this story. After he describes the entire story in just a couple of paragraphs, he ends with:
And I start thinking about how Mr. James Joyce describes the street where the boy and girl live. The neighborhood glowing from the moonlight, the shadows bouncing off of the houses where inside the parents are making soup, or paying their bills, or getting angry at each other, or just sitting in the dark, thinking, while outside in the street under the fuzzy streetlamps the kids in the neighborhood are playing so hard their cheeks are red and they are falling in love and laughing and crying and making promises they can’t keep.
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