4/25/09
4/23/09
JEAN COCTEAU quote
page 67
"One day, one of our writers whom I used to reproach with writing best sellers and with never expressing himself, led me in front of a mirror.
"I want to be strong, " he said. "Look at yourself. I want to eat. I want to travel. I want to live. I do not want to become a fountain pen."
From OPIUM, the Diary of a Cure, Peter Owen Limited Publishers, London MCMLVII
"One day, one of our writers whom I used to reproach with writing best sellers and with never expressing himself, led me in front of a mirror.
"I want to be strong, " he said. "Look at yourself. I want to eat. I want to travel. I want to live. I do not want to become a fountain pen."
From OPIUM, the Diary of a Cure, Peter Owen Limited Publishers, London MCMLVII
4/22/09
WINSTON CHURCHILL Quote
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." - Winston Churchhill
4/20/09
PULITZER PRIZES ANNOUNCED ! LAS VEGAS SUN CONGRADULATIONS ALEXANDRA BERZON !
" The Las Vegas newspaper was cited for the "courageous reporting" of Alexandra Berzon, whose stories about lax enforcement of safety rules on the Las Vegas Strip led to changes in policy and improved workplace conditions.The death toll on the Strip had reached nine in 16 months as casino giants undertook a $32 billion building boom, including the largest private commercial development in U.S. history. Berzon described how the rush to build quickly and at highly congested work sites led to safety shortcuts that contributed to deaths."
4/18/09
SYLVIA PLATH and TED HUGHES son - Another Suicide
Just reading DIVINE MADNESS which profiles Sylvia Plath among many other creative geniuses and their struggle with mental illness...
OR is mental illness and creative genius linked? Sylvia and Ted's son, who also struggled with depression... and I dare say, notoriety. (Link to Yahoo article may be live if you click on the title!)
"It is with profound sorrow that I must announce the death of my brother, Nicholas Hughes, who died by his own hand on Monday 16th March 2009 at his home in Alaska," his sister Frieda Hughes said in a statement published by The Times of London.
There is one comment I have to make... If you get seasonal depression don't live in Alaska or anywhere where the sun doesn't shine almost everyday. Get yourself into the sun belt!
OR is mental illness and creative genius linked? Sylvia and Ted's son, who also struggled with depression... and I dare say, notoriety. (Link to Yahoo article may be live if you click on the title!)
"It is with profound sorrow that I must announce the death of my brother, Nicholas Hughes, who died by his own hand on Monday 16th March 2009 at his home in Alaska," his sister Frieda Hughes said in a statement published by The Times of London.
There is one comment I have to make... If you get seasonal depression don't live in Alaska or anywhere where the sun doesn't shine almost everyday. Get yourself into the sun belt!
4/17/09
UCLA and LOS ANGELES TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
IS APRIL 25th and 26th this year....
I usually go when I'm in town. I find the panel discussions interesting but I wish there were more concentration on individual authors speaking and reading...
Free tickets if you hurry.
I usually go when I'm in town. I find the panel discussions interesting but I wish there were more concentration on individual authors speaking and reading...
Free tickets if you hurry.
4/15/09
GORE VIDAL Quote From PALIMPSEST
From PALIMPSEST a memoir by GORE VIDAL
page 239 hardback
...Although I have had several lifelong friends who were writers, I have never much enjoyed the company of writers. I also did not realize, nor did the others at ... gatherings, that we had arrived on the scene to witness the end of the novel. Today the word novelist still enjoys considerable prestige, so much so that both Mailer and Capote chose to call works of journalism novels. But that was thirty years ago. Today an ambitious writer would be well advised to label any work of his imagination nonfiction, or perhaps, a memoir.
One day, in the spring on 1950, I was invited to lunch by a very ambitious, very young southern novelist who wanted to shine in those social circles that are, for the most part, closed to very young ambitious southern writers. Like Capote, he wanted to be accepted by what was known than as cafe society, and like Capote, he had mistaken it for the great and largely invisible to outsiders, world that Proust had so obsessively retrieved from lost time. In later years , I liked to pretend that Capote had actually picked the right ladder and I would observe,... "Truman Capote has tried, with some success, to get into a world that I have tried, with some success to get out of." Truman was surprisingly innocent. He mistook the rich who liked publicity for the ruling class, and he made himself far too much at home among them, only to find that he was to them no more than an amusing person who could be dispensed with, as he was when he published lurid gossip about them. Although of little interest or value in themselves, these self-invented figures are nothing if not tough, and quite as heartless as the real things, as the dying Swan discovered when he found that his life meant less to his esteemed ... than her pair of red shoes."
...Although I have had several lifelong friends who were writers, I have never much enjoyed the company of writers. I also did not realize, nor did the others at ... gatherings, that we had arrived on the scene to witness the end of the novel. Today the word novelist still enjoys considerable prestige, so much so that both Mailer and Capote chose to call works of journalism novels. But that was thirty years ago. Today an ambitious writer would be well advised to label any work of his imagination nonfiction, or perhaps, a memoir.
One day, in the spring on 1950, I was invited to lunch by a very ambitious, very young southern novelist who wanted to shine in those social circles that are, for the most part, closed to very young ambitious southern writers. Like Capote, he wanted to be accepted by what was known than as cafe society, and like Capote, he had mistaken it for the great and largely invisible to outsiders, world that Proust had so obsessively retrieved from lost time. In later years , I liked to pretend that Capote had actually picked the right ladder and I would observe,... "Truman Capote has tried, with some success, to get into a world that I have tried, with some success to get out of." Truman was surprisingly innocent. He mistook the rich who liked publicity for the ruling class, and he made himself far too much at home among them, only to find that he was to them no more than an amusing person who could be dispensed with, as he was when he published lurid gossip about them. Although of little interest or value in themselves, these self-invented figures are nothing if not tough, and quite as heartless as the real things, as the dying Swan discovered when he found that his life meant less to his esteemed ... than her pair of red shoes."
4/13/09
THE LIVING LIBRARY EVERYONE'S AN OPEN BOOK
As reported by Jeanne Storck in the January 2009 Whole Life Times, people ARE books, in The Living Library, an organization that fights prejudice by hosting discussions in local libraries (click on the title here to link which is under construction). "Readers check out "books" (people) by sitting down and talking to those whose lifestyles are subject to preconceptions, "everyone from Buddhists to homeless people to police officers."
The living library was founded by Ronni Abergel, a Danish anti violence activist, and has staged events around the world. LIBRARIES are considered to be neutral spaces, where such discussions can take place on purpose.
The living library was founded by Ronni Abergel, a Danish anti violence activist, and has staged events around the world. LIBRARIES are considered to be neutral spaces, where such discussions can take place on purpose.
4/7/09
4/5/09
VIRGINIA WOOLF quote
"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
4/2/09
KCRW JASON BENTLEY LISTEN LIVE
Jason Bentley has taken over MORNING BECOMES ECLECTIC, my favorite local radio station, broadcasting from Santa Monica, California.
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