1/15/13

WORDS BANNED IN 2013? HMM THERE ARE SOMETHINGS PEOPLE (STILL) SAY THAT HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A TURN OFF!

UNIVERSITY BANISHES WORDS FOR 2013 by Thom Patterson  article link!

trending, spoiler alert, bucket list, superfood, guru, job creators, yolo  (see article for explanations).


Personally,  I never could stand and cannot stand it when someone ends a conversation rudely by saying "Thank You For Sharing."   I also hate it when someone says "hello!" or "hello?" and they aren't on the phone. Any phrase used by a television character, who is supposed to be smart ass funny, doesn't work on me.

1/12/13

PENNY MARSHALL Quotation

... "On stage you have to tie up the loose ends neatly and send the audience home with a resolution they like. In real life, as was evident, that's not easy.  I was familiar with indecision. My life was like a play in the midst of a rewrite.  But was that bad?  I didn't think so." ... - Penny Marshall



From "My Mother was Nuts", a memoir by Penny Marshall C 2012, new harvest Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt publishers, which I read and considered light reading over the holidays,  even though Penny covered some heavy topics in her humorously matter of fact way of seeing life.

1/1/13

12/12/12

GOING ON VACATION! SEE YOU IN 2013 ?

It's that time!  I'm taking a vacation. 

What will happen between then and now?


Most likely December 12th 2012 will come and go as an ordinary day, as will December 21st, 2012, which is the Winter Solstice, and the "Gregorian Calender" December 12, 2012. 

Despite all the buildup and antipation and the increase in tourism to Guatamala for December 12th or 21st 2012, I'm not concerned that the earth will flip on it's axis, nor do I believe this will be the day that UFO'S reveal themselves to all of humanity,  though I will be watching for crop circles, and I'm still speculating as to how Santa has managed to deliver so very many presents in the wee hours all these years even with the help of elves and reindeer all who multitask!   But I could be wrong!

In which case instead of having a few weeks to use the search feature of Google Blogger to read past posts of this blog, CHRISTINE TRZYNA - WRITERLY LIFE, you'll have a very long time to do so.

Seriously though, the snowman drawing below had me laughing out loud.


That may tell you just how much I need a vacation!

Till then,

Christine Trzyna


12/10/12

DIANE VON FURSTENBERG : A SIGNATURE LIFE : BOOK EXCERPT

DIANE VON FURSTENBERG : A SIGNATURE LIFE : BOOK EXCERPT

pages 187 and 188

"I designed the apartment (in Paris) as Bohemian Luxuria, because I had long since discovered that writers may act bohemian, but they love luxury.  (CT - italics is mine.)

Our apartment was a center for other writers because of Alain's association with Mondadori and many other writers we had a friends. Many of those friends would stay with us in what I called the Literary Room...

The (apartment) concept was one of an ongoing, moving stage, which fit very much with how I saw my life then.

"Writers loved to stay in the apartment and continue to do so. The apartment is very quiet, and Paris is inspiring... Whether it is the air, the wine, or the ambiance, somehow it is easier for writers to write in Paris...

They were all part of the literary mix in Paris and the rich cultural life that I craved after my reclusive years at Cloudwalk. I was hungry for the exchange of ideas, a side of me that I had neglected, and I was pleased beyond measure to be back into it..."

12/8/12

PASADENA by DAVID EBERSHOFF : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW

I remember one very obnoxious classmate of mine in a creative writing program.  She said she was "suspicious" of any writing that began with physical (topographical, geographical, botanical) descriptions. 

PASADENA by DAVID EBERSHOFF  : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW

This is a book about class and changing status.  Of a certain rich poverty, of people who make the best of that long moment called life, and who seem to have privilege but when it comes to what's really valuable in life, have little to nothing.

This is a book about fallible  people making the best they can do in the long moment called life.

Each and every one of them lives disappointment.  If they have hopes of romance, well, that is not how it turns out, and yet, they succeed at least temporarily at something.

It's pleasing to read a book, be it fiction or nonfiction, that takes place where you live.  "Pasadena," is a book set in Los Angeles,  Pasadena and La Jolla, during the first half of the 20th century, and it pleased me to no end as historical fiction, especially because the rich detail was of natural pre-city world, at the time when the building boom had just begun and southern California was being transformed from a small town dotted map into what you see when you fly into Southern California at night; lights for hundreds of miles of cities joined together.

At the center of this story is a girl of German immigrant father and refugee Mexican mother born high above a beach cliff in 1903, a girl who sets out lobster pots and swims without fear, and cannot imagine how her adult life will be so little of her own choosing.  That girl will one day marry into Pasadena wealth, but her life will go wrong anyway.

So, as you know, I read and review a lot of old books, books that and longer being marketed.  I know I would get more hits on this blog if I only reviewed the books that were just published and being marketed now. As a relatively unknown reviewer I could keep getting to the back of that parade but I love discovering a new author even if the work is "old."

C 2002 author
Random House is publisher.

12/2/12

MAN ON WIRE : DOCUMENTARY on PHILIPPE PETIT : CHRISTINE TRZYNA FILM REVIEW

MAN ON WIRE is a documentary about a Frenchman named Philippe Petit who has more than a bit of circus in him. In 1974 he managed to walk (and dance) a wire tight rope that was between the two Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. This wasn't just a stunt. It was a spectacle.






High Wire" by '90s Boston band Smackmelon is the identified music.

I got it that this daring feat, almost unimaginable, was "the artistic crime of the century," and I sure was happy that Petit and his team got away with it!


The DVD doesn't focus on the art of walking a wire but in the collaborative effort of various individuals in France and the United States to make this achievement happen, and they had to be real sneaky to haul all that equipment to the top of the towers and install it. Today if they tried to pull it off they wouldn't be able to.


I couldn't help but think about this from a 2012 perspective: because of 9/11 some would say, and I feel this, that the United States of America as is, all that privacy invading "security" as a result of the terrorist attack that fell these towers, is not the one I grew up in or want to live in, though I won't be packing up to go anywhere anytime soon. I think that we had a sense of freedom we no longer have. Such as the freedom to take chances like this! I feel sorry for children growing up in this atmosphere.


I'm reminded of a term I learned in one of my Literature - Creative Writing classes: SENTIMENTALITY FOR THE PRESENT. As I understand this term it means that in the now you know you are in the best days, and they are soon passing, like in the last second. In other words I acknowledge it's going to get worse not better.


This film made me sentimental for the pre 9/11 days, knowing that all the privacy invading "security" that I have come to accept, but which my immigrant ancestors would despise, to access any public building and many hospitals, is actually more like the Soviet Union in the Cold War than some of us patriotic types are comfortable with.


So, watching the DVD which was put out by Magnolia Pictures in the United Kingdom and funded by the National Lottery, I couldn't just watch and not think about the changes since his August 7th, 1974 walk, and while watching I was with the project every step of the way. At the same time I felt that sentimentality for the present.

12/1/12

11/28/12

FEELING THE CULTURE : HOLIDAYS FEEL DIFFERENT TO ME

FEELING THE CULTURE : HOLIDAYS FEEL DIFFERENT TO ME


By Christine Trzyna


I think it's because I (we?) can feel it in our environment, the difference between the work day week, the weekend, and the holiday.  I think it's about guilt or lack of.  When a whole lot of people are off and out to play, I feel freer, less obligated, and more likely to play too.  Even though I organize much of my own time without obligation to others at this point, I still feel better about doing my own thing on holidays, in particular holidays that can be strung together with weekends into four days off.

11/11/12

WHAT I WANT MY WORDS TO DO TO YOU : EVE ENSLER : CHRISTINE TRZYNA FILM REVIEW

Here's the set up for this DVD : Fifteen female inmates, most in prison for murder, some for life, are part of a Writers Round Table sort of writing class with Eve Ensler as their teacher/group leader. Over a four year period their writing was meant to be theraputic and help them come to terms with their crime. At the end of this time, Ensler recruited some actresses such as Glenn Close and Marisa Tomei, to read the work of one of the prisoner writing group members. Hearing their own words acted out on stage proves to be an interesting experience and an emotional one for everyone including the audience.


There are writers working in prisons heading up writing groups all around the country. Sometimes publications - chap books - are made of their work.  I  watched this film with no expectations and appreciated it greatly for what it is.

11/3/12

HARD CANDY : EDGIEST MOVIE I EVER SAW : CHRISTINE TRZYNA FILM REVIEW

HARD CANDY : DVD REVIEW : EDGIEST MOVIE I EVER SAW : CHRISTINE TRZYNA DVD FILM REVIEW

If you want to watch a movie that will make your thoughts twist and your emotions boil, then HARD CANDY, A Lionsgate release staring Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page is the one to watch. The screenplay was written by Brian Nelson.

14 year old Hayley is no doubt a genius, so what's she doing meeting up with a 30-something photographer she met over the Internet?


Does she do this often? Is she Taking Justice into her own hands, making a fantasy of torture and revenge into reality? Seems so. How guilty is the photograper of sexual abuse, rape, or even murder of another girl? Is Hayley a sociopath? Do we think Jeff the photographer deserves what he's getting? Or is it Haley who is truly the spiritually sick one?

From almost the beginning to the end, I was all torn up. My thoughts went all over and my stomach cramped.

Thus this production was fine art, for it did the most that any great piece of art can do which is make us question our own ethics and values as we relate or can't and so involve us in the art.
Should you feel sorry for him? Is she right in her assumptions and accusations?

So many questions!

11/1/12