4/20/12
4/14/12
SUBWAY STORIES : 10 SHORT STORIES in ONE FILM
I enjoyed SUBWAY STORIES, but more I was surprised by it.
A contest was held and thousands of writers submitted their stories. Then HBO filmed ten short shorts they thought were best. It pleased me greatly to see the final credits and the names of all those writers. The only thing I'm not sure of is if the submissions called for true and personal stories or if some or all of the writers created their stories.
Either way, if you've ever ridden a subway anywhere, you can relate. For these stories are unusual but also credible. Yes, this movie made me laugh and cry. I'm not sure which story was my favorite. Perhaps the story of the young woman who sang her dying mother a song on the phone, with a saxophonist and a rabbi lending their musical collaboration spontaneously.
Savor this one not with popcorn but a glass of wine.
C Christine Trzyna 2012 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
A contest was held and thousands of writers submitted their stories. Then HBO filmed ten short shorts they thought were best. It pleased me greatly to see the final credits and the names of all those writers. The only thing I'm not sure of is if the submissions called for true and personal stories or if some or all of the writers created their stories.
Either way, if you've ever ridden a subway anywhere, you can relate. For these stories are unusual but also credible. Yes, this movie made me laugh and cry. I'm not sure which story was my favorite. Perhaps the story of the young woman who sang her dying mother a song on the phone, with a saxophonist and a rabbi lending their musical collaboration spontaneously.
Savor this one not with popcorn but a glass of wine.
C Christine Trzyna 2012 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
4/10/12
POEMS FROM THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT : EDITED BY HONOR MOORE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW
POEMS FROM THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT
Edited by Honor Moore
American Poets Project
The Library of America
(Poetry by Alta, Rae Armantrout, Olga Broumas,Rita Mae Brown, Jan Clausen, Michelle Cliff, Lucille Clifton, Jane Cooper, Martha Courtot, Beverly Dahlen, Toi Derricotte, Diane Di Prima, Rachel Balu DuPlessis, Carolyn Forche, Kathleen Fraser, Elsa Gidlow, Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, Judy Grahn, Susan Griffin, Marilyn Hacker, Jana Harris, Fanny Howe, Erica Jong, June Jordan, Carolyn Kizer, Irena Klepfisz, Maxine Kumin, Joan Larkin, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Cynthia MacDonald, Bernadette Mayer, Honor Moore, Carol Muske-Dukes, Jane Miller, Robin Morgan, Eileen Myles, Alice Notley, Sharon Olds, Alicia Ostriker, Maureen Owen, Pat Parker, Molly Peacock, Marce Piercy, Sylvia Plath, Katha Pollott, Marie Ponsot, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Alice Walker, and Fran Winant.)
Several of these poems brought me back to the time when I still met women who were on fire about women's rights. Mostly since then I have met women who are bitches to other women. (Erica Jong has a theory that these creatures aren't women at all.)
Browsing through the bios in back of the book, I started searching for years of birth. Seems the youngest woman whose poetry is presented in this book was born in 1950.
I had to wonder. Are women younger than this not credited with:
Being important in the woman's movement?
Not writing poetry considered to represent the woman's movement?
Not interested in the woman's movement and the rights, responsibilities, and privileges (which they have inherited as simply their right as women)?
Writing feminist poetry that is not identified or accepted as feminist poetry by "mothers" of the movement or "mothers" of poetry?
Writing poetry that is not identified as worthy by the "literary cannon" and it's supposed upholders? (I yawn at the cannon.)
(Many "older" self identified feminist women who I've talked to about women of younger generations think they're a disaster when it comes to behaving and believing in a way of life that upholds feminism; So many of them lost to the importance instead of being "girly girls" whose lives revolve around what nail polish color to wear and shopping. Or we've talked about the horrific and sick influence of rap music on women; who the hell wants to have in their lives anyone who calls women "ho's", thinks women are "ho's" or self identifies as a" ho"? Why else is the female teenage ambition in high school to reduced to becoming experts at giving blow jobs boys demand so they can have and/or hold onto a boyfriend and/or starving themselves model thin? Are these young women the result of rotten parenting or what?)
Consider then that POEMS FROM THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT presents poems by poets who are and were unafraid to make the personal political and to write about subjects such as rape, bad sex, lesbianism, marital boredom, the effects of racism and sexism on their ability to live life independently and to the fullest.
I wish with all my heart that this poetry and the women who wrote it could have had more impact on society because it feels like not much has changed. The last sexist asshole I encountered just a few months ago was in his twenties, healthy, handsome, black, and highly educated and going to law school and working full time. He told me he did not "feel sorry" for me because I had no idea how hard it was to be a black man. He told me to "dumb down" as well. I was reminded that in college not one male student took the Women's Literature class I took.
C Christine Trzyna 2012
All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights
Edited by Honor Moore
American Poets Project
The Library of America
(Poetry by Alta, Rae Armantrout, Olga Broumas,Rita Mae Brown, Jan Clausen, Michelle Cliff, Lucille Clifton, Jane Cooper, Martha Courtot, Beverly Dahlen, Toi Derricotte, Diane Di Prima, Rachel Balu DuPlessis, Carolyn Forche, Kathleen Fraser, Elsa Gidlow, Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, Judy Grahn, Susan Griffin, Marilyn Hacker, Jana Harris, Fanny Howe, Erica Jong, June Jordan, Carolyn Kizer, Irena Klepfisz, Maxine Kumin, Joan Larkin, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Cynthia MacDonald, Bernadette Mayer, Honor Moore, Carol Muske-Dukes, Jane Miller, Robin Morgan, Eileen Myles, Alice Notley, Sharon Olds, Alicia Ostriker, Maureen Owen, Pat Parker, Molly Peacock, Marce Piercy, Sylvia Plath, Katha Pollott, Marie Ponsot, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Alice Walker, and Fran Winant.)
Several of these poems brought me back to the time when I still met women who were on fire about women's rights. Mostly since then I have met women who are bitches to other women. (Erica Jong has a theory that these creatures aren't women at all.)
Browsing through the bios in back of the book, I started searching for years of birth. Seems the youngest woman whose poetry is presented in this book was born in 1950.
I had to wonder. Are women younger than this not credited with:
Being important in the woman's movement?
Not writing poetry considered to represent the woman's movement?
Not interested in the woman's movement and the rights, responsibilities, and privileges (which they have inherited as simply their right as women)?
Writing feminist poetry that is not identified or accepted as feminist poetry by "mothers" of the movement or "mothers" of poetry?
Writing poetry that is not identified as worthy by the "literary cannon" and it's supposed upholders? (I yawn at the cannon.)
(Many "older" self identified feminist women who I've talked to about women of younger generations think they're a disaster when it comes to behaving and believing in a way of life that upholds feminism; So many of them lost to the importance instead of being "girly girls" whose lives revolve around what nail polish color to wear and shopping. Or we've talked about the horrific and sick influence of rap music on women; who the hell wants to have in their lives anyone who calls women "ho's", thinks women are "ho's" or self identifies as a" ho"? Why else is the female teenage ambition in high school to reduced to becoming experts at giving blow jobs boys demand so they can have and/or hold onto a boyfriend and/or starving themselves model thin? Are these young women the result of rotten parenting or what?)
Consider then that POEMS FROM THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT presents poems by poets who are and were unafraid to make the personal political and to write about subjects such as rape, bad sex, lesbianism, marital boredom, the effects of racism and sexism on their ability to live life independently and to the fullest.
I wish with all my heart that this poetry and the women who wrote it could have had more impact on society because it feels like not much has changed. The last sexist asshole I encountered just a few months ago was in his twenties, healthy, handsome, black, and highly educated and going to law school and working full time. He told me he did not "feel sorry" for me because I had no idea how hard it was to be a black man. He told me to "dumb down" as well. I was reminded that in college not one male student took the Women's Literature class I took.
C Christine Trzyna 2012
All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights
3/30/12
3/27/12
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO BEST SELLER LIST RESULT OF WEEKLY SURVEYS OF INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORES
"The NPR Bestseller Lists are produced in collaboration with the American Booksellers Association. The lists are compiled from weekly surveys of close to 500 independent bookstores nationwide."
3/24/12
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Quotation
"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing."
- Benjamin Franklin
- Benjamin Franklin
3/18/12
AUTRY'S MASTERS OF THE AMERICAN WEST ART SHOW : RIDICULOUS AND INSULTING GALLERY POLICY
Ridiculous and Insulting.
The Masters of the American West exhibit closed today.
Last week I went to see it. I love art and I suppose I'm always hoping I'll see a piece that gives me chills or makes me loose track of time just looking at it, which happens once in a while, and has happened twice in all the years I've gone to the Autry Western Heritage Museum, which, since 2003 has been the Autry National Center.
I was walking around the gallery, and I knew I wanted to write about it, and after I saw Mian Situ's paintings of 1902 San Francisco China Town street scenes, which I loved, and JoAnn Peralta's "Spanish Shawl," which beautifully featured the play of candlelight through a shaw, and Scott Talliman Powers "Daily Bread," a painting of an old man panhandling, well I thought if I was going to write about it, I needed to take some notes.
I took a small 3X5 lined paper notebook and a pencil out of my purse and started to write down the names of the artists and the pieces; maybe later I'd figure out which one was my very favorite. Then there was a secutity guard telling me I was not allowed to take notes or "sketch!"
Whaaat!?!
A woman using a laptop which she seems to have taken out of a polka-dot rolling suitcase was writing/typing on the balcony.
Students with paper and pencils roamed the lower galleries.
I was not taking pictures with a cell phone as some people were.
I did not have any camera with me at all.
I didn't bring any brats in stollers, particularly not the screaming and running brats so often being pushed around the Autry since it's across the street from the zoo; the main reason not to go there on weekends.
I was using my pencil to write, not stab paintings.
I wasn't physically too close to any paintings, nor did I try to touch a sculpture.
I guess the days when people actually go to museums with sketch pad and art supplies, as I did in my teens, is over: Too much concern over someone lending their pictures, notes, sketches, drawings to forgers and counterfeiters?!
It was explained to me, because I asked to speak to a higher authority, and a woman named Lauren spoke to me, that because the museum does not OWN the paintings and scultpures on display, they have this policy.
THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE SECURITY GUARDS! I said.
C Christine Trzyna 2012 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.
The Masters of the American West exhibit closed today.
Last week I went to see it. I love art and I suppose I'm always hoping I'll see a piece that gives me chills or makes me loose track of time just looking at it, which happens once in a while, and has happened twice in all the years I've gone to the Autry Western Heritage Museum, which, since 2003 has been the Autry National Center.
I was walking around the gallery, and I knew I wanted to write about it, and after I saw Mian Situ's paintings of 1902 San Francisco China Town street scenes, which I loved, and JoAnn Peralta's "Spanish Shawl," which beautifully featured the play of candlelight through a shaw, and Scott Talliman Powers "Daily Bread," a painting of an old man panhandling, well I thought if I was going to write about it, I needed to take some notes.
I took a small 3X5 lined paper notebook and a pencil out of my purse and started to write down the names of the artists and the pieces; maybe later I'd figure out which one was my very favorite. Then there was a secutity guard telling me I was not allowed to take notes or "sketch!"
Whaaat!?!
A woman using a laptop which she seems to have taken out of a polka-dot rolling suitcase was writing/typing on the balcony.
Students with paper and pencils roamed the lower galleries.
I was not taking pictures with a cell phone as some people were.
I did not have any camera with me at all.
I didn't bring any brats in stollers, particularly not the screaming and running brats so often being pushed around the Autry since it's across the street from the zoo; the main reason not to go there on weekends.
I was using my pencil to write, not stab paintings.
I wasn't physically too close to any paintings, nor did I try to touch a sculpture.
I guess the days when people actually go to museums with sketch pad and art supplies, as I did in my teens, is over: Too much concern over someone lending their pictures, notes, sketches, drawings to forgers and counterfeiters?!
It was explained to me, because I asked to speak to a higher authority, and a woman named Lauren spoke to me, that because the museum does not OWN the paintings and scultpures on display, they have this policy.
THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE SECURITY GUARDS! I said.
C Christine Trzyna 2012 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.
3/15/12
STEVEN KING'S 11/22/63 : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW
This is a big, heavy hard cover book. It's a long read and it's also a page turner, if, like me, you've been reading around the Kennedys and the Assassination in 1963 for years.
Steven King's 11/22/63 is a book with a few genres intermixing.
It's a story with a mystical - spiritual - quality to it, though King's reputation for gore is maintained with murders and mass chaos. You have to accept that a form of time travel is possible, though it's not science fiction but more a time warp that can be accessed.
There's a love story, one that provides the funniest moments.
But mostly what the Kennedy assassination story and Steven King's book is, is a MYSTERY story. Writing this book was a challenge not only because of the many genres that might have competed for prominence and become confusion in a lesser writer's manuscript, but because it's easy to find yourself searching for the information that his research brought forth, information that you know is controversial, such as if Lee Harvey Oswald was really the assassin and a lone gunman or not, and not sticking with the fictive story.
Steven King is so successful, a master, so maybe it's difficult to say anything revealing about his work overall. I've read Cell and The Dome, and one or two other titles over the years. I'm not a fan of gore but at least he's generally realistic with its possibilities. I do love the way he has set his characters in circumstances. I was left feeling satisfied with the read, which required that I stay home an entire weekend, in bed, with some crackers and cheese and the book.
Steven King's 11/22/63 is a book with a few genres intermixing.
It's a story with a mystical - spiritual - quality to it, though King's reputation for gore is maintained with murders and mass chaos. You have to accept that a form of time travel is possible, though it's not science fiction but more a time warp that can be accessed.
There's a love story, one that provides the funniest moments.
But mostly what the Kennedy assassination story and Steven King's book is, is a MYSTERY story. Writing this book was a challenge not only because of the many genres that might have competed for prominence and become confusion in a lesser writer's manuscript, but because it's easy to find yourself searching for the information that his research brought forth, information that you know is controversial, such as if Lee Harvey Oswald was really the assassin and a lone gunman or not, and not sticking with the fictive story.
Steven King is so successful, a master, so maybe it's difficult to say anything revealing about his work overall. I've read Cell and The Dome, and one or two other titles over the years. I'm not a fan of gore but at least he's generally realistic with its possibilities. I do love the way he has set his characters in circumstances. I was left feeling satisfied with the read, which required that I stay home an entire weekend, in bed, with some crackers and cheese and the book.
3/9/12
PITTSBURGH TOONSEUM WAREHOUSE THOUSANDS OF COMIC BOOKS RUINED
Donations are coming in... The Associated Press story went from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette to newspapers around the country. Thousands of Comic Books were ruined.
"Executive Director Joe Wos says the most valuable comics weren’t at the warehouse, but some of what was lost will be "very difficult to replace." He says much of the material was waiting for transfer to the ToonSeum’s new on-site library.The ToonSeum is one of only three museums in the country dedicated exclusively to the cartoon arts."
"Executive Director Joe Wos says the most valuable comics weren’t at the warehouse, but some of what was lost will be "very difficult to replace." He says much of the material was waiting for transfer to the ToonSeum’s new on-site library.The ToonSeum is one of only three museums in the country dedicated exclusively to the cartoon arts."
3/3/12
ROLLING STONES : MOONLIGHT MILE
Remember when I first heard this song being captured by the magical mystical quality of it. The lyrics brought me right to a country road, the land covered in snow, the moon high in the sky, and walking alone on it. Today I am struck with how "Asian" the melody.
2/23/12
BLUE NEON NIGHT : MICHAEL CONNELLY'S LOS ANGELES : CHRISTINE TRZYNA FILM REVIEW
BLUE NEON NIGHT is one of the first films I've seen that is about a writer's reasons why and I'm already ordering his book "The Narrows," as the first Micheal Connelly I'm going to read.
His genre is detective fiction. He has a consistent character - the detective - through his whole series of books. In this DVD Connelly discusses the way Los Angeles as a city, a city that is a sunny place full of shady characters, informs his fiction. The film itself consists of brief passages in which the author discusses his writing, along with readings of various passages that mention the streets and buildings of Los Angeles, which are filmed as if you were going on a ride with the detective. Prior to making his living as an author, Connelly was a journalist with a beat. Not a native, he found LA to be his city, a city where you can find everything including the contradictions.
LINKING TO HIS OFFICIAL WEB SITE NOW!
His genre is detective fiction. He has a consistent character - the detective - through his whole series of books. In this DVD Connelly discusses the way Los Angeles as a city, a city that is a sunny place full of shady characters, informs his fiction. The film itself consists of brief passages in which the author discusses his writing, along with readings of various passages that mention the streets and buildings of Los Angeles, which are filmed as if you were going on a ride with the detective. Prior to making his living as an author, Connelly was a journalist with a beat. Not a native, he found LA to be his city, a city where you can find everything including the contradictions.
LINKING TO HIS OFFICIAL WEB SITE NOW!
2/19/12
DIANE VON FURSTENBERG : A SIGNATURE LIFE : BOOK EXCERPT
DIANE VON FURSTENBERG with LINDA BIRD FRANCKE : A SIGNATURE LIFE : BOOK EXCERPT
about designing a perfume.
pages 104-105
"I want something that simply smells good, like cut fresh flowers, a scent you can inhale and almost swallow, like you can with the smell of a roasting chicken," I told people at the different companies, whose perfumers are called "noses."...
"I understood what I meant, but the chemists and noses did not. The poor account executives kept bringing in new notes in various combinations to our office, but they were always too heavy, too obvious, too reminiscent of another fragrance of another time.
"I tried words such as "alive," "Up," and "Open: and urged them to use only white flowers such as jasmine, honeysuckle, lilac, hyacinth, gardenia. But not gardenias in full flower; young, green gardenias has the lighter, fresher scent I was looking for. But nothing came of my efforts. After I had sniffed and worn and rejected a hundred or so samples, we were stalemated.
about designing a perfume.
pages 104-105
"I want something that simply smells good, like cut fresh flowers, a scent you can inhale and almost swallow, like you can with the smell of a roasting chicken," I told people at the different companies, whose perfumers are called "noses."...
"I understood what I meant, but the chemists and noses did not. The poor account executives kept bringing in new notes in various combinations to our office, but they were always too heavy, too obvious, too reminiscent of another fragrance of another time.
"I tried words such as "alive," "Up," and "Open: and urged them to use only white flowers such as jasmine, honeysuckle, lilac, hyacinth, gardenia. But not gardenias in full flower; young, green gardenias has the lighter, fresher scent I was looking for. But nothing came of my efforts. After I had sniffed and worn and rejected a hundred or so samples, we were stalemated.
2/16/12
ONLY YOU MARISA TOMEI and ROBERT DOWNEY JUNIOR
"Only You," was a Romantic Comedy I thoroughly enjoyed. Maybe that's because I'm a fan of Robert Downey Junior, or because this film had an element of synchronicity and magic to it.
"Damon Brinkley" is the buzz word: Character Faith Corvatch of Pittsburgh is 9 days away from marrying a podiatrist when a friend of her fiancé calls to say he's in Italy and won't make the wedding. Faith was 11 when, while using a Ouija board with her brother, she asked for the name of her future husband and what did it spell ? "Damon Brinkley."
(I played the Ouija board once with a teenage friend and when we asked what spirit was communicating it spelled "Jesus Christ." So much for my girlfriend pushing on her end to make it spell. I got the hell out of her too fluffy pink bedroom and ran all the way home and that big full moon sitting on the top of the hill sure did spook me!)
Ok, but then when Faith is a full blown teenager, she goes to a crystal ball reader and guess who the mystic says she will marry? "Damon Brinkley!" The man on the phone from Italy is named "Damon Brinkley." How could she get married without first meeting her soul mate?
Of course she has a couple friends who support her choice, though they see that if she could do this then maybe she shouldn't get married. What follows (I won't spoil it for you) is a romp through Italy.
The movie ends with Faith knowing just who Mr. Right is. Ha!
Re-edited Sept 2013
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