Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Charlie Wilson
posted at 4:33 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
I don't mean to make light of it but teasing about it feels better than talking about being annoyed when it's not about me and not very polite to say my reactions matter at all. But I am tired of feeling slapped every few days recently and very sad that another person has died who was a compelling, complex, interesting character, a person who added so much in so many unpredictable ways to various corners and aspects of the world. More to the (self-centered) point, another person who profoundly influenced my awareness that grays are very important to see in people - as opposed to blacks and whites.

Charlie Wilson has died and the world is a quieter and less amusing (read: wild and crazy) and less intriguing (in all the meanings of that word) place as a result.

Charlie Wilson's Peace - Washington Post article, 8/2008

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010
2-3
posted at 11:55 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
It's one of those sentence-a-day moments when I don't have a clue what to say but I vowed to do this so I have to say something so I guess I'll mention that I'm enjoying "Little Couple" on TV even though it made me cringe that they even had it on because it seemed exploitive but it turns out that Jen and Bill are interesting and smart enough and compelling enough personalities, that it works in that you completely forget the initial reason for it being a show in the first place and just become involved in what they're doing and thinking.

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Saturday, January 30, 2010
30
posted at 8:58 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Pat Boone is 76 (he'll turn 77 on June 1st) and, although his voice isn't quite as agile and able to hit all the little grace notes as it once was, you can see how startlingly handsome a young man he was partly because he still radiates enourmous charm and a sense of humor about his crazy success and his fortuitous ability to withstand the insanity of the decades that ate and chewed up his main rival, Elvis - and he still wears bright orange jackets and ties!

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Thursday, January 21, 2010
21
posted at 11:50 PM | Permalink | 4 comment(s)
I am amazed at how difficult it is to select the right words to convey the myriad of aspects of a personality and that leads me to pose a question to any rare readers (and myself): how would you describe yourself or someone you know well - accurately - with merely three words?

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Parker
posted at 2:04 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Good summary and compilation of tributes, here.

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Wednesday, January 20, 2010
20
posted at 11:58 PM | Permalink | 1 comment(s)
It would be amazing if Brown is - really - what he seems, namely, a mixture of points of view, not a tool of either party, not beholden and not indebted, just a regular guy who says what he means and actually does what he said he would do, someone with points of view and a sense of humor and a sense of balance and a sense of fair play.

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Love means never having to say.....
posted at 4:41 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Writers of novels, songs, screenplays and academic tomes all died this week. Three of them. Two men who moved and entertained millions of readers: Robert Parker yesterday and, on Sunday, Eric Segal, and a woman who wrote and sang lush music and poetry, Kate McGarrigle.

I wrote about Parker yesterday and will write more in the near future. He and his characters have been an influence and companions for me and several friends, for years.  Here's a nice piece on him by the proprietor of The Rap Sheet.

Segal, a scholarly classics professor at Yale, author of many books in his field and member of an Oxford college, was also the author of the monumentally popular Love Story and Oliver's Story and, surprising to me, screenwriter of the Beatles' The Yellow Submarine. One of his obituaries called him the progenitor of "bereavement fiction," something with which we are now entirely familiar. He had suffered from Parkinson's for years but refused to be bowed by it or anything else, evidently. At his funeral, his daughter, Francesca, paid him marvelous tribute by saying that "[at] the core of who he was [was] a blind obsessionality that saw him pursue his teaching, his writing, his running and my mother, with just the same tenacity."

Meanwhile, Kate McGarrigle, sister of Anna and one half of the McGarrigle Sisters, and mother of marvelous Rufus Wainwright, died earlier this week as well. She had learned to play the piano from nuns in the small Canadian town where she grew up. Her son's moving tribute is on his website.

A sad week.

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010
19
posted at 10:18 PM | Permalink | 4 comment(s)
As if it isn't enough that we have to absorb the profoundly sad event of Robert Parker's death, a very strange thing happened in politics today when a 57-year assumed fact was upended and one of Massachusetts' senate seats (the one seemingly owned by Democrats because it had been occupied by only two men - Kennedys - in all that time, since Jack defeated Henry Cabot Lodge in 1952 despite the Eisenhower landslide, and passed it on to his brother Ted after he was elected President) will now be held by Scott Brown, a Republican, the completely clear and competely puzzling reasons for which will be debated over cups of coffee and bottles of wine and mugs of beer (since water coolers are presumably long long passé) for days and weeks to come.

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Robert Parker
posted at 5:44 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
NO NO NO! It's wrong and it's years - decades - too early. Robert Parker died this morning. We have lost a friend, a companion, a correspondent, a truly joyous part of our world. How can there be no more get-togethers with Spenser, Susan and Hawk or Jesse or Sunny? And their friends and the people in their lives. It's just wrong. And so sad.

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Sunday, January 17, 2010
Haitian report
posted at 10:29 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
I recommend this blog - he's working with a mission that's been working with Haitian children for the last five years. Reading his hourly reports has the obvious impact of immediacy and is quite compelling.

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Saturday, January 16, 2010
Unusual and grand
posted at 11:16 AM | Permalink | 2 comment(s)
News conference with Obama, Bush and Clinton - amazing images for those of us who live in the conviction that differences can sometimes be set aside in the service of important things. Each patting the others' arms, patting and resting hands on the others' shoulders, smiling at each other. (And Obama didn't even use a teleprompter!) Wait, what's that? ah, I hear . . . oh yes, it's my mother intoning yet again that "God writes straight with crooked lines" and yes, okay, sometimes it is so so true.

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Friday, January 15, 2010
Wonderful story
posted at 8:44 AM | Permalink | 4 comment(s)
It's a year later. Hard to believe it's been a whole year since that crazy, frightening, wonderful day. It's so cold this winter and I don't remember that it was this cold - maybe it wasn't and maybe that's partly why they all made it. The captain has proven to be as judicious in his choices of where to lend his name as he was calm and leaderly in the crisis. And none of the passengers or crew has capitalized in a bad way, as far as I know. Now there is another nice twist. Read this and weep - well, I wept because the story is so nearly tragic but is instead miraculous. Best wishes for Laurie and Ben and thanks for them telling their story.

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Saturday, January 9, 2010
Anniversaries
posted at 9:48 PM | Permalink | 2 comment(s)
Richard M. Nixon and Simone de Beauvoir. Gosh.

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Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The internet
posted at 9:13 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Mistakes are made. We know that. It's a big wide complex world nowadays and the internet ceo just can't keep up with every single thing. Errors will be made. Diligence will fall through the cracks sometimes. Can't be helped. But John Singleton's birthday (today) was either 41 or 50 years ago. I wonder which. Do you suppose this is what comes of lying about one's age? Well I for one have no knowledge of such things nor the consequences.

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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Who'd've thought?
posted at 11:27 PM | Permalink | 4 comment(s)
Today is the 12th anniversary of the wedding of Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn. Weird and disquieting though it was/is, twelve years is enough time that perhaps we can (try to) let it go from our gossipy consciousness and just think of it as a marriage.

Then again, it's also the day when it was announced that Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have split up after twenty-three years together. It's always sad when families come apart even if no one feels animosity or anger.

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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Falling stars
posted at 9:21 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
What is it about celebrityness? What makes it apparently so damaging? Why do many celebrities take many lethal drugs - or least drugs that are lethal in conjunction with each other - and why do they party so unbelievably hard and without let-up? Do you know anyone who can party that much and still function at all? Why do they all seem to forget that what got them their success was almost always dedication and single-minded focus and, oh yes, talent and love of creativity and their art? Do piles of money and vast amounts of fame radiate a blinding light that makes it impossible to see or even remember one's extraordinary talent, artistry and self-discipline? Think Brittany Murphy, Elvis Presley, Jean Seberg, Heath Ledger, Rudolph Valentino, James Dean, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Anna Nicole Smith, River Phoenix, John Belushi, Freddie Prinze, Rebecca Schaeffer, John Kennedy Jr. . . . . Although death isn't always the result, the own-foot-shooting of people like Tiger Woods, Lindsay Lohan, the Olsens, and Michael Jackson are in the same category. It's so very very sad and puzzling and it seems so unnecessary and preventable.

Update. Today's quote of the day: "Talent does what it can; genius does what it must." (Robert Bulwer-Lytton). I'm not sure how it applies but it seems relevant.

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Making jewelry
posted at 9:06 AM | Permalink | 1 comment(s)

Spent three days in a fantastic workshop at my local bead store. It was taught by Nancy Cain, bead artist and teacher extraordinaire, and a lovely person, too. It was fun, interesting, informative, helpful, etc. The people I sat with were terrific as well. Here's a picture of one of the things we worked on. My own is three-eighteenths finished and in black, grey and white. I'll post pictures when it and the other work from class is done.

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Saturday, November 7, 2009
Tennessee and Cape Cod
posted at 5:17 PM | Permalink | 3 comment(s)
Those of us who grew up before rap and hip hop probably all remember The Tennessee Waltz and Old Cape Cod, among other songs that Patti Page made popular. Her slight twang and almost too sweet voice are memorable as soon as you simply say the titles. It's her birthday this week and I think we should all hum some of her songs, in tribute.

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Thursday, October 29, 2009
One can only hope
posted at 9:03 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
An article in the LA Times today says that many people have petitioned for Polanski's extradition. It would be rational and fortuitous to have him serve his sentence, it seems to me, both because of the horror of what he did (and admits to having done) and because neither time nor talent nor prestige nor celebrity friends should be sufficient to exonerate him.

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Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Booker Prize
posted at 3:29 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
The renowned and coveted 2009 Booker Prize is being announced tonight. The U.K.’s prestigious Man Booker Prize is conferred (nearly) every year to a work of fiction written by an author from a Commonwealth nation (i.e., Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, etc.). The $80,000 award is amazing in the literary world where large incomes are rare indeed. Anyway, here is the this year's short list plus a review or two:

- Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel - a novel about Henry VIII’s close adviser Thomas Cromwell
- The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt (1991 Booker winner for "Possession")
- Summertime by J.M. Coetzee (1983 Booker winner for "Life and Times of Michael K" and 1999 Booker winner for "Disgrace")
- The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
- The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
- The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Extra, extra, read all about it . . . Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall has won the 2009 Man Booker Prize. Here is the announcement. And here is an excerpt. More on all this, anon.

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