Last night was the first real meeting of the literary discussion group I organized hereabouts, Bloomsbury West. Instead of reading in standard bookclub style — choosing one book– we have decided to choose a topic, ie. author, genre, geographical area, etc. Our first choice was JOHN UPDIKE. I think that none of us in the…
Category: Writing
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Planning Oscar
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Well, it is that time of year again. The Nominations are out and I have, as of this moment, 23 days to get two big things done. 1. Come up with a quirky theme/invite for the annual Oscar party. 2. See about 9,000 films in an effort to, this year, FINALLY, win my own ballot…
A Midwestern Crossing
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Photographer David Ottenstein Stops Time in Iowa The last thing I expected to see when I went to a gallery meetup at the Ridgefield Guild of Artists on Saturday was HOME. The Radius 2008 Exhibition featured the best of their emerging artists from the last 10 years, and one of those was photographer David Ottenstein,…
Three Questions for the New Year: Part Two
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So today I am continuing on my quest to discover what you think about 2009, based on the year we have just left in the dust. I really love this time of the year, because all sorts of ridiculous reporters get on TV and the web and start blathering with ridiculous pundits about what is…
When Friends Disappear
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Or, the Christmas Card That Ate My Friends It’s that time of year again– the time when I start fuming about Christmas cards. I love sending Christmas cards. Sure it’s time-consuming and tedious, but there is just something about putting together a good card with some fun photos and remembering your friends and family at…
“And Unto Them a Peep Was Born…
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…and they wrapped them in swaddling cellophane and laid them in a cardboard cradle. “And lo the angel of merchandising appeared to them in an ad and said unto the lowly housewives on the suburbanized hills: “Herk, go ye to the store called Joann, with an address on the Post Road in Milford,and there ye…
Home, Here and There
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Whenever I stop myself from trying too hard and whenever I look and see what it is I am searching for, it Is almost certainly the long, wide flat spaces of home, the first. It is easy enough to reason away life in the mid-hinterlands. How can I ever get the culture or the speed…
Diametric Adoration
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In the middle of my procrastination/break from grading, I visited my email and Google reader and found good stuff from two different women in my life… oh they make me SO crazy! First, there’s HEATHER! Heather the green wonder-mama, now appearing in ANOTHER feature near you! I’ve done some freelance work for Heather, so she’s…
A Jonas Brother Amongst Us.
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I was having a perfectly lovely lazy Thanksgiving when I notice a young teeny bopper-ish boy performing during halftime of the game that was on TV. He was pretty cute, I thought. Dark curly hair, sweet mischievous smile, eyes that crinkled to a squint when he grinned. In the photo, here, it’s the one on…
English Things I Miss, Part 1: The Toast Rack
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Here’s a new, non-regular segment for you that perhaps will help me cope with the grieving process of no longer living in London: English Things I Miss, subtitle, Though Not Necessarily So Much That I Would Move Back to the God-Forsaken Land of Clouds and Complaining. First English Thing I Miss: The Toast Rack It…
Roadkill Relations
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We’ve got the fatties back in our yard, and I am responsible. Squirrels get happy around Halloween here– they love to snack on our jack-o-lanterns, 5 times their size. I encourage it, really, sort of hoping that they will end up just too slow to move, and find themselves trying to dodge the car tires,…
All the Things I am Not Saying
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All the things I am not saying are sitting there, on the sofa, an elephant knitting from an endless ball of yarn. All the things I am not saying are molding in a plastic container, because I refused to eat them, or to throw them out, and I would not wash it out, or even…
Futura, Facebook and My iPhone
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Lately I’ve been keeping my laptop packed up in my backpack. It’s been getting Jan Brady’s worth of my attention these days. The combination of feeling overwhelmed (over-digged, over-twittered, over-booked) and of being the proud mother of conflicting pieces of beautiful technologies has caused me to rework my communication priorities. Here they are: 1. The…
For the Love of Jonatha and Woody
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The Genius on my iPod might as well just say “Awesome Singer Songwriters Need Only Apply.” It is constantly shuffling around Chapin and Lyle, Pink Martini and Tom Waits, Emmylou and Patti Griffin, Catie Curtis and the Tragically Hip. And, of course, Jonatha. I’ve got other music dappled on the lists, but it is just…
The Smell of Mums
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My Romanian dentist gave me a bouquet of pink mums today! Why would a dentist do that? I was admiring the vase of flowers on her front desk and she said “Would like like some to take home?” I blustered and said “Oh no really, I couldn’t” but she took me directly outside, to her backyard…
