Literary Pick (**)

Dirty Havana Trilogy
-Pedro Juan Gutiérrez 

Literary Pick (**)

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness 
-Richard Yates

Quote of the Day

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”

— T.S. Eliot

Literary Pick (***)

The Tenant 
-Roland Topor

Photograph

-Bob Dylan

Literary Pick (***)

A Thousand Country Roads 
-Robert James Waller 

I didn't know where this book was heading at the beginning. At first I wondered if I was even reading the epilogue to Bridges.

I remember I once went to a performance by Dave Brubeck, the recently deceased famed jazz musician. Dave was wrapping up a wonderful show when he asked the audience if we had any special requests, and of course, having not yet heard him play Take-5, we all echoed take-5. But Dave asked if instead we wouldn't prefer to listen to Laura, but we were like "noooo, we want take-5!" people kept chanting Take-5, Take-5! Dave Brubeck was so annoyed. With a frown Dave swatted the audience, as if to say, "you people always asking for the same thing, always wanting to hear take 5." and so Dave rolled his eyes and pushed out the shittiest rendition of Take-5 he has ever done. He did that on purpose, just to show us. I felt so cattle-like at that moment. A bunch of dopes.

It seems as if Robert Waller did this with A Thousand Country Roads to shut up undying fans of his original novel The Bridges of Madison County. He probably wanted to turn people on to Laura, but people were like noooo, Bridges! I Can't exactly say it was "a shitty rendition", but it definitely felt like a toss of a dirty metal bowl of food on the porch for the dogs type of deal.
I guess readers simply couldn't accept the fact that Francesca and Robert don't ever meet again. We all knew that from the first book, so why read this one? For me it was wanting to have them in my heart, alive again. I remember reading Bridges back in the early 90'a and literally bawling my eyes out, same when the movie came out, which is odd because movies to me don't usually translate well on film, but it was that good. I think many people easily dismiss bridges because "it's a love story of two old people"... but replace Meryl and Clint with two young sexy actors and I think it would've had a broader, wider appeal. This entire novel has been unfairly judged by many from the beginning, even myself, thinking how silly and sentimental the title was alone.
I recommend this book to people who read The Bridges of Madison County, or watched the movie.

Literary Pick (***)

This Family of Mine
-Victoria Gotti

R.I.P

Legendary Jazz Musician Dave Brubeck Dies 

Dave Brubeck, the legendary jazz pianist and composer, known for defying jazz conventions and for recordings like "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk," has died.
Brubeck died of heart failure in Norwalk, Conn. He was one day short of his 92nd birthday.
His All Music biography says Brubeck distinguished himself from the popular jazz musicians of the West Coast by playing unusual time signatures, "adventurous tonalities," and proving that complex music could find a larger audience.
Perhaps a testimony of that was that in 1954, Brubeck became only the second jazz musician ever featured on the cover of Time Magazine. The first? Louis Armstrong.
Born Dec. 6, 1920, Brubeck grew up on a 45,000-acre ranch in California and he came to music through a circuitous route. In a 1999 interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross, he said his first love was rodeo roping. But his mother, who spotted a special talent when he sat at the piano, insisted he not rope anything larger than a yearling.
"She didn't want my fingers to become hurt," Brubeck said. "My uncle, who was also a rodeo roper, got his finger caught between the saddle horn and the rope, and it took his finger off. And he used to kid the other cowboys and say, 'I would've been a great pianist like my nephew Dave, had I not lost this finger.'"
Brubeck went on to college but a zoology teacher told him he should focus on what he had spotted as his true love: Music. So Brubeck started taking classes at Mills College in Oakland, California, except there was one huge problem — Brubeck never learned to read music and the dean at the college threatened not to let him graduate.
"But when some of the younger teachers heard this, they went to the dean and said, 'You're making a big mistake, because he writes the best counterpoint that I've ever heard,'" Brubeck said. "So they convinced the dean to let me graduate. And the dean said, 'You can graduate if you promise never to teach and embarrass the conservatory.' And that's the way I've gotten through life, is having to substitute other things for not being able to read well. But I can write, which is something very few people understand."
NPR's Felix Contreras tells our Newscast unit that Brubeck's "Take Five," released in 1959, changed jazz "by adding an extra beat to jazz's standard 4/4 time."
As Hedrick Smith wrote for PBS, "Take Five" was in 5/4 time and other songs in the "Time Out" album were just as odd. "Blue Rondo a la Turk" was in 9/8 time.
Critics didn't like it and Brubeck even lost some gigs for playing those odd time signatures and for his use of polytonality.
Smith reports:

"'Much of the earlier European music was in one tonality,' Brubeck explains. 'We've become so used to that. Gradually musicians and composers wanted to stretch that and get it more complicated.' But as Brubeck remembers, it took some time for his unique approach to catch on. 'I wrote [a piece] for Stan Kenton when I was 22 that had some polytonality, called Prayer of the Conquered,' Brubeck recalls. 'He said 'Bring it back in 10 years.' He thought it was complicated.'"

In the end, however, the masses embraced Brubeck. "Time Out" sold more than a million copies and became the first jazz record to hit gold.
Our friends at NPR Music will have more on Brubeck over at The Record. They've also put together an "artist page" for Brubeck.

-NPR

Literary Pick (***)

Paris, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down 
-Rosecrans Baldwin

   
Boy, do I have a love/hate relationship with Paris.. I have to admit that if I had no interest in Paris at all, this book would've been incredibly boring to me. I think if you would've plugged in any other city other than Paris, this book would've never made it to the newsstands. The sheer fact that so many people from all over the world, but most especially from the United States, dream of someday moving to Paris is this novels only appeal.

In an odd way, reading this novel makes me want to actually move to Paris, although my visit there was less than stellar.

Literary Pick (***)

Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir 
-Paul Monette

When I first began reading this book, I though "oh God, is this memoir going to be this depressing the whole way through?" It was.. but it got increasingly better. I initially felt it was overly cerebral for an AIDS memoir (that sounds terrible..) and a tad over-dramatic, but it comes together gracefully, powerfully, and lovingly.
I felt there was a certain level of self-martyrdom in Paul's account of Roger's illness, but became convinced it was a memoir written purely for the honor of Roger's memory when Monette ended the novel without addressing his own issues with the virus.


I'd only recommend this to certain people. Ones who are compassionate and patient.

Questionnaire

The Proust Questionnaire 

The young Marcel was asked to fill out questionnaires at two social events: one when he was 13, another when he was 20. Proust did not invent this party game; he is simply the most extraordinary person to respond to them. At the birthday party of Antoinette Felix-Faure, the 13-year-old Marcel was asked to answer the following questions in the birthday book, and here's what he said:

•  What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
  To be separated from Mama
• Where would you like to live?
  In the country of the Ideal, or, rather, of my ideal
• What is your idea of earthly happiness?
  To live in contact with those I love, with the beauties of nature, with a quantity of books and music, and to have, within easy distance, a French theater
• To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
  To a life deprived of the works of genius
• Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
  Those of romance and poetry, those who are the expression of an ideal rather than an imitation of the real
• Who are your favorite characters in history?
  A mixture of Socrates, Pericles, Mahomet, Pliny the Younger and Augustin Thierry
• Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
  A woman of genius leading an ordinary life
• Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
  Those who are more than women without ceasing to be womanly; everything that is tender, poetic, pure and in every way beautiful
• Your favorite painter?
  Meissonier
• Your favorite musician?
  Mozart
• The quality you most admire in a man?
  Intelligence, moral sense
• The quality you most admire in a woman?
  Gentleness, naturalness, intelligence
• Your favorite virtue?
  All virtues that are not limited to a sect: the universal virtues
• Your favorite occupation?
  Reading, dreaming, and writing verse
• Who would you have liked to be?
  Since the question does not arise, I prefer not to answer it. All the same, I should very much have liked to be Pliny the Younger.

This questionnaire tells us much about two things, the character of petiit Marcel, and the amusement of the young in the Belle Epoque. We see Marcel as a sweet and dreamy Mama's boy, brainy, aesthetic, a young citizen of the world with much sympathy for the feminine. What he sees in Pliny the Younger, famous only for speaking and writing letters, is hard to grasp.
What is fascinating about this questionnaire is that it was considered so great an amusement to very young people in Proust's time. It is hard to imagine a party of 13-year-olds in these times being quizzed about their favorite virtues, painters or characters of fiction and history. If the questionnaire were not to smack of exam, it would have to ask "what's your favorite TV show?" or "what's your favorite band?"
Seven years after the first questionnaire, Proust was asked, at another social event, to fill out another; the questions are much the same, but the answers somewhat different, indicative of his traits at 20:

• Your most marked characteristic?
  A craving to be loved, or, to be more precise, to be caressed and spoiled rather than to be admired
• The quality you most like in a man?
  Feminine charm
• The quality you most like in a woman?
  A man's virtues, and frankness in friendship
• What do you most value in your friends?
  Tenderness - provided they possess a physical charm which makes their tenderness worth having
• What is your principle defect?
  Lack of understanding; weakness of will
• What is your favorite occupation?
  Loving
• What is your dream of happiness?
  Not, I fear, a very elevated one. I really haven't the courage to say what it is, and if I did I should probably destroy it by the mere fact of putting it into words.
• What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
  Never to have known my mother or my grandmother
• What would you like to be?
  Myself - as those whom I admire would like me to be
• In what country would you like to live?
  One where certain things that I want would be realized - and where feelings of tenderness would always be reciprocated. [Proust's underlining]
• What is your favorite color?
  Beauty lies not in colors but in thier harmony
• What is your favorite flower?
  Hers - but apart from that, all
• What is your favorite bird?
  The swallow
• Who are your favorite prose writers?
  At the moment, Anatole France and Pierre Loti
• Who are your favoite poets?
  Baudelaire and Alfred de Vigny
• Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
  Hamlet
• Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
  Phedre (crossed out) Berenice
• Who are your favorite composers?
  Beethoven, Wagner, Shuhmann
• Who are your favorite painters?
  Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt
• Who are your heroes in real life?
  Monsieur Darlu, Monsieur Boutroux (professors)
• Who are your favorite heroines of history?
  Cleopatra
• What are your favorite names?
  I only have one at a time
• What is it you most dislike?
  My own worst qualities
• What historical figures do you most despise?
  I am not sufficiently educated to say
• What event in military history do you most admire?
  My own enlistment as a volunteer!
• What reform do you most admire?
  (no response)
• What natural gift would you most like to possess?
  Will power and irresistible charm
• How would you like to die?
  A better man than I am, and much beloved
• What is your present state of mind?
  Annoyance at having to think about myself in order to answer these questions
• To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
  Those that I understand
• What is your motto?
  I prefer not to say, for fear it might bring me bad luck.

Art of the Day

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey 
-Paul Delaroche 
1833

Literary Pick (****)

A Moveable Feast
-Ernest Hemingway

I purchased this book at Shakespeare & Co. on the first day I arrived in Paris. I rented a flat in the St. Germain area (Rue de Conde), and knowing the strong connection between Hemingway and the 6th arrondissement, I thought what a perfect time to read this book, and get to see and experience first-hand the area and quiet streets referred to in this memoir during the time Hemingway lived in Paris with his first wife, Hadley, and first child, Bumby. I was also interested in reading about his earlier friendships with other famous writers living in Paris at the time as well, such as Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound, to name a few.

...edited
Update:
As time went on Paris grew on me, tremendously.

Art of the Day

Café de la Paix 
-Antoine Blanchard

Literary Pick (***)

Norwegian Wood 
-Haruki Murakami

Quote of the Day

"In 1953, Hemingway's cat Uncle Willie was hit by a car. He wrote a heartbreaking letter to his friend Giangranco Ivancich about his decision to put the animal out of his misery.
"Dear Gianfranco:
Just after I finished writing you and was putting the letter in the envelope Mary came down from the Torre and said, ‘Something terrible has happened to Willie.’ I went out and found Willie with both his right legs broken: one at the hip, the other below the knee. A car must have run over him or somebody hit him with a club. He had come all the way home on the two feet of one side. It was a multiple compound fracture with much dirt in the wound and fragments protruding. But he purred and seemed sure that I could fix it.
I had René get a bowl of milk for him and René held him and caressed him and Willie was drinking the milk while I shot him through the head. I don’t think he could have suffered and the nerves had been crushed so his legs had not begun to really hurt. Monstruo wished to shoot him for me, but I could not delegate the responsibility or leave a chance of Will knowing anybody was killing him…
Have had to shoot people but never anyone I knew and loved for eleven years. Nor anyone that purred with two broken legs."

Artist of the Day

Jeanne Hébuterne 

(6 April 1898 – 25 January 1920)

Quote of the Day

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
– Desmond Tutu.

Literary Pick (*)

A Child in Time
-Ian McEwan

Ok, that's it. I'm done with Ian McEwan. This book was total bullshit.
This was my third book by the author, and this is why I don't like reading too much by the same writer, especially popular "NYT best-seller" authors. I purchased this book because I thought it was going to be about a three year old girl (Kate) who gets kidnapped at a supermarket while out with her dad. True, McEwan wastes no time in describing the kidnapping in the very first chapter of the book, but after that the rest is about inane events that has little or nothing to do with the kidnapping, guilt, loss and anguish that would normally occur after such a tragic event. I despised the main character of the book. In true McEwan fashion Stephen Lewis (Kate's father) is a pretentious self-centered snob.
There was not an ounce of angst, despair, madness, or desperation you'd expect in a book about a child who has been kidnapped and whose parents are suppose to be in mourning. The story is about Stephen, who often visits his friends in the county. Who btw never bring up his daughter. He also saved a man from a car-wreck, and he's often in a meeting in which child welfare is the topic of discussion.  It was a very flat, boring drawn-out story. The chapters were so long... so tedious.  It's infuriating to be strung along so many chapters without so much of a mention of what these parents were supposedly going through! It didn't compel me to feel any sympathy for him or his wife. This was one of the worst novels I've ever read.

Literary Pick (***)

Bonjour Tristesse
-Françoise Sagan

Overall the story was tolerable, if not satisfactory.  However, one small detail prevented me from truly enjoying it... the fact that the author was 17 when she wrote it. Everything about the author and story reeked of impudence. There's nothing more annoying than a talented underaged brat.

Literary Pick (****)

Open
-Andre Agassi

I'm a big fan of biographies and auto-biographies, so when I read that OPEN was one of the best sports auto-bio's ever written, it was hard to resist. I thoroughly enjoyed this story despite not being a sports fan at all. I know it may sound trite but it read like fictional novel.
There's a lot of self-pity in his journey. I think the only reason it works in this book is because Andre is the epitome of humility. He's a very quiet and shy person, and it seems that all his life he has had to battle to balance his obligation to tennis, and what he really wanted to do with his life, which even he wasn't sure of. An uneducated man who dropped out of school (a choice his father made for him) at a young age to focus his career on tennis, had no previous career training. The story is a balance between his tennis career and personal relationships with Brooke Shields and Steffi Graf. I didn't get too bored of the tennis scenes, although I know absolutely nothing about the sport, whatsoever. It was pretty much a good insight to how fragile and sensitive he is as a person. He always wanting to please others and not disappoint anyone. At times I think it must've been frustrating being his coach, or trainer because sometimes you just wanted them yell, "If you hate it so fucking much get the hell out of the game, quit tennis, but stop bitching, stop being so negative all the time and play the fucking game". At least that's what I would've said to him. It felt like the people around him had to constantly draw him in. It seemed exhausting. To have a gift and to whine about it constantly, I'm surprised some of the people in his life didn't just walk out on him. He seems to have come to terms with his choices later in life, after his first child was born.
Brooke Shields was portrayed a self-centered snob, which doesn't surprise me at all. She seems like one of the most bring people in Hollywood. I don't know how he put up with her...I guess he didn't. Steffi Graf, seems unemotional and void of personality. I don't get her., but he loves her, so all the power to them. It had a happily ever after ending that was really sweet. I'd say it's worth the read if you're nosy like me and like to read about celebrity lives. Even I'm surprised I'm giving this book a 4 star rating.

Quite possibly my favorite book cover.

Photograph

J. D. Salinger

Quote of the Day

"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it."
-André Gide

Literary Pick (**)

Out Stealing Horses 
-Per Petterson

Quote of the Day

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” 
― Plato

Literary Pick(****)

The Sickness 
-Alberto Barrera Tyszka

A good page-turner to the end. The kind of story that stays with you and leaves an everlasting impression for the rest of your life, I'm sure of it. It brings up many questions about death.. either one's own, or of a loved one. I actually caught myself counting the last page hoping there were at least 2-3 pages more to read. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Photograph

Murakami and Kafka

Literary Pick (**)

Nine Stories
-J.D. Salinger

Literary Pick (***)

Atonement

-Ian McEwan

What I enjoy most about Ian McEwan's novels is the gracefulness of his prose.
You won't go wrong if you're in search of good conscientious writing that is unlabored or overly manipulated. There's a certain placidity in the manner of his writing that for me is steady and calming, and that from now on, after having read two of his books, I will have the need to return to every now and then, like an intermezzo. I believe McEwan has not yet written his best life's work. This story developed very slowly for me. I read McEwan's Saturday, and although, perhaps just a little less complex than Atonement, possessed more of the qualities I search for in a dramatic work.
Although I feel his stories aren't exactly solid, they're worth the course.

I reluctantly give it a 3.

Art of the Day

Monarch of the Glen 

-Sir Edwin Henry Landseer

Literary Pick (*)

Never Let Me Go 
-Kazuo Ishiguro

RIP

Phyllis Diller 

(July 17, 1917 – August 20, 2012)

Literary Pick (****)

The Tunnel

-Ernesto Sabato

 

Precisely the kind of literature I search and long to read. Obsessive, manic, compulsive, and finally tragic.
I coincidentally purchased this book together with Othello, both stories about irrational jealousy.
The Tunnel reminds me very much of The Kreutzer Sonata, another personal favorite in which both protagonists are insanely jealous and unable to control their emotions which leads them to murder.

The Tunnel pairs very well with Adiago for Strings.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia...

Literary Pick (**)

Fahrenheit 451 

-Ray Bradbury 

I delayed reading this book for years, and resisted forcing myself to do so simply because it's considered a masterwork of 20th century literature.
Something about the theme of this novel with buzz-words such as dystopia, over-population, extinction, futuristic, and television, repelled me from it from the very beginning. I don't like hearing any of those words. The concept in these kinds of novels frightens me. The need for our society to continuously create bigger and better not only scares me, but disgusts me very deeply as well. So in those terms I was able to appreciate the message of this novel. A lot of which has already happened, and will continue to occur for years to come. Which is why I believe this novel continues to be relevant even in our time today.
When leaving the safety of one's cocoon, it's alarming to see what people have become, and how automatic and mechanical they behave, in actions and response. Parents and children seem to be hypnotized, and what was bad in now good, or mainstream. We've become numb to things that society used to strongly react to, like morality and decency. In that respect I could relate to everything in the book, but what I had difficulty relating to was the style in which it was written. Not too different from A Brave New World, Bradbury's style is somewhat obscure, the scenery, nebulous, and the exchanges bordering on abstract. I found it tedious almost from the very beginning. The story does get better as it progresses. The ending was pretty good and somewhat inspiring. I wouldn't not recommend this book. It's just a genre that fails to reach me as a reader. 

Quote of the Day

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” 

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Literary Pick (***)

Before Night Falls

- Reinaldo Arenas

I must admit, I was somewhat put off by the bestial eroticism in the beginning of this memoir. I felt it was rather gratuitous. However, halfway through, the story rapidly picks up the pace and focuses more on his political struggles in Cuba during both Batista's and Castro's regime. The writing gets much better as it progresses as well. If you're into Latin American literature it's definitely worth the read.

Art of the Day

Cattleya Orchid and Three Brazilian Hummingbirds 

-Martin Johnson Heade

Literary Pick (***)

Hopscotch

-Julio Cortázar

I chose not to read Hopscotch in the traditional linear fashion, which ends in chapter 56 and omits a third of the novel. There are a total of 155 chapters. A table of instructions takes the place of a table of content. There are 3 parts, "From the Other Side," "From This Side," and "From Diverse Sides".
In the second method the novel begins with chapter 73, then hopscotches from chapter 1, then 2, then 116..
Chapter 131 is read twice.

After a bit of head-scratching, I discovered that the sentences on chapter 34 must be skipped in order to make sense. There are two stories in that chapter. One of Oliviera's visit to his Uncle in Madrid, and the other about La Maga.
The first and second lines (sentences) in this chapter both begin with capital letters, which was the first suggestive clue and indication on how it should be read.
The story about the uncle (first story) ends first. 5 lines before the end, to be exact. It was somewhat confusing at first, but then I realized that after the phrase, "were already married." there was no new sentence with a capital letter, thus ending the first story.

I've always been intrigued by novels that center around artists and writers in cafe's and small apartments, especially if they take place in Paris or South America. These seem to me to be more cerebral and authentically Bohemian than the beatnik gatherings in America, which I feel are more self-centered than collaborative.
The story starts with a group of artists "The Serpent Club" who often discuss topics on Art, music, philosophy, and Jazz, mentioning big names such as Picasso, Dizzie Gillespie, Dostoyevsky, and Descartes. You can expect a good deal of -isms thrown in this section as well.
Horacio Oliveira, (the protagonist of the novel) seems to be in pursuit of something in Paris. Often involving himself in lively chatter with the other members of the Serpent Club and taking long solitary walks. He resides with his lover, La Maga, who he often belittles, and who disappears from his life, nowhere to be found, shortly after her son, Rocamadour, passes away. Realizing he (Horacio) misses and appreciates La Maga, now more than ever, he leaves Paris for his home-land Argentina. There his friend "The Traveler" meets him at the boat and takes him under his wing. The Travelers wife (Talita) bears a striking resemblance to "La Maga", causing some tension in the friendship. There The Traveler helps Horacio obtain a job in the circus he works for, and later in a mental hospital where Horacio finally loses what's left of his mind.

It's difficult for me to review this novel because it seems to be cut up into a few categories. I didn't mention the part about Morelliana, the writer, who gets hit by a car, is aided by Horacio, then rushed to the hospital.
The parts with La Maga I drank up. I was intoxicated with the unorthodox method of reading the book. It was like a game. There are many pages I dog-eared in the first half because they were either hilarious or thought provoking. The relationship with his friend, The Traveler, and his wife, were interesting, but I didn't seem to have the same passion for reading it as I did the parts with the Serpent Club and La Maga. I particularly enjoyed the part when Horacio met Madame Berthe Trepat, a famous concert pianist, who he was honored to comfort after concert-goers empty the theater because she kept making mistakes. He offers to walk her home, but he realizes the extent her mental instability, and finds himself wondering how in the hell got into the mess in the first place. I thought it was hysterical how he just wanted to start running and leave her there in the middle of the street. I don't think I've ever had more fun reading a book. The structure is brilliant and innovative, especially for a novel written in the 50's. I highly recommend the experience of reading it, if for nothing else.

Art of the Day

Zhang Daqian
Lotus (1899-1983) 

Photograph

Julio Cortázar

Quote of the Day

"In man's struggle against the world, bet on the world." 

— Franz Kafka

Poetry

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

 

-Maya Angelou

Literary Pick (****)

Their Eyes Were Watching God

-Zora Neale Hurston

Great story. Much better than I expected. I have a history of not being able to particularly appreciate novels written in the vernacular, however, Hurston did a remarkable job in executing it in manner in which I was not only able to follow it, but truly enjoy it as well.

Try as I might, I've had quite the difficulty in trying to discover a piece of African American literature I could  enjoy. None of the AA novels I have read in the past couple years have left much of an impression on me, but this one sure did.  I'm happy about that too, because one of the reasons I chose to read this book in the first place is because of a quote I found by Hurston, and use in my blog profile.

"I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That's living."
-Zora Neale Hurston

Literary Pick (***)

After Dark

-Haruki Murakami

Literary Pick (**)

The Brothers Karamazov

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

There's a quote by Lauren Bacall in a movie called "The Mirror Has Two Faces" which I absolutely love, and it goes like this: "I've buried a husband, I've raised two daughters, I've *made* my coffee." That's pretty much how I feel about Russian Literature after finishing The Brothers Karamazov. I've read War and Peace, I've read Crime and Punishment, I've read Anna Karenina, and I've read The Idiot,.... I've *made* my coffee. Meaning, I'm done, it's over, no more. I'm sorry, but enough is enough.
The Brothers Karamazov is just another novel that served as an excuse for a Russian writer to drown you in their philosophical ideas about politics and religion. It's taken me thousands of pages to finally arrive to this realization. However, knowing me, I'll likely end up reading Notes from the Underground, anyway.
The story about father and son vying for the same woman was a theme I didn't expect from Dostoyevsky, to be honest.. To me there is no comparison between this novel and Crime and Punishment. You cannot even compare it to The Idiot. I will concede that the only merit in this work is how it differed from his other tome's, because typically, writers adhere to one type of theme and don't part far from it.
I'm still not certain what was the purpose of including (insert something I have forgotten in the course of reading and trying to finish this book which took me 2 1/2 months) in the novel, other than to add an additional 300+ pages to the story. Most of which I suppose served as an extenuation for lengthy discourses on religion. Once I was able to wade through 500 pages of development, and to the trial part of the story I had to literally drag my sight from word to painstaking word. This book gets 2 stars by automatic default because it's Dostoyevsky.

Art of the Day

Elizabeth Throckmorton

-Nicolas de Largillière

Poetry

The Hills of Little Cornwall 

-by Mark Van Doren

The hills of little Cornwall
Themselves are dreams.
The mind lies down among them,
Even by day, and snores,
Snug in the perilous knowledge
That nothing more inward pleasing,
More like itself,
Sleeps anywhere beyond them
Even by night
In the great land it cares two pins about,
Possibly; not more.

The mind, eager for caresses,
Lies down at its own risk in Cornwall;
Whose hills,
Whose cunning streams,
Whose mazes where a thought,
Doubling upon itself,
Considers the way, lazily, well lost,
Indulge it to the nick of death--
Not quite, for where it curls it still can feel,
Like feathers,
Like affectionate mouse whiskers,
The flattery, the trap.

Quote of the Day

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

― Epicurus

RIP

Carlos Fuentes

The Mexican author Carlos Fuentes has died, aged 83.

Fuentes was one of the most prolific Latin American writers known equally for his fiction and his essays on politics and culture.

His most famous works were The Death of Artemio Cruz and The Old Gringo.

He was associated with the Latin American Boom - a literary movement made up of mainly young authors whose politically critical works broke with established traditions.

He died in a hospital in Mexico City. Hospital sources did not comment on his cause of death.

Mr Fuentes wrote a wealth of novels, plays and essays and regularly commented on political events in Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Born in Panama in 1928, he did not move to Mexico until he was 16.

The son of a diplomat, Mr Fuentes spent much of his childhood moving around the Western Hemisphere.

He said it was this which allowed him to view Latin America from a distance, giving him a critical edge.

'Universal Mexican'

In many of his works he drew on historical events.

His narrative, like that of his contemporaries of the Latin American Boom, was rarely linear, instead relying on flashbacks and changing perspectives.

Among English-language readers he is arguably best known for his novel The Old Gringo, which was made into a film starring Gregory Peck in 1989.

The novel was inspired by the real-life disappearance of American journalist Ambrose Bierce during the 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution.

Cultural and political figures around the world have been mourning Mr Fuentes' death.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon expressed his sorrow at Mr Fuentes' death on his Twitter account.

"I am profoundly sorry for the death of our loved and admired Carlos Fuentes, writer and universal Mexican. Rest in peace," Mr Calderon wrote.

'Deep imprint'

The front-runner in July's presidential election in Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, said he had not always agreed with Mr Fuentes on political matters but that he recognised his "extraordinary work".

Nobel Prize-winning Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa told Spanish daily newspaper El Pais that "with him, we lose a writer whose work and whose presence left a deep imprint".

Mexican novelist Jose Agustin told BBC Mundo that Carlos Fuentes "became an essential protagonist in Mexican political and cultural life. He had an immense value, from his first launch in the 1950s he never once backed down for anybody".

Mr Fuentes had often been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize but never won.

Among the many major literary awards he did win was the Cervantes Prize in 1987.

He continued to write until the end, with an essay on the recent change of power in France published in Mexican newspaper Reforma on Tuesday, the same day the Angeles del Pedregal hospital announced he was dead.

-BBC News

Photograph of the Day

Sylvia Platt, and her brother Warren

RIP

Maurice Sendak 

-Author of Splendid Nightmares, Dies at 83

NYT Obituary 

Maurice Bernard Sendak, June 10, 1928-2012

Dubbed by one critic “the Picasso of children’s literature” and once addressed by former President Bill Clinton as “the King of Dreams,” Maurice Sendak illustrated nearly a hundred picture books throughout a career that spanned more than 60 years. Some of his best known books include Chicken Soup with Rice (1962), Where the Wild Things Are (1963), and In the Night Kitchen (1970). Born in Brooklyn in 1928 to Jewish immigrant parents from northern Poland, Sendak grew up idolizing the storytelling abilities of his father, Philip, and his big brother, Jack. As a child he illustrated his first stories on shirt cardboard provided by his tailor-father. Aside from a few night classes in art after graduating high school, Sendak was a largely self-taught artist. His characters, stories, and inspirations were drawn from among his own neighbors, family, pop culture, historical sources, literary influences, and long-held childhood memories. He worked with such well-known children’s authors as Ruth Krauss, Else Minarik, and Arthur Yorinks, and illustrated books by Leo Tolstoy, Herman Melville, Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Brothers Grimm, and the poet Randall Jarrell. Sendak began a second career as a costume and stage designer in the late 1970s, designing operas by Mozart, Prokofiev, Ravel, and Tchaikovsky, among others. He won numerous awards, including a Caldecott Award, a Newberry Medal, the international Hans Christian Andersen Award, a National Book Award, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and a National Medal of Arts. His books continue to be read by millions of children and adults and have been translated into dozens of languages and enjoyed all over the world. The Rosenbach Museum & Library has been the home of his picture book artwork since the late 1960s and mourns his passing as it also celebrates the life and work of an artist who touched so many young lives and nourished so many dreams.

-The Rosenbach Museum & Library

Quote of the Day

Art of the Day

Mark Rothko 

-Green over Blue 1956

Quote of the Day

Every step I've taken on my new found appreciation of good literature I owe to my beautiful wife - without whom I would have ended up alone and empty. Thank you my love for enriching my life in all the ways that matter. 

-Charles G. Crane III

Art of the Day

Adolph Menzel

-Flötenkonzert Friedrichs des Großen in Sanssouci
(Flute Concert with Frederick the Great in Sanssouci)

Food 52

 Kumquat

 A Sweet Pea Chef

Hungry Native