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juniperusashei · 4 months

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Paris Notebooks: Essays & Reviews by Mavis Gallant - 4/5

Anyone who has visited Paris, or any part of France will no doubt be familiar with la grève. The French accept labor strikes as part of daily life. It’s no doubt politically effective, though as often as you’ll hear “train’s late? C’est la grève” seldom will the matter being protested be discussed. Reading Mavis Gallant’s first-hand account of the 1968 Paris Riot while missing a boat à cause de la grève was a microdose of the social climate she immerses herself in. Unsure if she mentions the historical context ever, her thoughtfully slipshod prose instead puts the reader in a time and place where the people rioting may not have known what the protests were originally about, either. She illustrates the occasional hypocrisy of the student protesters (“We ask, ‘Why Stalin?’ She hesitates, has been asked this before, says in a parrot’s voice, ‘We are prepared to admit his errors, but he was a revolutionary, too.’ Then so was Hitler.”) but for the most part remains a sympathetic, if detached observer to the myriad of grievances. The prose is sparse (it was intended as field notes) but still remarkably funny. The Events in May: A Paris Notebook is notable for having inspired a section of the film The French Dispatch, and I had read the first half in the Anderson-edited collection An Editor’s Burial. In its entirety it remained out of print until earlier this year, and while The Events in May is clearly the centerpiece of this collection, the other essays are worth mentioning.

The second longest piece in this book is a true-crime essay of almost 70 pages called “Immortal Gatito: The Gabrielle Russier Case,” which was also a surprisingly enthralling read. It tells the story of a female schoolteacher who slept with a 16 year old student, and the ensuing legal battle and eventual suicide of Gabrielle Russier. To make the case understandable for American audiences (the account was originally published in the New Yorker) Gallant expounds on the nuances of Napoleonic law, and somehow makes that interesting. For example, “in a French murder trial the jury is not asked to decide if the defendant did it but if he is guilty,” a nuance which creates nuances such as a man who stabbed his neighbor to death simply for being annoying (“the court expressed sympathy for persons who live in noisy and jerry-built apartment houses.”) But interestingly, this leniency is what caused the courts to come down so hard on Russier (a divorcée). Doubtlessly statutory rape is never okay, but in 1960s France, the same crime committed by a man against a girl would be treated with leniency; this double standard is what sparked a lot of the culture war surrounding this case. “Immortal Gatito” is not an essay I would have sought out if it had not been in this volume, but Gallant treats her subjects with both nuance and sympathy without necessarily forgiving their actions and it made for a fascinating read.

The rest of this collection was not as interesting as these two pieces, and it seemed a lot of them were chosen at random simply for being about Paris, almost as if to cram the book to justify the price. There are some introductions Gallant wrote to various biographies such as Paul Léautaud and Marguerite Yourcenar, but nothing as personal in voice as A Paris Notebook. Her voice throughout makes me want to read more, but I didn’t get enough of an impression from these alone. The last section of the book is reviews of other books, none of which I had read, and mostly biographies. Reading them felt Borges-level meta; though I didn’t get anything out of them, here I am writing a review of reviews.

#Mavis Gallant #Paris Notebooks: Essays & Reviews #The Events in May: A Paris Notebook #journalism #nonfiction #autobiography #biography #4 #december 2023 #2023

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holisticpassport · 2 years

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Why Paris Means So Much More

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged. Mostly because I got so tired of the constant noise on the internet from everyone screaming ‘look at me, my life is worthy of attention’. I guess I got to the point where I learnt to stop telling everyone how great my life was and just started letting my life speak for itself. I still post photos, but my engagement and care about the social media world has dwindled. But I also realised something else.

I used to write for other people—for my friends and family to know what was going on in my life. But my focus shifted to knowing that the people who cared the most were already aware of my movements and checked in consistently. I write in a journal several times a week. The sanctity of privacy has become more valuable.

Having said that, I miss posting diary style posts. The good old days of Tumblr and Blogspot where SEO and affiliate marketing weren’t the goal. When sharing because my heart felt moved to was the point. When I wrote in my authentic voice and didn’t produce content to fit ‘my brand’s voice’.

I went back home to California and Ohio this year. I hadn’t been back since I got married in 2017, and I had left a whole life in boxes in my mom’s garage. I’ve kept journals a majority of life, as young as eight years old.

And when I had the opportunity to dive into those boxes, I knew I had very much put away my past and forgotten the little girl who’s dream in life was to be a writer. What constitutes being a writer? Simple: someone who writes.

If we based it on monetary value/getting paid for what you do, people like Emily Dickenson wouldn’t be classified as a writer, and what a shame that would be. She knew who she was, what she loved, and she did it regardless of whether it brought her money or fame.

I believe reading diaries to be one of the most incredibly insightful forms of literature, the most famous probably being Anne Frank’s. We dive into the mind of the human experience. A tiny book contains the universe manifested on paper. They capture not only an individuals’ emotions and personal perspective/experience, but depicts history through a lens that only one singular person can convey.

As an (non professional) anthropologist, it was the most fascinating study to review my own mind and life, my growth and my history as I opened those boxes and pulled out scrap papers, notebooks, lists upon lists, lyrics, essays from high school and college on studying the thing I loved the most: literature.

I discovered a life plan list I had made at 15 (several lists in fact), and all of them included becoming a writer. Truthfully, I had shunned this dream after hearing a boyfriend’s family harshly criticize their cousin for choosing to study English in college, having the same dream as me. I felt shame and embarrassment at having obtained my AA in comparative literature and having nothing to show for in terms of a profession.

And I wasn’t interested in doing copywriting or hustling to make money from a personal blog documenting my travels. It may not have given me a profession, but at the age of 30 I know what value that degree has given me.

I was hit with nostalgia and remorse for ever forgetting this passion and this version of myself. Also on my life plan list (and every list I have ever made up to this day) has included one major dream: to spend two-three months in Paris studying the language, art, and having an apartment near the Eiffel Tower WITH A CAT.

I have had this vision as long as I can remember. My mom got me Eiffel Tower posters, a house warming gift of an Eiffel Tower wine rack, and Parisian charms on a necklace. I took French in high school even though I lived in southern California and definitely sometimes regret not taking Spanish.

And most recently I’ve discovered, out of everywhere in the world, I have the least amount of French DNA in my body. I am more African than I am French. So why this insane drive and love of francophone culture?

I think on some spiritual level, I knew this vision was supposed to play a key moment in my life, was supposed to be a part of my story and an overarching theme throughout my journal writing for all of these years.

I went to France six years ago just for a week, but I can easily say it was the best week of my life. Booking a one-way ticket to Paris was a catapult to a journey I had no idea was waiting for me and would find me living on the other side of the planet married to a wonderful man.

But it wasn’t easy getting there.

I had the opportunity to go do something similar to my vision in Salzburg when I was offered an au pairing position for two girls for nine months. But I was with a partner who didn’t want me to go. I also turned down a full-ride scholarship to college to stay with him. Ultimately I wanted an unconventional life of travel, and his job was central to LA so we parted ways.

I was offered another opportunity a few years later to au-pair for a little girl in Paris for six months. I was with a partner who didn’t want me to go. My values remained the same where I wanted a life of travel and felt like I was dragging my partner to want the same as we planned to teach in South Korea, but I knew his heart wasn’t in it and he wanted a cosy life. So we parted ways.

Cam and I started housesitting in July of 2017. We vowed to spend a year doing this and seeing how we liked it. I loved it, but Cam was averse to so much upheaval and wanted stability/no chaos, and given a bit of tumultuous in his 20’s, it was completely valid.

But, then came Covid. We spent all of Covid in lockdown in Australia not only within the first three years of our marriage but of our relationship. I found myself reeling as we bud heads on the notion of building a home vs. establishing a lifestyle of travel which was even more impossible because of Covid. I was drowning. It felt like my soul was ripping from the inside out as I thought I found myself in another partnership (this time a bit more permanent), where I felt like the bad guy for knowing intrinsically that I couldn’t be with someone who didn’t have the same values of travel as a lifestyle. I questioned my authentic self and thought maybe I was wrong for wanting these things.

When Covid lifted, Cam and I had a powerful aligning moment of saying to each other that if we didn’t leave now, we never would and we would end up resenting each other. So we sold 80% of our belongings, got a storage unit and first went to Mexico this year, then locked in housesits from April all the way through the rest of the year. We unloaded our storage into a five month sit to pair down even more in preparation for being able to housesit more broadly around the country, not just Melbourne.

And as we’ve established this life, this chaotic but beautiful journey, I still felt sad. I had all but given up on my dream of going to Paris on my own for two months because what husband would be comfortable with their wife being away for that long? I wanted a partner for so long who would travel with me, and it seemed counterproductive to want to still go to Paris, a romantic, city without my husband.

So I stopped writing it down in my manifestations journal believing it was never meant to be.

And two weeks later, a housesit on my platform popped up in Paris. An apartment in the 15th Arrondissement near the Eiffel Tower... for two months... with a cat.

I screenshot it and sent it to Cam as a joke and said ‘I want this with every fibre of my being. What an absolute dream’ thinking nothing really of it other than that I was sure 50 people would apply for it immediately and since I wasn’t even in Europe, I’d never get it anyway.

Cam’s response: Apply. Can’t hurt to try.

I paused and thought ‘that’s true, I can just send a message and if I get it, figure out the logistics then.’

After submitting it, I received a response the next day. I was the first to apply and she wanted to Zoom chat. Two days later, whilst on the zoom chat, she confirmed me for the sit while I was on my anniversary weekend away with Cam in Shepparton, where his and my relationship initially began from that first one-way trip to Paris in 2016.

What has ensued over the last month has been an unfathomable level of shock, courage, fear, and finally excitement. My initial reaction was gut wrenching anxiety to the point I almost thought my intuition was telling me I was going to die on the flight, don’t go. Like THAT much of a nauseating feeling.

When I spoke to my therapist a week later, a flood work of emotions and tears came out. My brain couldn’t comprehend the scale of this. It couldn’t understand that for the first time, me leaving my partner to travel on my own wouldn’t result in a breakup. Even more fear came up about my worth being tied to my productivity and how I was actually terrified to do ‘nothing’, but just be.

I’ve been a partner to someone since 12 years old. I have never once lived on my own except for one month in Jervis Bay, and it was the most spiritual, creative, growth-filled time of my life. But it was filled with difficult conversations being away from Cam in our first year of marriage/relationship and not knowing how to navigate separation anxiety.

I’ve had a lot of financial insecurity in my life losing family homes, parents divorcing, and not leaving bad relationships for years because I felt I didn’t have anywhere else to go because I couldn’t afford it on my own. I have always had to be in survival mode since 15 years old, and it’s taken a massive toll on my health. So to go to Paris and not HAVE to work—to recognize that this didn’t happen all those times before because it was meant to happen at a time in my life when I could financially do it with the unending support of my partner who encouraged me to go—I’m forced to ask the questions:

who am I when my worth isn’t tied to my productivity? Who am I when I’m not in fight or flight mode? Who am I on my own, without a partner to factor in to my every choice and decision on a day to day basis?

My therapist has made me see that I haven’t allowed myself to truly ‘play’ in many, many years. To sit in a park by myself and read with nowhere else to be and nothing/no one to pull me away. To ask ‘little Veronica’ what she would like to do and is she getting everything she needs. To re-parent myself and tell her she’s safe to play, not to worry about money or work or housing or a partner.

My tax refund covered my flight for the exact amount. I sold my camera, and Cam and I worked nearly seven days a week the last month to fund my trip with ample wiggle room. If I was single, I’m sure at some point I could have saved enough on my own to go to Paris. But knowing that my partner fully supports me—after so many times putting my dream on hold for men who wouldn’t do the same for me—I’m so insanely grateful.

And our communication has gone from strength to strength with honesty, recognizing triggers and approaching with curiosity instead of defensiveness, holding space for all the emotions that came up for both of us in me taking this trip, discussing fears at length... all I can say is holy shit, don’t ever settle for a boy, get yourself a man.

When I’ve told people over the last month that I’m going to Paris, they’re reaction is of course jealously and they say, “oh so you’re just going on holiday”. But it’s sooooo much more than that. There’s so much history behind it... my history. And I plan to write about this experience so that if someday my diaries are ever published long after I’m gone, maybe it’ll inspire someone. That’s all I ever aim to do in this life, is just inspire people to go after every single dream they have an never compromise on your authenticity and truth.

To tick off this trip will be to complete a bucket list I made 22 years ago. And in doing so, it revives and allows that version of me to integrate into the woman and person I am becoming—with new goals and dreams to achieve that I am already creating with my partner. This season of life is nothing short of profound bliss.

#travel paris writerlife relationships

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tradingmaps · 1 year

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The Paris Review Guide to Becoming a Well-Read, Cultured, and Critically Thinking Person

Dear _________, What kind of soulless freak could fail to answer your call? Your intelligence glows through your professed ignorance (as does the authenticity of “a very specific religious cult”). That sounds like an educationally less-than-ideal but, in other ways, fascinating childhood. My only piece of advice before recommending some titles would be: don’t fall for the inferiority/superiority racket. We’re not on a ladder here. We’re on a web. Right now you’re experiencing a desire to become more aware of and sensitive to its other strands. That feeling you’re having is culture. Whatever feeds that, go with it. And never forget that well-educated people pretend to know on average at least two-thirds more books than they’ve actually read.

A place to start is with Guy Davenport’s nonfiction collections, Every Force Evolves a Form, The Geography of the Imagination, and The Hunter Gracchus (with more pieces in The Death of Picasso). You’ll learn an enormous amount from these essays and sketches, but almost without realizing, because they give off the pleasure of great stories. Read the title essay in The Hunter Gracchus (about Kafka and the way symbols can take on a life of their own), and see if it isn’t as stimulating and creepy as the last good movie you saw.

Come up with a system of note-taking that you can use in your reading. It’s okay if it evolves. You can write in the margins, or keep a reading notebook (my preference) where you transcribe passages you like, with your own observations, and mark down the names of other, unfamiliar writers, books you’ve seen mentioned (Guy D. alone will give you a notebook full of these). Follow those notes to decide your next reading. That’s how you’ll create your own interior library. Now do that for the rest of your life and die knowing you’re still massively ignorant. (I wouldn’t trade it!)

Read My Ántonia, and then read everything else by Willa Cather. Inside her novels you’ll find it impossible to doubt that high enjoyment and extreme depth can go together. The most difficult art.

Read Isak Dinesen’s Seven Gothic Tales. I’m saying that randomly, because it seems right, and to approve the spirit of randomness.

If you get into a writer, go all the way and check out everything he/she has written. This summer I fell into a Defoe hole. Started with the major stuff, the best novels and the good journalism, and then read everything down to the poems and the tedious political pamphlets, since by that point I was equally interested in him as a human being and wanted to have as accurate a map of the inside of his brain as possible. His is one of the minds that helped shape the modern world—we’re literally still telling his stories—so there’s a vital interest. I read Maximilian Novak’s super-solid biography of him, Master of Fictions. That sort of questy reading ends up enriching your experience of each individual book and piece, and it lends a sense of adventure to the whole business, which after all involves a lot of lying down or sitting on your ass.

Borges and Denis Johnson—anything by either. Edith Wharton’s story “The Young Gentlemen.” (Random, random.) Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, and then his poems if you’re feeling spry. Find on the Web and buy an old paperback copy of the Robert Penn Warren and Albert Erskine–edited anthology Six Centuries of Great Poetry (a book for life). Read the next two things I’m going to read and then see how you like them: Grant’s Memoirs and Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle. Read Nabokov’s Speak, Memory and Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

Books that got me kick-started were the great modernist biographies, especially Hugh Kenner’s The Pound Era and Richard Ellmann’s life of James Joyce. Read those two books and you’ll have a decent-size grid on which to plot the rest of your reading. I’m somehow moved to spurt out, Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World. People have been writing about Shakespeare for half a millennium, and the very best of it just happened.

Ignore all of this and read the next cool-looking book you see lying around. It’s not the where-you-start so much as the that-you-don’t-stop. I was reading Phoenix Force novels until I was like thirteen. These days a lot of people I know are into Murakami. I should have said more novels. If it’s by a Russian, read it.

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enyuliwrites · 2 years

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Recent Favourites - 1

Stories

Trafalgar Angelica Gorodischer

Poison for Breakfast Lemony Snicket

Noctures Kazuo Ishiguro

The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman

Dimmer Joy Williams

Mr Parker Laurie Colwin

Poetry & Plays

Go to the Limits of Your Longing Rainer Maria Rilke

Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem Matthew Olzmann

Up Margaret Atwood

my dreams, my works must wait till after hell Gwendolyn Brooks

Hammond B3 Organ Cistern Gabrielle Calvocoressi

The Notebook Ben Lerner

The Dice House Paul Lucas

Audiobooks/Podcasts

Audible

Heartburn Nora Ephron

Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered Georgia Hardstark & Karen Kilgariff

On Writing Stephen King

The Writer’s Voice – The New Yorker

Annunciation Lauren Groff

Hello, Goodbye YiYun Li

Essays/Extracts/Interviews

Interiors Rainer Maria Rilke trans. Damion Searls (Issue 190, 2009, The Paris Review)

The Art of Fiction No. 78 James Baldwin interviewed by Jordan Elgably (Issue 91, 1984, The Paris Review)

Re-Reading

Letters to a Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke

Some Hope Edward St Aubyn

At Last Edward St Aubyn

Music

The Traveling Wilburys, Vol.1 Traveling Wilburys

Little Oblivions + Turn Out the Lights Julien Baker

Kid Krow Conan Gray

Home Video Lucy Dacus Desire Bob Dylan

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citylightsbooks · 3 years

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5 Questions with Kate Zambreno, Author of To Write As If Already Dead

Kate Zambreno is the author of many acclaimed books, including Drifts (2020), Appendix Project (2019), Screen Tests (2019), Book of Mutter (2017), and Heroines (2012). Her writing has appeared in the Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She teaches in the graduate nonfiction program at Columbia University and is the Strachan Donnelley Chair in Environmental Writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Her newest book is To Write As If Already Dead, published by Columbia University Press.

Kate Zambreno will be in conversation with T Fleischmann about her new book in our City Lights LIVE! virtual event series on Wednesday, June 30th, 2021.

*****

Where are you writing to us from?

I’m writing to you from the first floor of the Victorian house we have rented in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, for nearly a decade. We haven’t left this entire year. I am on the couch at the end of a long day. There’s an early evening light coming in through the front window, my dog Genet is vigilantly expecting dinner, my four-year-old is tearing around outback, while her baby sister and her father watch.

What’s kept you sane during the pandemic?

Going to Prospect Park regularly this year—even in January and February—and watching my daughter run around, and make mudpies, and make forts and strange tree sculptures by dragging around fallen branches, sticks, rocks, and logs.

What books are you reading right now? Which books do you return to?

I am writing the introduction to the Portuguese writer Maria Judite de Carvalho’s novel, Empty Wardrobes, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, and published by Two Lines Press, so I’m thinking through that work of interiority and domestic spaces and oppression and grief.

I just finished being in conversation with Cristina Rivera Garza at Sarah Lawrence College, where I teach, and a work that Rivera Garza kept mentioning in conversation with her newest essay collection Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country (translated by Sarah Booker and published by Feminist Press) is Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Duke University Press), so that’s up next.

I’m reading everything I can get my hands on about Eva Hesse, including the diaries, for a novel I’m writing, Foam, that thinks through different traumas and textures, including soft sculpture.

Speaking of Two Lines Press, I’ve been loving the work of Marie NDiaye in translation, specifically Self-Portrait in Green. I’ve also been returning frequently to works by Japanese women in translation, specifically, Yuko Tsushima, not only Territory of Light but also her stories, and Hiroko Oyamada’s novels, all published in translation by New Directions.

For a class I teach at Sarah Lawrence, on writing and elegy and the anthropocene, I’m reading Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (Princeton University Press). Hedi El-Kholti, my editor at Semiotext(e) is sending me Peter Sloterdijik’s Spheres trilogy in the mail, because I need to read a book called Foams! And so I’m looking forward to that. I also am looking forward to reading Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s The Freezer Door, and Aisha Sabatini Sloan’s Borealis.

Which writers, artists, and others influence your work in general, and this book, specifically?

The diptych structure of the book was inspired by reading Enrique Vila-Matas’s Because She Never Asked (published in translation by New Directions), which begins with the story written for the conceptual artist Sophie Calle to live out—the second half involves the Vila-Matas narrator writing the story. Vila-Matas is so ludic and conceptual and in love with literature and probably one of the writers that inspires me the most for the past two books (Drifts and the Guibert study). And Sophie Calle as well—the concept of a noirish or speculative essay like The Address Book—and in To Write As If Already Dead I think through Calle’s relationship with Hervé Guibert and how they fictionalized each other in their works. The photobooks of Moyra Davey, the relationship of her essays and diaristic works to her images, are incredibly important to me, like Burn the Diaries and Les Goddesses. Anne Carson, especially her talks and pieces collected in Float and her Short Talks. Bernhard and Sebald.

Of course, I should say the writing of Hervé Guibert, and that’s the right answer—the book in general was catalyzed by him, thinking through his whole project, the diary, the later illness works, his relationship to speed, to tone, to writing friendships. There’s also really interesting writing that’s channeling Guibert now—from Moyra Davey’s work, to Andrew Durbin’s novel Skyland, that Nightboat published.

So much of the first half of To Write As If Already Dead is a love letter to the community I formed online now a decade ago and whose writing I always feel in conversation with—my friends who are writers are often my favorite writers, and doing such tender and vital work, especially T. Fleischmann, who I’m delighted to be in conversation with at City Lights. I love them and their work and we have spoken to each other about Guibert for a while. Others like Sofia Samatar, and Danielle Dutton, who also runs Dorothy, a publishing project.

The book is dedicated to Bhanu Kapil, who I first met online a decade ago as we each wrote these unruly notebook projects on our blogs, and so much of the study feels like continuing the conversation we’ve been having the past few years, about how to write and survive under capitalism, on caretaking vs art. I think Bhanu is one of the most important and thrillingly playful and exciting writers alive.

If you opened a bookstore, where would it be located, what would it be called, and what would your bestseller be?

I think it would be on Cortelyou Road in Ditmas Park, as we don’t have a bookstore here. It would be called Finger and Thumb – when my partner John Vincler and I always spoke about having a bookstore that’s what we wanted to call it, it’s from Beckett and seems to gesture to the eroticism of actual print. I’m imagining we would sell artists’ books and chapbooks (like Sarah McCarry’s Guillotine series), art presses, presses like Semiotext(e) and Dorothy and Two Lines and Fitzcarraldo and Nightboat and New Directions and Transit Books. I think that our bestseller would be Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women and Queer Radicals, because it’s the book we often refer to amongst each other and urge on others to read, especially those interested in taking care in writing from research and archives, of what the archives have neglected, and the imaginative possibility of resurrecting the lives of others.

#Kate Zambreno #5 questions #Author interviews #essays #T Fleischmann

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alexiessan · 4 years

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Never alone - Chapter Eight - Soulmate AU

AO3

Previous - Here - Next

Master List

It’s kind of funny to write Marinette’s imagination going overboard x)

Hey, anyone ever wrote a Miraculous x Doctor Who cross over? I’ve been bing watching the serie and I’m obsessed with it!

Marinette was tired after this day, but a good tired. Working with Tim was amazing, she has learned so much in just a day and she couldn’t wait for the next.

When seeing everyone on the bus on the way back to the hotel, she was happy to find that her classmates had a good time at Wayne Enterprises. They were all talking about the things they learned and how nice the people they were working with were.

She exchanged a glance with Alya and they fist-bumped, happy that they made a good choice with this trip. They would all mature from this experience.

Arriving at the hotel, despite being tired, the designer also felt restless. She wanted to move, run or something. She wished she could go on a run on the roofs of Gotham as Ladybug but it would be too much risk and possibly compromise her identity.

Maybe Robin would agree to take her on a run on some of the safest roofs.

Marinette was in her room with Alya, reviewing all the notes she had taken while listening to Timothy. She had already filled a few pages of her brand new notebook that she bought back in Paris specifically for this internship.

Looking at the time, she realized that it was almost time for dinner and closed her book. She discreetely took a cookie out of a box and gave it to Tikki. Her eyes landed on the glasses inside, feeling a bit guilty that she kept the Miraculous inactive and that Kaalki couldn’t be with them, but it was safer this way. Hiding one kwami was already a difficult task, but two…

She didn’t want a repeat of Kwami Buster when both Tikki and Plagg were both caught by Mrs. Mendeleiev.

She preferred not to think about that event, Plagg’s presence at her school still unsettled her, despite Chat Noir claiming not knowing what school Françoise Dupont was.

She recognized a lie when she heard one, herself having to make the most ridiculous excuses to cover her superheroing.

But it was better not thinking about it, she wasn’t ready for anything regarding their identities.

And right now, she was hungry.

“Are you ready to go eat Alya? I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, just let me save this on my external drive and we can go!”

She watched as the reporter did just that and started chatting about her day.

“God, Mari, I’m so happy we applied for this program. I’ve learned so much today and it was only the first day. Mrs. Finnigan taught Adrien how to handle the press when they spread false information about him and she told me all about the relations between the public relations teams and the media. I heard from Nino that he has ten pages of notes about copyrights already and it’s not over! He’s already planning to get some of his songs protected!”

“That’s great, Alya!”

The class had an essay to write about their time at Wayne Enterprises when they get back to Paris, and while it should have been a source of complaints from the students, hearing how everyone loved their time there, writing an essay about him shouldn’t be a chore for anyone.

She heard at dinner that some had even started the outline of their essays and the two girls could see how proud Miss Bustier was of her students.

The laughs from the class’ table in the hotel’s restaurant could be heard from the lobby.

His brothers were laughing at his expense and Damian was seconds away from hitting them.

And probably do way more violent things too.

During dinner, Tim related his day with Marinette, smirking at his youngest brother all the while. He was telling them what a sunshine their future sister in law was and how Damian literally ran away from her the moment he saw her in the co-CEO’s office.

And of course, Jason and Dick found it hilarious.

“You spend every night with her as Robin but you can’t handle seeing her as yourself?!”

“Shut up Todd, before I make you regret your words.”

“It’s that he just can’t handle it, Jason! He literally noped out of it!” laughed Tim along with his brothers.

Unfortunately, Tim dodged out of the way of the knife he threw at him.

Maybe he should put something sharp in his shoes when he wasn’t looking. Maybe, then, his brother would just shut up.

The youngest Robin sighed. Siblings were such a drag.

“What the hell is that thing?!”

Robin and Marinette were on the roofs of her hotel for their daily meetings and for once, she was in her pajamas without her contact on. He got used to seeing her with two blue eyes so it was a bit weird to see her with a jade green eye just like his. All that added to his cape that she was wearing, just like every day before, was enough to make the tip of his ears go red.

Damn, she was cute like this.

But it wasn’t what prompted him to react the way he did.

No, what warranted such a response was the tiny red thing that was floating next to her and looking at him with weird big blue eyes and an antenna on its head.

The bluenette laughed.

“This is Tikki. She’s a Kwami and it’s thank to her that I can transform into Ladybug. She’s been- Comment on dit, déjà ? Ah! She’s been granting me my powers ever since I got the Miraculous.”

“It’s very nice to meet you! I’m so glad Marinette found her soulmate!” the… the thing said with a high pitch that hurt his ears.

“So a literal insect is giving you your powers?” he asked, skeptical.

The kwami frowned.

“Hey! Have some respect, would you? I’m not an insect, but a Kwami! I’m basically a god!”

“A… god? This tiny thing?”

Tikki scowled and scoffed.

“I’ll go back to the room, Marinette!”

And without another glance to Robin, she disappeared.

“I think you offended her.”

“Well, excuse me for being skeptical about a tiny thing that looks like an insect being a god.”

Marinette laughed.

“I can’t blame you. When I first met her I called her a blatte-souris. Hm… a croroch-mouse?”

“A cockroach-mouse?”

“Yeah, a cockroach-mouse! Sorry.”

Robin smiled, amused.

“So, yeah. I panicked and all so I wasn’t better than you.”

She clapped her hands.

“Anyway! I was actually hoping that you would accept to take me on a run somewhere, I’m feeling restless.”

“Absolutely not.”

There was a heavy silence as Marinette just looked at him.

“Why not?”

“Do you realize how dangerous it would be? We can’t risk anyone recognizing you! Could you imagine if someone saw Robin and an unmasked girl running around Gotham? The media would have a field day!”

Robin watched as the designer thought about it and could see the moment she agreed with him.

That girl really was an open book, he thought.

“Alright, alright. Then… Maybe you could teach me some basic martial art moves? As you know, I’m basically acting on instincts as Ladybug, but it would help a lot if I actually knew how to fight. Properly. Especially since the Akumas are getting a lot more violent.”

That, he could do.

“Fine. But we’ll need to spar a little so I can assess your skills and see where to go from there.”

The Parisian beamed.

“Alright! I’m ready.”

As she got in a defensive position, the vigilante observed her carefully.

“First of all, don’t make your fist that way. Don’t put your thumb inside, but outside. You could break it upon impact.”

The teenage girl did as he said and he waited a few seconds more before he attacked.

She dodged easily but she didn’t see his next move. Of course, he didn’t put strength in his hit, the goal wasn’t to hurt her but to observe.

She attacked in return but none of her blow hit home.

Two minutes in the sparring and Marinette was on her back, Robin having softly flipped her.

“Again.”

They sparred a few times, each time Marinette lasted a bit longer, but she never lasted more than five minutes.

She was breathing heavily while he barely broke a sweat.

“I’ll be honest with you, it’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

He winced. He hasn’t shown her this side of him yet.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” she scoffed.

Good, she could take it. He was afraid that she would be offended.

He sat next to her as she stayed on the floor, like a starfish.

“We’ll have to start from scratch. I’ll teach you some basic moves but there is only so much I can teach you in less than a week. You really need to take lessons when you get back to Paris, no matter how full your schedule already is.”

Marinette looked at him, giving him a sad smile.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll do it.”

“But you’re not hopeless. You adapt fast.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, every time we sparred, you would last longer.”

The Eurasian girl laughed.

“I didn’t last more than five minutes!”

“No, but in the first spar, you lasted only two minutes. So it’s progress. It shows that you adapt easily. You’re also aware of your surroundings and know how to use it. If you take this seriously, you’ll progress fast.”

He watched as she was still breathing heavily.

“Come on, give me your phone.”

She did as he asked and he took his own phone out too. He unlocked her phone easily.

“And for the love of God, Marinette, put a password on your phone.”

She smiled sheepishly.

He entered his contact information and send a message to himself from her phone and then saved her contact. He gave her her phone back.

“Here, I entered my number. I’ll send you a training program. You need to build up your strength and your stamina. You can’t afford to be out of breath like that.”

He hoped she wasn’t offended. He only did this because he cared and he didn’t want her to get killed fighting Akumas because she wasn’t strong enough.

The way she smiled at him showed him that she knew that.

“Thank you.” she breathed.

Marinette was like an open book, but Robin knew he wasn’t. He didn’t know how to feel that she could read him so easily. Was he already lowering his guard around her?

He sighed. He knew that the answer was yes. He already was lowering his guard. He did it unconsciously because he wanted things to work with his soulmate.

He didn’t want to be the man his mother wanted him to be. Not anymore.

“We’ll start some training tomorrow. In the meantime, I believe I promised you to show you some of my drawings.”

Marinette beamed as he took a few pieces of paper and she straightened, sitting next to him as he showed her drawings of Titus, Alfred the cat and the batcow.

He smiled as she cooed at them.

When she woke up the next day, Marinette cursed Robin. She was sore at some places that she didn’t know had muscles. She had a headache, but that was probably because she only got two hours of sleep, she and Robin had stayed later than usual, losing themselves in their conversations unaware of the time passing.

Marinette heard a noise next to her.

“Marinette, wake up! Breakfast is in twenty minutes.”

The designer cursed once more in her head. It was the first time since the beginning of the trip that Alya woke up before her. The dark-haired girl panicked for a few seconds, already imagining the reporter seeing her green eye. She could already picture her asking questions about her soulmate, who they were and when it happened. She could already see herself screw up and admitting that Robin was her soulmate and it would be on the Ladyblog and it would spread worldwide and Robin would hate her!

She wanted to scream until her mind cleared. Why was she panicking? Hiding her eye was, actually, really simple.

Marinette got up, rubbing her eyes and feigning a yawn as she made her way to the bathroom.

Nailed it, she thought as she closed the door behind her.

Tag list:

@bigpicklebananatree @animegirlweeb @crazylittlemunchkin @northernbluetongue @cutechip @justafanwarrior @iloontjeboontje @resignedcatservant @maribat-is-lifeblood @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff @toodaloo-kangaroo @mikantsume @dast218 @amayakans @zestyzealot @lunarwolfspn @corabeth11

#maribat #daminette #maridami #miraculous x dc #ml x dc #damian x marinette

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rosettahart · 4 years

Text

Glass-says: Chapter 10

Chapter 1, Chapter 9

Ao3 link

Summary: A few crushing gays getting to know each other a bit more.

Warnings: A Nod To What Happened With Paris, Self doubts.

Chapter 10

Patton couldn't stay still or keep his grin from his face, practically bouncing with a mixture of excitement and nervousness. He did his best not to kick against the counter he was sitting on in the back of the room, so as not to distract Virgil from the lesson. He hopped down from his spot as soon the bell went off, giving a sympathetic wince as Virgil flinched at the unexpected noise.

"Sorry, Kiddo. Didn't mean to spook you there." Patton apologized, moving to stand beside Virgil as he packed up his things.

"It's okay, Pat. You're excited. I could feel it radiating off you since he asked you." Virgil shook his head. "You going to be able to sit through another class?" He teased.

"I just can't believe he did!" Patton exclaimed, taking Virgil's arm. "Do you think he has any siblings? They'd probably be graduated already or he would have been walking to school with them, right? What do you think his parents are like? Do you think I'll get a chance to meet them? Or I guess I wouldn't be meeting them so much as seeing them." He chuckled.

"Are these wonderings about my parents or someone else's?" Logan inquired from behind the two, pushing up his glasses and walking past them to set his bag down at a desk.

"Logan!" Patton tackled him into a hug, causing Logan to stumble back into the desk, just managing to catch himself. Everyone else in the classroom went quiet. Multiple pairs of eyes turned to try and figure out what was going on, glancing between Logan and Virgil.

Logan blinked a few times, his eyes wide in shock.

Virgil wasn't sure what to do, not enjoying all the attention.

Patton pulled away as he noticed the tension in Logan's figure, surveying the room and then looking back to Logan in concern. "Sorry, Lo. I guess I got a little excited there."

Logan took another moment to pull himself together, taking in the stares as he straightened his clothes and glasses. He was (for once) thankful for Romans presence as he entered with his associates, causing everyone else to return to their conversing.

"It's quite alright, Patton. Though a warning next time would be appreciated. You are rather hyper-excited to see me for having last been gathered..." Logan glanced down at his watch, opening his mouth so as to speak when the teacher slammed his bag down onto the desk, causing most the class to jump.

"Catch up period! Finish up any unfinished assignments and if you aren't sure how to just ask your friends for help. My wife is pregnant and craving dried seaweed so just leave when you're done." Mr. Lewis instructed.

"But you don't have a-" A girl with glasses tried to argue.

"Seaweed! Exactly!" Mr. Lewis interjected before she could finish her sentence. "Now everyone to the library!"

Logan sighed, pulling his bag back over his shoulder, leading the way out of the classroom. "Has Mr. Lewis always been this careless about his students education? This is the second time in three classes that he has sent us off to educate ourselves."

"No. He almost never raises his voice like that. He's usually pretty quiet and calm. We only get classes like this if we're ahead of where we're supposed to be." Virgil answered, unlocking the soundbooth door and settling into one of the bean bag chairs. He pulled out the glasses, putting them on.

"Interesting. Would it be right to assume he is not a married man either?"

"Mr. Lewis? Married?! No way. A third of the school has had a crush on him including Remy and they are not the type of person to go for a married man." Roman laughed from his place in the doorway. He tossed his bag onto the floor. "What's up Specs and…" Roman did a double take, smirking at Virgil, "Or I guess it's Specs one and Specs two now."

Virgil took a second, glancing at Patton and then bringing a hand up to touch the glasses he was wearing. His face reddened. He proceeded to swiftly yank them off and throw them at Logan who just barely caught them.

"They're Logan's! I don't need glasses! I just... I just wanted to know how bad his eyesight is that's all." Virgil reasoned, holding his hands up.

"Easy, panic at the everywhere, I won't tell anyone you need glasses." Roman chuckled, taking a seat on the floor. "I would have pegged you for owning a darker colored pair of glasses, but the blue really brings out your eyes."

Logan shook his head, switching his frames for Patton's and packing his own away. He pulled out his notebook to go over.

"Was your only intention in coming here to flirt with Virgil or were you actually planning on completing any assignments?" Logan quipped, flipping through his notes and taking out another book and a pen.

Roman winced at Logan's annoyed tone. "Sorry." He apologized awkwardly, getting his own stuff out.

Logan looked up from his work confused by Romans lack of a comeback and way the room had gone into an uncomfortable silence. He noted Virgil's unsure glances to Roman and how he bit down on his lip.

"A not so nice Kiddo said some not so kind words about Roman possibly being gay yesterday. I'm sure you didn't mean it like that, but Ro might've taken it the wrong way." Patton explained, watching over Roman as he did.

Logan turned his attention to study Roman as well.

Roman was trying his best to look like he was actually working on one of his assignments. He glanced between his notes and his draft for an essay. Was it really that obvious that he liked Virgil? They had only just started hanging out, but it seemed everyone was already making assumptions about why they suddenly were. Maybe he should cool it with the flirting. He didn't even know if Virgil liked guys that way, but at least he knew he didn't mind the idea of same sex relationships. It was Logan he wasn't sure about. He pulled out his pen to make some notes on his essay, attempting to dispel the endless questions with work.

Logan exhaled, looking back down at his notes. "My apologies, Roman. It is not my place to comment on how you converse with Virgil unless it's hurtful or uncomfortable for him. I just wished for somewhere quiet to review my notes and was not expecting the extra company."

"It's alright, Teach. I shouldn't have invited myself in to crash this nerd party." Roman returned, putting his things down. He glanced around the space, leaning back on his hands. "This is quite the gathering place. When did you start hanging out here?" He asked Virgil.

"Uh, I don't know... Sometime last year?" Virgil supplied, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

"You mean we could've been eating lunch together for almost a year now?!" Roman exclaimed, realizing something with a teasing grin. "Did you ever enjoy any of my one man performances?"

"No! I never intentionally-" Virgil began to deny, his face heating up.

"So you did!"

Virgil groaned, pulling his hood over his head and tugging on the drawstrings.

Patton snickered.

"I am certain that most of what Virgil would have witnessed was completely nonsensical without context or audio to accompany all of your bouncing around the stage like a lunatic." Logan speculated from what he had seen himself.

"A lunatic?!" Roman sputtered indignantly. "I'll have you know most of my monologues are performed in one small section of the stage! And I never bounce around while I am performing one! If anything I would be gracefully gliding across the stage." He defended.

Virgil snorted from where he was sitting. "You mean like that one time you tripped over your backpack because you were so into the scene?"

Roman's face reddened. "It was part of the act."

Virgil shook his head. "You sprained your wrist."

"You were the one who told the nurse?"

The bell rang signaling the end of the school day.

Virgil packed up his things. "You were annoying me with your wincing the next class when you tried writing with it." He muttered.

"Thank you for looking out for me." Roman smiled softly.

"You were being an idiot." Virgil returned, getting up and leaving the soundbooth.

"I most certainly was not!" Roman began to argue, following after him.

Logan pulled his bag up over his head. "It's still hard to believe they haven't taken the time to become acquaintances till now. I am sure that reason has to do with Virgil's reluctance." He noted. "We should get going now. I opened up my schedule this afternoon so I don't want to waste any time."

"Aww, you freed up your time for me?" Patton teased with a hint of a blush.

Logan exhaled, switching out a few things from his locker and bag. "If I hadn't we wouldn't have as much time to do tests and you would have had to wait as I did work around my house." He closed his locker.

"Tests? I'm not very good at tests." Patton chuckled.

Chapter 11

Author's notes: One more chapter and then things get a little more interesting, hopefully. Thanks again for waiting. Next update will most likely be out sometime this month. Thanks for reading! -Danielle

Taglist

@kittiebrick

@absolutesandersidestrash

#sander sides fanfiction #sander sides #patton sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #thomas sanders #ghost au #romance #ts patton #ts virgil #ts logan #ts roman #glass-says #rosettahart writes

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yourjuhyunghan · 3 years

Text

Emerging Infectious Diseases Speaking of Science through Art and Storytelling, MoMA The Museum of Modern Art ‘How Cézanne’s Apples Turned Me into a Food Writer Ruth Reichl’, Oriental Institute - University of Chicago Documenting "Yellow" Coffins from Bab el-Gasus University of Lisbon, Niccolò Pomarancio (Roncalli Cristoforo, 1517 ou 1519-après 1591), Annonciation, Palais Fesch, musée des Beaux-Arts. https://blog.naver.com/artnouveau19/222492980885 https://podcasts.apple.com/kr/podcast/emerging-infectious-diseases/id212828612?i=1000533986921 https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/617 https://www.digital-epigraphy.com/projects/documenting-yellow-coffins-of-the-so-called-eighth-lot-of-antiquities-from-bab-el-gasus?fbclid=IwAR1bu3tVT_jtxTQffJf3CQt56PwiflthnwhW0ljyOsGTTn_afHDeSY1OsGI

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=412841182108395&set=a.131132153612634

Speaking of Science through Art and Storytelling

Emerging Infectious Diseases https://podcasts.apple.com/kr/podcast/emerging-infectious-diseases/id212828612?i=1000533986921

Byron Breedlove, the managing editor of the CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, and Sarah Gregory discuss the development and evolution of EID journal cover essays.

How Cézanne’s Apples

Turned Me into a Food Writer

An author, former editor, and storied restaurant

critic recalls a turning point in her life.

Ruth Reichl

Aug 31, 2021

Paul Cézanne turned me into a food writer.

But it was not for any of the reasons you might imagine.

In the late sixties, when I was a graduate student in art history, my professors were constantly dropping the names of restaurants near great monuments of art. I wrote them all down: the trattoria five minutes from Giotto’s murals in Assisi (“get the ribollita”), the bistro around the corner from Notre Dame that served fantastic choucroute, and the 500-year-old tofu specialist near Kyoto’s Kinkaku-ji. And it was while studying Gustav Klimt that I first heard of Demel, Vienna’s venerable emporium of pastry.

The art historians I studied with also enjoyed deconstructing the many meals depicted in art. Together we devoured endless last suppers, along with the painted feasts of Bruegel, Vermeer, and Veronese. They discussed artists like Orozco and de Heem, who used food as both allegory and a means of illuminating ordinary life. And when one professor announced that his next lecture would be devoted to the food of Cézanne, I could hardly wait.

We walked into the room to find a slide of Cézanne’s Apples on the giant screen above our heads. “Cézanne,” the professor began, “once told a friend that fruits ‘love having their portraits done’.” We all stared up at the painting as he continued. “Cézanne also said that he wanted to ‘astonish Paris with an apple’.”

I concentrated on that image, waiting to be astonished. But hard as I tried, those apples left me cold. Cézanne’s apples, I soon discovered, were not apples; they were painted strokes on a canvas, and he did not want you to forget it. That was the point.

I understood what the artist was up to. That painting was about art, not apples. It was about the impossibility of ever making two dimensions truly resemble three. It is an interesting intellectual idea, and in the context of art history, an important one. But the more I stared at that painting, the more I began to wonder if I wanted to spend the rest of my life thinking about such things.

I left that class in a state of confusion. It was a beautiful fall afternoon, and as I walked back to my apartment, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with me. Shouldn’t a person who planned to be an art historian appreciate Cézanne’s apples? Passing a local grocery store I noticed a fine display of Ida Reds, Arkansas Blacks, and Esopus Spitzenburgs. They were beautiful; astonishing, in fact. But I had no desire to contemplate those apples; all I wanted to do was eat them. I bought as many as I could carry, determined to transform them into something delicious.

At home I peeled the apples, listening to the seductive way they came whispering out of their skins. I sliced them and showered them with lemon juice, leaning into the citric scent. Constructing a crumble, I concentrated on the way the butter became one with the flour. And then, surrounded by the heady aroma of sugar, butter, and fruit swirling through my kitchen, I opened my notebooks and began to read.

The evidence was all there: I was looking at art but focusing on food. I was clearly not meant to be an art historian. Much as I enjoyed studying art, my true passions lay elsewhere. By the time the apples emerged from the oven, my life had chang https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/617

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art

@MuseumModernArt

“Cézanne turned me into a food writer.”

After an art history lecture on #Cézanne food,

@ruthreichl

went home to make an Apple Crumble—a dessert that would alter the course of her life.

Read Reichl's story and get the recipe: https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/617 https://twitter.com/MuseumModernArt/status/1433245560509710336

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art

“Cézanne turned me into a food writer.”

As a graduate student in art history, #RuthReichl deconstructed the many meals depicted in art and took notes on great restaurants near art monuments.

After a lecture on #Cézanne’s apples, Reichl went home to make an apple crumble—a dessert that would alter the course of her life.

After receiving her Masters in the History of Art in 1970, she became the restaurant critic and food editor of the Los Angeles Times, the restaurant critic of the New York Times, and the Editor in Chief of Gourmet Magazine.

With fall just around the corner and “Cézanne Drawing” closing on September 25, @ruth.reichl shares her apple crumble recipe with us. Read Reichl’s story for #MoMAMagazine: mo.ma/2YjJBhR

—

[1] Paul Cézanne. Still Life with Apples on a Sideboard (Pommes avec bouteille, pichet et pot bleu).” 1900-1906. Pencil and watercolor on paper. Dallas Museum of Art. The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection [2] Ruth Reichl as a graduate student [3] Photo by Mikkel Vang

https://www.facebook.com/MuseumofModernArt/photos/pcb.10160471355597281/10160471347567281/

Documenting "Yellow" Coffins from Bab el-Gasus

June 24. 2021

Written by Rogério Sousa, Professor of Egyptology and Ancient History at the Centre for History of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Lisbon. Gate of the Priests Project.

When in 2009 I was entrusted with the mission of producing a catalogue of the coffin sets of the so-called "Eighth Lot of Antiquities" from Bab el-Gasus (Sousa 2017), I could hardly imagine that this would be a turning moment of my life as a researcher (Fig. 1). This collection had been given in 1893 by the Egyptian authorities, just two years after its discovery. Bab el-Gasus was discovered by Eugène Grébaut and Georges Daressy, containing the undisturbed burial sets of 153 priests and priestesses of Amun who lived during the 21st Dynasty. Due to the sheer size of the find, a decision was made to offer some of these antiquities to Egypt's countries with diplomatic relations. In 1893, when the young khedive Habas II Hilmi was crowned, 17 lots of antiquities were prepared and shipped to the respective countries. The Portuguese Lot was entrusted to the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa (Fig. 2). It included five anthropoid coffins (four inner coffins and one outer coffin), three mummy covers, and a sample of shabtis. Like most other lots from Bab el-Gasus, this collection remained in the Museum's storerooms and unpublished. https://www.digital-epigraphy.com/projects/documenting-yellow-coffins-of-the-so-called-eighth-lot-of-antiquities-from-bab-el-gasus?fbclid=IwAR1bu3tVT_jtxTQffJf3CQt56PwiflthnwhW0ljyOsGTTn_afHDeSY1OsGI

Oriental Institute - University of Chicago

August 30 at 2:00 AM

This week digitalEPIGRAPHY is looking at “Documenting ‘Yellow’ Coffins from Bab el-Gasus” by Rogério Sousa, Professor of Egyptology and Ancient History at the University of Lisbon.

Prof. Sousa briefly reviews the history of these remarkable anthropoid coffins (from a large cache of undisturbed burials of priests and priestesses of Amun from Dynasty 21, discovered near the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut and given to Portugal in the late 1800s). He then highlights the imperative need for drawings, as so much of the decorative detail was not visible in photographs (image 2), and discusses the importance of the drawings for his further work on understanding these incredibly elaborate coffins (images 3 and 4)!

https://www.facebook.com/OrientalInstitute/photos/pcb.10159489136319486/10159489118499486/

Niccolò Pomarancio (Roncalli Cristoforo, 1517 ou 1519-après 1591), Annonciation, 56x39 cm, Palais Fesch, musée des Beaux-Arts. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=412841182108395&set=a.131132153612634

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hist144j · 5 years

Text

Collections for Sept. 18th Assignment

Choose your boxes from one of the following collections, The title of each collection below serves as a link to access the online finding aid for the collection in Archives at Yale.

Dean Acheson Papers (MS 1087):

Correspondence, speech and lecture files, manuscripts of books and articles, and memoranda primarily document Acheson’s activities after leaving public office in 1953 until his death in 1971. Major topics of U.S. foreign policy include Korea; NATO; post-war relations with the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Germany; tensions in the Middle East; the war in Vietnam; and the U.S. posture towards Rhodesia and South Africa. Evaluations of the Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations figure prominently in the papers, and Acheson's role as a member of the Yale Corporation is thoroughly documented.

Gordon Auchincloss Papers (MS 580):

Diaries, letters, cables, memoranda, notes, memorabilia, and printed matter connected with Auchincloss's diplomatic, political, legal, and personal activities in the period of his diplomatic service and in the years immediately before and after. The diary is the central element in the papers, listing his daily activities for most of the time between December 1914 and November 1920 and including many summaries of conversations and expressions of opinion. The correspondence consists mainly of unofficial and personal letters written between 1917 and 1920. The subject file is a miscellaneous accumulation of memoranda, notes, administrative and personal papers, and printed matter originating mainly between 1917 and 1919.

Chester Bowles Papers (MS 628):

Correspondence, speeches, writings, photographs, clippings, oral history interviews, and other material documenting the personal life and professional career of Chester Bowles. Bowles’ political career in Connecticut, his term as governor (1949-1951), in the U.S. House of Representatives (1959-1961), and his service as ambassador to India (1951-1953 and 1963-1969) are detailed, as is his work as a foreign policy advisor, chairman of the Democratic Platform Committee at the 1960 national convention, and author and speaker on political affairs.

Louise Bryant Papers (MS 1840):

Correspondence, writings, books, visual artwork, photographs, printed matter, and other material created and collected by Bryant during the last twenty years of her life from 1916 to 1936 document her work as an American foreign correspondent and writer who knew many leading artistic and political figures in the United States, Europe, and Asia from the First World War and the decade that followed. Of particular note are Bryant's journals and notebooks detailing some of what she witnessed and experienced during her time as a foreign correspondent in Russia, Turkey, France, Latvia, and Uzbekistan between 1917 and 1923.

William C. Bullitt Papers (MS 112):

Correspondence, photographs, travel files, memoranda, reports, and other materials documenting Bullitt's career as a diplomat and public servant. The collection includes his personal files (not his official records) regarding his service as Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1933-1936), Ambassador to France (1936-1940), Ambassador-at-large (1941-1942), Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy (1942-1943), and his two stints as Special Assistant to the Secretary of State (1917-1919 and 1933).

Coalition to Stop Trident Papers (MS 1696):

Administrative records, correspondence, publications, subject files, and photographs documenting the history, structure, philosophies, and activities of the Coalition to Stop Trident as well as other groups working to stop the production and deployment of Trident submarines and missiles in Connecticut and New England. There are also subject files which place the local activities of these Connecticut groups into the context of the national and international disarmament movement.

Edward House Papers (MS 466):

Correspondence, diaries, memoirs, writings, photographs, memorabilia, and other papers documenting Edward M. House's personal life and political career. The diary details his childhood experiences and also notes political observations (1912-1924). Materials relating to the Paris Peace Conference include minutes of meetings of the Supreme Council and memoranda from various countries presenting claims. Writings include essays, reviews, novels, and other works. Correspondence includes letters to and from Woodrow Wilson, Charles Seymour, American and foreign politicians, and newspaper and political journalists.

Sherman Kent Papers (MS 854):

Correspondence, writings, research notes, teaching materials, clippings and other printed material, photographs, and memorabilia which document the personal life and professional career of Sherman Kent. The papers highlight Kent's student years and teaching career at Yale and his lifelong research in French history. Kent's career in intelligence is also represented in these papers, though they contain no official records from the O.S.S. or the C.I.A.

Walter Lippmann Papers (MS 326):

Correspondence with an international array of scholars, journalists, heads of state, government officials, and friends documenting the Lippmann’s career as author, editor, journalist and political philosopher. Also included are manuscripts and drafts of his books, columns, and speeches. In addition there are diaries and engagement books, photographs of Lippmann with family and friends, requests to speak or write, honors, and film and audio tapes.

South African Apartheid Collection (MS 1500):

This collection, assembled from a variety of sources, documents the apartheid system in South Africa and the different stages of the liberation struggle that was instrumental in bringing about the decline of the system. The collection consists of printed materials such as news clippings, publications, reports, press releases, newsletters, pamphlets, posters, and newspapers of the South African government, parliamentary parties, non-parliamentary groups such as the African National Congress, and American and other foreign groups.

Henry Stimson Papers (MS 465):

Correspondence, letter books, speeches, articles, letters to the editor, statements prepared for presentation to Congress, and substantial subject files with clippings, printed matter, reports, memoranda, and photographs document Stimson's various public offices, including his service as Secretary of War under President Taft, Secretary of State under President Hoover, and as Secretary of War in the cabinets of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. The substantial correspondence, as well as other papers, in this collection provide important records of his activities as a private citizen, in office, and on special missions. Stimson’s service as Secretary of State under Hoover (1929-1933) is particularly well documented with memoranda of conversations with foreign diplomatic representatives, and briefing books presenting background information on foreign affairs for the period. Of major importance are Stimson's diaries which span the years 1904-1945, covering the entire period of his public career and including references to the early stages of the development of the atom bomb.

Rose Pastor Stokes Papers (MS 573):

Correspondence, writings, printed material, clippings, and other papers Stokes’ activities as writer, artist, and radical political and social activist. Much of the material relates to Stokes's activities and involvement with various radical groups, including the American Communist Party and the Socialist Party. The correspondence reflects these involvements and contains many letters exchanged with American political radicals, labor leaders, and anarchists from the early 20th century. Also included are research materials of John M. Whitcomb relating to Rose Pastor Stokes.

Cyrus and Grace Sloan Vance Papers (MS 1664):

The papers primarily document Cyrus Vance's professional and personal activities, particularly background materials, correspondence, position papers, and handwritten meeting notes relating to SALT II negotiation between the United States and the Soviet Union; the Camp David Summit and the signing of the Middle East Peace Treaty; diplomatic relations with the Far East, especially China; and negotiations to release the American hostages in Iran. Proposals, reports, handwritten notes, and correspondence provide insight into the dispute between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus in 1967, federal recovery assistance to Detroit after the riot of 1967, and the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam in 1968. Governmental statements and commentaries, draft bills, and Senate committee background materials from 1958 document Vance's involvement in the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). Extensive files of position papers, project proposals, meeting minutes, reports, publications, and handwritten notes document Vance's involvement with various events and prestigious organizations, following his resignation from the Carter administration. Grace Sloane Vance's papers document her trip with Rosalynn Carter to Latin America in 1977. Her work throughout the 1960s with Widening Horizons can be traced through correspondence, working papers, minutes, and notes.

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spamzineglasgow · 7 years

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(REVIEW) Tinkering with the Code of Reality: An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in GTA Online, Michael Crowe (Studio Operative)

Text by Denise Bonetti

>Between the 18th and the 20th October 1974, Oulipo BAE Georges Perec - a Pisces - sits in a Parisian cafe on Place Saint-Sulpice, meticulously recording in his notebook every detail of the busy life of the square. His eyes are alert to 'what happens when nothing happens'. The more inconsequential the particulars he manages to pick up on, examine, or classify, the more excited he seems to become:

'Means of locomotion: walking, two-wheeled vehicles (with and without motor), automobiles (private cars, company cars, rented cars, driving school cars), commercial vehicles, public services, public transport, tourist buses.'

>The conceptual/obsessive experiment in cataloguing is a response to a writing prompt of his own devising, published about a month before in a collection of essays on public and private spaces (the adorably-named Species of Spaces and Other Pieces). Perec's practical exercise calls for the reader/writer to carefully observe the street around them and note *everything* down: one must set about it slowly, 'almost stupidly'; forcing oneself to see the space 'more flatly'. 'If nothing strikes you', says Perec, then 'you don't know how to see'. As it turns out, Perec himself is really good at seeing: after 3 days on Place Saint-Sulpice, his notes are over 50 pages long - mainly one-line annotations about buses, passersby, pigeons, gestures, more buses. He calls it An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris.

>Perec made of this modality (a dry and neutral encyclopedic gaze at the unnoticed) a manifesto. In both writing and living, he called for a shift of attention from the exceptional to the ordinary, for an abandonment of the charmingly exotic in favour of the invisibly unexceptional - according to a philosophy he labels 'anthropology of the endotic'. In the essay 'Approaches to What?', in a somewhat self-referential aphorism, he remarks that 'railway trains only begin to exist when they are derailed, and the more passengers are killed, the more the trains exist.' That the ordinary, in other words, only lives in our attention as soon as it stops being ordinary.

>If this statement is true as it sounds, then, the virtual world of Grand Theft Auto Online must without a doubt be more real than the one we live in. The game's universe is expansive and hyperrealistic to the extent that navigating its space is an experience of an undecidable quality; the abundance of detail is so accurately mimetic and uncannily convincing it that the digital artifice both disappears into an ambient background, and never leaves the centre of the stage. The minutia of IRL city-walking, and of existing in a world that follows its own will (flecks of dust dancing in the wind, catching the sun; overheard fragments of strangers' phone conversations; the gas station attendant's body language in between serving customers), are alienated from us, digitally re-engineered, and presented back to us in the guise of a crime-ridden fictional world. In this sense, the GTA series is one of the most Perecquian exercises to ever exist. (Of course, amusingly enough, Perec's aphorism is also appropriate here on a more literal level: the game franchise is entirely built upon the premise that derailing trains - but also provoking car accidents, and especially murdering innocent pedestrians - is recommended if not required).

>Because of these underlying continuities between Perec's 'infraordinary' and the process of hyperrealistic world-making in sandbox video games, when I first read about Michael Crowe's re-enactment of Perec's experiment in GTA online (in a cafe, open-mouthed, holding a scone mid-air), I just blurted out 'Of course!' to the stranger sitting across from me. It made complete sense; the connection was there all along, only no one had ever written about it. In his wonderful introduction to the small volume, Jamie Sutcliffe confesses that he is 'jealous and frustrated [Crowe] got there first'. Although he follows this with praise for the book's undeniable 'inventiveness, inquisitiveness and relentless mirth,' I think the underlying reason for the (admittedly shared) envy is not only that Crowe exhausted a conceptual exercise skilfully, and in beautiful prose. He also hit a nerve, exposed a crucial side of the relationship between video games, literature, realism and simulation - and he did it playfully.

>At times, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in GTA Online time follows closely Perec's model: it obsesses over weather, numbers and registration plates, the colour of people's clothes, passersby (especially women) eating things, commercial slogans, etc. Of course, these strong echoes can only highlight the essential polarities between the two universes: what in Perec's Paris is nature or chance (clouds, the pedestrians' trajectories, their conversations), is always artifice and intentionality in GTA. Even if the the game's phenomenology might be randomised, it is always layers of carefully contrived code that engender it: the player can never forgets this.

>One other definition that Perec devised for the kind of everydayness that escapes our perception is 'the infra-ordinary' - the swarm of details that hover just below the threshold of attention. If Perec's term is certainly appropriate for his preferred subject of writing, the choice of word seems even more significant in the context Crowe's Attempt because its meaning necessarily expands to the digital nature of the space explored. In the city-space of GTA, the 'endotic' and the 'infra' quite literally consist of the hidden workings below (or behind) the surface of game: the structure of its programming, the software's rationale - mechanisms that Crowe often lingers on, his phenomenological descriptions often slipping into conjectures about the game's logical engines:

'That woman is still parked at a green light. Melt down. As other cars approach they brake differently, some jerkily in stages, others in a smoother manner. The computer players seem to have different levels of driving proficiency.'

'There's a pristine jewellery exchange store opposite. Dilapidated buildings probably cost more to design and create in this game, as they would generally have far more detail. ... Directly opposite is the Elkridge Hotel. It can't be entered. I wonder what's inside. Is the book/cube poured full of colour, or transparency, with the road/pavement continuing on the floor? If hollow, how thin are the impenetrable walls?'

Crowe's asides often touch - more or less directly - upon questions of realism and effective simulation:

'The palm trees in front of me are slightly different heights. None look copied and pasted'

'It would be great if learner driver were going around, veering off cliffs, etc.'

'It's a shame there are no birds, it would add greatly to a sense of realism ... Perec had all kinds of pigeon action in his book'

>Even more interestingly, at times his observations go as far as hinting at the inherent opacity of the concept of mimetic representation itself: what is realism, when truly accurate depictions often seem even more surreal in their uncanny effect? Doesn't GTA's lifelike graphic rendering - like meticulously inventorial writing - draw attention to the very artifice of artistic creation?

'Very light rain. This slight rain seems realistic, but in Perec's reality the rain stops "very suddenly". If that happened in GTA it would seem like poor attention to detail'.

>In a review of Auerbach's Mimesis, Terry Eagleton elaborates on Brecht's idea that realism really is a matter of effect, not a matter of technique. The definition cannot be applied at the level of production or its methods, it has to depend on reception - at the level of reading, or, in this case - playing. Realism happens between the artwork and the audience's expectations; it's not about verisimilitude, or about whether a text (or video game) recalls something familiar; it's about whether or not the experience of the work matches an unmediated experience of reality: 'Realism is as realism does'.

>Eagleton concludes that 'artistic realism, then, cannot mean "represents the world as it is", but rather "represents it in accordance with conventional real-life modes of representing it". Realism as we normally understand it, then, has more to do with convention; it is more like an autonomous process of creation than a neutral mode of reporting. At one point, Crowe wonders 'what poets like T.S. Eliot would've added [to the game] by way of details within details'; the underlying idea here is that a deeper and deeper level of realism can only come from fabrication and designed artifice. A truly realistic world doesn't exist, it has to be manufactured and carefully weaved together. Perec, Eliot, the nerds at Rockstar Games: all mods, tinkering with code to fashion a world that feels more real than the invisible one we live in.

>The most prominent strand of reflections in Crowe's Attempt, however, is dedicated to imagining a future in which GTA is so utterly realistic that it surpasses reality itself. Crowe pictures the horizon towards which the GTA series is moving not only as a simulation indistinguishable from its original, but as a utopian uber-world populated by perfect AI characters:

'In future games, players will be able to chat with all computer characters about any topic, for any length of time. The only problem would be that the computer characters would likely find us too boring and go off to chat with another computer character that has also read every line of text and seen every film/artwork.'

'I wonder how detailed these games will become. Could growing a zit in the game affect your character's day? ... Could millions of players all live as microorganisms on the face of a GTA character?'

>The beautifully apocalyptic scale of Crowe's prophecy is made somewhat more ominous by the hazy, yet closed, temporal arc that his little book follows. Whereas Perec opens and concludes every section of his Attempt declaring the time window of his observations, Crowe rarely if never talks about the passage of time in the game ('I dont keep track of time as i should, here or irl'). The only real time marks - vague, atmospheric, possibly just conceptual - are in the names of the 5 sections the book is divided into: '(Daybreak)', '(Morning)', '(Break)', '(Nightfall)', '(Night)'. Crowe's 24-hour cycle - whether referring to IRL or GTA temporality - is possibly more compellingly symbolic than Perec's 3 days. The self-contained movement from dawn, to sunset, and then darkness, lends the volume a sense of closure that it would otherwise lack - given its status as a semi-conceptual exercise aimed at an inherently unattainable objective ('exhausting' a place).

>This explicitly closed timeline also means that Crowe's subject, and thus his literary project, assume more gravitas than one might expect. What could begin in the reader's mind as a playful pastiche actually becomes more like a tragedy, with Crowe's avatar helplessly standing and witnessing unstoppably violent events, most of which utterly gratuitous. The text is so ridiculously faithful to the Aristotelian unities of time and place (one day, one place), that one might turn a blind eye on its complete lack of any unity of action ('events strictly tied together as cause and effect, adding up to one single story' sounds pretty much like everything this book is not). The book does funny, but it also does serious, poetic - although possibly not cathartic. In a sense, Crowe's avatar is a bit like a postmodern Hamlet: a passive and melancholic intellectual antihero, surrounded by farcical death in a corrupted society.

>In the last section of Crowe's Attempt, '(Night)', the more beautifully poetic descriptive fragments that populate the book gradually increase in number as if to signal the nearing calmness of closure. These are nominal phrases that choose to go nowhere; many are about things that are far away, abandoned, or circular:

'A very high crane in the distance.' '1000s of lights visible from my spot.' 'The window lights have different hues, every light isn't just white. Slight yellow, greens.' 'One side of the sky is pink, the other blue, held apart by purple.' 'A plane flying by way off in the distance.' 'An ambulance is burnt out, two people inside burnt entirely black.' 'A human is spinning around in circles in their car (...).' 'Dropped cigarette on the floor.'

>Before you know it - much, much before the last section - you'll feel stupid for ever thinking this book would be just a parody to lol at, or a kool koncept show your other Highbrow x Lowbrow friends and pat each other on the back for knowing the experimental French literature reference. You'll be moved by how beautiful Los Santos can be - the geometry of its facade architecture; its computer-generated clouds drifting above sports cars, reflecting the light in coupé red or neon purple; private (NPC) citizens relaxing on benches or outside cafes, smoking, eating donuts, eating bagels, talking into their phones to their private (NPC) citizen friends about their job, their boyfriends, their drug problem. I won't say you'll forget the world you're in is a video game you're in - because Crowe won't let you - but I think you will stop caring.

>An Attempt at Exhausting a Pace in GTA Online is published by Studio Operative, and can be bought at Glasgow's Good Press, or here.

#review

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acehotel · 7 years

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Interview: Claire Vaye Watkins

This month’s letter-writer is Claire Vaye Watkins, the author the author of Gold Fame Citrus (Riverhead, 2015) and Battleborn (Riverhead, 2012), which won the Story Prize. She’s published stories and essays in Granta, The Paris Review, The New York Times, Tin House, among others, and her essay “On Pandering” is one of our favorite things.

Claire stayed the night at Ace Hotel New York, where she penned a letter to an imagined audience as part of our Dear Reader series. We caught up with her after to talk about ritual, water and play.

If you could correspond with any fictional character or literary figure via letters, who would it be? And why?

I’d love to go back and forth with Kurt Vonnegut, especially in this brutal and bonkers political climate. I miss his voice tremendously.

Do you map out your writing, or do you discover your path as you go? How often does your work go in directions you never expected?

I used to plan and outline, and I still do to some extent. But I know now that you can rarely anticipate the most interesting, crackling moments in writing. If it’s going well it’ll go somewhere completely surprising.

Dear Reader tasks you with writing for an imagined audience of strangers. How much do you think about your audience when you write? Have you ever been surprised by who is drawn to your work?

On my best days I think of audience not at all and instead write only for myself. I’m often surprised anyone is drawn to my work, because even the published work is still private. Whenever anyone says they’ve read something I feel grateful to them and also a little exposed, as if they’d snuck into my notebook and snooped. My favorite stuff still feels like a secret.

What's a book that you wish more people knew about?

Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. A beautiful and bracing nonfiction book about the history of water in the West, which is to say the future of the American West as we know it.

Do you have any rituals, ceremonies or requirements that accompany your writing process?

Acceptance and play are big parts of my writing process these days, so sometimes it looks like I have no process at all. I read a lot, and write in my mind for a long while before I sit down at the page. At that point I usually write longhand, in a notebook. I love the privacy of the notebook, and the tactile pleasure of it. Sometimes I write just for the pleasure of the pen moving across a piece of paper that maybe no one will ever see.

Dear Reader is operated in partnership with Tin House. You can read this interview, as well as other wonderful things, at Tin House Online.

#yes #Dear Reader #claire vaye watkins #tin house #nyc #writers #literary #interview

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otherpplnation · 4 years

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Episode 656 — Wayne Koestenbaum

Wayne Koestenbaum is the guest. His new essay collection, Figure It Out, is available from Soft Skull Press.

Koestenbaum has published nineteen books, including Camp Marmalade, Notes on Glaze, The Pink Trance Notebooks, My 1980s & Other Essays, Hotel Theory, Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films, Andy Warhol, Humiliation, and Jackie Under My Skin. His essays and poems have been widely published in periodicals and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, The Best American Essays, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, London Review of Books, The Believer, The Iowa Review, Cabinet, and Artforum. Formerly an Associate Professor of English at Yale and a Visiting Professor in the Yale School of Art’s painting department, he is a Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.

Today's monologue: minimal.

www.otherppl.com

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wallpaperpainting · 4 years

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Edgar Degas’ paintings of dancers are amid his best-known and most-beloved works. Ballerinas addition at the barre, lacing their toe shoes, and lounging in the wings are captured on canvas or in pastel.

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A above appearance featuring his assignment was appointed to accessible this bounce at the Civic Gallery of Art in Washington. However, with museums bankrupt because of the coronavirus outbreak, art lovers will charge to amuse themselves with abundant books such as “Degas at the Opéra,” by Henri Loyrette. It appearance beautifully reproduced images from the exhibition of the aforementioned title, which originated at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

The Paris Opéra was founded by King Louis XIV in 1669 and the Opéra Ballet is the oldest civic ballet aggregation in the world. The music and beam admiring Degas; amid 1885 and 1892 he abounding the opera 177 times, with 55 visits in 1885 alone. Almost bisected his assignment from the mid-1860s to post-1900 was aggressive by ballet. He portrayed scenes both on and offstage, from the orchestra pit to the admirers boxes, wings, and call studios. He corrective musicians, singers, and theatergoers, but dancers in the band de ballet became his specialty.

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“Degas at the Opéra” conveys the essentials of what fabricated Degas acclaimed as a “painter of dancers.” For readers who appetite to go deeper, essays by curators and advisers annular out the account of Degas and his passion.

His analysis of opera motifs was both advanced and deep. He alternate to agnate themes, application a array of media, including oil, pastel, and charcoal, to actualize paintings and drawings. Despite his ambit of subjects, Degas was fatigued to the dancers. One wonders if he saw their conduct as alongside to his own, acute connected convenance and ability afore authoritative a artistic jeté into alone expression.

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Theatrical lighting afflicted Degas’ painting. Gas lamps and electric beam created a fantasy apple (called “music-paintings” by the artisan Richard Wagner), in which busy sets seemed to bounce to life. Degas relished the aftereffect of the footlights on performers’ faces, which rendered them adulterated and mask-like. Such an abnormal access acquired his assignment to be accounted modern, an archetype of a movement that he alleged the New Painting.

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Degas is anticipation of as an Impressionist, a appellation he detested, although he founded the movement and organized and alternate in Impressionist exhibitions from 1874 to 1886. But he never aggregate Édouard Monet’s or Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s adulation of plein-air painting or their alacrity to abduction the brief furnishings of aurora and atmosphere. He adopted to assignment in his studio, basing his assignment on endless sketches. Although capacity fatigued from the opera bedeviled the assignment he exhibited, his ambition was never to certificate activity but to transform it. As Degas wrote, “one

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donnamiscolta · 4 years

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This past year I read good books and experienced good things. Here are a few of each of them matched up in a semi-random, teeny bit calculated way, introduced by a few lines from the featured book.

From “1989” in How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, a deeply perceptive and intelligent collection of essays by Alexander Chee:

Everyone is running now and everywhere batons rise. The screams lift out of the street, and in restaurants up and down the block doors are locked and the diners are informed.

In “1989,” Chee writes about the AIDS march in San Francisco and the response of the riot police to the disruption of traffic. It’s a short, powerful essay about his realization that the police were directing their brutality not just at the people who were protesting, but at what they were fighting for – all of this happening in the country he lived in.

I read this essay months before I went to Ecuador, landing during street protests in Quito where students, workers, and indigenous activists were tear-gassed by police and military units. This was not my country, but I sided with the people and their demands for social and economic justice.

From The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, which won the 2018 National Nook Award for Fiction:

Rather than write about what you know, you told us, write about what you see. Assume that you know very little and that you’ll never know much until you learn how to see. Keep a notebook to record things that you see, for example when you’re out in the street.

I read this beautiful book on our flight to Spain in May. A woman grieving the death of her lifelong best friend recalls the above advice from him. I’ve never been good about keeping a journal or recording thoughts and observations in a notebook. But during the three weeks we were in Spain, at the end of each day I logged our activities, typing them into my phone, including this incident in Segovia: We arrived at the tiny Casa-Museo Antonio Machado to find it closed during the siesta hours. On the step outside sat two middle-aged men, one of them reciting poetry in beautiful, lilting tones, and the other listening, nodding. I missed out on seeing the museum, but I was grateful to have witnessed that.

From “As Luck Would Have It” in Staten Island Stories by Claire Jimenez, an engaging collection I reviewed for Seattle Review of Books:

One day Chrissy had the bright idea to reach out to the ghosts. She thought that perhaps we could make peace with them if only we could all just sit down and talk.

I believe in ghosts and I fear seeing strange ones, that is, the ghosts of people I haven’t known. But I welcome the ghosts of beloveds. If not their ghosts, then their living, breathing doubles. One hot Sunday afternoon in February, while I was walking down a nearly empty street in Oaxaca, an elderly woman was walking toward me. There was something familiar about her dress, her shoes, her pace. I prepared to greet her as we neared each other. I can’t remember if I managed to extend a “buenos dias” to her. I don’t even remember if she looked my way or if she was focused on the gently upward slope of the sidewalk ahead of her. But as soon as she passed me, I stopped immediately and whirled around to watch her walk away, resisting the urge to rudely catch up to her for another look at her face, which eerily resembled my long-dead Mexican grandmother.

From The Vexations by Caitlin Horrocks, a smart and enthralling fictional account of the life of composer Eric Satie:

“You a writer?” a man asked, glancing at Philippe’s notebook. The man was wearing a jacket, not a smock, and his collar was gray and crooked. He made a strange tinkling sound as he leaned over the bar, as if he were strung with wind chimes. His nose was a nearly bloody-looking red, and his eyes were already glazed.

Still, Philippe thought this was possibly the best single thing anyone had said to him in his life. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m a writer. What are you?

“A drunk,” the barman said, refusing to serve the man the absinthe he’d requested.

This novel, rich in character and setting, includes among its themes art and genius versus art and talent and the ever-constant doubt that accompanies both. The passage above features Phillippe, who comes to Paris from Spain and encounters obstacles in trying to make his name as a poet. Imposter syndrome is real for writers. Even when we feel confident that the work we’ve finished is good and deserving of publication, once we send it out into the world seeking a publisher, we are beset with doubt that anyone will find it worthy. So, it was with gladness and relief that I learned in late May that Jaded Ibis Press will release my third book of fiction Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories in fall 2020.

From Hezada! I Miss You by Erin Pringle (forthcoming March 2020), a beautiful novel about the change, loss, nostalgia, and memory that accompanies a dying circus and the dying village it visits:

The tumblers run up the street and jump high into the splits. When they land, they raise their arms to applause, then take off again, running, jumping, now twisting too many times to count before they land facing the other side of the street. More applause. They rise up on their toes, arch their backs, and reach as though to touch the sky, defiant at the rain.

Who doesn’t love performers? They are deserving of our applause. Especially improv actors. Last April the multi-faceted Jekeva Phillips invited me to participate in BIbliophilia. My part was easy: I read an excerpt from one of my Angie Rubio stories. Then, in one of the most creative acts I’d ever witnessed, a group of improv actors took over where I left off. After a brief huddle, the actors took the stage and continued my story in spontaneous and incredibly funny, smart, and seamless dialogue and action. Like an ice sculpture that melts or a sand painting that is erased, that performance was a one-time thing – unscripted, unrecorded, never to exist again. I suppose that’s the point of improv – its ephemeral nature, its beauty and power. But how I wish I could’ve wrapped that performance up and taken it home with me to watch again and again.

From The Body Papers by Grace Talusan, an exquisitely crafted memoir about trauma, identity, and family:

Inside a few cells in my brain, I believe there’s a part of me that still knows Tagalog. I feel pain when I attempt to speak it, as though there is something I want to say desperately that can be expressed only in my ﬁrst language. But I can’t access words, or that part of me that named the world ﬁrst in Tagalog. When I hear strangers speaking Filipino languages, I am as drawn to them as kin.

I have a similar response to Spanish, though I have never spoken it fluently. It’s a language that I heard throughout my childhood and one that I feel connected to despite my failure to exit from intermediate purgatory in my speaking level. At least my desire for connection through the English language is met through community with other writers through readings, conferences, and retreats. Among the opportunities I had this year was participating on panels at the Orcas Island Literary Festival and teaching at the Hedgebrook Summer Salon. Both times I had the pleasure of hanging out with writers I admire who are also exceptional human beings.

From The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart by R. Zamora Linmark (which I reviewed for Seattle Review of Books), a YA novel about first love, which centers the thoughts, desires, and concerns of gay, trans, and gender-fluid teens:

He closes his eyes. He lies there, very still, and with his shaven head, he looks like a newborn baby who wakes up to greet the world, then returns back to sleep.

These are the protagonist’s observations about the boy he falls in love with. Linmark’s reference to a newborn gives the moment innocence and intimacy because we understand the purity of that moment when a baby wakes up and the tenderness of falling back into slumber. I have a grandson now to remind me of the hope we feel when we behold this innocence. I saw him in the first hours after his birth, sleeping in all his newness. I saw him open his eyes to a world still small to him. Now every time he opens his eyes, his world increases and his awareness of himself in it increases. As he grows, he will always have the support of those who love him to be whoever he wants and needs to be in this world that is big and often beautiful, but not always welcoming.

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Some Things I Read and Did in 2019 – A Mash-up This past year I read good books and experienced good things. Here are a few of each of them matched up in a semi-random, teeny bit calculated way, introduced by a few lines from the featured book.

#Alexander Chee #books #Caitlin Horrocks #Claire Jimenez #Erin Pringle #Grace Talusan #R. Zamora Linmark #Sigrid Nunez

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44 Writing Hacks From Some of the Greatest Writers Who Ever Lived

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44 Writing Hacks From Some of the Greatest Writers Who Ever Lived

Writing looks fun, but doing it professionally is hard. Like really hard. Why on earth am I doing this?-hard.

Which is probably why so many people want to write, yet so few actually do. But there are ways to make it easier, as many writers can tell you. Tricks that have been discovered over the centuries to help with this difficult craft.

In another industry, these tricks would be considered trade secrets. But writers are generous and they love to share (often in books about writing). They explain their own strategies for how to deal with writers block to how to make sure your computer never eats your manuscript. They give away this hard-won knowledge so that other aspiring writers wont have to struggle in the same way. Over my career, Ive tried to collect these little bits of wisdom in my commonplace book (also a writers trick which I picked up from Montaigne) and am grateful for the guidance theyve provided.

Below, Ive shared a collection of writing hacks from some amazing writers like Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, Stephen King, Elizabeth Gilbert, Anne Lamott, and Raymond Chandler. I hope its not too presumptuous but I snuck in a few of my own too (not that I think Im anywhere near as good as them).

Anyway, heres to making this tough job a tiny bit easier!

[*] When you have an idea for an article or a bookwrite it down. Dont let it float around in your head. Thats a recipe for losing it. As Beethoven is reported to have said, If I don’t write it down immediately I forget it right away. If I put it into a sketchbook I never forget it, and I never have to look it up again.

[*] The important thing is to start. At the end of John Fantes book Dreams from Bunker Hill, the character, a writer, reminds himself that if he can write one great line, he can write two and if he can write two he can write three, and if he can write three, he can write forever. He pauses. Even that seemed insurmountable. So he types out four lines from one of his favorite poems. What the hell, he says, a man has to start someplace.

[*] In fact, a lot of writers use that last technique. In Tobias Wolffs autobiographical novel Old School, the character types the passages from his favorite books just to know what it feels like to have those words flow through his fingertips. Hunter S. Thompson often did the same thing. This is another reason why technologies like ebooks and Evernote are inferior to physical interaction. Just highlighting something and saving it to a computer? Theres no tactile memory there.

[*] The greatest part of a writers time is spent in reading; a man will turn over half a library to make one book. Samuel Johnson

[*] Tim Ferriss has said that the goal for a productive writing life is two crappy pages a day. Just enough to make progress, not too ambitious to be intimidating.

[*] They say breakfast (protein) in the morning helps brain function. But in my experience, thats a trade-off with waking up and getting started right away. Apparently Kurt Vonnegut only ate after he worked for 2 hours. Maybe he felt like after that hed earned food.

[*] Michael Malice has advised dont edit while you write. I think this is good advice.

[*] In addition to making a distinction between editing and writing, Robert Greene advises to make an equally important distinction between research and writing. Trying to find where youre going while youre doing it is begging to get horribly lost. Writing is easier when the research is done and the framework has been laid out.

[*] Nassim Taleb wrote in Antifragile that every sentence in the book was a derivation, an application or an interpretation of the short maxim he opened with. THAT is why you want to get your thesis down and perfect. It makes the whole book/essay easier.

[*] Break big projects down into small, discrete chunks. As I am writing a book, I create a separate document for each chapter, as I am writing them. Its only later when I have gotten to the end that these chapters are combined into a single file. Why? The same reason it feels easier to swim seven sets of ten laps, than to swim a mile. Breaking it up into pieces makes it seem more achievable. The other benefit in writing? It creates a sense that each piece must stand on its own.

[*] Embrace what the strategist and theorist John Boyd called the draw-down period. Take a break right before you start. To think, to reflect, to doubt.

[*] On being a writer: All the days of his life he should be reading as faithfully as his partaking of food; reading, watching, listening. John Fante

[*] Dont get caught up with pesky details. When I am writing a draft, I try not to be concerned with exact dates, facts or figures. If I remember that a study conducted by INSERT UNIVERSITY found that XX% of businesses fail in the first FIVE/SIX? months, thats what I write (exactly like that). If I am writing that on June XX, 19XX Ronald Reagan gave his famous Tear Down This Wall speech in Berlin in front of XX,XXX people, thats how its going to look. Momentum is the most important thing in writing, so Ill fill the details in later. I just need to get the sentences down first. “Get through a draft as quickly as possible.” is how Joshua Wolf Shenk put it.

[*] Raymond Chandler had a trick of using small pieces of paper so he would never be afraid to start over. Also with only 12-15 lines per page, it forced economy of thought and actionwhich is why his stuff is so readable.

[*] In The Artists Way, Julia Cameron reminds us that our morning pages and our journaling dont count as writing. Just as walking doesnt count as exercise, this is just priming the pumpits a meditative experience. Make sure you treat it as such.

[*] Steven Pressfield said that he used to save each one of his manuscripts on a disk that hed keep in the glovebox of his car. Robert Greene told me he sometimes puts a copy of his manuscript in the trunk of his car just in case. I bought a fireproof gun safe and keep my stuff in therejust in case.

[*] My editor Niki Papadopoulos at Penguin: Its not what a book is. Its what a book does.

[*] While you are writing, read things totally unrelated to what youre writing. Youll be amazed at the totally unexpected connections youll make or strange things youll discover. As Shelby Foote put it in an interview with The Paris Review: I cant begin to tell you the things I discovered while I was looking for something else.

[*] Writing requires what Cal Newport calls deep workperiods of long, uninterrupted focus and creativity. If you dont give yourself enough of this time, your work suffers. He recommends recording your deep work time each dayso you actually know if youre budgeting properly.

[*] Software does not make you a better writer. Fuck Evernote. Fuck Scrivner. You dont need to get fancy. If classics were created with quill and ink, youll probably be fine with a Word Document. Or a blank piece of paper. Dont let technology distract you. As Joyce Carol Oates put it in an interview, Every writer has written by hand until relatively recent times. Writing is a consequence of thinking, planning, dreaming this is the process that results in writing, rather than the way in which the writing is recorded.

[*] Talk about the ideas in the work everywhere. Talk about the work itself nowhere. Dont be the person who tweets Im working on my novel. Be too busy writing for that. Helen Simpson has Faire et se taire from Flaubert on a Post-it near her desk, which she translates as Shut up and get on with it.

[*] Why cant you talk about the work? Its not because someone might steal it. Its because the validation you get on social media has a perverse effect. Youll less likely to put in the hard work to complete something that youve already been patted (or patted yourself) on the back for.

[*] When you find yourself stuck with writers block, pick up the phone and call someone smart and talk to them about whatever the specific area youre stuck with is. Not that youre stuck, but about the topic. By the time you put your phone down, youll have plenty to write. (As Seth Godin put it, nobody gets talkers block.)

[*] Keep a commonplace book with anecdotes, stories and quotes you can always usefrom inspiration to directly using in your writing. And these can be anything. H.L. Mencken for example, would methodically fill a notebook with incidents, recording scraps of dialogue and slang, columns from the New York Sun.

[*] As you write down quotes and observations in your commonplace book, make sure to do it by hand. As Raymond Chandler wrote, when you have to use your energy to put words down, you are more apt to make them count.

[*] Elizabeth Gilbert has a good trick for cutting: As you go along, Ask yourself if this sentence, paragraph, or chapter truly furthers the narrative. If not, chuck it. And as Stephen King famously put it, kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribblers heart, kill your darlings.

[*] Strenuous exercise everyday. For me, and for a lot of other writers, its running. Novelist Don DeLillo told The Paris Review how after writing for four hours, he goes running to shake off one world and enter another. Joyce Carol Oates, in her ode to running, said that the twin activities of running and writing keep the writer reasonably sane and with the hope, however illusory and temporary, of control.

[*] Ask yourself these four questions from George Orwell: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? Then finish with these final two questions: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

[*] As a writer you need to make use of everything that happens around you and use it as material. Make use of Seinfelds question: Im never not working on material. Every second of my existence, I am thinking, Can I do something with that?

[*] Airplanes with no wifi are a great place to write and even better for editing. Because there is nowhere to go and nothing else to do.

[*] Print and put a couple of important quotes up on the wall to help guide you (either generally, or for a specific project). Heres a quote from a scholar describing why Ciceros speeches were so effective which I put on my wall while I was writing my first book. At his best [Cicero] offered a sustained interest, a constant variety, a consummate blend of humour and pathos, of narrative and argument, of description and declamation; while every part is subordinated to the purpose of the whole, and combines, despite its intricacy of detail, to form a dramatic and coherent unit. (emphasis mine)

[*] Focus on what youre saying, worry less about how. As William March wrote in The Bad Seed, A great novelist with something to say has no concern with style or oddity of presentation.

[*] A little trick I came up with. After every day of work, I save my manuscript as a new file (for example: EgoIsTheEnemy2-26.docx) which is saved on my computer and in Dropbox (before Dropbox, I just emailed it to myself). This way I keep a running record of the evolution of book. It comforts me that I can always go back if I mess something up or if I have to turn back around.

[*] Famous ad-man David Ogilvy put it bluntly: Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

[*] Envision who you are writing this for. Like really picture them. Dont go off in a cave and do this solely for yourself. As Kurt Vonnegut put it in his interview with The Paris Review: …every successful creative person creates with an audience of one in mind. Thats the secret of artistic unity. Anybody can achieve it, if he or she will make something with only one person in mind.

[*] Do not chase exotic locations to do some writing. Budd Schulbergs novel The Disenchanted about his time with F. Scott Fitzgerald expresses the dangers well: It was a time everyone was pressing wonderful houses on us. I have a perfectly marvelous house for you to write in, theyd say. Of course no one needs marvelous houses to write in. I still knew that much. All you needed was one room. But somehow the next house always beckoned.”

[*] True enough, though John Fante said that when you get stuck writing, hit the road.

[*] Commitments (at the micro-level) are important too. An article a week? An article a month? A book a year? A script every six weeks? Pick something, but commit to itpublicly or contractually. Quantity produces quality, as Ray Bradbury put it.

[*] Dont ever write anything you dont like yourself and if you do like it, dont take anyones advice about changing it. They just dont know. Raymond Chandler

[*] Neil Strauss and Tucker Max gave me another helpful iteration of that idea (which I later learned is from Neil Gaiman): When someone tells you something is wrong with your writing, theyre usually right. When they tell you how to fix it, theyre almost always wrong.

[*] Ogilvy had another good rule: Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

[*] Print out the work and edit it by hand as often as possible. It gives you the readers point of view.

[*] Hemingway advised fellow writer Thomas Wolfe to break off work when you ‘are going good.’Then you can rest easily and on the next day easily resume. Brian Koppelman (Rounders, Billions) has referred to this as stopping on wet edge. It staves off the despair the next day.

[*] Keep the momentum: Never stop when you are stuck. You may not be able to solve the problem, but turn aside and write something else. Do not stop altogether. Jeanette Winterson

That taps me out for now. But every time I read I compile a few more notecards. Ill update you when Ive got another round to share.

In the meantime, stop reading stuff on the internet and get back to writing!

But if you have a second…share your own tips below.