tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389413092518430382024-03-13T08:47:26.054-05:00Quote Momentour own personal happiness projectUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger598125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-52405917567892114072024-03-03T11:14:00.001-06:002024-03-03T11:14:58.124-06:00Olivia Waite<div dir="auto"><span style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'-apple-system','helveticaneue';float:none;display:inline!important">Excerpts from "Love Notes," </span><i style="font-size:16px;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'-apple-system','helveticaneue'">New York Times</i><span style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'-apple-system','helveticaneue';float:none;display:inline!important"> romance book review column (3/3/24).</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'-apple-system','helveticaneue';float:none;display:inline!important"><br></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-apple-system,helveticaneue;float:none;display:inline!important"><div dir="auto"><b><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-apple-system,helveticaneue;font-size:16px;font-style:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline!important">Review of </span><i style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-apple-system,helveticaneue;font-size:16px;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none">Second Chances in New Port Stephen</i><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-apple-system,helveticaneue;font-size:16px;font-style:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;float:none;display:inline!important"> by TJ Alexander. </span></b></div></span></div>"This is as low-concept a book as you can get, but it works for the same reason books by Cat Sebastian, Rebekah Weatherspoon and Jackie Lau work: you enjoy spending time with these people and you want them to reach for joy when they can. We all should.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">It's the difference between saving the world and saving one another. The former can feel impossible; the second we can do every day."<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div dir="auto"><b><span style="font-size:16px;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-apple-system,helveticaneue;float:none;display:inline!important">Review of <i>When Grumpy Met Sunshine</i></span><span style="font-size:16px;font-style:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-apple-system,helveticaneue;float:none;display:inline!important"> by Charlotte Stein</span></b></div></div><div dir="auto">"Alfie's Roy Kent-inspired voice is a triumph—and very, very funny—but sex is where Stein really shines. This, children, is how the professionals do it. Not a rote list of parts and positions, but a physical flow between two people. It's the difference between seeing choreography laid out and footprints on the floor, and being swept away by the dance."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div></div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-61626900788483138392023-11-13T08:46:00.001-06:002023-11-13T08:46:45.614-06:00Sue Poole<div dir="ltr"><div>As I've gotten older, my style has grown bolder. I'm always telling my kids, 'You don't have to conform to trends,' because it's really just a marketer's tool, isn't it, the trend? I wish I had known earlier to follow the beat of my own drum.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://cupofjo.com/2023/05/04/sue-poole-style/">https://cupofjo.com/2023/05/04/sue-poole-style/</a></div></div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-58930156576199626552023-10-25T11:47:00.007-05:002023-10-25T11:48:24.490-05:00Calvin (a.k.a. Bill Watterson)<p> Nothing is permanent. Everything changes. That's the one thing we know for sure in this world. </p><p>But I'm still going to gripe about it. </p><p><i>Calvin and Hobbes</i>, Monday, July 17, 1995. <br /></p>Darciehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01001498629568292774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-14120032086628099602023-10-19T08:45:00.001-05:002023-10-19T08:45:22.087-05:00Ligaya Mishan<p>In a profile about Annette Bening:</p><p>While in high school, Bening did some secretarial work for her father,
who was teaching classes on Dale Carnegie’s principles of salesmanship.
Foremost among them: being interested in other people. The key is not
faking it. You have to genuinely care.</p><p>https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/19/t-magazine/annette-bening-nyad-netflix.html <br /></p>Darciehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01001498629568292774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-51469362914213882312023-09-23T12:55:00.001-05:002023-09-23T12:55:45.686-05:00Kim France<div dir="ltr"><div>Ms. France distilled the key to their quick-to-ignite but enduring love this way: "The reason it works is we both think we're the one who got lucky."</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/style/kim-france-paul-green-wedding.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/style/kim-france-paul-green-wedding.html</a></div></div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-43844730827809207282023-08-24T09:37:00.001-05:002023-08-24T09:37:14.515-05:00Mary OliverWild Geese<div dir="auto"><br><div dir="auto"></div><div dir="auto"><div><table style="font-family:-webkit-standard;letter-spacing:normal;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none"><tbody><tr><td><table width="450"><tbody><tr><td>You do not have to be good.</td></tr><tr><td>You do not have to walk on your knees</td></tr><tr><td>for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.</td></tr><tr><td>You only have to let the soft animal of your body</td></tr><tr><td>love what it loves.</td></tr><tr><td>Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.</td></tr><tr><td>Meanwhile the world goes on.</td></tr><tr><td>Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain</td></tr><tr><td>are moving across the landscapes,</td></tr><tr><td>over the prairies and the deep trees,</td></tr><tr><td>the mountains and the rivers.</td></tr><tr><td>Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,</td></tr><tr><td>are heading home again.</td></tr><tr><td>Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,</td></tr><tr><td>the world offers itself to your imagination,</td></tr><tr><td>calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -</td></tr><tr><td>over and over announcing your place</td></tr><tr><td>in the family of things.</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-52786241014644431052023-08-11T08:09:00.001-05:002023-08-11T08:09:20.602-05:00Viet Thanh Nguyen<div dir="ltr"><b>Q [Library Journal]: </b>Compared to your process for writing fiction and nonfiction, what was different writing the memoir?<br><b>A [Viet Thanh Nguyen]: </b>My nonfiction has been scholarly, and there is little benefit to being vulnerable, emotional, or subjective in scholarship. To survive in the academy, I had to tamp down any signs of vulnerability or emotion and to present myself purely as a rational, objective, theoretical intellect. No body, no feeling, only highly controlled thought. For a woman, or a person of color, to do any less is to open oneself to the colonizing, racist, sexist assumption that feeling is less than thought, body is less than mind, spirit is less than intellect. So I had to undo a lifetime of Westernized education to allow myself to write a memoir. <br><div><br></div><div>--In an interview about the author's forthcoming book <i>A Man of Two Faces</i>, due for publication in October 2023.<br></div></div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-39903325522393164272023-08-01T15:05:00.000-05:002023-08-01T15:06:04.728-05:00Dr. Janina Fisher<div dir="ltr">If it's not happening now, it's not happening. <br></div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-75840092681940938332023-07-30T12:33:00.000-05:002023-08-08T08:57:46.889-05:00Tara Westover<p><b>Q (NYT By the Book)</b>: How do you organize your books? <br /></p><div dir="auto"><b>A (Tara Westover)</b>: By genre! I want so badly to be one of these people whose books are arranged by color. They photograph so well! And I have this notion that it would be very pleasant to sit in a room of books ordered by shade and hue, like a wall of paint samples. </div><div dir="auto"> </div><div dir="auto">But it could never work. It would go against how I actually use my library. Every few days I wander up to my shelves with a hankering of one sort or another, thinking some thing like, "Today I would like to read an essay," or "Today perhaps a short story." But I have never once approached my shelves with the thought, "Today I would like to read a book that is yellow."</div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-63585221602206904162023-06-13T09:45:00.000-05:002023-06-13T09:46:04.496-05:00Eleanor Hamby and Dr. Sandra Hazelip<div dir="ltr"><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><span class="gmail-css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10">Hamby (81 years old) and Hazelip (82 years old) travel the world together, most recently on a Jules Verne-inspired 80-day around-the-world trip. </span><strong class="gmail-css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10"><br></strong></p><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><strong class="gmail-css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10">NYT: What advice would you give to people who have been dreaming of an adventure like yours?</strong></p><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><strong class="gmail-css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10">HAZELIP:</strong> Get up out of your easy chair. Step out of your comfort zone. Make some plans and live.</p><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><strong class="gmail-css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10">HAMBY:</strong> Age is only a number. If you think you want to try something, don't be afraid to step out. Do it. Because you're going to regret if you don't, and you will never regret if you do.</p><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/travel/travel-the-world.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/travel/travel-the-world.html</a></p><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><br></p><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><br></p></div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-45068385914896625102023-04-20T08:17:00.001-05:002023-08-08T08:57:02.493-05:00Thomas JeffersonThe object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk; but divert yourself by the objects surrounding you. Walking is the best possible exercise. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-81567256138284608102023-04-19T20:10:00.001-05:002023-04-19T20:10:46.604-05:00UnattributedIn antiquity, modest utilitarian objects, whether household or personal, were often treated by craftsman with the same creative attention and skill as monumental art.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">--Description of a hand mirror, Greek, 500 to 480 BC, bronze. <i>The J Paul Getty Museum: Handbook of the Antiquities Collection</i><span> (2002)</span><i>, </i>page 109.</div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-87174065356148601132023-04-13T08:16:00.001-05:002023-04-13T08:16:38.073-05:00Anna QuindlenA finished person is a boring person. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-14304987113769000722023-03-17T20:47:00.000-05:002023-03-17T20:48:01.175-05:00Thomas MooreThe ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-89580327042054736882022-12-11T07:28:00.000-06:002022-12-11T07:29:07.203-06:00Sherelyn SiyAn 80-year old friend of mine from Cleveland told me that whenever anyone described her marriage to a Japanese man as being a mixed marriage, she would say: "My husband does the same things that drive me crazy that my father did that drove my mother crazy. As far as I'm concerned, when a woman marries a man, it's a mixed marriage." Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-17861798610909608582022-12-02T09:37:00.000-06:002022-12-02T09:37:11.730-06:00Marie Benedict<p>"Whether Hedy Lamarr's work in spread-spectrum technology was purposefully disregarded or unconsciously forgotten, it appears that embedded in that oversight were misconceptions about her abilities -- about all women, really. Faulty assumptions about women's capabilities, stemming in part from the conscripted roles into which they'd been slotted, has caused many to think more narrowly about the manner in which the past has been shaped. But unless we begin to view historical women through a broader, more inclusive lens -- and rewrite them back into the narrative-- we will continue to view the past more restrictively than it likely was, and we risk carrying those perspectives over into the present."</p><p>-from Author's Note, "The Only Woman in the Room" <br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-40728423000667018352022-12-02T09:17:00.004-06:002022-12-02T09:17:28.689-06:00Alix Strauss / Mark Braly<p>At 86, Mark Braly may be the world’s oldest water polo player. And
according to Mr. Braly, a Texas native who now lives in Davis, Calif.,
he’s “certainly the worst.” </p><p>“I sometimes make goals, but there is always the suspicion they were the
gift of a kind goalie,” Mr. Braly said. “Every player in the region
knows my name because they have to shout constant directions.” <br /></p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"><strong class="css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10">What have you learned about yourself through the sport</strong>? That
I can accept praise and support and not feel diminished by it. That I
can do almost anything if I don’t mind not being good at it. Being
forced to be good at something has excluded me from doing things all my
life. I learned I’m more capable and have a greater stamina than I
thought.</p><br />"It's Never Too Late to Take Up Water Polo" August 2022 <br />https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/style/water-polo-aging-elderly.html Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-10195390238278414672022-11-22T09:27:00.003-06:002022-11-22T09:27:13.469-06:00Elle Steitzer<p class="gnt_ar_b_p">When paramedic and firefighter for Lake Country
Fire and Rescue Amber Christian got the call that she'd be rescuing over
50 puppies from a plane crash, the dog-lover knew it had the potential
to be one of the worst calls of her career.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">On Nov. 15, a plane carrying dozens of shelter dogs from Louisiana to the Humane Animal Welfare Society of Waukesha crashed on to the Western Lakes Golf Club course
in the town of Delafield. At the scene, Christian took a deep breath
and fell back on her training, she said, and the potentially worst call
ended up leading her to meet her newly adopted puppy, Artemis.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">The
three people on board, and all 53 dogs, survived with minor injuries.
Christian wasn't the only one to adopt a puppy ― over the following
days, several first responders adopted one of the dogs they rescued.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">The second that Lake Country EMT and firefighter
Elle Steitzer got to the scene, she knew she wanted to adopt one of the
puppies.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">"I couldn't have not adopted him,"
Steitzer said of her puppy, Lucky. "I'm going to be thinking about these
little guys for the rest of my life."</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">While Steitzer is an animal-lover, she said, Lucky is the first dog she's ever owned.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p"><b>"I didn't know if I was a dog person or a cat person, but now I know I'm a lucky person," she said.</b></p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p"><a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/lake-country/news/2022/11/21/lake-country-first-responders-adopt-puppies-saved-from-plane-crash/69666945007/">https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/lake-country/news/2022/11/21/lake-country-first-responders-adopt-puppies-saved-from-plane-crash/69666945007/</a></p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p"> <br /></p>Darciehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01001498629568292774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-85293018778973587662022-11-22T07:57:00.003-06:002023-08-08T08:59:54.720-05:00Richard M. Fierro<p> “My little girl, she screamed and I was crying with her,” he said.
“Driving home from the hospital I told them, ‘Look, I’ve gone through
this before, and down range, when this happens, you just get out on the
next patrol. You need to get it out of your mind.’ That is how you cured
it. You cured it by doing more. Eventually you get home safe. But here I
worry there is no next patrol. It is harder to cure. You are already
home.”</p><p>Ed. note: Fierro is the veteran who stopped the Club Q gunman in Colorado Springs on November 19, 2022. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/us/colorado-springs-shooting-club-q-hero.html?smid=url-share">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/us/colorado-springs-shooting-club-q-hero.html?smid=url-share</a> <br /></p>Darciehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01001498629568292774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-54294327546351202092022-11-14T10:30:00.001-06:002022-11-14T10:30:13.892-06:00Marlowe Granados<p>To start fretting endlessly over your reputation can restrict your world
in a way that is counterproductive. Every one of these people you’re
worried about will have done something worse than you by the end of the
semester—I guarantee it. Any finger-wagging about harmless behavior is
for those who lack imagination, and this also goes for how you regard
yourself. In my experience, the only time I can get a little ashamed
about my behavior is if I was mean in any unwarranted way. Anything
else, well, that’s just me letting my hair down. As Marlene Dietrich
says in <em>Shanghai Express</em>, “Don’t you find respectable people terribly . . . dull?”</p><p>--https://thebaffler.com/designs-for-living/everybody-says-dont-granados <br /></p>Darciehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01001498629568292774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-78900747708653168482022-11-14T08:12:00.003-06:002022-11-14T10:24:51.168-06:00Sarah Ruhl and Alexis Soloski<p>Alexis Soloski: The majority of the accused and executed in Salem [for witchcraft in the 17th century] were women. It seems like the most Arthur Miller choice to center one middle-aged white dude instead. </p><p>Sarah Ruhl: It's incredible. And it's not just Arthur Miller. In Salem, the place where all the executions took place is called Proctor's Ledge. But I thought about Rebecca Nurse. Why is no one writing about the oldest woman? Why is she not the center?</p><p>AS: When did you begin to write this play?</p><p>SR: I started after tRump was elected and people were still chanting, "Lock her up," which really upset me. I felt their hatred for this woman. It felt very personal, very visceral. It felt like Salem to me. </p><p>--Sarah Ruhl is a playwright and the author of the new play <i>Becky Nurse of Salem</i>. Rebecca Nurse was hanged for witchcraft in 1692 at the age of 71. Interview by Alexis Soloski in "Of Course They Believe in Magic," <i>New York Times</i>, November 13, 2022. <br /></p>Darciehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01001498629568292774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-54797992273656359792022-11-08T11:51:00.000-06:002022-11-08T11:52:09.815-06:00Nathaniel Hawthorne<div dir="ltr"><font size="2"><span style="color:rgb(49,49,49);font-family:Georgia,serif;word-spacing:1.03px">I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air.</span><br style="color:rgb(49,49,49);font-family:Georgia,serif;text-align:-webkit-center;word-spacing:1.0299999713897705px"><span style="color:rgb(49,49,49);font-family:Georgia,serif;word-spacing:1.03px">–from his 1842 notebook</span></font> </div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-63972007677071580112022-10-21T17:03:00.001-05:002022-10-21T17:03:30.171-05:00Marlowe Granados<div dir="ltr"><div>Some people need small reminders that what they're doing is not only annoying but bad etiquette. For some reason, if you say someone lacks decorum it makes them straighten up their back more than if you accuse them of any kind of systemic impropriety. I guess people don't want to seem <em>undignified</em>. If he asks you a math question, just say, "I'm not in the mood to entertain today" and go off to do a task. There is a certain skill that forms after a number of these inconveniences that I will call "withering unaccountability." There is nothing more terrifying than a woman who can go from sunny to cutting at the drop of a hat—and with nothing to pin on her! Get to know your anger from all angles. A little rage can be enlivening.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://thebaffler.com/designs-for-living/the-involuntary-misandrist-granados">https://thebaffler.com/designs-for-living/the-involuntary-misandrist-granados</a></div></div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-52071236799819308522022-10-17T09:57:00.001-05:002022-10-17T09:57:25.666-05:00Eileene Harrison Beer<div dir="ltr"><div>The Scandinavian sees no valid reason for mediocrity in design or workmanship, regardless of whether an object is costly or inexpensive. He believes that food for his body should be served on tableware handsome enough to be food for his soul. <br></div><div><br></div><i>Scandinavian Design: Objects of a Life Style</i> (1975)<br> </div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-538941309251843038.post-85052864127623496742022-08-19T14:29:00.005-05:002022-08-19T14:29:47.268-05:00Michael Kimmelman / Bill Harmon<p>Years
ago I met Bill Harmon, who traveled over 400 miles a week to pour
concrete for some of the scupture's curbs. Harmon told me how Heizer
would angrily rip up a 78-by-240-foot slab because it was off by a
sixteenth of an inch. </p><div class="slide split svelte-1mxu1bb"><div class="copy-wrapper svelte-1mxu1bb"><p class="svelte-1mxu1bb">I asked Harmon why he put up with it. His answer seemed like a definition of art.</p><p class="svelte-1mxu1bb">“Mike
is demanding,” he told me, “but I’ve worked in concrete all my life,
and I’ve never had the time or money to do something to the best of my
ability. Everything is hurry up. It’s about making money. That’s the
American way.” On the other hand, Harmon said, Heizer asked him “to
produce something that has more to do with accuracy than I’ve ever been
allowed even to imagine. This here is my chance to do the best I can.”</p><p class="svelte-1mxu1bb">- Michael Kimmelman, NYT "It Was a Mystery In The Desert For 50 Years" about Michael Heizer's 'City'<br /></p><p class="svelte-1mxu1bb">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/19/arts/design/michael-heizer-city.html <br /></p></div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com