10 posts tagged “books”

I walked into a Borders looking for something to read, listen to, or watch this weekend... and felt a wave of dizziness take over.

Seriously. Did Stephanie Meyer and John Lennon just vomit all over the shop?

EVERYWHERE it is Twilight and The Beatles... but not in a good way (which is something I never thought I would say about Da Boyz from Liverpool. Golly goodness gosh. Merchandising GALORE of books, CDs, DVDs, calendars, journals, pencils, pens, stationery, posters, notebooks, and all kinds of non-book items and my personal favorites, TIE-IN Books, which aren't really books but Sales Opportunities.

I worked in publishing for nearly a decade, long ago in another life, and I KNOW this stuff. It was my job, ugh.

Beatles-rock-band-xbox-sm

Inside Borders, the air is filled with the voices of the Beatles, while all around me record covers, famous photos, and "merchandise" explode, given the massive campaign around remastering all the albums AND the release of the XBox/Wii/Playstation games allowing us to insert ourselves into the Beatles' reality.

Fighting for space is the Twilight phenom, again an explosion of pre-teen soft-porn love based on the book and film, but now extending itself beyond the four novels into the tie-ins (again) with the faces of Robert Patterson and Kristin Stewart, key rings and bracelets and throw pillows and messenger bags and jewelry boxes and, oh yeah, the books -- although these include the Director's Script and the Movie Companion and the DVdDs that signal the Burning Saga of their Romeo-and-Juliet/Human-and-Vampire "can't be together" love... AND SHE'S IN HIGH SCHOOL.

Twilight-movie-poster

Creeps me out. Is this really the way we want our daughters/nieces/sisters/friends to think about love when they are 15 or 16? Blood-lust and denial and pain and unhappiness feel GOOOOOOOOOD?

How come no one ever got this excited about a Burning Saga of love between Caucasian Girl and African-American Boy? Or Caucasian Boy and Asian-American Girl? Or Asian-American Boy and Hispanic Boy? Or African-American Girl and Hispanic Girl? Because in those sagas nobody glows?

In True Blood, I can read the fear and hatred of non-vampires for vampires (and vice-versa) as a metaphor for race or sexuality. In Twilight, not so: there seems to be so little diversity of the complex kind or metaphors of the complex kind, and so much "upper-class whiteness." 

As grown women, we can read whatever we want: we're older and in charge of ourselves. we've been around the block and have some experience of our desires and denials. Are we really so cool with letting teen girls (or younger) think it is okay to date the vampire, just because he has good hair and gorgeous skin? And I mean "vampire" in the bloodsucking, might kill you, drain you dry way... the metaphorical vampire who doesn't respect you but uses you to live. Not romantic. Are we cool with encouraging girls to think that love has to involve heartbreaking emotional pain or it is not true love--or even physical pain, sacrifice for their soulmate? That a cycle of depression, euphoria, denied sexuality, and terror is a good thing? The whole pandemonium is ooky to me, and not in a funny Addams Family way. 

Are Edward and Bella equal partners who sometimes have fun, hold meaningful conversations, share a Coke, and care for each other? (Not in a "patch up your wounds" kind of way.) Didn't think so.

And I never did buy anything at Borders: I felt Henry James would be embarrassed by his competition. If I could even find his fiction... they do sell fiction, at Borders, right?

Pearl

Ok, I give up. You asked for it.

1. I am an Aquarius, born in February (the birthday's come and gone, people).

2. When I was younger ('way younger) I had crushes on Keith Partridge, Speed Racer, Ilya Kuryakin (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'s sidekick), and, according to my mother, Lloyd Bridges.

3. My love of theatre may have been born when I was seven. My dad took my brother and me to the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven for a Saturday matinee of Sleeping Beauty, and when Prince Charming entered through the audience he sat down next to me and sang his charming love song to me.

4. I used to check out stacks of adult fiction from the public library when I was seven, and my mother would have to argue with the librarians every week about her liberal child-rearing policies.

5. My first real job was as a grocery check-out chick. It is the only job I was ever fired from.

6. My favorite childhood book was The Secret Garden.

7. My favorite adult book is either The Great Gatsby or Lord Jim.

8. The books that always make me cry are The Velveteen Rabbit, Of Mice and Men, and Flowers for Algernon. I'm already crying, and I haven't even read them... that's how powerful they are.

9. I never read Dr. Seuss, and I don't get The Cat in the Hat. I find The Cat annoying.

10. I love throwing clay pots.

11. I love the batting cages.

12. I love waking up in the morning when it is still dark outside: cozy.

13. I decided my sister's name should be Sally. It wasn't and isn't--not even close--but I called her Sally for a long time.

14. I learned poker from the encyclopedia when I was 12. Then taught the neighborhood kids.

15. When I was a book publicist in NYC I booked Clive Barker's first New York City/USA tour, and escorted him to all the interviews. It is one of my favorite memories of those nasty years.

16. I was also book publicist--briefly--for Hamilton Jordan, who was much like the Prince Charming of my Long Wharf days. He didn't sing, but he was incredibly delightful (Southern!) and incredibly intelligent. Listening to him chat with the editorial staff of Newsweek was like watching Fred Astaire dance. And he sat next to me while he did it.

17. I had tea with Margaret Truman.

18. I met my favorite New York boyfriend at the Peppermint Lounge. He made a path to the front of the audience for my friend and me--we're both about 5' tall, he's 6'2" or so--so we could see the band. It turned out that we went to the same college, although he was two years ahead of me and we never met. Our first date was brunch at Tavern on the Green, where we sat next to Marvin Hamlisch and his date. It was very Sex and The City.

19. I moved from NYC to Carbondale, IL, to go to grad school.

20. I like bananas but hate banana-flavored things of all kinds.

21. I wrote my first play in 4th grade and my first novel in 6th grade.

22. My favorite place in the world is Florence, but I would rather live in Paris, my close-second favorite place.

23. I hate chick lit and I hate the term "chick lit": although I like books that others describe as chick lit.

24. I might be agoraphobic.

25. According to a man I met at a psychic fair, in a previous life I was a musician, an excellent and gifted professional musician. Which explains why in this life I greatly enjoy music, but don't perform or even play too well. I bet my mother wishes she had known that before the piano, clarinet, and violin lessons...

Pearl  

Found this at The Sheila Variations, and couldn't resist. (You have figured out I am a book and reading addict, right? Like I am a coffee addict, a postcard addict, and a paper-organizer-by-colors addict. Just lettin' ya know.) Notice none of my answers name only one book.

Sigh.

What was the last book you bought? The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald and Can-Cans, Cats & Cities of Ash by Mark Twain

Name a book you have read more than once. Oh, lord. Short list: To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, The House of Mirth, The Secret Garden, Jane Eyre, J.D. Robb's mysteries, Raymond Chandler's mysteries, anything by Natalie Goldberg--and don't get me started on plays.

Has a book ever fundamentally changed the way you see life? If so, what was it? Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. Changed the way I viewed literature, writing, modernity, everything.

How do you choose a book? by cover design, recommendations, or reviews? Anything but reviews. Usually cover blurb and recommendations. And knowing the author--I like to work through an entire author, once I find someone I like.

Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction? Fiction.

Most loved/memorable character (character/book). Most difficult question. Huckleberry Finn? Scout Finch? Jane Eyre?

Which book or books can be found on your nightstand at this moment? I Was Told There'd be Cake by Sloane Crosley, Disruptive Acts by Mary Louise Roberts, The Patience of the Spider by Andrea Camilleri, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

What was the last book you read, and when was it? Dress Your Family in Cordoroy and Denim by David Sedaris, reading now.

Have you ever given up on a book halfway in? Yes. Once I got into my 30s, I realized I didn't have time for bad writing and so cut out a lot quicker now.

Questions? Comments?

Pearl

What with the world falling down around us (and by "us," I mean the global economy, military conflicts around the world, etc., not just America), it is definitely time for laughter. Comedy. Something funny.

A few recommendations from me. Feel free to let me know your favorite laughter remedies to global depression.

Here's a funny guy: get ahold of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," and laugh yourself silly. 

Twain with cat.jpeg

Books (including Plays) and Authors: Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, David Sedaris, Sloane Crosley, Jane Austen, Molly Ivins.

• Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (Please--I am begging you!--do not rent the Colin Firth/Reese Witherspoon/Rupert Everett version. It is NOT funny. How did they do that with the funniest play in the world? the POWER of live theatre, man!).
• Michael Frayn, Noises Off (second funniest play and same begging and pleading: do not rent the Carol Burnett version... horrifyingly NOT funny).
• Comics, like Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbs, and The Far Side.
• Janet Evanovich.
• Jane Trahey.
• Oh, and Mark Twain and Joanthan Swift, again--especially if you are looking for funny, biting satire. And given the election's trajectory, why not?

Da Boyz

Movies: Any Marx Brothers movie (ok, maybe not The Big Store), any Woody Allen comedy between Take the Money and Run (1969) and Bullets Over Broadway (Dianne Wiest's most hilarious performance!), and pretty much everything done by Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Mae West. All hilarious without sentimentality and funny with intelligence... sometimes a luxury.

• The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming: classic 1960s cold war movie about a Russian submarine stuck on a sandbar outside a Cape Cod village. With Alan Arkin, Carl Reiner, Eva-Marie Saint, and a whole host of character actors like Jonathan Winters.
• The Palm Beach Story: Claudette Colbert runs away from husband Joel McCrea to save his dream of an airborne airport. With Rudy Vallee and Mary Astor in hilarious supporting roles. Funniest film ever.
• You Can't Take it With You: an actually funny film version of the play by Moss Hart and George Kaufman starring Jimmy Stewart and a host of other great comic actors.
• Arsenic and Old Lace: Oh, momma. Hilarious Halloween film (yeah, we all forget it is a Halloween movie!) about two elderly ladies poisoning their boarders, a Boris-Karloff lookalike murderer (the results of bad plastic surgery, take note!), a crazy Teddy Roosevelt impersonator, and the "normal" relative caught in the middle of their secrets. Crazy funny with Cary Grant, Raymond Massey, and Peter Lorre.
• The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer: Cary Grant has never been so sexy and so funny, except in...
• The Philadelphia Story: ...this one.
• Coen Brothers' oeuvre: if you can take the violence and blood, go for Raising Arizona or Fargo.
• Bull Durham.
• Monty Python's Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• Alec Guinness' 1950-1960 work for Ealing Studios: Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers (original!) and Kind Hearts and Coronets.
• Peter Sellers in any Pink Panther film.
• Any Preston Sturges film: The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, Palm Beach Story, The Great McGinty, Hail the Conquering Hero and the brilliant Unfaithfully Yours wherein Rex Harrison showed his comic chops, again with Rudy Vallee, who is featured in three of the funniest movies ever.. in my list.
• The ridiculous and forgotten Murder, He Says, with Fred MacMurray and Marjorie Main...this, too, is small-town America, a little closeer to Deliverance than Mayberry. But Hi-larious.
• Anything starring Jean Arthur or Rosalind Russell, two smart, classic comediennes everyone has forgotten about.
• Oh, and just to make the circle complete, rent Sullivan's Travels (killer comedy with serious moments by the brilliant director Preston Sturges), where the hero, a film director doing research for a "realistic" Depression-era film titled "O Brother, Where Art Thou" watches a Pluto cartoon while on the chain gang (yes, this is a comedy!) and then rent Hannah and her Sisters, where Woody Allen does homage to both Sturges and the Marx Brothers by restaging this idea with Duck Soup, and then watch O Brother, Where Art Thou? where the Coen brothers again pay homage to Sturges by staging the scene again, this time with the three heroes in a movie theatre, only one of them on a chain gang. Whew!

I notice a lot of these are from or reference the Depression... not the funniest time in America, given foreclosures, racial, gender, and sexual prejudice, economic crashes, the rise of homeless and of crime... hey. Despite that, apparently Hollywood worked on laughter, giving them "Sullivan" moments of clarity and relief.

Addams Family

TV Shows: if you've seen every episode of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, it's time to move on to comedies about life "as it (never) was" and simply good writing.

• The Andy Griffith Show. Dang, this IS small-town America, and somehow I don't think Andy would have been won over by Palin's faux folksiness. Funny, charming, hilarious, and never patronizing.
• Friends: ok, it is not reality (believe me, I lived on no money in NYC for 6 years in my 20s) but the writing and acting hold up. Again, funny, charming, and surprisingly great physical comedy, once you pay attention. My favorite episode: the Jeopardy Game for the apartment... Ms. Chanandler Bong.
• Seinfeld, before they realized they were about nothing and got excited by it. NYC again, this time through the eyes of petty, selfish, wilful friends... maybe this is why middle-America worries about the coasts?
• Evening Shade: starring Burt Reynolds, Marilu Henner, Ossie Davis, Elizabeth Ashley, Charles Durning and the late, great Michael Jeter. Unfortunately, NOT available on iTunes (write and find out why: annoy them until it is!). A funny, charming, smart comedy about a small Southern town... hey! by the same production team as...
• Designing Women, the first few seasons before everyone got mad at Delta Burke and Julia got too predictable in her rants. In particular, Meshach Taylor as their beleagured "man in residence" was great.
• The Addams Family: the sweetest and most functional family on TV. Scary, huh? Always supportive, always present, involved in their kids' lives, building a multi-generational family experience, connected to their servants as family members, putting family before work (always!)... hmm. No belittlement, no sarcasm, no nastiness: just absolute comedy. As we feared, it was the "normal" people who were dysfunctional and prejudiced. Great writing here, too, and John Astin and Carolyn Jones as a loving and sexually connected couple.(And, okay, I find the movies funny, too.)
• Bewitched: ditto. "Normal" people are pretty screwed up, eh? Although Endorra was a little micro-managing... But good writing and Elizabeth Montgomery is a great physical and verbal comedienne, like...
• Lucy. In any incarnation. Physical, verbal, any kind of comedy. At home and in the workplace, Lucille Ball could find hilarity and mayhem. Combined with Ethel: get out of the way!
• Soap and Benson. Cutting edge stuff, in fact. Benson is finniest in the first few seasons, but Soap goes to places we couldn't expect in the 80s, although it might seem tame to us now. Still, fine writing and acting, even funnier if one watches soaps (like The O.C.) for real.
• The Simpsons. Duh. Doh.

There you go: a starter list for hilarity. get out and start laughing! Laughter is good for your heart, your vision, and your soul. What have I forgotten?

Is man the only animal that laughs--consciously?

Pearl

Les femmes

After writing Tuesday's post about French reading, I started to think further about the many, many books that have popped up in the last five years--almost exclusively for women-- about "being French." This isn't a new cultural phenomenon for American women, it is in fact a more than a century old, starting with the wealthy wives and daughters of American industrial millionaires who came to Paris for furniture and fashion in the second half of the 19th century. Even then, these women were looking for something elusive that they felt was here, in Paris, rather than back home in New York or Chicago or Richmond or Minneapolis.

And they aimed to buy it, transport it back the the US, and frame themselves with it to appear... better.

Even now, books like French Women Don't Get Fat, How to be Impossibly French, Entre Nous, and others suggest that there is a secret or series of secrets that American women can uncover and follow in order to become as sexy, chic, stylish, and attractive as French women. Because that is better: to be French.

I'm going to cut through everything and give you ten secrets to you. Here and now. Got a pencil?

One. French women are French and have been brought up in a French culture. Come to France, live here, and experience the entire culture over time.

Two. French women eat moderate (small) servings of deliciously cooked food. They do not eat fast food, they do not drink soda (pop, Coke, whatever you regionally call it): they drink water. They don't eat more more than 2-4 oz. of any single food at one sitting and certainly do not buy Big Gulps, Super-Sized Fries, king-sized packages of M&Ms (my favorite), foot-long hot dogs, or buckets of popcorn (even air-popped). They eat red meat, potatoes, cheese, bread, pastries (again, in moderate helpings and with salads, vegetables, and fruits bought in fresh markets) and drink wine (same deal)--and they have done this all their lives, so it is not a short-term diet. It is a lifestyle.

Three. French women don't wear sweats, workout clothes, or oversized tshirts to the grocery store, to work, to their kids' playground, or anywhere outside the gym. 

Four. French women care for their skin, and buy more skin care products than makeup. The philosophy is that skin care lasts a lifetime, while makeup lasts eight hours.

Five. French walk everywhere, often in high heels. Never in flip-flops or gym shoes.

Six. French women invest in style (which is a brain thing) more than fashion (which is an eye thing). Again, long-term vs. short-term. They have small closets and fewer dresser drawers: less space means every item has to earn its place. Clothing, dry-cleaning and tailoring are expensive: dressing well is an investment that takes time and thought.

Seven. French women take a mid-day break of 90 minutes to 2 hours to sit, relax, nap, read, and enjoy.

Eight. French women read. Newspapers, books, journals. All the time. Everywhere.

Nine. French women live in a culture where they bump up against art, architecture, theatre, music, film, and literature everywhere, simply by virtue of being in France. No one is embarrassed by it. They use it daily.

Ten. French women have opinions and express them. They think about politics, art, food and cooking, economics, movies, soccer and tennis, whatever and talk about it. The French love to discuss, and French women are not silent bystanders. They exercise their brains and mouths daily.

There. That's ten secrets about what makes French women so sexy. Now, these are general, of course, and focus specifically on Paris (women living in the coutnry, for example, cannot walk everywhere). But do not believe that ALL French women are thin (not so), or ALL French women wear red lipstick, or ALL French women smoke, or ALL French women do anything, or necessarily do anything better than American women. The books that tell you so are using a version of what I call Magazine Therapy to convince you that they can give you quick-fix-its for whatever is ailing you. 

The truth is, some French women are sexy and attractive, and some American women are, and some French or American women aren't (Duh!). You want to have the style of iconic (fantasy) French women? Learn to cook well, start to read difficult material, accept your body issues and dress for them, stop thinking of clothing as disposable and instead as investments, go experience some art, walk daily, and have a deep conversation with someone whose opinion you care about. Oh, and start smoking, drinking black coffee, and put down that copy of How French Women Do It. Do it yourself.

Pearl  

Windowbox

After last week's visit to Galignani and this weekend's visit to W.H. Smith, I am certain there are more books about "living French" than about any other culture in the modern world. This includes books by French authors about their own culture or how non-Frenchmen can become French (or at least pass), and books by the rest of us about French culture, style, history, and famous figures. And nearly all of it focuses on Paris.

Of course!

Writing about Paris and the French has become what we used to call in publishing (and what people in that profession probably still call) a "niche" market. Despite the bally-hoo about freedom fries a few years ago, everyone wants to "be" French.

And before coming to Paris everyone should read more than guidebooks.

I read a lot about France and Paris--that kind of cultural information is part of my research on the 19th century--and getting beyond French Women Don't Get Fat, How to be Impossibly French, and Fatale: How French Women Do It, one finds material that is both entertaining and actually helpful. Two examples: Seven Ages of Paris and French Ways and Their Meaning.

Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne is a history of Paris, from the city's Roman origins to 1969. Horne identifies Paris as a city "fundamentally" female, a "turbulent, troublesome, and sometimes excessively violent woman" (while London is male and New York hermaphroditic--he uses the word "ambivalent," but it is unclear how he means it). This definition might become irritating for female readers after a while, since in Horne's narrative, only men effectively create historical events in Paris: women are historical "actors" only in relationship to sexual practices and love, and the impact of these on historical events (more about this later).

Despite this, Horne's history moves smoothly through the seven ages he defines, describing economic, social, artistic, and domestic events as they affect the geography and population of the city. Readers who live in or visit Paris after reading this will have a better sense of the entire city, beyond the tourist-focused areas of the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th arrondissements. Each "age" is divided into three chapters, and each chapter covers a lot of ground.

It is a quirky and personal history, definitely directed by the individual details that interested Horne over his three decades of keeping a "discard box" of facts about Paris. This is a charming, sophisticated, eminently readable history of Paris designed for anyone who wants to get beyond a guidebook's surface information.

French Ways and Their Meaning by Edith Wharton is just as charming and sophisticated. Wharton adopted France as her second home. This is also more direct and overtly personal in nature. Initially, a series of magazine articles published during WWI (which Wharton spent in France), the book is now difficult to find. My copy was published in connection with The Mount, Wharton's Lenox, Massachusetts home (now a historical site). I suspect few people are familiar with it at all.

In the book, published in its entirety in 1919, Wharton describes what she defines as key attributes of the French, for the benefit of Americans who are coming into contact with them for the first time. These attributes include: reverence, taste, intellectual honesty, and continuity; she also deescribes "The New Frenchwoman," who she says is only "new" to Americans. Wharton's discussion of the difference between French and American marriage is fascinating; from my point of view as an American, I cannot say whether she is accurate or not--but I am still fascinated.

Much of what Wharton has to say is just as apt and accurate in our own time. The book feels like a very personal document, almost like a letter from Wharton, written to one friend about another in the knowledge that her friends will meet soon and so she intends to remove any difficulties that might arise from the acquaintance of two fascinating but complicated personalities. It is a delicious homage to her adopted country.

Both books would suit armchair travelers just as much as on-site travelers.

Pearl

As a footnote to my story about Mr. Lagerfeld yesterday, I should say that the real reason I lingered in the store long enough to hob and nob with him (metaphorically), was my lust for the Penguin Great Ideas series of books. Much like the difference between bags of Snickers bars found at CVS and the hand-made Rigoletto Noir discovered at La Maison du Chocolat, Penguin's series of short pieces from key authors are simply works of art beyond their function (feeding your brain, in case you wondered).

These books are inexpensive and feel great in the hand... BUY THEM! In these times we need to re-read material by Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain, among others, to remind ourselves that humor and great ideas can go together. Or re-read Machiavelli and Orwell--equally intelligent but less funny.

Note: there are also Great Loves and Great Journeys. And I just realized Penguin has a dating site, "where book lovers meet."

Pearl.

In America, this week, VP candidate Palin has been shadowed by rumors she wanted to ban books in Wasilla.

In Britain, the work of Carol Ann Duffy, an acknowledged front-runner for Britain's poet laureate, was front-and-center in a controversy with the AQA (that's Assessment and Qualification Alliance, for you Yanks), the biggest of the three exams boards providing and grading the GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education, a big ol' test Brit youth 14-16 must take).

Duffy's poem "Education for Leisure" was in a poetry anthology required for the test. The poem was written two decades ago, during the Thatcher era. Thanks to the concerns of one examiner (and a total of three complaints), the poem came under scrutiny and AQA Board asked schools to destroy (!) the anthology. Here's the initial story from The Guardian. The poem is included and it is chilling. Does it advocate knife violence? Figure it out.

In a segue that's not, one of the reasons I admire Moliere is that when his adversaries attacked him, critiqued his art and his morality, and tried to ruin him, rather than becoming another cranky victim, Moliere wrote a new play that showed his critics' point of view to be, well, ridiculous. Witness "The Critique of The School for Wives."  He brought in new audiences, he made more money, and he got audiences to laugh at his critics.

Full circle: Duffy may be my new hero. Here is the follow-up story (again in The Guardian) and the poem she wrote this week. Equally chilling, for slightly different reasons.

Question: who do we really have to fear?

Pearl

SEVEN AGES OF PARIS by Alistair Horne (Vintage, 2004). A general history of Paris from the Romans through 1969.

FRENCH WAYS AND THEIR MEANING by Edith Wharton (Berkshire House Publishers, 1997). Originally printed in 1919, this is one American ex-pat's view of her adopted country in the years prior to WWI.

HER NAKED SKIN by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Methuen, 2008). Saw it at the National Theatre, London, in July.

DISTRUPTIVE ACTS: THE NEW WOMAN IN FIN-DE-SIECLE FRANCE by Mary Louise Roberts (Chicago, 2002). Re-reading for sources and clarity of writing.

Pearl

While I am in Paris, I am also writing a play. Two days ago, I realized that I needed to create an “inspiration board” for all the images that I’ve collected that speak to me about this play and its characters.

Problem: rented studio without bulletin board, and where I can hardly just bang nails into the very clean white walls!

Solution: Patafix, a gum adherent that sticks to surfaces without damage. It can be moved and still stick (which allows for reorganization—good thing!), it can be found at Monoprix, and it is cheap. (And it sounds like "pataphysics," which just makes me a theatre geek of the worst kind: I picture it as Jarry's solution to blank walls.) C'est super!

Inspiration collage

Here is my final result. I wanted to demonstrate (to myself) the relationships between the main character (upper right corner), the men in her life (four cards in lower left corner), her perfect lover (top left), and the various powerful images at war inside her. Pretty good, I think.

Writers who work on creativity suggest making items like inspiration boards for each new project; I have been doing this for a decade, it seems, and I find it a powerful tool. I am very stimulated by visual sources but need to see them in front of me. Perhaps that makes it seem as if they are “real” and not just figments of my imagination, which of course they are. Now I can look at these images and let them seep into me, with hopes that the outcome (best case) will be that the characters start to talk to me and tell me their stories. Then the play seems to write itself (on a good day). But this is definitely progress.

Below are a couple of my favorite images from the board. Left is a postcard from the Musée Rodin, “La Valse” by Camille Claudel (© ADAGP Paris 2000), the middle from an Anderson window ad, so no idea who took it but I love the span of this window, and, last, “Henna Hands, Morocco” by Rene and Barbara Stoeltje (© 2005) on a blank card.

I was missing one image that I could not find on a card, but did in Google images.

Afghanistan_Burka_schleier_Burqua__BURQA

Of course, I still have to figure out how this woman fits into the whole picture, but I have a few ideas.

The books on creativity I use over and over again are Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down The Bones and Wild Mind, and The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp. In another post I'll talk about using music as a different kind of stimulant and writing tool.

Welcome to the inside of my head.

Pearl