Confessions of an American Blog Writer/Reader

Looks like I've found more fodder for my voyeuristic tendencies at

http://www.dailyroutines.typepad.com/

You too can experience the quotidian quirks of your favorite writers and artists! Maybe you will find a kindred spirit who shares in your neuroses.

Mr Campbell, for one, (see below) sounds like a man after my own heart. I generally admit this to only a chosen few, but when I have alone time on the weekends I like to divide my day into a series of "units" (as Will refers to in About A Boy). Fifteen minutes of reading, 15 minutes of yoga, 15 minutes of movie trailers, whatever. It's totally neurotic and totally pleasant to me because it makes the day feel stretched out so long!

Joseph Campbell

So during the years of the Depression I had arranged a schedule for myself. When you don’t have a job or anyone to tell you what to do, you’ve got to fix one for yourself. I divided the day into four four-hour periods, of which I would be reading in three of the four-hour periods, and free one of them.

By getting up at eight o’clock in the morning, by nine I could sit down to read. That meant I used the first hour to prepare my own breakfast and take care of the house and put things together in whatever shack I happened to be living in at the time. Then three hours of that first four-hour period went to reading.

Then came an hour break for lunch and another three-hour unit. And then comes the optional next section. It should normally be three hours of reading and then an hour out for dinner and then three hours free and an hour getting to bed so I’m in bed by twelve.

On the other hand, if I were invited out for cocktails or something like that, then I would put the work hour in the evening and the play hour in the afternoon.
It worked very well. I would get nine hours of sheer reading done a day. And this went on for five years straight.

The Brides Have Hit Glass

Title of this blog entry is the title of a GBV song and I can't help but think Bob Pollard had Marcel Duchamp's piece "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors" in mind when he wrote it. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong about that. But who knows? Bob might surprise you sometimes. 

Speaking of Duchamp, if you ever want to read a great autobiography, pick up Duchamp: A Biography by Calvin Tomkins. It is a really, really interesting recounting of his life and the modern art movement.

Ten decisions shape your life, you'll be aware of five about...

Is there anyone cuter than Elle Fanning? I'm pretty excited for Sofia Coppola's Somewhere starring Elle and Stephen Dorff (yes, Stephen the Dorff, Dorff) who plays Elle's sad-eyed, sleazy and breezy moviestar dad. Elle's character is reunited with her dad after her mom deposits her on his doorstep and they proceed to spend some time doing what looks like some awfully adorable father-daughter bonding.

I think she's such a great foil to Stephen Dorff. She exudes this fresh-faced innocent optimism and he just looks so haggard and beaten by Hollywood, but also sort of kind and wiser.

Sofia sure has a knack for discovering the nubile, lithe, porcelein beauties. Dear lord, is Elle missing a tooth in one of these photos? Could she be that young? She'd definitely be the cause of Humbert Humbert's undoing.

Mamika the Great!

This is pretty awesome.

My friend recently posted about an artist whom, after hearing his 91-year-old grandma was feeling depressed, decided to create for her a superhero alter-ego by posing her costumed in a series of spectacular photo portraits. The artist is Sacha Goldberger and his grandmother Frederika was a superhero in her own right who hid 10 Jewish friends from the Nazis during the war.

Frederika's alter-ego is named Mamika, but it sounds to me like she's not so much an "alter"ego, but the distilled essence of a brave, cool woman. Apparently, her grandson's plan worked because he said she's not shown signs of depression since the four years the project has been running. She even has her own myspace page http://www.myspace.com/frederikagoldberger!

Tossed salad and scrambled eggs? None for me, thanks.

My stomach is behaving badly. Wretchedly in fact. I've been holed up on the couch watching Parks and Recreation, which is quite funny and addictive, on my new ROKU player, which is serious and addictive. I should say, seriously addictive.

But, I needed a break so I started perusing the fashion photos I had saved to my desktop. Nothing like a nice cup of ginger tea and some lovely looks captured by The Sartorialist. These particular ladies have me drooling over their slouchy style and killer bags.

On an unrelated note, huddled on my couch I hear the frenzied yipping of my neighbor's three Westie Terriers. They are named...wait for it...Niles, Daphne and Frazier. On her door, it says her last name (forget what it is off the top of my head) and "Crane residence". It's as if the dogs were born with the last name Crane to begin with, so she couldn't very well name them anything else. Except they weren't, and she could have. Hm...

Why hello again!

If Gabe were a dog, I think he'd look like this little fellow. He is my dream dog (perhaps because he too has a little beard). 

So, hello! I'm going to try and start blogging again now that there's a chill in the air (more opportunities for mind wanderings while hibernating). Speaking of mind wanderings, I've been reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, the ultimate documentation of a wandering mind! (That guy sure did love his momma, huh?)

March showers bring April flowers. And allergies.

Sibel and Tim are excited about spring! Are you?