The Bookity Book & Tall Grass Salon

ap123

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I agree, the house did suit her :)

I love Millay, a powerhouse with a very interesting life. A lot of strong, enduring talent came out of that time period.

Has anyone else read February House, by Sheril Tippins? Well worth the read, it's the (non fic) story of a house in Brooklyn that had at various times, WH Auden, Gypsy Rose Lee, Carson McCullers, both Bowles, et al living in it. A communal house with walls that can not only talk, they're singing arias ;)
 

shakeysix

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I have read a little about the house but never read the book. I googled St. Vincent Millay's house and had a happy twenty minutes. The front reminds me of Stewart Little's house in the movie. I was amazed to see the photo of small cupped narcissus. They are my favorite spring flower. I spent weeks this autumn planting my yard with them.

Years ago I saw an article in a magazine about Robinson Jeffer's garden. There were nasturtiums spilling and climbing everywhere. Nasturtiums are hard to grow in Western Kansas but in a wet year mine do thrive. Maybe this would be better placed on the Gardeners Unite thread but I like to know about author's gardens too. Speaking of passionate, quirky literary gardeners, there is always Vita Sackville West, master gardener, sometimes poet and very good friend of V. Woolf--s6
 
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Shadow_Ferret

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Morning, one and all! Hope its warmer where you are. We had another sub-zero start to our day. I think that's number 21. A normal winter we only have around 8.
I'm very fond of Woolf. I love trying to cook the food she writes about, but I especially love her essays.
I don't believe I've ever read anything by her (the closest I've come was reading that play in high school, "Who's Afraid of..."). Is there any particular story or essay you'd suggest as a good way to get a feel for her?
 

shakeysix

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A Room of One's Own. The Judith Shakespeare thing really speaks to my generation of women.

I have posted before about my struggle with To the Lighthouse. It is right up there with Don Quixote on my "no regrets but never again" list. I did finally read it, in grad school with a deadline hanging over my head for an assigned presentation on it. I pulled my last all- nighter at the advanced age of 44 over that book. I was so punchy that I began the presentation " Over the years I have written a report and passed three tests on this book. Last night I read it for the first time. I won't be doing that again." --s6
 
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ap123

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:ROFL:

I still think it's a good starting point, along with reading about her. :)
 

shakeysix

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It is based on a series of lectures given to an all female audience of university women. Not preachy to us but not every guy's cup of tea. Give it a try. Parts of it are online. Drop it when it gets old. She was sexually abused as a child by an older brother. Weird family dynamics and mental illness--maybe more than you want to get into--s6
 

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I am a boring person. Whenever I travel I visit botanical gardens and museums. It drives my redneck family nuts. I like museums that were once homes. I especially like to visit author's houses. I think it stems from a car trip I took as a kid with my parents. I could not convince them to pull over in Red Cloud, Nebraska to visit Willa Cather's home. Guess I never recovered from the disappointment.
...
Anyone else love an author enough to visit his/her house?
I spent several days in Red Cloud for a Cather convention back in 2005. I don't think I ever got to tour her home. :( I was a bit busy with presentations and all the Cather "parties."

I love visiting author's homes though ... well, any historical figure for that matter. I used to live in Oxford, Miss., and Rowan Oak (Faulkner's home) was a big tourist attraction. The best part is his outline of "A Fable" on his study wall. :) I can't remember all the homes I've visited, but that's always a highlight of trips for me!
 

Kylabelle

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:hi: Christabelle.

Here's The Writer's Almanac for February 7, 2014

These are sometimes full of good things; I subscribe but don't always take the time to read it all. (Today's poem is lovely, BTW.)

I'll just leave it here on a table (kind of like the daily newspaper.) :)
 

Shadow_Ferret

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Its been so cold this year, unusually cold, hovering around zero without any ket up. They're telling us to run our water for 5 minutes a day several times a day to keep the pipes leading into our homes from freezing -- the ground is frozen down several feet.

So with all that in mind, I reread Jack London's "To Build a Fire." The fact that we're suffering through such cold made that story come alive in vivid, frigid, detail. I knew exactly how the MC felt and truly sympathized with his plight.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.
 

Kylabelle

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Wow, I bet it did! I mean, it's pretty effective at that even if you're not freezing yourself.

The Writer's Almanac is way cool. Feel free to shout out famous birthdays anyway because people might not even look at the link. :D

Sometimes I think about trying to save stuff from there, but never do. One day there was a great piece about how Ann Tyler works, keeps records of her writing, etc. It was wonderful. Maybe I can find it again but I've not tried.

*is way lazy*
 

ap123

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:hi:
Popping in to say hi. I'm so beat I don't think I can hold up my end of any conversation that's more than gibberish today.

But please, remind me about the Writer's Almanac once I get some sleep :D
 

Kylabelle

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:hi: ap, sleep well.

I'm going to try to drop the Almanac in here most days.

See how people like it.
 

shakeysix

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Shadow-- We are in the same cold hell here. The prairie is so bleak this time of year. I keep thinking of Willa Cather's description of the Shimerda family huddled, barely surviving, in their dugout on a winter day. My own great grandmother was Bohemian (Czech really) and was born on a homestead in Kansas in 1884. The day she was born was so hot that her father had to keep pumping water on sheets that were draped over her crib. Two other babies in the county died that day. Cather had her description exactly right, according my great grandmother's memories of those times. Could you imagine living in a dugout, or even a shack in this weather? Thank God we don't have to. We owe so much to those who came before. It is literature, our genre, that gives us those days--s6
 
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ap123

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It is literature, our genre, that gives us those days--s6


I love these words.

And you be nice, Ona! Licking is for that dark and seedy bar.

Sloppy Joe's is for the gently downtrodden. ;)
 

ap123

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Honey, you were 'sposed to check your weapons at the entrance.
 

Kylabelle

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Shadow-- We are in the same cold hell here. The prairie is so bleak this time of year. I keep thinking of Willa Cather's description of the Shimerda family huddled, barely surviving, in their dugout on a winter day. My own great grandmother was Bohemian (Czech really) and was born on a homestead in Kansas in 1884. The day she was born was so hot that her father had to keep pumping water on sheets that were draped over her crib. Two other babies in the county died that day. Cather had her description exactly right, according my great grandmother's memories of those times. Could you imagine living in a dugout, or even a shack in this weather? Thank God we don't have to. We owe so much to those who came before. It is literature, our genre, that gives us those days--s6

We "coasters" have a tendency, it's seemed to me anyhow, to take some kind of superior attitude toward the Midwest. I hear that tone in voices and have for years, though probably no one would admit to it. But I know, as someone who's always lived on one or the other of the US coasts (except for a very brief time in Kansas when I was about 18 or 19 and kicking my heels up all over the map so why not Kansas too) it took a while for me to get even a basic awareness of some of the cultural depth in the middle of the country.

I've subscribed to a blog recently called The Deep Middle (I love his title) which is mostly about native plants and restoring the prairie. He seems to be a voice in the wilderness, mainly.

I remember reading about the Dust Bowl and how something like six feet of rich topsoil got wasted down to dust by agricultural practices. It's very sad. I know it was novels that gave me the flavor of that big piece of our history. Probably John Steinbeck was the biggest voice for me, in that learning.
 

ap123

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Fiction truly is our voice. As women, men, wealthy, poor, no matter where we live…fiction opens the door so others can connect, across time, across boundaries real and imagined.

I have a lot more thoughts here, but I'm truly all jumbled today from exhaustion.
 

Kylabelle

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{{{ap}}}

Take it easy -- I had a weird and tiring day too, to tell the truth.

Care for a little brandy to warm you up? I find it restorative sometimes.
 

ap123

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Cyberbrandy sounds just fine. IRL, I'm loving my mug of tea right now. :)

I'm sorry you had a wearing day also ((((((((Kyla))))))))
 

Kylabelle

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:D Cyberbrandy coming up, a nice shot of the good stuff.

Insomnia, here, and then bad dreams too, this morning, kind of knocked me off my stride for a bit. Day's winding down though, it's okay.

I'm sure glad I'm not in the Northeast or Midwest right now, though, here today it was in the low 50s F which is reasonable, for winter.

Hey, ap, I started a new story! Don't think I told you, though I have trumpeted it all over the forums so you might have heard, LOL, the HUGE news, hahahaha!

but this kind of day? I swear it has felt like somebody put my head on the ground and pounded on it. No writering on this kind of day.
 

ap123

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Yay!!!!!!! for a new story. Not every day is a writing one, that's just fine. :) :heart:

Hoping you have sweet dreams tonight.
 

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You know I love Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (author of The Yearling)'s cookbook, Cross Creek Cookery as a book (I don't think I've ever cooked any of the recipes, I remember I loved reading it when I was a teen). I liked reading The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook too (here's the famous brownie recipe) though I've never cooked anything from it, either.

And Hemingway's Movable Feast (I think) was my introduction to paella, which is not a dish you hear about a lot in rural N. H.

Joyce rhapsodized about Leopold Bloom's fondness for food ("Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls . . .").

Woolf wrote about all sorts of food; I remember the boeuf en daub in To the Lighthouse, and, from one of the essays, her fondness of the "cottage loaf" and baking bread.

What is it with the Modernists and food?