When I was ten I went to a friend's house to play. Her home was long and gorgeous and so unlike anything I'd ever seen. This was 1969 and everything in her house was somehow tasteful and exquisite and outrageously colorful at the same time, like one of Barbie's whoozy mod designer outfits. She walked me through the front door - there was nobody inside but us - back to her bedroom and I remember three things that floored me: she had her own walk-in closet; they had a pool (A private pool. In Oregon. In the backyard where lounge chairs waited like something out of 'The Graduate') and the house had a wall around it, which of course I thought was fantastic. She lived only twelve, fourteen blocks from me but it was more than another world. It was a world of whispers.

See, her parents were divorced.

Whispered over the dinner table like cancer or Lou Gehrig's disease or Republican or as in 'Annie Hall', Jewish. For some reason this all stands out as much as the fact she had at least 100 stuffed animals in her room. And dozens and dozens of Barbies, twice as many as me. She seemed a little sad, this girl. A little bit like the daughter on Mad Men, blonde and distant and odd. But it never occurred to me it was about being divorced. It seemed more because she had everything and seemed to want none of it. I remember she offered me any doll or toy I wanted. I suppose to be her friend. I know I declined, not because of ethics or morality (I was already shoplifting now and then by 8, so ethics weren't really my concern) but only because how would I explain it at home? Nah, keep your own fabulous offerings to yourself blonde girl.

Later I found out she offered toys to a few other girls, too. And then she moved. To California.

Now everybody is divorced. Or about to be divorced or pretty much resigned to the idea, if not the fact, of it. And what used to be called a broken home is now a blended one, something we throw in a jar and hit Liquefy, Crush, Purify, Pulse. Everyone used to say - the media, our teachers, our parents, I mean everyone - that divorce was so horrible, so radically disgusting to both God and Nature, that it would rip the beating heart out of a family, damaging everyone in myriad and complicated ways, and if you didn't stay together 'for the children' you might as well condemn them to an endless merciless hell where all the other 'children of divorce' sat next to their personal walk-in closets, weeping with shame.

My parents stayed married until my dad died, when I was 19. My mother never remarried, never even dated another man, something that equally thrilled and saddened me; a choice that was strictly hers to make, not ours. But we knew many 'children of divorce' and most of those children seemed as blissfully normal as anyone with from a non-ripped-apart family would ever be. We all had our neuroses. We all had our moments in the sun. We all wished we were adopted (if we weren't) and hated being adopted (if we were). We all wanted to be popular, perfect, adored, the center of attention, the only A students in sight, with hair that wouldn't frizz and breasts that would soon command attention and we all had outrageous dreams and hidden secrets we told no one, no one at all. In other words: we were all kids.

Time passed. In the 80's and 90's, it seemed like everyone came from a 'broken home'. I became a stepmom, or stepmonster, actually. My oldest stepdaughter got divorced, and their daughter suddenly had 'two homes' as my stepdaughter once had. My step-granddaughter turned out just terrifically. She's actually better than terrific, she's wise, humane, interested and interesting, and I'm pretty sure she's never even considered shoplifting. She loves her Papa and her mother equally, unashamedly. She loves her father's ex-girlfriend. She loves her new half-sister.

She is not, as far as the eye can see, broken.

And shame on anyone, anywhere, for making her or anyone else feel that way.

Shame on the religious or the censorial for making someone feel deficient. Less. Chipped like a piece of china.

All families are broken and missing and without all the perfect bits. All families are normal and deeply lacking normalcy, we're all a tapestry of blood and love and defiance and need, related by things we can't touch. Sometimes we're even related by DNA.

There's a terrific piece in the New York Times today called 'In Praise of A Broken Home', written and illustrated by Ellen Lupton. Read it. Please.

And then just when you feel broken, get out the tape. -- Janet

Chéri revisited.

After leaving the post about Stephen Frear's film Chéri, I received an email from a dear friend, letting me know that the saga behind the movie was perhaps more interesting and enlightening than the film itself. What I hadn't realized, was that the film project was originally developed (or at least nurtured) by Jessica Lange for many years, clearly with the thought that she herself would play the part of Lea.

Ten years after she began her crusade, the film was developed with the younger Michele Pfeiffer in the lead role. The story of this shift and of the cruelty of Hollywood is an interesting read. In this London Telegraph article, all is revealed, at least from one person's point of view, including some valuable insights into the story as written by Colette and where the movie, as finally produced, diverges from her intent.

I add, here, photos of Colette herself, young and old, so that you might see that when the woman writes of youth/beauty vs. age/self-possession, she knows of which she writes. —Charlotte

Time passes. A story is told.

You are all probably familiar with the photo above left—"The Afghan Girl" photographed by Steve McCurry. It ran on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. In January, McCurry was sent back to find her and photograph her again. The similarities and the differences are stark.

If you are like me, you met her in the earlier photo a long time ago. And you've seen her face almost every time you walked into a Borders or Barnes and Noble. But having become a part of the fabric of our lives, she's gone without more notice. Her eyes have burned into us, but beyond that, we didn't know anything about her other than what we assumed to be true, given the headlines about her country over the years.

Her name is Sharbat Gula. And an abbreviated version of her story is here.

A footnote: she was photographed by McCurry with Kodachrome film. Steve McCurry was given the last roll of Kodachrome by Kodak last year when they discontinued production. He went back to Asia to use it. Hear that story here.

Beauté.

Along with its bread, France is characterized by a widespread love and recognition of its own illustrious literary figures. Colette is one of them. She was born in a beautiful town about 45 minutes' drive from here. Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye. I've never read her books, but I've gazed long and hard at photos of her, trying to fathom the depths of her gaze, and it is now on my to-do list to tackle her works in whatever language works best.

Her life was full of romantic intrigues with both men and women, so it's hardly surprising that in her book and in Stephen Frears' adaptation, Chéri, a beautiful young man, for whom the story is named, takes his own life for the love of an older woman, the courtesan Léa. Clearly Colette knew how to see women with the eyes of a lover. And what she sees is good for the soul.

I'm not critiquing the film (suffice it to say that though the acting was at times stilted, the film is a feast for the eyes and the middle aged heart), I'm merely here to say that the story did me good. Sitting on the brink of 50, contemplating still what it means to age in this unkind culture and what it means to be truly "beautiful," it was exhilarating to see Michele Pfeiffer holding her gorgeous own next to an actor (Rupert Friend) 23 years her junior. I don't know what she has done to maintain herself, and I don't really care. Her age (and the age of her character)—as I believe it always is—is evident. And it is stunning. Her hands, her eyes, and those rather decisive lines that run from the nose to the sides of her mouth—they don't lie.

If lines speak of years, they also speak of experience. And in this story it is her experience that wins and ruins his heart. But it is also her own knowledge and painful recognition of the truth of Age versus Youth that renders the story warm and real and—there's that word again—beautiful. The struggle, particularly in a woman who's entire livelihood had been based on her physical charms, is a valiant one.

So, girlfriends. If you haven't seen it, rent it, watch it, and love yourself for all that you are. Going back in time wouldn't make you more beautiful. In fact, it might make you less so.

—Charlotte

Our Daily Bread

While Janet takes on the enormous, I take on the quotidian.

As every summer, I am in the French countryside until the end of August give or take a week. It's beautiful. And I am thankful for every day that starts anew. And each of those new days starts with a walk to the bakery, where we by our next 24 hours' supply of bread. Three baguettes if we are all here. Just one or two if I am here with my children and my mother-in-law.

As I've mentioned before, my mother-in-law lived here, in this town, during World War II. She lived with her severe grandmother. And they knew hunger.

One of the memories she has which seems to be clear and not rewritten by Alzheimer's is of her grandmother saying, "You must respect the bread." What she meant by this was more specific than you might think. She meant:

The bread should be cut and not torn. Tearing it is disrespectful of its fiber and its integrity.

The bread should be covered with a cloth to protect it from flies.

The bread should be handled with care, even with love, if you will.

The bread should be eaten with thanks. Great thanks.

And most of all, the bread should never be wasted.

I'm still often guilty of tearing bread (I feel like I become one with it when I rip into its crust enclosed softness), but I think about her words every, single day. About the depth and breadth of the statement. It goes beyond kitchen and table, into field and factory. If one is to respect the bread, one respects what goes into it. And one respects the earth that gives rise to all those ingredients. And one respects the hand that made it.

The man that makes the bread in this small town, wakes up every day at 4:30 or 5:00. He feeds everyone of the 375 souls who live here. He does not take vacation. His name is Gérard, and he is missing some teeth. He greets me always with a smile and chatter that I have difficulty deciphering. He is covered with flour. His cat sleeps in the bakery on a stack of newspapers.

Tomorrow is another day. And another loaf of bread. I cannot wait to taste it. If there is a 'God Particle,' it will be baked inside it. —Charlotte

And Buddha says Make Me One With Everything

How many physicists does it take to find God? Apparently 1000. How many of those physicists are wearing a clown nose and Groucho Marx hair? Eight.*

For those of you who haven't been watching, let me pull back the veil and reveal the search for the origin of the universe, genius-style. One thousand physicists have been working at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory trying to find the 'God Particle', also called the Higgs boson, which is said to be responsible for for creating the universe as we know it. For taking the Big Bang and letting it linger, thus giving life to our unbelievable planet, our wondrous animals, our skyblue seas, our seablue skies, our far from endless bounty, BP, good things happening to bad people, bad things happening to everyone else, BP getting away with murder, Rush Limbaugh, movies featuring a naked or semi-naked Ewan McGregor, and yoga. Not necessarily in that order.

Over the last decade physicists - yes, God bless them - have examined a thousand trillion collisions of protons and anti-protons looking for signs of that singular spark that created us. All of which begs some serious questions.

First, how does someone count to a thousand trillion? That has to be exhausting. Five hundred trillion is exhausting enough and I'm not counting I'm merely typing. Secondly, is God truly in the God Particle and what does that name actually mean? GP: It's the Theory of Everything, and finding it would explain how all the forces in the universe interact to produce the world we know now. It's a theoretical energy particle that would reveal why things have mass - and why we, our planet and everything around it - was created out of chaos. It's never been observed. Never located. It's a phenomena that remains hidden, a mystery. What's essential is invisible to the eye.**

Origin of the Universe. Dark Matter. The Reason We're Here. 'Scientists Inch Towards Finding God Particle' the headlines screamed today. Will we ever get there? Or will the universal rug be pulled out from under us, Harpo honking in the background, Loki laughing at our misery? God, you trickster you, waiting behind the curtain, always in the details.

*This number subject to debate.

**Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince. Read it. It's beautiful.

-Janet

In(ter)active

I couldn't agree more with what Janet wrote. And, in fact, immediately after writing her last post, she suggested we not blog anymore. She said, "We both have lives to live." And she's right. Why are we doing this? We're not sure.

It does seem that the world of interactivity is more and more a life of inactivity. If we are at our computers conducting our social lives, we are by definition NOT doing other things. We are sedentary, mostly passive participants in other people's dialogs. Trying to be wittier. Trying to be "seen". Trying to drum up larger numbers of "friends." So much of it is so highschool. And we're done with that, aren't we?

The blog is a little different. It's a way of recording what we're thinking. A way of sharing something with ourselves and with others. And yet, the exigencies of "real" life always take precedence. It's hard to do this with regularity when what really interests you in life, when you get right down to it, isn't talking about life but participating in it.

I was doing a freelance project a few weeks ago for Telecom Italia. It was a new business pitch and their strategy was to encourage Italians to use the internet. Italy is, for the most part, wired with high speed connections. But usage in Italy is lower than in Slovenia, which, when we lasted checked, was a "less developed" country. Italy is 27th or 28th in the world, if I remember correctly, in internet usage. So my job was to encourage Italians to spend more time sitting at their computers. More time writing emails and blogs and comments on Facebook. My actual job was to tell them that they'd be "missing out" if they didn't stop doing all that other great stuff they were doing (like actually spending real time with real people) and start seeing what "life" is all about online. Wow. Weird. I'm simplifying a complex argument, because yes, it's possible that being online more could help some people in remote areas economically, but let's get real: how much has it improved our lives? I think it's a serious question. And probably one that has to be evaluated on a case by case, very personal basis: how can I use technology to improve my day-to-day existence? Is it improving it? Is it damaging it? How do I really want to use it?

What it has given me is the chance to keep friendships and familial bonds alive. Living overseas was a choice I made in the era of digital connectedness. If it had been fifty years before, either I would have chosen to forsake love to stay with friends and family. Or I would have chosen to give up friends and family for a chance at making my own family elsewhere. Fortunately, I was spared that dilemma.

And being here with Janet, in this weird digital space, has been a privilege and a joy. I understand why maybe we should stop. But there's a part of me that doesn't want to. I'm not trying to make friends or influence people here; I'm just trying to participate in our own little experiment. But maybe the experiment needs to yield to new experiments. Other forms of dialog.

So what are we to do? I don't know the answer. But we'll all find out soon, won't we?

But maybe there's a clue in this stupid little anecdote: after Janet wrote her last post and asked me if we should stop, I wrote her back and said, "Maybe, but there's something I want to write right away! I'm gonna do it tomorrow!" Well, tomorrow came and went, and did I post? No. I harvested lavendar. And it was, I have to admit, satisfying in a way blogging never could have been. My fingers smelled of lavendar. The house was filled with its herbal perfume. And this winter, back in Milan, I'll make sachets for our underwear drawers. Hand stitched and filled. And every time I see or smell them, I'll remember this summer. Blogging assures sweet memories too, but it will never smell so sweet. —Charlotte

Facebook v. the world

Love this from today's New York Times because it's not simply timely and true, it's really fairly sad. Ben Brantley writes first about Garbo, her mystery and fascination. And then about our culture's supposed 'democracy of technology', which honestly has become more of a dictatorship, ironic even to me as I write - oh sorry, blog - this. Brantley starts below:

The world, you see, no longer has any tolerance for — let alone fascination with - people who aren’t willing to publicize themselves. Figures swathed in shadows are démodé in a culture in which the watchword is transparency.

Increasingly, the perception is that everyone is knowable, everyone is accessible and that everyone is potentially a star. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, personal Web sites with open-door chat rooms, the endlessly proliferating television reality shows are now commonplace forums for the famous who want to seem like ordinary people and for ordinary people who want to seem famous. Us magazine’s rubric “Stars, they’re just like us!” has now been inverted to “Us, we’re just like stars.”

The theory appears to be that if you never shut up, no one can forget you. And that to shut up is to withdraw from life. I was seated not long ago next to a magazine editor, discussing a former glamour girl who had disappeared to a farm in South America. “I think it’s cool she was able to go cold turkey on being a celebrity,” I said. The editor answered sadly: “Really? I see it as giving up.”

Fame has become an existential condition: If your image isn’t reflected back at you, then how do you know you’re alive? The problem is that, people being people, 24-hour visibility will ultimately breed if not contempt, then weary familiarity. That’s why the tabloids need a new generation of cover girls and boys every year or so, a breeding process facilitated by reality television. Jake, Vienna, Heidi, Spencer: blink and you’ll miss them, though you can bet they’ll keep using Twitter until they die.

A hunger abides in us to see mere mortals approaching perfection and I, for one, would just as soon not be asked to separate the dancer from the dance, or for that matter the beauty from the beauty....When we first fall in love with people, they always seem remote, unattainable. Holding on to love after you’ve crossed the divide between you and the object of your desire is a chapter in achieving maturity; it’s what marriage is supposed to be. But there’s a part of us that needs to keep falling in love with the girl in the mists in the distance or the boy riding away on a horse. You’ve been there, I’m sure, and you know what happens when these dream girls and boys open their mouths or scratch themselves. The mystery dissolves like fog at sunrise.

So to honor a nearly forgotten time when there was romance in the unspoken, and human mystery wasn’t something that could be solved by the end of a television episode, might we now have a moment of silence?

No? I didn’t think so.

-- JC

Irresistible Force, Immovable Objects

What makes us fall in love?

Is it the way we see ourselves reflected in their eyes? Or the way we think they're really the grand prize?

It’s a serious question, and even now I'm still no better at telling which couple will last and who will fade away. How some love affairs can turn out so right, get better, grow onwards and upwards, and others just be disastrous.

Is it timing, desire, desperation, fate, optimism, wishful thinking, destiny, chemistry, a witches’ brew of all the above plus a bit of Oh What The Hell They’re Available thrown in? What makes me adore my husband but – as far as you know – not yours? What makes you look across a crowded room and go Ooooh and Yumm and Yowza but makes your best friend think Nahhhhh and Huhhh and You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me? I think it’s fascinating, this falling-in-love-thing, especially when it works. When the person you live with is also your best friend, best critic, greatest confidante. And the reason you’re with them isn’t because it’s too laborious to get a divorce but because they honestly present you with the best version of yourself.

Or they don’t. Like so many women Marilyn Monroe wanted to be loved not as a joke or a body or a hair color, but as a full human being. In Arthur Miller’s eyes she thought he saw the best of her, the total sum of her parts. But he saw only what he wanted to see: an angelic creature that looked up to him unashamedly, a child-bride of adoration. He wanted perfection. She wanted the warmth of a safe sanctuary. Several people told her that Miller was the coldest man they’d ever known. No woman, not even a living breathing electric light, can melt ice.

But sometimes it's not really love, is it? It's more...that the bad, the wrong, the lousy can look so damn appealing. We can change them, we know we can! Sure they're horrible to other women, but other women aren't me! We are the moths and they are the flame and we mistake that burning sensation for something more eloquent. Something eternal and gorgeous and true. But bad stays bad. And moths keep beating at the door, the firelight, wings broken, fragile and impossible to stop.

Albert Einstein (who knew he was also a genius of relationships?) said this: Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably both are disappointed.

Do we all do this, whoever we are? Is it inevitable, and is he right? - JC

Ah, now this is something to be excited for. David Fincher's newest film comes out in October. The Social Network...about that social network.

First preview in July.

First poster - right here.

Look at the design - so smart, so brilliant, completely viral, elegantly alligned with both fb's look and the new iPad as well. So simple, really, but I would have never thought of it.

And the line - fantastic.

Does Facebook steal your soul? Or does it just rent it for awhile, along with your every status update, photo-op, message to the masses that one hoped was actually private? Fincher + Aaron Sorkin on our complete loss of privacy sounds like 'Seven' without the blood. Wait. There will be blood. It will just be the internal, lusting, egotastic kind. And yes, it has a Facebook page.

- Janet

In that vein...

Janet, thanks so much for that. I am reminded that we live in a bigger world. That there are more voices than our own. And what a relief really.

Some time last year, NPR ran a story about how many foreign authors Americans are missing out on. The list was as follows. I've read some of these, other not. And obviously it's not a complete list by any means; just an idea of where to start scratching the tip of the iceberg. Mind blowing, really, that the world is not as flat as we tend to think. I can highly recommend The Yacoubian Building whose author is now vying, according to an Egyptian friend of mother for office in Egypt and who has the establishment quite "bothered." And nothing can beat that title: What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire." I share them with you now.

Russia

Victor Pelevin, The Sacred Book of Werewolf and Buddha's Little Finger.

Boris Akunin, The Winter Queen

Ludmila Ulitskaya, The Funeral Party

Albania

Ismail Kadare, The Three-Arched Bridge and

Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (Read Excerpt)

Hungary

Imre Kertesz, Fateless, The Pathseeker (Read Excerpt).

Portugal

Antonio Lobo Antunes, What Can I Do When Everything's on Fire?

Norway

Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses

Egypt

Naguib Mahfouz, The Thief and the Dogs, (Read Excerpt)

Muhammad Yusuf Quayd, War in the Land of Egypt

Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

Japan

Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Mexico

Carlos Fuentes, The Death of Artemio Cruz

Rest in Peace

One of the greatest novelists in the world died today.

Jose Saramago was 87 and 'great novelist' doesn't do enough to define him. An outspoken activist who despised dictators, cruelty, and apathy in almost equal measure, he won the Nobel prize for literature in 1998. It wasn't until he was in his 50's that he begun to devote his life to fiction, and his novels are pure, gorgeous, emotional gold. 'Blindness', 'Baltasar and Blimunda', 'The Gospel According to Jesus Christ', 'The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis', 'All the Names', and my own favorite, 'The Cave', all speak not only to his deep imagination but his even deeper humanity, irony and wit. He could make you laugh and cry in the same sentence. He always, without exception, made you think. Not that long ago he delivered a much-lauded speech where he described globalization as the new totalitarianism and 'lamented contemporary democracy's failure to stem the increasing powers of multinational corporations.'

Increasing powers of multinational corporations? Yes, we see it everywhere.

There's one in particular who's taken their absolute power all the way to the bottom of the sea, and who broke the whole f'ing Gulf Coast 60 days ago. And for each one of those 60 long, lost, killing days they've been allowed to 'fix it'.

Jose Saramago must have detested this as much as I do. And I wonder if he wondered: if it were Bush in charge and this was happening, wouldn't there be more outrage? Much, much more outrage?

Rest in Peace, wonderful writer. -- Janet

Baby, Beautiful

When we were in Sardinia we met the most wonderful guy. Actually, to be honest, we met a whole gaggle, or goggle, or whatever noun makes sense, of terrifically great & fun & gorgeously great people but Filippo, that's his name, he stands out. Yes there's Myla, his part-human part-Husky part-raccoon all-unforgettable dog (as if there weren't enough of those in the world). And there's the fact that he that dropped his life and his work to take us around the island and show us gorgeous things both great and small, including Mussolini's summer house and an Agritourismo that served an 11 course vegetarian dinner that felt like 102 courses in one body-numbing row. Delicious.

But what it really was is that we felt like we knew him. Had known him for years. Liked what he liked. Felt as he felt.

And that shorthand that comes into play? We all have it.

You meet someone in line at the coffee place & instantly like them.

You run into somebody at the Cuban place next to the bookstore and feel like you've known them for 15 years.

People when you least expect it who renew your faith in mankind again. And for an hour you forget that BP exists, that the war(s) go on, that not everything is peachy or keen.

So. Anyway.

Filippo, that's his name. He posted this photo on Facebook. This baby in his hand. This bundle of freaking gorgeous unbelievable who-needs-cartoons-give-me-one-I-want-to-cry fluff. If someone knows something more amazing, please, send it in. With this, I believe in miracles. Charlotte, over to you.

Ooh la la.

Venus on the half court. Venus goddess of 40-Love. Venus the Olympian. Venus French-kiss Open. Ah, Venus Venus Venus. Never did tennis look so—Sting, could you strike up "Roxanne" about now?—red-light a.k.a. "Take all that white, proper, stiff upper lip, gracious tennis wear and wipe my pretty rear end with it." Yowza.

What do you suppose it's like to play against that? What do you think it measures on the richter scale of "psyching out your opponent"? And what will be next? Topless? Bottomless? The mind can only wonder. Which is, I'm sure, exactly what it's supposed to do.

Where have we been?

Well, the conventional answer would be, "We've been to London to visit the Queen" or something like that. But we haven't. We've done something far more monumental. We've been to Florence to see each other.

I trained down from Milan with my two girls in tow. And Janet and Rick bussed up from Siena, taking a break in their vacation to do what we don't get to do enough: be together.

I won't go into details. Suffice it to say that four hours when you haven't seen someone in oh-nine-years-give-or-take is a phenomenally emotional ride. I kept staring at Janet thinking: Is that really you, in the flesh? Can this be?

And through the veil of years and distance I must say that Janet is more beautiful than ever. More full of heart. More gracious. More chocolatey. I could have eaten her up on the spot.

And then, before it began, it was over. And all those fragments of conversation desperate to weave over the gaping hole that an ocean and two continents have dealt us came to a final teary hug. A kiss on that softest of cheeks. Arms that want to grasp something that should never be let go of. A goodbye that musn't be a goodbye, at least not for long. (Promise?)

Yesterday, I had the good fortune of hearing Florence and the Machine's The Dog Days Are Over..."Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back"...and I thought: yes, that is exactly what it was like. A bullet. That giveth and taketh away.

Here's till the next time, Janet. Love, Me

Florence and the Machine "DOG DAYS ARE OVER" Music Video from LEGS MEDIA on Vimeo.

Art & Artificial Blondes are such Beautiful Things

I paint because I am a woman.

(It's a logical necessity.)

If painting is female and insanity is a female malady, then all women painters are mad and all male painters are women.
I paint because I am an artificial blonde woman.
(Brunettes have no excuse.)
If all good painting is about color then bad painting is about having the wrong color. But bad things can be good excuses. As Sharon Stone said, “Being blonde is a great excuse. When you’re having a bad day you can say, I can’t help it, I’m just feeling very blonde today.”
I paint because I am a country girl.
(Clever, talented big-city girls don’t paint.)
I paint because I am a religious woman.
(I believe in eternity.)
Painting doesn’t freeze time. It circulates and recycles time like a wheel that turns. Those who were first might well be last. Painting is a very slow art. It doesn’t travel with the speed of light. That’s why dead painters shine so bright.
It’s okay to be the second sex.
It’s okay to be second best.
- Marlene Dumas

And I write because I'm an insane woman living in the woods staring at the ocean who quite often feels like an artificial blonde & who wants so badly to believe in some kind of eternity. And a writer who now adores the painter Marlene Dumas. She makes me, for a moment at least, stop thinking about oil spills, hypocrisy, and snow falling in May. - Janet

You Write Like A Girl

A few weeks ago I was reading about Then Came the Evening, the new first novel by Brian Hart. Most reviews compared him to Cormac McCarthy, an incredible author of spare, painfully gorgeous, textured prose. The kind of writer who forces me to stay up late, oh so late, reading and wishing I could write anything like that. But several of these 'reviews' just pissed me off. Because they were from women, all of whom commented in one way or another that Hart 'writes like a man'.

I'm sorry; he writes with his penis? With his testicles? While he's scratching his ass and farting? What the hell does this mean and why would anyone critique someone this way? It's a man's book, too tough, testosterone-fueled, too harsh, all muscle-bound, aggressive, violent, and really, really depressing. A woman would have never written this.

Really? Oh shut up.

Part of my anger at these bloggers and critics is that they're so unimaginative in their criticism. Part of it is any writer being referred to by gender or race - does Brian Hart write 'too white', too? Or too black, too Hispanic, too tall, too short, does he write as if he's part Irish or just a little too country? Part of it comes from what Oscar Wilde said over a hundred years ago: 'There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.' But then he wrote all gay-ish, so what did he know?

And the rest comes from the fact that I was labeled, early and often, as a 'woman writer'.

When what I was, I imagined prosaically, was a human being who writes.

Look, there are florid writers who are male. Depressing, dark writers who are female. It's 2010 and we still live with this idiotic distinction of how we use words?

Oh forget it.

I bought the book. It's fantastic, beautiful. Reading it along with Patti Smith, Lorrie Moore, Mary Jo Bangs, Eudora Welty, Toni Morrison, Anne Sexton, Margaret Atwood, Anie Proulx, Alice Munro, Zadie Smith, and all those other aggressive, ball-scratching, testicle-lifting unsentimental authors. You know, the men.

-JC

Holding the Universe Together, Part II

Thought for the day:

The violets in the mountain

have broken

the rocks.

- Tennessee Williams

And aren't most of us violets?

- JC

How to Breathe Underwater

One of my friends is this wonderfully amazing person who seems to be able to handle any crisis well. Which is fortunate because she's going through another one in her family right now.

J. wouldn't agree that she moves through the world like grace under pressure. Like me, I think, she tends to project some strange calmness to the outside world even when her head feels like it's just been cut off. But her face, everything about her, projects this strong 'I can handle anything life throws at me' attitude and people believe it. She's so open and generous and unbelievably giving it seldom occurs to people she may be drowning. And a lifeline, a raft, may come in handy.

So I guess today would be a shout out to people to recognize when our friends are doing the dog paddle, or the breast stroke, and things are good. And then to come a little closer when you see that they're barely treading water. No one, even the most graceful among us, can forever breathe underwater. Somewhere in Bend, Oregon, I hope my good friend is safe inside an inner tube, and the water is calm.

- Janet

Losing it. Finding it.

A beautiful article which needs to be shared. "Dominique Brown: Losing It," in today's NYT.

"Time hangs heavily on the unemployed soul. If I ate an egg at 8 a.m., by 9:30 I was starving. I became obsessed with eggs, gazing on their refined shape in wonder. Perfect packets of nutrients. I ate eggs all day long. When I had a job, I never thought about eggs."

Dominique Brown was the editor of that magazine we loved, House & Garden, which folded some years ago, dragging her also into the crease of its nonexistence. Her chronicle of that experience and the resulting blog SlowLoveLife.com are beautiful indeed.

I invite you to partake.