RIP Saul Bellow:
The son of Russian immigrants, he was born Solomon Bellows in Lachine, Quebec, outside Montreal. He dropped the final “s” from his last name and changed his first name to Saul when he began publishing his writing in the 1940s.
The classic Bellow narrator was a self-absorbed intellectual with ideals the author himself seemed to form during the Depression. While he would remember the fear most people had during those years, Bellow found them an exciting and even liberating time.
“There were people going to libraries and reading books,” he told The Associated Press in a 1997 interview. “They were going to libraries because they were trying to keep warm; they had no heat in their houses. There was a great deal of mental energy in those days, of very appealing sorts. Working stiffs were having ideas.”
From the beginning, Bellow was determined to tell a different kind of American story, to depart from the tight-lipped machismo of Ernest Hemingway.
Mississippi Review holiday fiction issue is live and is it ever good. There are stories by such talents as: Bob Arter, Pia Z. Ehrhardt, Roy Kesey, and Calvin Liu to name just a few.
Go on an read it!
It seems that Salinas, California the birthplace of John Steinbeck, may be closing its three public libraries due to budget constraints. I heard about this on the news a few months ago but didn’t believe it would really happen. And yet it is. It’s sad news but the hopeful part of the story is that many of the good people of Salinas are fighting to keep the libraries open. I hope they turn the tides.
Below are the details of a once in a lifetime contest offered by the one and only Susan Diplacido:
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Watched three (two and a half, really) movies this weekend: One that I loved (Being Julia), one that I liked (Closer) and one that I had to turn off because it was too depressing (Love Liza). Don’t get me wrong, I like depressing, the more depressing the better. BRING it! But this one (about a guy avoiding grieving for his wife—she committed suicide—by becoming a gasoline huffer), well, it was relentless and it was sort of a dark day and I just couldn’t take it.
<iframe style="float:left" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=read08-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0007G89FK&fc1=000000&=1&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000Anyway, Being Julia is based on an W. Somerset Maugham book and is set in 1938 London. Julia is a famous stage actress who falls for a much younger man. Annette Benning plays Julia beautifully, allowing herself to flower and fade as the scene requires. Jeremy Irons plays her husband—they are a perfect match. All in all, a wonderful cast, acting wonderfully.
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=read08-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0007OCG4W&fc1=000000&=1&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000lt1=_blank&IS2=1&f=ifr&bg1=ffffff&f=ifrCloser is supposed to be some gritty, realist view of the underbelly of love, but to me it came across as artifice. The bad love presented to us, desperate and unrepentant seemed contrived and trying too hard to be bad. Still, it has some shining moments, most of which are because of Clive Owen. He plays his part beautifully—he’s a bit of rough, but sexy and sometimes soft. Natalie Portman was also quite good, although I had difficulty accepting her as a stripper. Jude Law was good, but his character was really an asshole and, well, he’s a bit too skinny. Julia Roberts was pretty good, except in the beginning she seemed too much to be herself instead of her part. Anyway, I liked it though the picture it paints of love, monogamy (or the lack thereof), desire and betrayal is not a pretty one. Oh, I should add I really loved the music in Closer, by this guy: Damien Rice.
And as for Love Liza, it stars Philip Seymour Hoffman who is one of my favorites. I think he’s an excellent actor and I’m sure that many people were enthralled by this film but I wasn’t one of them. Perhaps if it hadn’t been raining for three days straight I might have felt differently?
I feel crazy with the time change, like I have a small animal stretched out along my scalp, pushing down on my brain. I guess at my age it shouldn’t come as such a surprise anymore, this spring forward business. But it does, it always does.
I find myself staring for minutes on end, lost. Not lost in thought. Just lost.
But the sun goes down after seven now. That is nice.
Love this bit from one of my heroes, Thurston Moore, waxing poetic on the mix tape–The Best 90 Minutes of My Life:
I also needed to hear these records in a more time-fluid way, and it hit me that I could make a mix tape of all the best songs. So I made what I thought was the most killer hardcore tape ever. I wrote H on one side, and C on the other. That night, after my love Kim had fallen asleep, I put the tape in our stereo cassette player, dragged one of the little speakers over to the bed, and listened to it at ultralow thrash volume. I was in a state of humming bliss. This music had every cell and fiber in my body on heavy sizzle mode. It was sweet.
I still listen to mix tapes, in my car at home, those made for me, those made by me. There is nostalgia mixed up in those songs. Nostalgia I can’t find on a mixed CD. Mostly because making a mix tape was such a precarious thing. Kneeling on the floor before your machine, waiting for just the right second to hit pause so that you could queue up the next song.
I heard about this stuff on the news the other night and I find it disturbing to say the least (how about: fascistic, xenophobic, etc)–Immigrant Spotters Rally on U.S.-Mexico Border:
Organizers of the Minuteman Project, which takes its name from American Revolution militia, say 1,200 volunteers will stake out a 20-mile stretch of the border with Mexico throughout April, and report illegal aliens to the Border Patrol.
I suppose I should say something about Pope John Paul II. He is dead and I feel sorry for the human being who has died and hope that he did not suffer too much.
I remember when he was elected. It was just a few months after my father died and church had already sort of ended for me. And even before that I had not understood what a pope meant to me. Not even as a Catholic school girl. Sure I knew about the nuns and the priests and the saints, but the pope was an enigma. He was just a man far away dressed in white. Sort of like Jesus.
Untouchable. Unfathomable.
I remember the waiting. Waiting for the smoke to rise. And then when it did, I knew that this was something important I was witnessing. A new pope.
My relationship with the church has continued to twist and morph since, becoming what it is now: I’m an cold observer from the outskirts, one whose actions continue to be ruled by guilt and knowledge of sin and fear of death, yet who does not agree with most of the rules of this church.
Nature is my god. My belief system, the changing seasons, the tides, the sun rising and setting.
And so, I am a lapsed Catholic and a pope has died.
A man has died.
It is April and another man has died.
Rest in peace. Amen.
You forget in the cold of winter that spring is not all so green as you remembered. 
Melting snow reveals decay. Your feet are wet.
myfanwy collins 