…I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces… These…
View More The Old Familiar FacesTag: famous writers
As a writer who puts words on a page (screen) every day, I’m in awe of the famous writers of the past. I take the time to read their works, visit the neighborhoods where they lived when I can and delve into their papers when possible.
Presenting one of my strongest diary entries about famous writers, I take you to Paris where I have explored Hemingway’s former neighborhoods on the Left Bank quite extensively. Using his memoir A Moveable Feast, I’ve channeled his mood as I made my way between the addresses of his apartments and studio to his favorite cafes, one of which is La Closerie des Lilas. I admire his muscle, which I’ve read in letters to others in their papers at the Beinecke Library at Yale University.
in a letter to Malcolm Cowley in 1945, for instance, he wrote, “Been working every day and going good. Makes a hell of a dull life too. But it is more fun than anything else. Do you remember how old [Ford Madox] Ford was always writing how [Joseph] Conrad suffered so when he wrote? How it was un métier du chien [a dog’s trade]. Do you suffer when you write? I don’t at all. Suffer like a bastard when I don’t write, or just before, and feel empty and fucked out afterwards. But never feel as good as while writing.” I have a number of posts under this tag so if you’ve enjoyed this snippet, I hope you’ll stop by and read about other famous writers.
The End of an Era
Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern. A voiceover of Don Draper reciting…
View More The End of an EraA Definition of Fleeting
“O nature, merciful and cruel mother, when do you have such power and such contrary wills, to make and unmake things so charming?” —Petrarch Petrarch,…
View More A Definition of FleetingRooms of Their Own
A private place in which to write… As someone whose life is spent working with words for at least a part of every day, I find…
View More Rooms of Their OwnBarrymore Avignon Chair: A Love Story
Barrymore Avignon Chair: A Love Story Oh, fateful town in France! While communing in your Sainte-Claire d’Avignon, I saw her. Laura. The name that would…
View More Barrymore Avignon Chair: A Love StoryOde to The Panther
During my first trip to Argentina in 2004, my bucket list included visiting the Buenos Aires zoo. This was not a wish born of an…
View More Ode to The PantherJane Austen Era Silver
If you are a fan of movies inspired by the novels of Jane Austen but you haven’t read her books, you may be surprised to know…
View More Jane Austen Era SilverAllegorical Accents from Barry Dixon
Certain aspects of being southern seem to seep into the skin through osmosis. It’s as if the summer heat wriggles into our DNA, the perspiration…
View More Allegorical Accents from Barry DixonKips Bay Show House
“The house is one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts, memories and dreams of mankind,” wrote Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of…
View More Kips Bay Show HouseTaking a Page (or Two) from Eudora Welty Books
Taking a Page (or Two) from Eudora Welty Books “Why don’t you design a chair, Saxon?” My normal response to the question, posed by the…
View More Taking a Page (or Two) from Eudora Welty Books