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"Here is something else I know: the power of literature to 'renew a sense of purpose in our lives' gets killed in literature classrooms — unintentionally, no doubt, but killed nonetheless."
- #"Technically, they are voted, but actually they are not decided by the use of whatever artistic and critical wisdom Hollywood may happen to possess. They are ballyhooed, pushed, yelled, screamed, and in every way propagandized into the consciousness of the voters so incessantly, in the weeks before the final balloting, that everything except the golden aura of the box office is forgotten." --Raymond Chandler, 1948
- #"But Welty is not a regional writer—her purview is much smaller than that. Her writing is bound up in the romance of everyday objects, in the vagaries of memory and how they become tied to a place, a room, a piece of furniture, or a trinket. Proust had his madeleine, but Welty had pralines."
- #"I would write these epic, too long story drafts. And I kept thinking one would, on its own accord, take root and flourish in my brain. And I guess this thing sort of did. It wasn’t a straightforward flourishing. It was swamp sprawl." Karen Russell on the early days of Swamplandia!
- #Even The New Yorker itself is forced to admit that Jonathan Franzen's essay on Edith Wharton treads very little new ground.
- #"If you play a lot of Charles Ives, you have to put up with the raised eyebrows of other musicians, who refer to him as 'a crazy insurance salesman.' This is frustrating. He was actually a spectacular insurance salesman who co-founded an agency and made a fortune." Jeremy Denk is witty and charming as always in The New Yorker [subscription required].
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Elsewhere
Reading by year
Alexandra Kingsley
Monthly Archives November 2010
To read pile, Mitfordiana edition
An obvious and huge downside to attending grad school for English (beyond that whole employment thing) is that there’s just not enough time to read the things I’d like to. If I were drafting my ideal Christmas list, and if I had unlimited reading time, I’d go ahead and ask for all the Nancy Mitford [...]
Album review: Rusty Willoughby
The boys at Cinedork, who I adore, asked me to write about music for them—something I’ve missed doing since moving to Philly. My first review for the site just went up: Rusty Willoughby has been around the block — playing in Pure Joy, Flop and Llama over the years — but it’s a specifically Seattle [...]
Thanksgiving reads
As much effort as I put into holiday-appropriate reading for Halloween, I somehow always let Thanksgiving pass me by. Who the hell wants to read about turkeys and the forced appropriation of land anyway? This year, though, there’s been a lot of attention on Thanksgiving-related reading. The Smart Set covers Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “John [...]
Graphic Novel Event: geeking the library
FalveyLibrary “Things that change people change them. It’s not just a backpack.” –John Arcudi #falveyevents about 23 hours ago via TweetDeck It happened! It was awesome! You can’t tell from the photo, but we had a ton of people show up! Everything went off without a hitch. Thanks to the writing center, we had [...]
Superheroes and Scholars on display
The most exciting part of the lead-up to our Graphic Novel Event was, for me, helping to create a library exhibit that showcased both our concept and the graphic novels we have in the stacks. Our graphic designer, the inimitable Joanne Quinn, initiated the process by buying three giant superhero cutouts. From there, I developed [...]
When geeks throw the party: Philly style
Last night at the Troc, two of my favorite Philly websites, Geekadelphia and Cinedork, hosted an epicly epic screening of Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World. Hands down, this was my favorite film of 2010, and I was thrilled to get to see it on the big screen again. And while I didn’t break out my [...]
Library press materials: graphic novel reviews
For our Graphic Novel Event, I wanted to do something a little different than the standard interview-style preview blog post. (Those work well, but they can get repetitive.) I pitched the idea to my editor for a series of graphic novel reviews done by library staffers and others involved in the event. Once I got [...]
Library blogging: Alan Drew reads from his critically acclaimed novel
Join us for a reading by Alan Drew, M.F.A., novelist and Villanova University faculty member. Professor Drew will read excerpts from his first novel, Gardens of Water, and from The Hidden Life, his in-progress second novel. The reading will be held at 12:30 pm on Monday, Nov. 15, 2010, in Falvey Memorial Library’s first floor [...]
Library blogging: Ron Chadderton on Dam Failures in “Flood City”
This year’s Scholarship@Villanova endowed chair lecture features Ronald A. Chadderton, Ph.D., P.E., D.WRE, the Edward A. Daylor Chair in Environmental Engineering. Dr. Chadderton will speak at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010, in the Falvey Memorial Library first floor lounge. Dr. Chadderton, a professor and chair in the department of civil and environmental engineering, [...]
