It has been ages since I had a nice chatty, link-filled post! So in honor of it being Friday and with a sticky weekend ahead of me in which I hope to be following the lead of the lady in the painting above--by reading my books and catching up on a movie or two perhaps and lots of good things to read online--here is what has been on my mind lately.
I love it when someone makes a purely by chance find of a diary or letters or ephemera of a life lived and then possibly forgotten and then shares it with others online or in book format. The latest is this recipe diary from 1968 that Georgie Williams in the UK found in a piece of furniture she bought for her apartment. She has been trying out the recipes and documenting the creations on her Instagram account, @forgottendelights. Apparently some of the ingredients have been hard to source and some of the recipes are perhaps not quite to modern tastes. She is eventually (and happily) going to turn this into a book.
This reminds me of The Madeleine Project from a few years back. Clara Beaudoux had moved into a Paris apartment and discovered that the storage room was still full of the belongings of a previous owner--a woman who passed away in her nineties leaving her possessions behind, Beaudoux started a Twitter feed (@clarabdx) sharing those interesting bits of a life lived and a world long gone. I read the book and it was fascinating.
And do you remember Lily Koppel's antique journal find? The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal, was another fascinating read. I love diaries and this makes me want to go in search of one in my own stacks.
And then there is the anonymous life lived now via Twitter (@duchessgoldblat) whose recently released memoir, Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, is currently waiting for me on my TBR. I have heard many good things about it and she sounds quite gracious! It feels like there is no good news these days, so I am on the look out for books that will distract me and remind me that there is still some civility somewhere.
I left Kinsey Millhone at Q is for Quarry, which I think is one of my favorites in the series. I was reading it during the lockdown and when life got a little wonky and I was having a lot of problems focusing on reading in general. R is for Ricochet has been sitting on top of my mystery novels pile for ages now and I am very much in the mood to see what Kinsey is up to so have finally reached for R. You know I almost always reach for books by women writers or with female protagonists, but this profile on Robert B. Parker's Spenser caught my eye and has put him firmly on my radar. So much so, that I have bought a copy of the first Spenser mystery, The Godwulf Manuscript.
I was thinking it would be fun to read the two in tandem. Not quite the same time period, but close. A sort of she said he said little mini-read. What I especially like is this is crime and hardboiled detecting in the days before technology so the puzzle piecing is done in an entirely different manner (and one in which I really enjoy). Besides Spenser sounds quite moral, quotes poet Wallace Stevens and is a gourmet cook. If we get on well together there are loads of Spenser novels, too.
I hate that I can't got to movies--in person, in the theater movies. I love them and miss them and when the day comes and it is safe to sit in a movie theater I will be back! Until then I am looking far and wide for movie watching opportunities and happily (though seeing the on a laptop and not the big screen is not quite the same experience) there are plenty out there. I have quite a few new releases that I can rent online, but there are some other interesting repertories lined up as well.
At the end of the month is the Vision Maker online Indigenous Film Festival. (Have to give a little extra push here as Vision Maker is a Nebraska organization). I am psyched about the New York Film Festival in September and October. I think it is normally a NY thing and I would never had had the chance to go, but as some/all (?) of the films will stream virtually (not sure what the ticket prices will be--may have to choose just one or two), I hope to be able to see some of them.
And star this one **! As a cable TV subscriber (I am sort of glad I didn't drop even though I have Netflix and Amazon Prime) I can access TCM movies on demand. I am very, very, very excited, however, that starting in September they are starting a (I think) thirteen part series documentary on women directors. The series will air every Tuesday over four months. Part of the documentary followed by what will eventually be 100 films. The only downside is the films run after the documentary and through the night, which won't really work for me as I have to get up early and go to work. I hope that some or all of the films will be films on demand and I can watch them at a time convenient to me. Some of them I hope to get ahead of time and watch now.
I prefer to err on the side of caution and mostly stay in and away from crowds of people, but I am happy that I have books (Kinsey and Spenser at the moment--among the other books I am reading) and lots of good movies to keep me engaged in other ways.