Since I liked my last post so very much, I’ve decided to make a big photo post of all the images of  the two of them I liked best.  Newman and Woodward were married for fifty years, and when asked why he never cheated, Newman famously said “Why go out for hamburger when you’ve got steak at home?”

These are roughly in chronological order.

1958

Celebrating her Oscar win for 1958’s “The Three Faces of Eve”

Look at the way he’s looking at her.

A bit of context for the above photo, Joanne decided to go back to school to get her B.A., and graduated from Sarah Lawrence in 1990 alongside their granddaughter Clea.  Paul Newman gave the commencement address.

Newman was an avid car racer, and Joanne hated it.  I read one anecdote that said one time she fell out of bed and broke her collarbone and he said “I don’t want to hear any more complaining about the dangers of racing.”

They were married for fifty years, until his death in 2008.  They mostly lived in Connecticut and did not consider themselves “Hollywood” people, which is probably why their marriage lasted.  Joanne also said that looks fade, but the secret was to marry someone who made you laugh every single day.

‘I hope no great sorrow ever will come to you, Anne.’ said Gilbert, who could not connect the idea of sorrow with the vivid, joyous creature beside him, unwitting that those who can soar to the highest heights can also plunge to the deepest depths, and that the natures which enjoy most keenly are those which also suffer most sharply. – found via the littlest stenographer

there are a few things I day dream about, one of them is running a lifestyle etsy/ebay shop. Filled with clothes, little trinkets, small furniture items, books, records… you know.

To do that, I would need:

a. a capable computer
(a2. also a wacom tablet and photoshop) 
b. more income with which to purchase the clothes and sundries to sell
c. a good camera

I am always finding things at Buffalo Exchange for super cheap that could be marked up if styled correctly.   Anyone want to invest two grand in a style-wise enterprise?

It was late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.

My mother said to me not to be talking with you today,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!

———

I don’t like poetry, on the whole, but I was watching The Dead, one of the characters gave a this as recitation. The line, “You promised me a thing that was hard for you,” may be one of the softest and saddest things I’ve ever heard. But the idea about shutting a door to a house after it’s been robbed, how many of us are trying to shut those doors?

I also read A Handful of Dust and it was very harsh.  Waugh waugh.

(via oncewed.com)

Books I’ve read in the past two months:

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2666 by Roberto Bolano

Straight on Till Morning by Mary Lovell

My Story As Told By Water by David James Duncan

Restarting: At Swim Two Birds by Flann O’Brien (which has always had a place on my bookshelf since I discovered that the back cover contains the high praise: “This is just the book to give your sister if she’s a loud, dirty, boozy girl”)

I’m going to start East of Eden this weekend, and have been taking a few cues from this list which seems mightily well ordered.  I was flipping through Habit of Being, as I am wont to do, and Flannery O’Connor’s account of Katherine Anne Porter’s visit (I read Pale Horse, Pale Rider quite a while ago and liked it, although I gather this isn’t the prevailing opinion.) was rather amusing, she has this to say:

“Miss Katherine Anne [Porter] was very nice indeed.  Very pleasant and agreeable, crazy about my peacocks: plowed all over the yard behind me in her spike-heeled shoes to see my various kinds of chickens. I didn’t hear her read but most of the people I talked to who did thought she read well.  They say she had on a black halter type dress sans back & long black gloves which interfered with her turning the pages.  After each story, she made a kind of curtsy, which someone described as “wobbly.”  She’s about sixty-five.  She’s been on her novel 27 years and says all her friends call it “you-know-what.” I hope I won’t be on mine 27 years from now…”

I had some further point which presently escapes me.

Flannery and Self Portrait, 1958(?)

Self Portrait, 1951

Sylvia

I never realized they were contemporaries. They’re in such separate categories of my mind.

“Desire is a house. Desire needs a closed space. Desire runs out of doors or windows, or slats or pinpricks, it can’t fit under the sky, too large. Close the doors. Close the windows . . . It’s not supposed to be big at all. It should be the closest it can to being your actual size.”

Watching a Zed and Two Noughts, which is probably my favorite movie of all time at this point. Greenaway’s utter devotion to symmetry, to the beginning and endings of life, the connectivity of all things, repetition and duality, it’s astounding and beautiful and perfect. Very nearly hits every single one of my aesthetic desires for a film. Michael Nyman’s score is perfection as well, a perfect tonal mirror to the film.
Here’s my show, Almanac, for all of you who wanted to listen but couldn’t. It starts about a minute in, and runs for an hour. I’m getting better and I’ll keep getting better. Just you wait and see.

EDIT: My show starts about a minute and a half in. There’s a song at the front end.

Almanac, Excitement 9/26

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Christina Rossetti

Promise me no promises,
So will I not promise you:
Keep we both our liberties,
Never false and never true:
Let us hold the die uncast,
Free to come as free to go:
For I cannot know your past,
And of mine what can you know?

You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one:
I, so cold, may once have seen
Sunlight, once have felt the sun:
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass,
And the fortune is not told.

If you promised, you might grieve
For lost liberty again:
If I promised, I believe
I should fret to break the chain.
Let us be the friends we were,
Nothing more but nothing less:
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess.