Lightly though she took it at first, calling it a lark, a jeu d’espirit, it soon turned into what all book writing always turns into: work, work, work. And soon enough she is bemoaning: how endless the writing and the rewriting, how tedious the research, how dull and slow the whole business and how she longs only to be quit of it– (29).
“Under the Influence” @ The Emerald Tablet Tomorrow!
Your salonniere would love to see you in North Beach this Thursday, February 19, 7:30pm at The Emerald Tablet’s “Under the Influence” (80 Fresno Street, SF), where I’ll be reading with artists Thaisa Frank, Patrick Newson, Abbie Amadio, and Joe Stillwater.
Come join the fun!
Sigrid Nunez, “Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury Press” (Harper 1998)
Though she shared in the conversation and heard every word, Virginia never stopped taking in what was happening around them. A writer, said her father’s old friend Henry James, must be someone who notices everything. (So avidly did Virginia observe this rule, Leonard sometimes had to chide her in public for staring). The changing light, the changing colors of the sky, the flight of swallow and bat, when the nightingale sang and when it did not–none of this was missed by Virginia (2-3).
Italo Calvino, “Invisible Cities” (Harcourt 1972)
Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches (29).
