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Saturday, December 30, 2006

Trappist monks in rural Georgia Labels: links, spirituality

The frustrating film world Labels: films

Friday, December 29, 2006

Film: The Good German 
Wednesday, December 27, 2006

What it's like in Arkansas Book: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

by Susanna Clarke (2006). Labels: books

Monday, December 18, 2006

Book: Ruby

by Francesca Lia Block and Carmen Staton (2006). 
Author wish list

So here are my wish lists for both categories: 
Sunday, December 17, 2006

Book: Severance

by Robert Olen Butler (2006). 
Saturday, December 16, 2006

Book: Satellite Down

by Rob Thomas (1998). Labels: books, Rob Thomas

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Film: Chinatown. 
Book: Fragile Things

by Neil Gaiman (2006). 
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Noir in The Oxford American Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Book: An Abundance of Katherines

by John Green (2006). Labels: books, John Green

Exhibit: Louvre Atlanta, Year One. Labels: art exhibit

Monday, December 11, 2006

Music: Alela Diane. Labels: music

Film: American Graffiti. 
Sunday, December 10, 2006

Book: Rats Saw God

by Rob Thomas (1996). 
Saturday, December 09, 2006

"I take mine noir"

Posted by Alexandra at 1:48 PM No comments: Labels: films, links

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Today on Flickr

The history of things.
Posted by Alexandra at 10:33 PM No comments: Labels: links

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Imagery of the South

While reading Pamela Petro's book Sitting up with the Dead: A Storied Journey through the American South, I came across a piece of particularly striking imagery. She writes about talking with Nancy Basket, a storyteller in Walhalla, South Carolina, who tells her about the Cherokee towns being drowned for reservoirs. "There are some of us... who can still hear the drums sounding underwater."

Petro relates this to her time spent in Wales, where towns were similarly drowned for reservoirs for the English. There, the story goes, you can hear chapel bells tolling underwater.

It's a bit of a triangulation, but these images reminded me of, as Jacob might say, the time I spent in Tori Amos purgatory. Amos talked in one interview I remember about hearing the bells toll in the South. One lyric to "Here. In My Head" says, "The bow and the bell, and the girl from the South, all favorites of mine, you know them all well."

Bells and drums signify multitudes for me. War drums. The bells that tolled by the quarter-hour on campus, which I could hear from my freshman dorm window if the air was still enough, which echoed ominously through the quad if you were standing in the right place when they sounded. The drum of distant thunder. The phrase "for whom the bell tolls," which I'm well aware is a book but fascinates me only as sounds, kind of exactly like "roll of thunder, hear my cry."

On the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, they call the Pascagoula River the "singing river," because of the songs of the tribal people there, who walked into its depths rather than face fate at the hands of white men. I'm drawn intimately to water as well, something we have plenty of here in the South. I could never imagine being a desert child, a Pine Belt kind of girl.
Posted by Alexandra at 9:29 PM No comments: 
Show me a trail and I want to walk it.

It's still autumn here, which is lovely because I've fallen in love with walking again. I just finished reading A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, in which he hikes a good portion of the Appalachian Trail, sort of on a whim.

I've hiked parts of the trail before, but I was quite young, and I don't really remember much about it. In fact, about the only things I do remember are being scared to death of bears, and falling down dangerously close to the edge of the trail as it wound up a mountain. I still have a scar on my knee from that fall. I've batted around the idea of hiking more of the trail now that I'm older and enjoy those sorts of things. I don't imagine I could ever do all 2,200 miles of it--for now I've settled on hiking the entire Georgia portion, a distance of about 78 miles (plus the 8 mile approach trail from Amicalola Falls). I'll most likely have to do it in chunks, what with work and all.

In the meantime, all this reading about hiking has inspired me to get off my butt while the temperature is still in the 50s. Friday I walked around Murphy Candler Lake and marvelled at how much it's changed since the weather turned cold. Yesterday I walked around the Dunwoody Nature Center, which was very autumn-colored and enjoyable.

Today I headed up to Roswell to hike through Leita Thompson Memorial Park. I ended up doing the 2.25 mile trail twice, plus an extra .25 miles around the lake. My first time around was glorious, and as I reached about the 2 mile point, I took a little side trail up the crest of a hill and discovered three deer grazing happily. They watched me warily for a long time, and I took a few pictures and some video, then scared them as I put my camera away. I didn't know before that deer made a weird grunting/whining noise to warn each other of danger, but I heard it clearly just the instant before they all bolted out of sight.
Posted by Alexandra at 3:21 PM No comments: Thursday, November 16, 2006

Book: Madame de Pompadour, Mistress of France

by Christine Pevitt Algrant (2002).

Algrant takes a fairly condescending and judgemental tone in her discussion of the life of Louis XV's mistress. I don't think this is entirely justified, as the material she quotes only rarely backs up her remarks. Regardless, it was interesting to learn about the life of little Reinette, the bourgeouis girl who grew up knowing it was her destiny to be the king's lover. I had to peel away the layers of derision, but underneath was a fascinating woman.

I think her death says the most to me about her grace: "A moment, monsiuer le curé, we shall go together," were her last words, as her priest was trying to slip quietly out the door.
Posted by Alexandra at 2:24 PM No comments: 
Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Some true things

"It's a kindergarten motherfucking sense of entitled, playground morality that assumes just because A is an asshole, B is blameless. It's possible for B to grow the fuck up and act in accordance with a stable morality, instead of leveraging their evil based on some kind of flimsy "Mommy, he started it" excuse. At the end of the day, A is not your problem, because A is not your responsibility. Your behavior is your problem, and what you did to excuse it, because you are the person in charge of you. There are a lot of unanswerable questions here, but that is not one of them, and somebody should have told these motherfuckers when they were younger, because now they are grown up and I am ashamed for them. Your personhood doesn't go in the closet until things get easier -- that's like the one thing I disagreed with Tigh about, down on New Caprica -- it's there all the time. You can't write your bullshit self a hall pass to be "your worst" or commit atrocities right up until the very second that things get perfect and awesome, at which point like a wonderful jackpot prize you get to be who you are "at your best," and how one of these days, you'll get to be that you. As soon as nothing bad ever happens, nobody ever calls you an asshole, and everything is perfect and quiet and still. I'm not saying don't "wipe 'em out," I'm saying be really damn sure you know why you're doing it, because that's the only question that matters. Fucking…be better. It's the easiest thing of the world."
--Jacob on Battlestar Galactica

"Think for yourself, because I won't be there with you. Nobody tells you when you're young that pain must eventually lead to pleasure, and vice versa; that a man must break his back, to earn his day of leisure. Think for yourself, because I won't be there with you. Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight."
--Jacob on Doctor Who
Posted by Alexandra at 8:40 PM No comments: Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Stamp carving and travel journals

I spent pretty much all of today carving stamps at my desk. I've had a sudden burst of creativity, nicely coupled with a fair amount of free time, and though my back and neck ache from craning to see, I am satisfied with what I've done. I've noticibly improved my skills at designing and carving. I wish that I could draw these images by hand, but I've never been good at freehand drawing. I'll just have to resign myself to that.

I'm also thinking of new ways to document these endeavors, new ways to journal and keep track of things like roadtrips. I want to be able to look back and say, we went here and it looked like this and felt like this. I haven't settled on anything yet, but here is what I know: every journal in my room already has something written in it, and I want to start fresh. I want to keep records of every trip Jon and I make and have made.

I need to find a way to scan images like my stamps into my computer so that I can post them. My camera can't take pictures at that close range.
Posted by Alexandra at 10:35 PM No comments: 
I am really really jealous of all these people with their art skills and their cool travel journals.
Posted by Alexandra at 10:30 PM No comments: 
Monday, November 06, 2006

Walking in autumn Posted by Alexandra at 11:06 PM No comments: Sunday, November 05, 2006

Film: Marie Antoinette

I just got home from seeing this film, and of course I loved it. Of course, I would have a hard time not loving anything involving both Gang of Four and a big orgy of frothy period costumes.

I don't want to say too much about it, as it feels unnecessary to overthink this one. But of course, Sofia Coppola has made her into all of us, and the minutae of her life feels very contemporary, very understandable to me which I think is somewhat of a generational thing. This was the right movie for this particular moment.

Marie Antoinette
directed by Sofia Coppola, 2006
Posted by Alexandra at 11:39 PM No comments: 

I discovered Fontainebleau.

Fontainebleau is the name of both a forest and a château (once a royal hunting ground and the largest royal château, respectively) located about 35 miles southeast of Paris. Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour spent some of their first weeks together at this château. The court went to Fontainebleau in the autumn every year, as Louis XV loved to hunt and did so with much of his free time.

And in a strange bit of synchronicity, Fontainebleau is also the name of a state park in Louisiana that I hope to visit next weekend. I've been working on a series of letterboxes based on French women I admire; Madame de Pompadour will hopefully be the first carved and planted. I chose Fontainebleau, obviously, for the matching name and season. But the park is interesting in its own right: it contains the ruins of a sugar mill built by Bernard de Marigny de Mandeville in 1829 (it is of further note that de Marigny was also the title of Mme de Pompadour's brother, Abel Poisson, though I'm not sure if/how the titles are related). M. de Mandeville named the area after the Fontainebleau of France. The park has hiking trails, and is quite near part of the Tammany Trace, a 31-mile rails-to-trails conversion. I doubt it's quite as beautiful as the royal Fontainebleau, but I'm excited nonetheless.
Posted by Alexandra at 10:50 AM No comments: 
Autumn and roadtrips

It is undoubtedly autumn here, and driving up the small ridge on my way to work everyday makes my taxing schedule just a little bit more bearable. The trees are tall and all different shades of red and orange, with just a bit of green still peeking out. I am terribly excited to drive the highway outside of Birmingham, on my way to Mississippi this Thursday. I rarely make the drive during the day, but the landscape has so many secrets only seen in daylight.

Autumn is the season when I think about how I need to be doing autumn-y things. In the summer it all comes naturally--trips to the lake, cookouts, cold beer--I don't even think about it at the time. But when it starts to get cool outside, I suddenly find myself thinking of all the things I need to do: visit cemeteries, drink apple cider, go to the corn maze, buy new sweaters, drive in the mountains, eat stuffing and mashed potatoes with my mom, go iceskating, visit Christmas light displays, on and on and on.
Posted by Alexandra at 10:30 AM No comments: Saturday, November 04, 2006

St. Petersburg: The State Hermitage Museum Heidi is on her way to Russia right now, or at least really soon, and I am sitting here at her desk being very jealous. She gets to visit St. Petersburg, and the Hermitage, where Sokurov made my favorite film of all time, Russian Ark. The films spirals through Russian history as though through a dream, never stopping, never staying in one place. The camera work itself is a feat: the film was shot in one take, with a steadycam, a cast of hundreds, the entire Hermitage as the set, and three live orchestras. Particularly affecting are the depictions of Catherine the Great as an aging queen, still spry enough to take a run through her snow-covered gardens with a courtier supporting her, and the scene from the Second World War, with all the frames empty and on the floor, the great rooms dark and bare.

The Director of the Hermitage ordered everything packed up during World War II and shipped off to safety. The frames remained, however, as a sign to the Germans that Russia would be back to display the glory of its gallery once again. Debra Dean chronicles this devastating time in Russian history in her novel The Madonnas of Leningrad. In the book, Marina, a young docent at the Hermitage, helps to pack the paintings and other pieces away; at the same time, she takes daily walks through the empty rooms, remembering by sheer force of will the pictures that once hung on the walls. She is drawn to the Madonnas in particular; I, on the other hand, wish I could see in person Fragonard's The Stolen Kiss, or any of the Poussin paintings they hold. More than that, I simply wish I sould walk those halls and see the mouldings, the staircases, the gardens.

I'll most likely never make it to Russia, and that saddens me to no end. 
Castles are cool. So are monks.
Posted by Alexandra at 10:32 AM No comments: 

Film: La Reine Margot. A beautiful and stunning film about Marguerite de Valois, daughter of Catherine de'Medici and wife of the King of Navarre, Henri de Bourbon. Isabelle Adjani stars alongside Jean-Hugues Anglade and Vincent Perez. The film is based on the book by Alexandre Dumas, and while it isn't necessarily historically accurate, it is a delight and a terror. Margot's love affair with La Môle begins only days before the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, and they find themselves endangered by both their love and their stations in life. Adjani is almost too beautiful to stand, as usual; Perez is too, this time around (unlike what I thought of him in Indochine). But truly, I enjoyed this film for its unarguably French style--Dumas was a master, I am now discovering.

The romantic and historical blend enticingly, and I'm fascinated by what happened in France after this. Henri de Bourbon became King of France when Margot's brother, Henri III, died. The line of Bourbon kings were pretty much adored by the French, ruling from 1589 until the French Revolution in 1792, and even again briefly afterwards. It was a tradition to cut out the heart of a Bourbon king upon his death, and place it in a special coffer. Not until Louis XV did this stop, and most likely only then because he ended his reign known as le Bien-Hai, the Well-Hated.

La Reine Margot
directed by Patrice Chéreau, 1994
Posted by Alexandra at 10:46 PM No comments: 
Saturday, October 28, 2006

Excerpt: The Book of the Courtesans.

Although it is clear that the courtesan would need to have carnal knowledge, what has not always been so evident is the profound nature of what she knew. The realm of sexual pleasure is also the realm of the psyche. To love or be loved, to touch, feel pleasure, passion, ecstasy, to surrender and release engages every human faculty, not sensual adroitness alone but intelligence of every kind. As well as being willing to give pleasure, a good lover must be sensitive and aware, registering what kind of touch, for instance, on which part of the body arouses desire, knowing which mood calls for a robust approach, which moment requiresgentleness, able to laugh or tease while at the same time probing both the mind and body of the loved one for gateways to greater feeling.

The desire to give pleasure is, however, not the only motive. The deepest ardor of the lover is the desire to know the beloved: to test, feel, see, taste, smell, witness every response, every shade of sensation. In this sense, it is right that Venus as well as courtesans should so often be depicted with mirrors. In recognizing even the subtlest desires of the beloved or in answering these desires with a delicate precision, the lover is providing a mirror for what the beloved feels. The beloved feels known, even ravished, by this intense reflection. And, in turn, the one who is loved feels an echoing need to know, because being a lover as well as the beloved, the desire is to please by knowledge, even know all that can be known at once.

The urge to consume knowledge can be consuming in itself. Though in an afternoon of lovemaking desire may arc and come to fruition, the desire to know is inexhaustible. The wish is for an impossible thoroughness, a complete union between the knower and the known. Yet as Tullia D'Aragona, an Italian courtesan born at the beginning of the sixteenth century, has written, "...Because it is not possible for human bodies to be physically merged into one another, the lover can never achieve this longing."

--Susan Griffin (2001)
Posted by Alexandra at 10:09 PM No comments: 
Today on Wikipedia I learned that Scarlett Johansson will be playing Mary Boleyn in a 2007 film called The Other Boleyn Girl. The film is based on a novel by Phillipa Gregory, which has received some rahter negative reviews. Natalie Portman will play Anne, the more famous of the two sisters.

Mary is barely known now, though she was the mistress of Henry VIII, who had her sister executed in 1536.
Posted by Alexandra at 1:37 PM No comments: My Bookshelf Currently Watching Currently Listening to