While reading about Lotte Lanya in Wikipedia, they used the term Diseuse: “French for “teller”, also called talkers, storytellers, dramatic-singers or dramatic-talkers is a term, at least as used on the English-speaking stage, that appears to date to the last decade of the 19th century. ” Lotte Lanya as Rosa Klebb in From Russia With … [Read more…]
en·sor·cell [enˈsôrsəl] verb archaic enchant; fascinate: “he was a child when the power of a mythic image first ensorcelled him” Similar: captivate charm delight dazzle enrapture entrance The above link shows an etymology from Old French: ensorceler (“to cast a spell, enchant; to captivate”) Found in this phrase in a review by Namwali Serpell of … [Read more…]
Irredentism – (Italian: irredentismo)[1] is one state’s desire to annex the territory of another state. I’m surprised I haven’t seen this term used in the context of the Ukraine war by Russia. I found in at the end of chapter 14 of V. by Pynchon: “Rumor had it that a week or so later the … [Read more…]
Schizophrenia is not a single disease, it is a very consuming one, taking up large numbers of both medical resources, research, and of course, millions of shattered lives. In the April 25, 2025 New Yorker, Rachel Aviv (Mary Had Schizophrenia—Then Suddenly She Didn’t) follows the trajectory of a woman with a 20 year history of … [Read more…]
John Martin, devoted publisher of literary rebels, dies in Santa Rosa at 94 In 1966, John Martin founded Black Sparrow Press, a shoestring operation that he ran out of his home for years with the help of part-time assistants and Barbara Martin, who designed the books. John Martin, an adventurous independent publisher who brought out … [Read more…]
Ed Park is a very entertaining writer, very well executed, I keep being reminded of a combination of Lilla and Pynchon, light and dark, light and heavy. If you are in the mood for something dense, well written, this novel is great, full of wit as well. The author is Korean-American and tells the story … [Read more…]
Considered Teffi’s single greatest work, Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea is a deeply personal account of the author’s last months in Russia and Ukraine, suffused with her acute awareness of the political currents churning around her, many of which have now resurfaced. In 1918, in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Teffi, … [Read more…]
Fatale, (1977,) by Jean-Patrick Manchette, is my first French noir novel. Translated by Donald Nicholson Smith and published by the New York Review of Books, I borrowed this slim volume from our county library. I read it in two sittings, wondering, after the first, if I wanted to finish it and I still wonder. There … [Read more…]
Nov 15, 2023 I finished “reading” Democracy awakening : notes on the state of America by Heather Cox Richardson recently. I use quotes for read because she, as a historian, tells the story of our democracy from about 1960 onward, which spans my experience, so I was able to skim much of the text while … [Read more…]
Jun 11, 2023 Needed something classic so blew the dust off a 1971 Dell Edition of Christie’s Dead Man’s Mirror including Murder in the Mews and Triangle at Rhodes. Great fun, Poirot is dry and clever, two locked rooms and a love triangle with a twist.