May 2012
1 post
5 tags
How "Tiger Eyes" the movie is as good as "Tiger...
1. Willa Holland is perfectly cast as the book’s narrator Davey Wexler — the coolest, most non-conformist and inwardly confident character Judy Blume has ever created; 2. The key opening scene, (“It is the morning of the funeral and I am tearing my room apart, trying to find the right kind of shoes to wear.”), is there along with Davey’s cat Minka and brainy best...
March 2012
2 posts
3 tags
The ten best "This American Life" stories about...
1) An early (and classic) David Sedaris essay about pretending to be straight; 2 & 3) Two very early episodes, one about closeted homosexuals who lead double lives and one, which was simply about liars in general (listen especially for the little story that comes up at the end of Act 1 about the guy from Nebraska who pretended to be a Kennedy); 4 & 5) This short prologue about the little...
8 tags
How to prepare for the release of Walter Salles'...
1) How Jack Kerouac himself envisioned the cinematic version of On The Road (1957); 2) Read Joyce Johnson’s Minor Characters (1983), one of Jack Kerouac’s girlfriends at the time On The Road (1957) was first published and got its first blockbuster review in the New York Times; 3)Listen to the Original Scroll manuscript of On The Road (2007) read by John Ventimiglia, the best reader of...
February 2012
4 posts
2 tags
Things I learned or learned about while living in...
1) How to live on very little money very happily; 2) Grazia magazine; 3) Bikram yoga; 4) What is like to be ruthlessly dumped by Gael Garcia Bernal (from his girlfriend, who was also my Bikram yoga teacher); 5) That there is no Cherry Tree Lane in London, as the book Mary Poppins suggests; 6) About the Bangladeshi sailors who became cooks and settled and started restaurants on Brick Lane; 7) What...
2 tags
Women I deeply regret taking for granted because...
1) My mother, Suse Kluding; 2) Laura Hope-Gill, my best friend since high school, for more times that I can bear to count, but mostly 1992-1999; 3) Usha Nilsson, my great Hindi professor I didn’t spend enough time working with because of my great (male) Telugu professor; 4) Sociologists Dorothy Smith & Patricia Hill Collins for critical theorist Michel Foucault, in my head, not in life;...
1 tag
Ways being totally alone and totally in love are...
1) Certain coffee shops, foods and television shows become sacred and often elaborate rituals; 2) You spend more time than usual in bed; 3) Your schedule no longer seems to match the rest of the world’s; 4) You lose track of time; 5) You daydream; 6) You find yourself actually believing that your most extravagant, seemingly impossible dreams can come true; 7) You make lists; 8) You find...
1 tag
Sociologists sociology graduate students want to...
1) W. E. B. Du Bois; 2) Anna Julia Cooper; 3) W. I. Thomas; 4) Nels Anderson; 5) Anyone from the 1930s Chicago School; 6) William Foote Whyte; 7) Maurice Stein; 8) Erving Goffman; 9) C. Wright Mills; 9) Piri Thomas; 10) Harold Garfinkel; 11) Pierre Bourdieu; 12) Dorothy Smith; 13) Patricia Hill Collins
January 2012
1 post
3 tags
Things I learned from Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows...
1) Salvage and save everything, but always be prepared to let it go (from Tree’s heroine, Francie Nolan, who made money gleaning tin and other valuable trash from the street and trading it for money from the neighborhood junkie, i.e., garbage man); 2) When you spend money on something to eat or drink pick something that lasts (from Francie’s selection of peppermint wafer candies over...
December 2011
1 post
1 tag
Good advice I follow and where I got it, listed in...
1) In situations where you know you can’t win, act stupid and cheerful rather than smart and angry, from radio psychologist Dr. Joy Browne; 2) Realize that all relationships and jobs, or the prospect of a relationship or job, are steps in life, not a floor or room you live on/in, from a former student’s mother who was not only a mother but also a monk who lived her entire adult life in...
July 2011
1 post
1 tag
Skills I learned between Kindergarten and Grade 4...
1) Ice skating, 2) How to spot modernity (but not the crisis of modernity), from the General Electric Carousel of Progress Ride at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida; 3) How an automatic photo booth works; 4) The Dewey Decimal System; 5) How to survive on the American prairies in the late 1800s, from the television show Little House on The Prairie and a pack of materials I sent away for from...
March 2010
1 post
2 tags
Things not easy to transport or mail without some...
1) The sound of people in conversation; 2) Local radio, television, newspaper and tabloid dailies; 3) Smells; 4) Tastes; 5) Subtle daily changes in the wind, humidity and the weather, as well as other organic matter; 6) The exact way people look, speak, move and dress; 7) Platonic, romantic and sexual love
November 2009
1 post
1 tag
Select rituals of my life now past, listed roughly...
1) Walking way out of the way to school to pick up Mary Ing at her parent’s Candy Store and Take-Out Chinese Restaurant; 2) Taking the bus from the key to the mainland in Sarasota, Florida; 3) Participating in High School debate tournaments every Saturday, 1985-7; 4) Studying in the Elvehjam Art Museum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an undergraduate; 5) Riding the subway everyday...
May 2009
1 post
3 tags
Things I plan to do while traveling the world by...
1) Make the settings of Hemingway’s novels the setting of my everyday imagination instead of the novels of Kerouac; 2) Write lectures & postcards instead of biographies, novels, job applications, blog posts or grant proposals; 3) Learn and master basic astronomy and meteorology; 4) Travel with only one pair of boots, one pair of flip flops, four pairs of socks, four pairs of underwear,...
March 2009
1 post
1 tag
Select times in my life when my future seemed...
1) Coming in fourth place in a piano competition, which meant I got no certificate like the kids who placed in first, second and third place, but had to stand up in front of the applauding audience, 1975; 2) Being forced to learn how to ski (because my brother skied) and skipping my lessons to hide out in the chalet and read, 1976; 3) Being accused by four girls I had been friends with since...
February 2009
1 post
1 tag
Things that have made me cry uncontrollably in...
1) The scene in the film version of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple when Celie is separated from her sister Nettie and then unexpectedly reunited with her again; 2) Dar Williams’ The Babysitter; 3) All of the boyfriends in my life who have forgotten or made light of my birthday; 4) Telling the story of how I said good-bye to my very first true love at the airport in Bombay, India and...
January 2009
1 post
2 tags
Things I love or loved but didn't expect to,...
1) Living with a very big, very rambunctious dog; 2) Curtis Sittenfeld’s novels American Wife, Man of My Dreams and Prep; 3) Practicing Power, Ashtanga and Bikram yoga; 4) Living in a very small, very remote place; 5) Living on a very narrow, very remote road; 6) Teaching a Freshman Seminar at the University of Denver; 7) The documentary Keep The River On Your Right; 8) Running; 9) Living...
November 2008
1 post
1 tag
Things I have loved and lost or left behind,...
1) A black nylon and leather carry-on bag from Roots; 2) A marble desktop; 3) A pair of brown, lace-up Roots boots; 4) A perfect, worn-out blue Havergal sweatshirt from my best friend at McGill; 5) A pine bed; 6) a pine bookcase; 7) A red tin trunk; 8) A tabletop made out of a yellow door; 9) Believing that anyone, including myself, can be both passionate and monogamous; 10) A brown leather pencil...
October 2008
1 post
1 tag
Select fashion trends I have participated in,...
1) Corduroy overalls; 2) Gingham levi shirts; 3) Purple chinos; 4) Suede North Star running shoes with clear, see-through soles; 5) Men’s ties (1979, way pre-Avril Lavigne, before she was born); 6) High waisted suspender pants; 7) Gauchos; 8) Synthetic Adidas track suits; 9) Leaving my winter coat open and scarf untied; 10) A watch with changeable grosgrain bands; 11) Short-sleeved Lacoste...
September 2008
1 post
1 tag
Circumstances under which a novel completely...
1) As a six year old Canadian I learned about my true national roots as a daughter of England from A. A. Milne’s Winnie The Pooh; 2) As an eight year old not knowing one single person or family who was divorced,’broken-homes’ from Judy Blume’s It’s Not The End of The World; 3) As a ten year old living in the borderlands of a white Catholic and white Anglican...
August 2008
1 post
1 tag
Places where I've lived completely alone since I...
1) Jennifer Street, Apt. 3 in Madison, Wisconsin, summer of 1991; 2) 344 State St., the corner of State and Gorham above what was Dr. Schanel’s Optometry in Madison, Wisconsin, fall of 1996; 3) The Manitou Lodge off Provincial Highway 11, across from The Pine Falls Paper Company in Manitoba, Canada, winter of 1997; 4) A fourth four apartment on Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin, which I...
March 2005
1 post
1 tag
Professions of men I once loved or liked, listed...
1) Actor; 2) Art historian; 3) Baker; 4) Ballet dancer, 1991; 5) Ballet dancer, 2004; 6) Classical guitar student; 7) Conga player; 8) Chef; 9) Demographer, 1993; 10) Demographer, 1997; 11) Economist; 12) Ethnographer; 13) Geographer; 14) Indian Chief; 15) Linguist; 16) Medical student, 1991-3; 17) Medical student 1998-9; 18) Saxophonist; 19) Cricket coach; 20) Poet, Summer 2007; 21) Poet, Fall...