gwynnega

Last night I was reading Paul Eprile's stupendous new translation of Colette's Chéri (published by NYRB), and then I dreamed I'd been chosen to write the screenplay for a film of Chéri. I was delighted, though a bit worried I wouldn't have time to finish revising my own novel. When I woke up, I remembered there already is a (pretty good) movie of Chéri, and that I have no interest in writing screenplays. Then I remembered that the life and work of Colette is an important thread in my novel.

Meanwhile, it rained a lot in Los Angeles (which gave me a headache), and some parts of Southern California got snow, but I am, as ever, snowless in Silver Lake.

ETA: But! when I was in my car just now, I discovered there is a ton of snow on the nearby hills. (Being in my car, I couldn't take a picture, and then I drove down the hill and the snow was no longer visible.)

My poem "50 Foot" (inspired by Attack of the 50 Foot Woman), which appeared last year in The Cascadia Subduction Zone, is now available to read for free online, along with the rest of the issue.

It has been raining. And raining. And raining. My windows leaked slightly, and I was without Internet for about an hour. It's been too wet for me to want to go for my usual afternoon walk, and I have a sinus headache. But these are minor complaints, since other parts of California are dealing with awful mudslides. Predictably, after today there's no more rain in the extended forecast.

I am hennaing my hair on a warm Los Angeles afternoon. We recently had a brutal heat wave (complete with wildfires), but things have calmed down. Next week it looks like we may even have a spate of early autumn weather, though I'm sure we'll have another blast of heat before Halloween. Meanwhile I am thinking of Hurricane Irma and hoping my friends in Florida weather the storm easily. I can't even get my mind around the devastation the hurricane has already caused.

A few days ago Patti Smith's slim new book Devotion appeared on my tablet. It is half fiction, half memoir / meditation on writing, and I gobbled it up far too quickly.

I am hennaing my hair on a cool, overcast LA afternoon. (Rain is coming tonight. We've been having way more rain this winter than we've had in ages.)

Trump has been our so-called president for just over two weeks, though it feels like a lot longer. I am heartened by the pushback against his agenda, both in the streets and in the courts.

I've been playing this song a lot.

I am hennaing my hair on an autumnal LA afternoon. The political situation continues to evolve in alarming and surreal ways. It's shaping up to be a very strange holiday season.

I finally finished reading the wonderful Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, which I began before the election. I'm not sure what I feel like reading next, which is to say I'm not sure what will keep my attention off of politics for more than a few minutes at a time.

I probably should be watching a lot more horror movies.

My poem "Una O'Connor unleashes her scream" appears in the new issue of The Cascadia Subduction Zone. The issue also includes poetry by sovay and an essay by L. Timmel Duchamp on Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick.

Also, the April 2016 issue of CSZ is now available as a free PDF; it includes my poem "Poetess Strikes Again."

I'm delighted that my poems "People Change: A Love Story" and "Linda Blair Pantoum" will appear in Postscripts to Darkness. They (like "Una O'Connor") are part of my horror movie poetry project.

It actually rained in Los Angeles last night. I woke up during the night, and it took me a couple of minutes to register what the "water dripping" sound signified. (I guess it's been awhile since we've had any rain.)

Here, have a clip of Una O'Connor unleashing her scream in The Invisible Man.

I am hennaing my hair on a warm Los Angeles afternoon. We had a few lovely fall-esque days. Now another heat wave looms. We'll probably have a few of those before actual autumn sets in.

The other night I watched Tomorrow, the World! (1944) on TCM. I joked that it's "The Bad Seed, Hitler Youth edition," but the two films have some striking parallels. Both are based on Broadway shows; both feature electrifying performances by child actors recreating their Broadway roles; both center around "bad" kids. Unlike Patty McCormack's Rhoda, Skip Homeier's Emil wasn't "born bad"; a German war orphan whose father died opposing the Nazis, Emil has been thoroughly steeped in Nazi ideology (including a giant helping of misogyny). He comes to live with his American uncle, a university professor (played in the film by Fredric March; Ralph Bellamy played him in the Broadway production). When Emil learns his uncle's fiancée is Jewish, he remarks, "That is...regrettable," and things go downhill from there, as he wreaks havoc at home, school, and in the neighborhood. Emil is clever and calculating, both mature beyond his years and an insufferable brat; his repudiation of his father masks a grief he's stuffed so far down, it seems nearly irretrievable. The film hinges upon Homeier's performance, and it's a remarkable one. (It doesn't look like the film is available on DVD, but it's showing on TCM On Demand through September 23.)

It is Henna Day, and we're having another heat wave. Tomorrow I'm going to see Planet of the Apes (1968) on a big screen. I've never seen any of the original series of films in a theater, and I would love to see the whole series that way (except perhaps Beneath the Planet of the Apes, which I have a grudge on because it features a different actor than Roddy McDowall as Cornelius).

I'm trying not to be entirely consumed by politics, but it isn't easy these days.

I am hennaing my hair on a hot Los Angeles afternoon. We've had cold (for LA) weather, along with some rain, but now it's hot and bone-dry. Yesterday I finally got a long-overdue haircut, which I'm especially pleased about now that the weather has veered into summer.

I mentioned in a previous post that I have a poem in the latest issue of The Cascadia Subduction Zone, but when my paper copy arrived the other day, I read Julie Phillips' essay "'I Begin to Meet You at Last': On the Tiptree-Russ-Le Guin Correspondence," and it's fantastic. (It looks like you can watch Phillips read the essay here; there's also a link on the page to video of Ursula Le Guin reading the letter she wrote to Alice Sheldon after she "came out" as Tiptree.)

It is the first Henna Day of 2016, and since we've in the midst of LA winter (i.e., a high temperature of 60 degrees today), I'm a bit cold with the henna on my hair. We had massive rain last week, which we really needed. Fortunately my windows stayed dry.

Yesterday Mythic Delirium Volume Two showed up in the mail, featuring my poem "It's a Universal Picture" and work by Sonya Taaffe, Virginia M. Mohlere, Rose Lemberg, Dominik Parisien, Shveta Thakrar, and many other terrific writers. Plus the cover art is gorgeous.

I've been reading The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves was one of the books I most enjoyed last year; this one is utterly delightful and makes it clear I need to read all of Karen Joy Fowler.

Last night I watched Phase IV (1974) on TCM. It's a movie about ants plotting to take over the world, directed by Saul Bass. It's visually stunning (though the plethora of ant closeups wigged me out) and deeply weird. It was also weird to see Michael Murphy (who I knew best from movies like Manhattan and The Front) playing an ant-battling mathematician. I think I might need to see it again.