I can’t stay away from movies about artists, no matter how sentimentalized they are (or even how far they may stray from the truth). I recently wrote a “listicle” about artist biopics for Biography.com; you can read it here.
Category: Books and Other Reading
Quick Reads: “The Vase of Perfume” by Chang Wu-Chien
The Vase of Perfume
Chang Wu-chien, translated by Gertrude L. Joerissen
If I open this flask of jade, in which is enclosed a
wondrous perfume, its mysterious fragrance will
overpower thee.
When I caress thee, O my vase of amber, do not
breathe forth thy amorous thoughts.
Image: Jade snuff bottle, 18th century, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 95.817.
Quick Reads: Tilda Swinton in GQ
I met Tilda Swinton in person once, four years ago. She was making a personal appearance at Henri Bendel in New York to mark the launch of Like This, her fragrance collaboration with Etat Libre d’Orange. You can read my brief post about that event here. I ended up getting a nasty e-mail from Bendel, which wasn’t happy about something I said in the “comments” section. All in all, though, the experience was a thrill, and Bendel doesn’t even sell fragrance anymore, so that’s all water under the bridge.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Tilda Swinton was just as preternatually beautiful in person as she is in photographs, and she radiates intelligence and wit and warmth. All of those qualities come through in her recent interview with, of all things, GQ. You can read it here. Spritz on some Like This and enjoy.
Quick Reads: Annabelle Gurwitch on “Free Samples”
I really enjoyed writer-comedian-actor Annabelle Gurwitch’s short essay about free samples, “The Treasure in a Small Package,” as published in The New York Times over the weekend. You can read it here.
Gurwitch begins,
“You’d think I had asked for a swatch from the Shroud of Turin. That’s how my request for a free sample of La Prairie went over with the sales associate at the Bloomingdale’s cosmetic counter…”
Image: Catherine Keener and Jennifer Aniston in “Friends with Money.”
Quick Reads: Frank O’Hara, “A Step Away from Them” (excerpt)
Frank O’Hara’s poetry collection “Lunch Poems,” first published in 1964, is celebrating its 50-year anniversary.
I own a small used paperback copy of “Lunch Poems” that I bought two years ago. I had heard that O’Hara wrote many of these poems during his lunch breaks while working at the Museum of Modern Art, so I thought I might occasionally read a poem or two during my own museum-job lunch breaks.
Here’s the first stanza of “A Step Away from Them,” written in 1956. It’s a vintage slice of New York in summertime.
It’s my lunch hour, so I go
for a walk amongst the hum-colored
cabs. First, down the sidewalk
where laborers feed their dirty
glistening torsos sandwiches
and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets
on. They protect them from falling
bricks, I guess. Then onto the
avenue where skirts are flipping
above heels and blow up over
grates. The sun is hot, but the
cabs stir up the air. I look
at bargains in wristwatches. There
are cats playing in sawdust.
To read the entire poem, click here.
To read a short New York Times article about the anniversary of “Lunch Poems,” click here.
Image: Leonard Freed, Wall Street, 1956.
TINSEL CREATION 