imbroglio

Wow, I just learned a new word I've never seen before in my life and I will share it.

imbroglio (noun)

an extremely confused, complicated, or embarrassing situation : the Watergate imbroglio

James Cameron Writing Avatar Prequel Novel

“I told myself, if it made money, I’d write a book.” 
- James Cameron

Ooh, I'm intrigued. Is it going to be turned into a movie after??

Full article

J.D. Salinger, Author of 'The Catcher in the Rye,' Is Dead at 91

J.D. Salinger was notoriously reclusive in his later years, choosing to spend the his post-fame life in the seclusion provided by New Hampshire granite and wood. He did not give interviews and he did not engage with the outside world, literary or otherwise. He did, however, periodically visit the Baker-Berry Library at Dartmouth College -- specifically, he would visit the News Room, a relatively out-of-the-way section of the first floor of the library where he would sit for hours and read newspapers and other news publications, reportedly. I too have spent many, many hours in the News Room throughout my Dartmouth career. I've worked there since freshman year, before I was let go and then the position was cut from the staff (in that order). I know I must have seen him or helped him with something or spoken with him, but I never knew it was him. And now he is gone, and breathing feels more shallow. The frailty of life is at once overwhelming and strangely close to home.

___________________________________

From: Sorority sister

Date: 28 Jan 2010 13:40:52 -0500
Subject: News Alert: J.D. Salinger, Author of 'The Catcher in the Rye,' Is Dead at 91
To: Sorority list, including me

the publications roomwill never be the same.....

--- Forwarded message from "NYTimes.com News Alert" ---

Date:      Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:17:45 -0500
From: "NYTimes.com News Alert"
Subject:   News Alert: J.D. Salinger, Author of 'The Catcher in the Rye,' Is Dead at 91
Reply-to: nytdirect@nytimes.com

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Thu, January 28, 2010 -- 1:17 PM ET
-----

J.D. Salinger, Author of 'The Catcher in the Rye,' Is Dead at 91

J. D. Salinger, who was thought at one time to be the most
important American writer to emerge since World War II but
who then turned his back on success and adulation, has died
in Cornish, N.H., where he lived in seclusion for more than
50 years, his son told The Associated Press. He was 91.

Mr. Salinger's literary reputation rests on a slender but
enormously influential body of published work: the novel "The
Catcher in the Rye," the collection "Nine Stories" and two
compilations, each with two long stories about the fictional
Glass family: "Franny and Zooey" and "Raise High the Roof
Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction."

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

_______________________________________

Atlas Shrugged [E-mailed]

Here's an e-mail I received from a friend that I thought was interesting enough to post verbatim. I've never read Atlas Shrugged (I know, so sue me) but now my interest is piqued -- is the entire book very good?

___________________________________

From: [Dartmouth '10 retracted]

Date: 28 Dec 2009 19:23:31 -0500

Subject: interesting little tidbit
To: [Group of sender's friends including Georgina]
Reply-To: [Nickname retracted]

sooooo this break i've been reading ayn rand's atlas shrugged - really really interesting. buuut here's a passage i just HAD to share

about sex. you can interchange the him and her as you wish

"He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer - because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut."

a little harsh on the "brainless slut" part - but sort of interesting when we think about people we're attracted to

sorry if this bores you, i just had to share, and am sitting at home reading alone, so obvi blitz [e-mail] comes to the rescue.

anywaysssssss happppy new years!

___________________________________

But since I've never read Atlas Shrugged, I'm left wondering: who is "he" in this quote?

Becoming Jane

I just watched the movie Becoming Jane this week (on DVD), and I thought it was a very good film. The premise of the movie (spoiler? ...) is that the main character Jane Austen basically lives the life of Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice, and then later pens and publishes Pride and Prejudice based on her own great romance (because she is Jane Austen, author of Pride and Prejudice, haha). The main difference between the 'fact' of the movie and the 'fiction' of the book is that unlike her literary counterpart, there is no happy ending for Jane in the movie -- she never marries her real-life Darcy (love interest and penniless young lawyer Tom Lefroy, portrayed beautifully by James McAvoy) and is single for the rest of her life, living by the wit of her pen.

Earlier in the movie, in an attempt to convince her to marry the wealthy-but-boring character who has proposed to Jane, her mother admonishes, "Affection is desirable. Money is absolutely indispensable." The irony of the movie is that Jane takes this advice to heart and chooses not to elope with Tom Lefroy because she realizes the extent that his family depends on his income (and accordingly, his non-tarnished, non-eloped reputation) as a provider.

I liked the movie because it made me think -- and I realize this is starting to read like a fourth grade book report -- and realize the limitations women faced in the past in determining their own destinies, even in relatively high society. Of course, even today not all women have a choice.

Hold that thought. Live blogging, this is unfinished...

OK, I'm back.

Luckily, today in Western society a woman is no longer considered 'unmarriageable' if she is a writer... banker... production director... or whatever profession. Either way, I would not want to be alone for the rest of my life like Jane and have a great unresolved love who I discover many years later has named his first child after me (which Tom does for Jane). That was the very tragic conclusion of the movie.

I also liked the film because it recalls all that olde English shit we girls love: romance, restraint in interactions with the opposite sex, propriety, pride... prejudice... But seriously, I did enjoy the stolen glances and slight hand grazes between the main characters, and it reminded me that courtship used to be drawn out and slow-growing (is it still today, outside of college?). I was even willing to overlook Jane and Tom's seemingly sudden realization of their passionate love (in the woods, no less) because it was so... passionate.

Four stars to Becoming Jane for a strong lead character and being much better than I anticipated. I love being pleasantly surprised by movies. :)

Banner choice explanation

The painting we currently have on display in our banner is Several Circles (Einige Kreise) by Wassily Kandinsky, 1926.

I chose this painting because a Kandinsky painting is heavily referenced in one of my favorite American plays, "Six Degrees of Separation" by John Guare, and I had actually never taken the time to look up what Kandinsky paintings looked like outside of reading the descriptions in the play, and I guess this artist was at the tip of my brain.

I've actually reviewed the play in one of the earlier blog entries. I read it as part of my American Drama course with Professor Donald Pease - quite a bombastic and fantasmic orator - last spring. I realize now that I really loved that class and I wish I had taken more English classes during my time at Dartmouth. Aside from practical concerns or excuses like completing my major/minor, I think I've been a bit intimidated by English classes because I've been terrified that they'll somehow reveal that I'm not as good at the subject as I think I am. Perhaps I'll try to audit another class like that this winter or spring. I love literature!

Here's another Kandinsky I love:

Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle), 1913,

National Gallery of Art, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

Next blog color scheme, perhaps?

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

I realized that the book was due to the library tomorrow and it wouldn't let me renew it, so I read the whole thing in one sitting today, and it is a very, very, very good book. Extremely well-researched. Clearly and simply written, in a tone that strikes the perfect pitch between documentary-like academia and when your smart friend talks to you with great verve about an interesting discovery. Incredibly insightful and incisive.

Author Malcolm Gladwell introduces his book in this video on Amazon.

Outliers are those who have been given opportunities – and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. For hockey and soccer players born in January, it’s a better shot at making the all-star team. For the Beatles, it was Hamburg. For Bill Gates, the lucky break was being born at the right time and getting the gift of a computer terminal in junior high. Joe Flom and the founders of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz got multiple breaks. They were born at the right time with the right parents and the right ethnicity, which allowed them to practice takeover law for twenty years before the rest of the legal world caught on.

Read it. It's a quick read and well worth the time. Even the epilogue, which details the circumstances in which his own success was created and how it applies to the world, is excellent and captivating.

Newsweek's 50 Books For Our Times

The List

I'm going to at least try to read a review of each and hopefully read at least one or two this summer.

Anna in the Tropics

"I have another answer to your question. Alcohol is prohibited in this country because alcohol is like literature. Literature brings out the best and worst part of ourselves. If you're angry it brings out your anger. If you are sad, it brings out your sadness. And some of us are... Let's just say, not very happy."

"Yes, we deserve a little drink. We work hard enough. We deserve all that life offers us, and life is made of little moments. Little moments as small as violet petals. Little moments I could save in a jar and keep forever, like now talking to you."

"In his letter he was going to write everything he'd been meaning to tell her."

- Anna in the Tropics

Eugene O'Neill, Master of Mirth

Excerpt from a WSJ review of a play - currently being staged on Broadway - that I read for my American Drama class this term.

by Terry Teachout

"Was Eugene O'Neill really a great playwright? Nobody was asking that question when he died in 1953, but nowadays his greatness tends to be asserted by critics rather than demonstrated by actors: O'Neill's work is no longer seen on Broadway with any regularity, and most of the plays that made him famous in the '20s are rarely done elsewhere. Robert Falls's revival of "Desire Under the Elms," O'Neill's 1924 tragedy about an aging farmer (Brian Dennehy) whose nubile young wife (Carla Gugino) lusts after her angry young stepson (Pablo Schreiber), marks the first time that this once-shocking, now-dated play has been performed on Broadway since 1952. I wish I could say it was worth the wait, but the play is silly and the staging comprehensively ludicrous, Ms. Gugino's steam-heated performance notwithstanding.

...

Ms. Gugino, a vibrant and compelling TV and film actress who has had the misfortune to appear in two bad plays in a row, "After the Fall" and "Suddenly Last Summer," is now three for three. Here as before, she manages to slice through the surrounding stupidity and give a performance that leaves no doubt of her exceptional gifts, but everything she does is wasted by Mr. Falls, who seems more interested in simulating sexual intercourse onstage than in making the best possible use of a major talent. Mr. Dennehy is solidly competent, Mr. Schreiber surprisingly dull. All three actors spend most of their time yelling."

Is that bad that it makes me want to see the play more?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124095688406165583.html#mod=article-outset-box

The Inheritors by Susan Glaspell

EMIL: Oh, well--Jesus, if you're going to talk about that ----! You can't change the way things are.
MADELINE (quietly): Why can't I?
EMIL: Well, say, who do you think you are?
MADELINE: I think I'm an American. And for that reason I think I have something to say about America.
EMIL: Huh! America'll lock you up for your pains.
MADELINE: All right. If it's come to that, maybe I'd rather be a locked-up American than a free American.
EMIL: I don't think you'd like the place, Madeline. There's not much tenis played there. Jesus--what's Hindus?
MADELINE: You aren't really asking Jesus, are you, Emil? (Smiles.) You mightn't like his answer.

I just finished this play and it was so good. I'm in an American Drama class now and I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to read on a regular basis. I literally still feel guilty spending time reading though, even though it's for class. I'm kind of surprised at how good American drama is! I really, really like plays now. Hopefully I can watch one on Broadway or off-Broadway this summer.

-G

Mountains Beyond Mountains

Just finished readings Mountains Beyond Mountains, a book about Dr. Paul Farmer and his work to eradicate TB and HIV/AIDS in some of the world's poorest regions. I was a bit underwhelmed by the book, but it offers a clear, even-keeled viewpoint on Dr. Paul Farmer - it doesn't evangelicize him. I chose to read this book because I knew Paul Farmer worked with Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the new President of Dartmouth College. The book also offers a very incisive look into JKY as well - his motives, his methods, his mindset.

This books follows up on something I've been struggling with a lot recently - how to make a difference in the world. Especially after I learned a bit more about JYK and what he did, I've been thinking more and more about what I'll be doing in the near future, after school. How can I positively effect change? I need to do something that matters with my life. Mountains Beyond Mountains reveals one (amazing, albeit extreme and controversial) way to do this - the Farmer method, doing everything and anything to help the individual on a mass scale. But it also shows how important other roles are as well - for one, the entire Partners In Health operation that Paul Farmer founded would have literally been impossible had it not been bankrolled (by the millions) by his contact Tom White, who owns a large Boston construction firm - far from medicine or microfinance or global environmental health or all those other Big Ideas that I ponder and that Matter. So the biography, since it is a biography about Paul Farmer, mostly goes to show how important the work of one person was/is, through direct action and hard work and perseverence. But I can't help but also take away the message that funding is so incredibly important to getting anything done. That, as much as Paul Farmer has done, incredible as it was, much of it would not have been happened without Tom White or other sources of funding. So donations do matter. It's not just an outlet for expunging that Catholic/Jewish/Christian/Buddhist guilt and getting some tax credit along the way. I remember someone (a professional in the Chicago area, I believe) saying that to me a few years back at some summer conference too. That one can only help change the world for real with money. But maybe I'm only wont to think this way because I'm priming the excuse for going into finance or some branch that won't Matter as much as what Paul Farmer has been doing. I really want to help Matter. The font change is to bring up the question of: do I just want to do something that matters in the world so I matter? How much does self-perception and ego play into this? I also very much wish I had seen Paul Farmer speak at our school last year. Priorities, priorities.

Lots to think about.