Library Envy

"We pass through a labyrinthine library containing 30,000 books - he has a further 20,000 at his 17th-century palazzo near Urbino." The journalist gets an additional five bonus points for using two of my favorite words "labyrinthine" and "library" together in the same sentence. "Palazzo" is just icing on the cake.

Spin Control

Thursday night (it seems so long ago) I covered FIDM's Grad Gala at The City Club of San Francisco, a swanky Art Deco space with an original Diego Rivera fresco and decor and furnishings by California artists. With performances by Jetset Seven, Spencer Day, (a "young Harry Connick Jr.") and the Art Deco Belles, you could (almost) pretend you were back at a USO dance. Then stopped at Le Colonial afterwards for a quick cocktail to continue the vibe. Hellooo Casablanca! I can't believe I'd never been there before. Luscious! Later on I met up with friends for a little Popscene at 330 Ritch. Well, the rest of the weekend is top secret and that's all you need to know.

This is adorable. You have to take it just to read all the possible answers.

You're John Keats! You were born poor, trained to
be a doctor, and then decided you wanted to be
a poet. You threw yourself into poetry with
great dedication. You're very nice and
extremely dedicated to your art. You write
great letters and sexy poetry. It's amazing
how much you got done in your short lifetime.


Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?
brought to you by Quizilla

The Mechanics' Institute

The Mechanics' Institute in downtown San Francisco maintains "the oldest library on the West Coast and one of the oldest chess clubs in the United States." Upcoming events: The World of Christopher Marlowe, June 9 and the 4th Annual Bloomsday Celebration, June 16.

The Little Red-Haired Girl

Need something to do at work? Watch White Stripes videos and then read Goldenfiddle's analysis of the frequently present red-head. That should kill time until lunch.

Homegrown Hero

Wonder if you can maintain a diet of sustainable, locally-grown food? Jen at Life Begins at 30 is bravely chronicling her daily diet for one week to find out how possible it really is. (via Becks & Posh)

The gothic earrings are from Anthropologie and the purse is from La Voleuse. Both items remind me of the evil tree in Carnivàle. Which brings me to my point: Carnivàle, sadly, has officially been cancelled. There is, of course, a Save Carnivàle campaign in progress.

Romancing the Tome

Head to Romancing the Tome to get Amy's take on Zola's steamy novel Nana and my newsbites on the latest in lit-loving cinema (such as Sylvester Stallone's upcoming film about Edgar Allan Poe!).

"A Bit of a Crush, Actually"

Michael Chabon describes writing The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. (via The Morning News)

So I have a bit of a literary crush....on Michael Chabon's writing. I've read Mysteries and The Wonder Boys and thought they were more than worthy of the praise they received. Also, I heard Chabon read his nightmare-inducing story about clown murders, which pretty much still haunts me, at an event a few years ago (where David Byrne also presented his power point presentation). Though I don't read much detective/horror/science fiction, I actually quite like it and it's underappreciated, of course, generally. (I'm really convinced that Steven King's novels from the 70s (The Stand, The Shining) will someday receive the critical appreciation they deserve. I mean, look how many trees the Victorian novelists managed to kill and goodness knows, every single novel by those great artists wasn't a masterpiece.) I keep wanting to read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, but somehow I haven't managed to do it yet.

Related: Michael Chabon: Interviews & Press (McSweeney's) and Crafty Cliffhanger

Matadors and the Bloggers Who Love Them

Read more about Manet's The Dead Toreador and find out why he destroyed Incident in a Bullfight.


Tina Barney's "The Matador, 2004" from her photographic collection, "The Europeans." See more of Barney's photos at Borden.

Kids of Kilimanjaro

My friend Victoria's father has launched a program to provide school lunches to kids in Tanzania. Find out how you can help.

Related: More than Mystery Meat

Random Bits

Download French pop from the '60s (and a lot of other cool mp3s) at Spoilt Victorian Child.

Sounds and Fury on Wagner in Berlin, "Eurotrash Redux"

Was your weekend as nice as mine? I certainly hope so. Here's a list of some of the things I'm planning to do this week, plus things I would be doing this week if I didn't have to sleep and pay the bills or if there were two of me.

Quite a few people seem to like Layer Cake. After I see that, um, other movie that is out right now.

The cathartic sobfest, The Way We Were, is playing at the Castro Theatre the 21st-23rd.

Mae (Multisensory Aesthetic Experience) will be playing at Slim's on Wednesday night. I hadn't heard of them before, but I just read somewhere that they are a little like Spiritualized. Sounds good to me.

I would like to stop by the Robert Koch Gallery at some point to check out their latest exhibit Paris During the Second Empire 1852-1870 (via Flavorpill SF).

Gael Garcia Bernal in "Blood Wedding"

"Gael turns London red hot for Lorca" (mexicanwave.com)
"The Language of Love" (The Observer)

Need a good laugh?

The LISTSERV.

This post is for my new friend Chris.

"Artists make art behind the art already hanging in hotel rooms." (via The Morning News)

At the Book Store

Tayari Jones will be reading from her new book The Untelling at S.F.'s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books on Sunday, May 22nd at 4pm. Click over to Lux Lotus for more information on the reading and reception.

Trippin'

I'll be in San Miguel de Allende from September 17 to September 25. I can hardly wait to get back there! I'm trying to decide whether I want to stop in Mexico City for a couple days on the way down. We'll see. Also, I'll be in NYC for a whirlwind trip June 6-8 for Amy's book launch party. More info on that to come...

Related: Bird by Bird

My Kind of Celebrity Gossip

If you're in London sometime between May 16th and September 18th, you should visit the Tate Britain for the Joshua Reynolds exhibition "The Creation of Celebrity." From the Tate's website:

The exhibition brings together a selection of the greatest portraits by Reynolds, many of them depicting the most famous men and women of the eighteenth century, such as the writer Samuel Johnson, the actress Mrs Siddons, the political philosopher Edmund Burke and the actor David Garrick, as well as courtesans, aristocrats and military leaders. Collectively, they represent the cream of British society of the era. But Reynolds did not simply paint these individuals. He befriended them, brought them into contact with one another, shaped their public images, and massaged their egos.

(Painting: Le Lady Walgrave, Joshua Reynolds, via drammaturgia.it)

Fire Walk with Me

If the word "deathmarch" doesn't scare you and/or you have a burning desire to embark on a literary quest, head to CecilVortex.com and RSVP to slog and blog your way through Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire.

The Spirit of '06

Have you been to the Musee Mecanique? The collection of antique arcade games used to be under the Cliff House, but now it's at the end of Pier 45 (Fisherman's Wharf). I checked out the new digs on Sunday and the collection is just as creepy cool as ever. If you watch HBO's Carnivàle (the first season DVD is now available on Netflix) and/or if you've read The Confessions of Max Tivoli, the museum makes a great companion to either. It really catches the turn-of-the-century spirit of invention and the fascination with mechanics. You can imagine how new and strange it must've seemed to people at the time--almost like magic. Particularly when the mechanics are combined with the "paranormal" as they are in the many fortune telling machines. Most of the machines are in working order and there are plenty of change machines. There is no entry fee. (Update: While I smugly put quotations around the word paranormal, I should add that all of us thought our readings were eerily right on...isn't that the way it always is?)

Merengue. M-E-R-E-N-G-U-E.

I saw the trailer for "Mad Hot Ballroom" before "Look at Me" the other day and it was sweet. (Yes, by "sweet" I mean I got a little misty--but nothing along the lines of "Moonlight Mile." Every time the chorus "Someone save, someone save my life tonight" played over Jake Gyllenhaal looking distraught, I was reduced to absolute mush. A case of trailer being better than movie.) Anyway, Choire Sicha reviews "Mad Hot Ballroom," a movie about kids in the N.Y. public school system competing in a dance competition, for the L.A. Times.

Warhol's 1963 portrait of Elizabeth Taylor was purchased by a British jeweller for 11.2 million dollars reports the Guardian.

"A Plague O' Both Your Houses"

Oh and Romeo and Juliet was quite fun. Mercutio and Tybalt's swordfight was particularly nice as was Mercutio's death scene. Meructio is a great character. If I were a thespian and of the male variety, I'd want to play him.

Update--More Mercutio: "Harlequin Mercutio," an essay by Alice Meynell; Andrew Johnson as Mercutio (a political cartoon); and Mercutio's monologue.

Catching Up

SFist goes behind the scenes to view the new Star Wars film and confirms that praise is warranted. (And Tom Stoppard DID collaborate on the screenplay. So best.)

Queue dramatic soundtrack:
So I'm walking through Union Square on the way to work Monday morning and I glance skyward, hoping that I wasn't crazy to leave the house without an umbrella. Storm clouds are rushing to gather above the winged victory statue, which is atop an 85 ft. tall column in the center of the square. I just happen to be listening to Handel's Messiah.

Currently reading Little Dorrit. At almost 1000 pages, the difficult part is lugging the book around with me. While some find the Victorian novels tediously dry, I'm always profoundly grateful for every paragraph of a Dickens' novel, no matter the length or density, knowing that a careful reading yields rewards as numerous as the pages on which it's written. It's such a pleasure to watch the plot as it unravels, each character revealed, curiously examined, then patiently connected to the others. Actually the funny thing is I can hardly sit still or remain focused for one minute when it comes to almost any other activity. Speaking of, I'd better get back to "work."

Planning Ahead

Film Night in the Park is held in various parks in SF and around the Bay Area, including Washington and Union Squares and Dolores Park, beginning May 14. Here's the schedule.

D'amour pas comme les autres....

I'm seeing the San Francisco Ballet company perform Romeo & Juliet tonight!

From the archives: Good Knight, 5 Favorite Adaptations, Martine's Chocolates (Jan '03)

No Quibbles, Just Bits

Thanks to the couple of people who emailed about tickets to the Shin's show in Portland. Unfortunately we're postponing our trip (boo!) until July or August because Linda just got a new job (yay!) and she'll be in NYC for training that weekend.

Hip-Hop high priest Chuck D will be speaking on "The Future of the Entertainment Industry" at the Commonwealth Club this Thursday.

Don Quixote literally the founder of Enlightenment? ("A Rational Quixote" Prospect Magazine via Arts & Letters Daily)

Guillaume Canet (Love Me if You Dare, The Beach) will star in a movie about this based on the book "Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce."

Whatever I feel like I wanna do, GOSH!

Nicki and I watched Ocean's Twelve on Thursday night and it just made us kind of uncomfortable, especially the part where Julia Roberts plays herself. Saturday afternoon I walked down Washington through the hustle and bustle of Chinatown to meet Linda at the Embarcadero Cinema where we saw the French film "Look at Me." (Art house theaters always have the best concession stands. The cashier asked me if wanted my Junior Mints "chilled or room temperature." La dee da.) It's a sweet movie. Like 2001's Lovely and Amazing, it deals with self esteem and body image but with the much lighter tone of a romantic comedy. Audrey Tautou is NOT in it, but Keine Bouhiza is.