Molly Haskell, feminist film critic and author of My Brother My Sister: A Transformation, will lecture on Gender, Films and Feminism at 8 p.m. Thursday, November 7 at Sweet Briar College’s Conference Center, Wailes Room. Haskell’s free lecture will include discussion of her thoughtful, outspoken memoir about transgender and family. https://streetlightmag.com/2013/10/14/my-brother-my-sister/ Follow us!
Writers, or those who want to write but don’t, like to say they have Writer’s Block, Capitalized, as if to makes it real, an explanation for why they’re stuck. They can’t get started or get back to the project they’re sure would be a bestseller. Ideas come only when they’re falling asleep or driving, never when they sit down to write. They often smile when they talk about the Block, as if there’s a certain satisfaction in having one, like a treasure or a talent to display. I think saying you have Writer’s Block is … Continue reading No More Writer’s Block by Joan Mazza
Feminist film critic and author Molly Haskell, a Richmond, Va. native, can justly claim fame for her thought-provoking analysis of gender roles, especially as women have been portrayed over time on the silver screen. From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies (1973; revised in 1987) examines the treatment of women from timid innocents and brazen flappers to the sex kittens of the 60s and 70s. Holding My Own in No Man’s Land: Women and Men and Films and Feminists (1997) takes a serious — and witty — look back at Hollywood female … Continue reading My Brother My Sister
Call them festivals, retreats, or extended workshops. They all have many things in common: the well known faces, the intensive sessions, the performances, the camaraderie. As Chaucer noted so long ago, folk like to go on pilrimage and we don’t seem to have discarded the idea. All this comes to mind for me right now because it’s time to sign up the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, the one actual writing workshop I’ve ever been to. I won’t be going this year, but I wish I could. Sigh. The Palm Beach Poetry Festival, besides being representative … Continue reading Are You Going This Year?
New York artist Bob Kulicke always said he didn’t want to be the biggest collector of his own work. Whether as a direct result of this attitude or not, he painted the most refined, nuanced, exquisite pictures, kept the prices tantalizingly low and sold at least 95% of everything he painted. An absurdly generous man, he gave most of the rest away. He was in no danger of becoming his own biggest collector. Owning a painting of his routinely led buyers to become obsessed with owning more, and many of his collectors owned 20, 30 … Continue reading Flowers, Fruits and Frames: Art of Bob Kulicke
Artist Gray S. Dodson, Tidewater born and bred, moved to the meadows and mountains of Nelson County in 1995. Dodson’s wide array of “en plein air” oil paintings now reflect her Virginia journey as well as scenes painted onsite throughout the U.S., Canada, Curacao, France, Italy and Mexico. Fifteen of her works illustrate SUNDAY DRIVES, Cruising the Back Road of Amherst and Nelson Counties by Margaret Myers and Ann Rucker. “Nature captured me from the moment I stood before it with easel and paints and wondered how in the world I could do it justice,” … Continue reading Earth, Sky and Sea by Gray Dodson
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. I suspect the above is familiar to most readers, even though it was written mid-seventeenth century and so much from that period would seem totally closed to us, or at least, unfamiliar. It’s from a poem called, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by the Cavalier poet and clergyman Robert Herrick. It was a big hit at the time and it seems to have stood the test of time. … Continue reading Whaddya Mean Rosebuds?
Our guest blogger this week is Miles Fowler, who lives in Charlottesville. In this blog he talks about the Shakespeare Controversy and a part played in it by one of his own relatives: At the same time my mother told me about the Shakespeare authorship controversy, she told me one of our relatives was an anti-Stratfordian, someone who believes that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon (1564-1616) was not the true author of the plays and poems attributed to him. Later I got to know that relative as “Uncle William.” William Plumer Fowler (1900-1993) was an attorney, … Continue reading Uncle William and the Bard
I’ve been reading some of Ruth Rendell’s work lately. That sounds innocent enough, doesn’t it? Just picked up a couple of her latest, enjoyed the experience, had a nice day, eh? The fact is I have, over the past couple weeks read every single one of the Inspector Wexford series that the Charlottesville Public Library could provide for me. The whole series comprises twenty-five books, but that would be expecting too much. I did find some twenty (or rather, they were found for me), going back to From Doon With Death, 1964, and ending with … Continue reading No Spoilers Here
Meet Anna Bryant, a local painter/Montessori teacher/mother/wife/friend of mine. Currently, her exhibit, “Daily Feast”, is running at New Dominion Bookstore. I advise you to stop by when you’re downtown, but try to go after a meal; aside from their visual appeal, her paintings might stir up the munchies. As the exhibit name implies, Anna’s pieces are 6″ x 6″ snapshots from the kitchen table, done in delightful colors applied with thick brush strokes. They’re part of an artistic exercise she embarked on recently–a commitment to to create one painting a day–and though my artistic genre is … Continue reading Daily Feast: process before product