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Ewa Krzyzewska and Zbigniew Cybulski in Ashes and DiamondsI warned this would turn into cinema week, as I continue with my erratic foreign movie posts for this year as well as posting on movies adapted from books. For more foreign movies, check out Caroline’s World Cinema Series 2012 and Richard’s monthly Foreign Film Festival round-up. […]
This will likely be movie week as I try to catch on posting about movies I’ve seen recently and over the past few months. This movie hits a trifecta of associations: Continuing with my erratic foreign movie posts for this year—for more foreign movies, check out Caroline’s World Cinema Series 2012 and Richard’s monthly Foreign […]
Stevenson House / French House where Robert Louis Stevenson stayed while in Monterey, California Picture sourceLast summer I posted on visiting Robert Louis Stevenson State Park and the memorial commemorating his stay there as detailed in The Silverado Squatters. The hike up to the top of Mt. Saint Helena provides one of the best views […]
The City of Marvels by Eduardo Mendoza (translation by Bernard Molloy) has been sitting on my bookshelf for a decade. I needed the push of Spanish Lit Month hosted by Richard and Winstonsdad to finally open it. From the bookflap: Here is the story of Onofre Bouvila, a poor Catalan country boy who arrives in […]
Winstonsdad and Richard are hosting Spanish Lit Month at their blogs this month. Stealing the archives idea from Simon through Lizzy I thought I would highlight three of the Spanish language books I’ve previously covered at this blog and one series of books. Miguel de Unamuno has long been one of my favorite authors and […]
Meet Ginger, the newest addition to our family. It’s hard to get her to stay still at the moment. The boys are excited and she’s doing well in her new house. So far–she’s been here less than a day. She will probably appear on Cesar Millan’s Dog Whisperer TV show later this year in a […]
What to do when you’re sick and you can’t concentrate enough to read or post? The other day my wife made some comment about stats on her business website so I poked around on pageviews on this blog. I was pleasantly surprised with what I found. It’s easy to tell what is being covered in […]
Almost immediately, I hit a snag. It is close to impossible to browse a serious library’s collection of porn and porn criticism without getting sucked into big, sexy historical theories. Within an hour of my visit to Harvard’s Widener Library, I was beginning to suspect that smut had been behind the rise of … everything. […]
Bruno Schulz’s drawing for the original cover, 1937Previous posts on Ferdydurke: Introduction: who’s read it is an ass Source of the title? Freddy Durkee The first chapter: do you know what it feels like to be diminished within someone else? An overview: they’re NOT a bunch of harmless duffers Online videos Gombrowicz had published two […]
Still from 30 Door Key‘s face-pulling sceneI was unable to find a copy of 30 Door Key, the 1991 English adaptation of Ferdydurke directed by Jerzy Skolimowski (who just directed The Avengers) and starring Iain Glen and Crispin Glover. All copies available on WorldCat were at institutions that don’t participate in interlibrary loans for audiovisual […]