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Imitation of Life by Fanny Hurst was published to great success in 1933, made into a film in 1934, and then again in 1959. All three are a fascinating window on race in the USA. Fascinating and deeply depressing.
The movies are kind of an
obsession of mine. Particularly the contrast between them. So much changed in those intervening 25 years, and so very little. David Kehr in today's New York Times
describes the films thus:
Douglas Sirk’s 1959 "Imitation of Life" is among the most closely analyzed films in the Hollywood canon, a Lana Turner soap opera turned into an exercise in metaphysical formalism by Sirk’s finely textured and densely layered images. Less well known ...
Posted by Justine at 11:47, February 5th, 2008 under New York City/USA, State of the World, Viewing |
Photo by Scott
It was pretty.
Posted by Justine at 0:41, December 30th, 2007 under New York City/USA, Travelling |
In Australia voting is compulsory. Everyone is expected to do it. Basically that's because everything back home is geared towards making voting as easy as possible. Over here in the US of A it often seems to me like everything is organised to make voting as difficult as possible. What's up with that?
In Australia if you don't vote you pay a fine. Some people routinely pay the fine. Others who don't want to vote register their dissatisfaction by filling out their ballot wrong or donkey voting. Often by scrawling a message across the ballot. Usually their message is a bit on the rude side. That's fine. They've done their democratic duty. They showed up. The percentage of people ...
Posted by Justine at 0:06, November 27th, 2007 under New York City/USA, State of the World, Sydney/Australia |
There's a lot I don't like about the US political system, but there's one thing they have absoluately right: No head of state should be in power for more than eight years.
I think John Howard has demonstrated this truth as did Robert Menzies before him and Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair in the UK.
I agree with
George Washington that any one person staying in power for too long starts to stink of monarchy. ((I am with Winston Churchill who said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". And monarchy is amongst the worst.)) It leads to corruption and to the one ...
Posted by Justine at 16:13, November 25th, 2007 under New York City/USA, State of the World, Sydney/Australia |
So today is a big ole USian holiday where at some point you're all supposed to give thanks for all the stuff that's making you thankful. It's called---wait for it---
Thanksgiving. We have no equivalent in Australia. Though we do have, Australia Day, where we commemorate the successful invasion of Australia by white people. As you can imagine the indigenous population consider it to be a day of mourning. ((I'm one of those weird people who thinks there are things to mourn and celebrate about that day. As in, yes, Australia was invaded and taken over from the people who were already living there. And, yes, the early settlers of Australia were also brave and resilient making new lives for ...
Posted by Justine at 10:31, November 22nd, 2007 under Food, New York City/USA, State of the World, Sydney/Australia |
I've been cooking with pumpkin a lot of late. ((Note for USian readers, Australians do not use the word "squash" to refer to anything pumpkin-like. Squash is a soft vegetable that bears no relationship to any gourd.)) Mostly butternut because I loves it. But also spaghetti cause, well, weird! And I'm starting to experiment with pumpkins I'd never seen before. The US is the land of gourds. But I'm running out of ideas.
Here's the thing though: I do not have a working oven or grill. All I have is gas burners on top of the stove. I can boil, I can steam, I can fry. I cannot bake or grill.
Thus far I've made pumpkin stir fry, pumpkin curry, ...
Posted by Justine at 12:29, November 11th, 2007 under Food, New York City/USA, Sydney/Australia |
There are many Australian writers in town at the moment and there has been much socialising to celebrate. ((And, yes, that plus deadlines plus the blah blah blahs being out of control has put a crimp in my bloggery. Sorry!)) I can't tell you how much fun it is to be in NYC and not be the only Aussie in the room. ((Also for once it's all of them who are jetlagged while me and Scott are perfectly fine. It's usually the other way around.)) Especially when the other Aussies are fabulous folks like Deb Biancotti, Rob Hood, Margo Lanagan, Garth Nix, Cat Sparks, Trevor Stafford, and Jonathan Strahan. Much fun has been had. ((Though it's making me ...
Posted by Justine at 11:33, October 31st, 2007 under Bloggery, Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Sydney/Australia |
Day 11 of the tour:
Tonight's appearance at Books Inc (Opera Plaza) was fabulous. Lots of rabid, smart, enthusiastic Scott fans and passionate arguments about David/Zane. For the record I like Zane better than David but prefer Shay to either one of them.
The most wonderful part of the evening for me was meeting London, who's a guy from Sacramento, who drove all the way to San Francisco (which is at least two hours!) to tell me how much he loves my books. Isn't that awesome? Also turns out he's a Sacramento Monarchs fan and has even met their big star Yolanda Griffiths. I was deeply impressed and we got to talk women's hoops which always makes me happy.
Equally happy making ...
Posted by Justine at 2:49, October 10th, 2007 under Basketball, Fan art, Fans & readers, Scott's books, Travelling |
One of the fabulous things about this tour is seeing how popular so many of my friends are.
At a book shop on the outskirts of Chicago I saw this:
I pointed it out to Scott. "Look! Someone here loves Cassie's book. And they have a tonne of copies!" (There were more in piles above and below this book shelf.)
The bookseller who wrote that shelf talker overheard me:
"You know Cassie Clare?! Oh. My. God. I LOVED that book so much!!! She is a genius! I have loved her ever since I read her Secret Diaries!"
At a school in Walnut Creek, California lots of the kids had painted posters of their favourite books. The room was full of ...
Posted by Justine at 2:21, October 9th, 2007 under Bloggery, Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Praising, Travelling, Young Adult literature |
Everything on the book tour has very short margins. The driver taking you places in traffic-laden cities has to calculate the odds of getting you to your next gig on time and allow for potential disasters so you often arrive with tonnes of dead time or with barely seconds to get up and start charming.
You have a one-day turn around on getting your clothes laundered. If you drop it off in the morning it has to be ready in the evening or you're wearing dirties to a gig. One hotel forgot to return the dry cleaning. And we stupidly didn't check till it was too late leaving Scott struggling to put a clean ensemble together. Aaargh!! (Fortunately the ...
Posted by Justine at 11:34, October 8th, 2007 under Bloggery, Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings |
If this is Sunday it must be Oakland. What do you mean it isn't Sunday?! But this is Oakland, right?
Today has not been one of my better efforts. Let's see:
I almost broke one of Scott's toes,
Put the "signed by" sticker on several of his books upside down (worst
jacket monkey ever),
Left my bag with our passports in it behind at a restaurant and then managed not to hear the poor waiter sprinting after me and shouting with said bag in hands (but we got the bag back! yay most excellent waiter!),
Fell asleep in the middle of Scott reading me this thingie he's working on. (He is a most excellent reader. I have ...
Posted by Justine at 23:11, October 6th, 2007 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Scott's books, Travelling |
The tomatoes right now are unspeakably good. I went to the Tompkins Square farmers' market this morning and bought eight different kinds. Yum. They're so sweet and flavouresome they don't need dressing. Just salt and pepper and a squeeze of lime and you have the best tomato salad ever.
They also had the first
cape goosberries (husk cherries) of the season. Heaven! And the fresh garlic keeps on. I think I'll do a stir fry tonight of kale, lebanese cukes, garlic and onion. (All bought at the market.)
Even though I'm locked in working my arse off on the UFB and can't remember the last time I talked to a real human being (other than Scott) I'm still eating well! Sometimes ...
Posted by Justine at 13:27, August 12th, 2007 under Food, How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Praising, Whingeing |
