I am a huge fan of short fiction. I devour stories by Alice Adams, tasty morsels by Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway, decadent treats by Isabel Allende, dark chunks by Poe, and those wonderful America’s Best anthologies.
I picked up New Sudden Fiction the other day, and am enthralled with Stacey Richter’s “The Minimalist” and Leslie Pietrzyk’s “Pompeii.”
I wish I could write like them — but my brain just doesn’t marry images and words the way they do.
These stories are delicious torture.
I thought this was an interesting mini-series… better than a lot of the other terrorism programs that have cranked out recently.
One point struck me. There are two female lead characters — Maren in the US and Emily for the UK — who rely on the advice of a “mentor.” The American lead confides in a powerful shadowy male named Jay. Her British counterpart consults with the female head of MI-6.
Why is the UK more accepting of a powerful female politician? I think it’s because of those long years of rule by the monarchy. Margaret Thatcher ruled Britain for 11 years as the first female Prime Minister.
In portrayals of an ambitious American female, she is always advised by a powerful man. I’d like to see a film or program where a woman is supported by another woman.
I usually keep my thick brown hair really long, hanging an inch or two past my bra strap. And I’ll wear it long for a few years and then, always on impulse, I’ll have it cut short.
Back in 2003, I woke up one morning with the urge for really short hair. I got lucky. Someone had canceled their appointment with Remi at Molecule, who the Washingtonian had dubbed the best short hair stylist in the city. An hour after walking in, my locks were 14 inches shorter. I loved the super-short sassy cut.
But then I got tired of short and let it grow out. Until this morning.
I woke up with my hair wound in the topknot I’d been wearing to sleep for the last four months. As I started to brush it out and pull it back into a ponytail, I decided I was tired of long. I phoned Norbert (my new favorite salon) and got lucky. Mario could squeeze me in between coloring appointments.
I strolled in at 2:00pm and an hour later, with five inches of hair strewn on the floor around me, I glanced into the mirror and grinned.
I have friends who flip through countless hair magazines looking for the perfect cut, then hem and haw before finally making an appointment. I’m at the other end of the spectrum… I make the most drastic changes to my “style” on a whim. What does that say about me?
One night many years ago, I was catching up with high school pals during Christmas Break when my friend Adam blurted the strangest thing.
“I smelled you last month.”
What he meant to say was, he’d smelled someone wearing Sung. And while his comment made me smile, it also stayed with me.
I’ve always been a monogamous girl when it comes to fragrance.
In elementary school I wore honeysuckle by Avon bottled in a frosted glass teddy bear. I wore it everyday until the scent was discontinued on the eve of my entering junior high.
It took a little while before I found Primo, a knock-off of the more expensive Giorgio. I think back now and wrinkle my nose. I must have wreaked of Primo – considering the scent was sprayed on with a slender aluminum can (groans inwardly). But in the time of tight-rolled pants and skinny ties, jelly bracelets and paisley patterns, I stayed true.
By the time I reached high school, I’d moved from Maybelline to Clinique and from Primo to the more expensive and more sophisticated Poison. Every morning, before strapping on my Swatch, I’d spritz my wrists with a little Poison.
Granted, every now and then I’d be tempted by something lighter like Elizabeth Arden’s Sunflower or Estee Lauder’s Beautiful but I never strayed for long. Until, the summer before my senior year when I discovered Sung.
Alfred and I had a long affair, lasting well over seven years. In fact I’d never gone so long with the same scent. Even my beloved honeysuckle didn’t last that long. I imagined each time someone I knew well caught a whiff of Sung, they’d think of me.
So I decided to switch things up a bit, broke off with Alfred, and moved on to Issey Miyake.
Though I’m not as faithful. Most days I wear L’Eau D’Issey, but sometimes I’m in the mood for a little Flowers – usually in the fall and winter. And for real memorable occasions, I bring out the Must and dab those drops of heaven on my pulse points.
What’s your signature scent?
There are days I wish I’d never left my job folding sweaters at the GAP.
Today is one of those days.
On Saturday, August 18, Dr. Jorge Santiago Blay will speak on “Entombed in Amber” at 2:30 p.m. at the National Museum of Natural History.
An injured plant releases a resin that entraps an insect: about 120-130 million years later a Smithsonian scientist contemplates Earth history in that bit of hardened and fossilized resin, now called amber. Dr. Jorge Santiago-Blay studies amber and shares his broad understanding of this and other plant exudates as they may inform deep geologic time and have supplied important resources for humankind. Following the lecture, chat with Dr. Santiago-Blay at display tables and learn about these substances and how to spot fakes.
Like most people, I became enamored with amber after watching Jurassic Park. For years I’ve collected gold and green amber set in silver — rings, pendants, and a bracelet.
If you’re in DC on Saturday, think about dropping by Blay’s lecture.
In less than five minutes, five armed and masked thieves stole four paintings from the Jules-Cheret Fine Arts Museum in Nice.
The two Impressionist paintings — 1897 Cliffs Near Dieppe by Monet and the 1890 Lane of Poplars by Alfred Sisley — and two by Jan Bruegel the Elder — Allegory of Earth and Allegory of Water– are worth about $1.4 million.
The art museum is housed in an Italianate mansion that once belonged to a Ukrainian princess.
Because of all the publicity and the works that were taken, it’s not like these paintings will go up on the auction block at Christie’s or Sotheby’s anytime soon. Someone is spiriting them away to some private vault somewhere for their viewing pleasure. Why these paintings? And why not visit the museum and admire them like everyone else? Why do people covet these works?
And — if by some stroke of ingenuity and lapse of morality — you could take a very public painting and bring it home, what would you choose?
I would be torn between de Kooning’s portrait of JFK and Susanna and the Elders by Artemisia Gentileschi. Not that I ever would.
At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, an x-ray of Van Gogh’s “The Ravine” revealed that it covered another picture called “Wild Vegetation” — painted while he was a guest at the Saint-Remy asylum in the south of France. A full report will be published in the Burlington Magazine.
How crazy is it that 117 years after his death, lost pictures are still being found?
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