I originally wrote about "Lost and Delirious" previously both here and on Amazon a few years ago, but this movie continues to hold a place in my heart, especially on certain mornings when I awake from one of my weird recurring dreams of a long ago broken heart..not really similar to this situation that much, except in intensity of feelings...the thing I think most striking about (and the key to getting over) broken hearts and not being able to let go is this: the person who stomped all over your emotions doesn't care, so why should you? (Of course, that's most definitely easier said than done and I'm not sure we can always speak for what happens in our dreams and why the past often haunts them...)

"Ok, just go ahead and rip my heart out now!" That's what I want to say to albums that wreck havoc with my emotions. The other day when I went to get my mail there was this huge package in the box...an order I put it in from my favorite music magazine The Big Takeover. Along with the current issue and two back issues was this mix cd casually put together with a typed label, scotch tape and (inside the case) handwriting scrawled across the cd itself.

I just got around to listening to it and boy, is it good...in only the way an "undiscovered" band sounds...this one song ("No More Yesterdays") by Springhouse is threatening to undo me...it's so beautiful and sad. The past few weeks had left me a bit jaded with mainstream music and its sometimes over-produced sounds, but this little gem is just gorgeous...and its lack of pretentiousness makes it all the better...

Here Springhouse for yourself:

Springhouse



The man behind The Big Takeover is Jack Rabid:

(a great book for anyone who's a fan of Audrey Hepburn...an actress who definitely kept herself out of the limelight)



There are some days (many, actually) when you (or rather, those of us who can't seem to keep our mouths shut) wonder, "why on earth did I just spill my guts to a complete stranger?" And since blogging can often feel like that, I doubly wonder...I really, really admire and respect private people...there is something elegant and beautiful about privacy...and it's not just the veil of mystery that surrounds those who keep to themselves, but the dignity that fits them like a second skin.

The first person I fell madly in love with (or so it felt at the time) was like that...never said anything frivolous or unimportant...every word was thoughtful and full of meaning and care...as if the speaker were aware that words could be weapons or things that could come back and haunt you someday.

There are some days (only some) when I wonder whatever happened to x (my mysterious crush from oh so long ago) but in perfect keeping with that ever-so-out-0f-reach persona, x is not on facebook, myspace or anywhere online...

I can't stay away from here sometimes...I'm reading Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point right now and finding it to be a rather interesting read...more so than Brave New World. In Point Huxley's drug and sex side comes through more and his characters' attitudes about love...rather refreshingly honest. But I've just started so I'll need to read more to comment....I love the cover of the above edition by the way...especially the reviewer's blurb!!

My edition has a distinctly 19th century look to the cover...more soon!

Just out today: Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories (Library of America)...with an afterword by Joyce Carol Oates (I can't think of any other writer more suited for the job of writing about Ms. Jackson, the two women both have the sense of the macabre about them!!)

I'm so excited I can barely type...okay, maybe I exaggerate just a tad (I'm holding my index finger and thumb close together right now)...



For someone who looked so safe in her publicity stills, Shirley Jackson was anything but. An inspiration to Stephen King (whose photo DEFINITELY gives you a clue to his dark side), Jackson wrote stories that are creepy because you can’t sweep them under the bed, thinking they could never happen in real life.

Her infamous short story "The Lottery" eerily captures the brute force of a small town gone wrong, years before mob mentality became front page news. But as chilling and powerful as "The Lottery" is, it’s her lesser known tales that are my absolute favorites and (I think) her true gems.

Some of the stories are downright scary; besides "The Lottery," there’s the bizarre and chilling "The Intoxicated," where a teenage girl startles a grown man with her vision of the future. Others, including “Charles” — complete with a startling twist at the end — are surprisingly adorable and funny. And some are heartbreakingly sad, as is “The Daemon Lover” where a hopeful, deluded woman waits a LONG time for the fiance who never shows at her door.

Response to the publication of "The Lottery" in the New Yorker was so strong many people canceled their subscriptions: response to "The Lottery"

(This essay gets to the heart of why some of us Shirley Jackson fans love her work so much!)

Jackson was not particularly prolific, but what she did write (including posthumously released collections like Just An Ordinary Day) was (and still is) often downright delicious.


Also included in the Library of America edition (it's about time LOA recognize how great a writer Jackson was!) are the two unnerving novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.