Duly Noted

I've been reading the biography of Virginia Woolf written by her nephew, Quentin Bell. I highly highly recommend it to those fond of Ms. Woolf, or to those who simply enjoy reading about the lives of artists and writers as I do. Whenever I pick up the lovingly detailed story, I am immediately swept away into 1910's, 1920's...The friendly Thursday night gatherings of the Bloomsbury group stir within me yearnings for stimulating conversations about literature, art, and music...complete with cigarettes, pipe smoke, and apartifs...and a gramophone! A time long past? Alas. Several other books take my imagination to this same vivid place...A Movable Feast, and more recently, The February House. I get on these kicks...Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Fitzgerald...and then Carson McCullers, W.H. Auden, Gyspy Rose Lee! (She wrote a murder mystery novel about Burlesque dancers!). Oh remarkable. Will our culture maintain these pivotal groups of writerly conversation and revolution...

I wish we all lived closer...

Holy hooligans, it's been a while! Winter has settled in here in the Twin Cities. The sky today is perfectly white, the trees are naked but for the pines and a few stubborn maples, and the ground is brown and frozen. Get out of the city, you might mistake yourself for living in the tundra. To survive Minnesota winters requires one to mindfully nurture a special resilience and odd admiration for the bitter cold. It's a skill that I work on every year. What keeps me smiling through the winters? Mostly small things... 1. My favorite coats: big pockets, high collars, horn buttons, elegant embroidery. It sounds trite, but lovely clothes can brighten my day! A nice coat is well worth the dollar. 2. Getting outside: I try to spend at least thirty minutes outside each day. A walk with Rachel, walking to the bus stop, going running (if it's above 20 degrees), walking on my lunch break at work. Once you get moving...the cold is a little more bearable. 3. Planning dinners...

Holy hooligans, it's been a while! Winter has settled in here in the Twin Cities. The sky today is perfectly white, the trees are naked but for the pines and a few stubborn maples, and the ground is brown and frozen. Get out of the city, you might mistake yourself for living in the tundra. To survive Minnesota winters requires one to mindfully nurture a special resilience and odd admiration for the bitter cold. It's a skill that I work on every year. What keeps me smiling through the winters? Mostly small things... 1. My favorite coats: big pockets, high collars, horn buttons, elegant embroidery. It sounds trite, but lovely clothes can brighten my day! A nice coat is well worth the dollar. 2. Getting outside: I try to spend at least thirty minutes outside each day. A walk with Rachel, walking to the bus stop, going running (if it's above 20 degrees), walking on my lunch break at work. Once you get moving...the cold is a little more bearable. 3. Planning dinners...