CULT |
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"Looking rather like stills from an unknown New Wave film, the pictures cover Smith from her early hippie days in New York to the first year or two of her fame with a remarkable consistency, displaying various ratty lofts, misguided hairstyles, improvised fashion choices, and a lot of winning and unforced self-display, the Hollywood poses of a girl who didn’t think she was beautiful."
— Luc Sante on Patti Smith and the writings on Smith and the writings of Smith and the photographs of Smith.
LIT |
![believermag:
Joan Didion talks about gaining confidence, and about her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne. Next week, the entire interview will be published on The Believer website. Excerpt 1, and Excerpt 2 are here. We spoke over the phone, she from her hotel in Washington, on book tour for Blue Nights.
— Sheila Heti
BLVR: I imagine it’s difficult to write non-fiction because you have to have such authority to say, This is what the world is. How can you really have the authority to say, I know enough and I’ve seen enough to be able to conclude things about the world?
JD: Well, you have to just gain that confidence, which is part of what you do over the course of your whole career. I mean, you become confident that you have—this sounds ridiculous, but you become confident that you have the answer.
BLVR: Do you remember the point—
JD: —at which you get that confidence?
BLVR: Well, for you.
JD: For me it probably occurred fairly late, when I started getting feedback from the audience. Feedback in terms of a response. Well, it wasn’t fairly late. It was fairly early [laughs] when I started getting a response from the audience, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the nerve to continue.
BLVR: Where would you situate that? Around which book?
JD: I would say it happened at Play It As It Lays. Which was, when? My third book. I remember my husband saying, when Play It As It Lays was about to come out, he said, This isn’t going to—you’re never going to—you’re never going to—this book isn’t going to make it.
BLVR: Did it hurt your feelings when he said that?
JD: No, it didn’t hurt my feelings. It was, I thought, a realistic assessment, which I certainly agreed with.
BLVR: Why did you both feel like it wasn’t going to make it?
JD: Because it was my third book and I had not made it until then. And you don’t see—I mean, you don’t think in terms of suddenly making it. You think you have some stable talent which will show no matter what you’re writing, and if it doesn’t seem to be getting across to the audience once, you can’t imagine that moment when it suddenly will.
I really like Sheila Heti and I really think I love Joan Didion.](http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ly2gmdkDl21qzh8wko1_r3_400.jpg)
Joan Didion talks about gaining confidence, and about her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne. Next week, the entire interview will be published on The Believer website. Excerpt 1, and Excerpt 2 are here. We spoke over the phone, she from her hotel in Washington, on book tour for Blue Nights.
— Sheila Heti
BLVR: I imagine it’s difficult to write non-fiction because you have to have such authority to say, This is what the world is. How can you really have the authority to say, I know enough and I’ve seen enough to be able to conclude things about the world?
JD: Well, you have to just gain that confidence, which is part of what you do over the course of your whole career. I mean, you become confident that you have—this sounds ridiculous, but you become confident that you have the answer.
BLVR: Do you remember the point—
JD: —at which you get that confidence?
BLVR: Well, for you.
JD: For me it probably occurred fairly late, when I started getting feedback from the audience. Feedback in terms of a response. Well, it wasn’t fairly late. It was fairly early [laughs] when I started getting a response from the audience, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the nerve to continue.
BLVR: Where would you situate that? Around which book?
JD: I would say it happened at Play It As It Lays. Which was, when? My third book. I remember my husband saying, when Play It As It Lays was about to come out, he said, This isn’t going to—you’re never going to—you’re never going to—this book isn’t going to make it.
BLVR: Did it hurt your feelings when he said that?
JD: No, it didn’t hurt my feelings. It was, I thought, a realistic assessment, which I certainly agreed with.
BLVR: Why did you both feel like it wasn’t going to make it?
JD: Because it was my third book and I had not made it until then. And you don’t see—I mean, you don’t think in terms of suddenly making it. You think you have some stable talent which will show no matter what you’re writing, and if it doesn’t seem to be getting across to the audience once, you can’t imagine that moment when it suddenly will.
I really like Sheila Heti and I really think I love Joan Didion.
Reblogged from The Believer Logger.
The whole Leonard Cohen album is streaming at NPR now. »
This is turning out to be a really good Monday.
I own (didn’t steal, even) the entire Leonard Cohen discography and it is not enough.
Reblogged from naming blogs is easy.
why i write like a girl
Because I am a girl, whether you like it or not. Because the whole of human experience is to say the least overwhelming; to divide it in half, to write about female experiences in what might be a female way, is closer to achievable. Is realistic? Is less arrogant. Because I may be a narcissist forever and ever amen but I am not arrogant enough to think that I am impartial, omnipotent, the voice of God, the New York Times. Because writing like a guy has given us Monocle; think about that. Because, despite Monocle, no one seems to complain about anybody writing like a guy. Because Gertrude Stein. Because Virginia Woolf. Because Daphne du Maurier. Because Simone de Beauvoir. Because Anne Sexton. Because bell hooks. Because Joan Didion. Because we don’t know for anything like sure if there is anything bigger than our selves. Because certainly I am not those things. Certainly I can’t say. Can only speak for me and for people like me, people that tend, after all, to be female. Can only write what I think, feel; can’t know. Can only write “I.” Refuse to think of that as a failing.
STIL |
I guess if I could be anyone right now I would be Eva Green (smoking Vogues? Wearing Carven?) in this photo, but I would also keep my dirty half-blonde hair.
(Source: illusionheadinreallife)
Reblogged from kool kat meow.
What honestly makes me think that it will be alright?
(Source: pericyazine)
Reblogged from I could be happy or in distress.
