July 2010: movies

• The Way We Were, Sydney Pollack, 1973, English (US)
• L’Emploi du temps, Laurent Cantet, 2001, French
• Paris nous appartient, Jacques Rivette, 1960, French

Glamourously ill

On Monday my cousin and I drove to Princeton and explored the very empty, but very beautiful university campus and some of the surrounding area. There were books on sale and I picked up Susan Sontag‘s Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors (which my cousin dutifully paid for, making me feel like a spoilt child). We also ate — if I remember correctly — blue rose

New directions

Firstly, this is not just a corny title, it is a self-conscious, referential, corny title.

Secondly, OMG, I’m leaving, like, tomorrow.

So this is a post to tell you that Blotting paper will be temporarily on hold. I’m thinking two weeks, but it might be more.

July 2010: books

• Hunger, Knut Hamsun, 1890, translated from the Norwegian by Robert Bly (novel)
• If You Could See Me Now, Peter Straub, 1977, English (US) (novel)
• The Lover, Marguerite Duras, 1984, translated from the French by Barbara Bray (novel)

Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize 2010

Call for entries!

June 2010: movies

Extraordinary films, for the most part.

• Exotica, Atom Egoyan, 1994, English (Canada)
• White Dog, Samuel Fuller, 1982, English (US)
• Brazil, Terry Gilliam, 1985, English (UK)

An infinite sensitivity

Strange things have been happening.

One of the strange things is that I have fewer and fewer things to say. I’m usually mouthing off about something or the other, but I have fewer opinions these days. Naturally, I’ve been wondering why. Is it just laziness? And why am I suddenly so lazy? I think I know the answer.

‘Ode to Salt’ by Pablo Neruda

This salt
in the salt cellar
I once saw in the salt mines.

June 2010: books

• Super-Cannes, JG Ballard, 2000 , English (UK) (novel)
• Little Birds, Anaïs Nin, 1979, English (US) (short story collection)
• Peter and Wendy, JM Barrie, 1911, English (UK) (novel)

Tips for finding good translations

I am in a quandary.

This is how the quandary began:

TFA reading: July 8

Deepika Arwind and Biswamit Dwibedy will be reading from their work at Crossword, Bangalore, on the 8th of July.

Let’s talk about politics.

Pallavi suggested I write about my political beliefs and I thought why not?

A request

I’m in a strange place right now: I have nothing to blog about. Help me find something to blog about.

May 2010: movies

Some notes follow this list of movies.

• Pretty in Pink, John Hughes, 1986, English (US)
• Sixteen Candles, John Hughes, 1984, English (US)
• Sex, Lies and Videotape, Steven Soderbergh, 1989, English (US)

Blotting paper retrospective

A while ago Space Bar of Spaniard in the Works fame mentioned she was celebrating a four year blog birthday. It made me wonder when Blotting paper was born.

Men of character

Turns out David Davidar has been asked to step down from his post as CEO of Penguin Canada after allegations of sexual harassment were made. It also appears that some women have been defending him or at least finding it hard to believe that he could have behaved in such a way towards anyone, which is, if not anything else, interesting and worthy of comment.

May 2010: books

• We, Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1921, translated from the Russian by Mirra Ginsburg (novel)
• Essays in Love, Alain de Botton, 1993, English (UK) (novel)
• City of Water, Anindita Sengupta, 2010, English (India) (poetry collection)
• The Awakening, Kate Chopin, 1899, English (US) (novel)

Dancers

Alexie Agdeppa

Of interest: What would Buffy do? (A feminist-ish post.)

Simon Turner interrogates the criticism of war and Holocaust literature

[The] treatment of Holocaust literature with such critical kid gloves tends to place a value upon it solely in terms of its usefulness as historical documentation, whilst the question of literary merit is relegated to a secondary status. As Perec notes, “it’s clear that a careful distinction is being drawn between books like these and ‘real’ literature,”

Divers 3 (Poems are not people. Islands. Felicity.)

I used to think of my poems as children and comforted myself about my total lack of maternal feelings with the idea that I was a rear-er of poems. I love and cherish my poems. When they’re bad, it’s only because I haven’t taught them right from wrong. When they’re ugly, it’s only because they’re pubescent and I haven’t found them the right diet pills and pimple cream. (Yeah, that’s the sort of mother I’d be.)