Thought for the Day

I am empowered by the idea of love as the will
to extend oneself to nurture one's own or another's spiritual
growth because it affirms that love is an action, 
that is is akin to work. . . .

~ bell hooks

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Quoted from "Living to Love" (1993), Reproduced in Women's Health, Chaper 5, page 236

bell hooks, Poet and Author, Feminist, Social Activist

"The Best of bell hooks: Life, Writings, Quotes, and Books", Lion's Roar, June 15, 2017

See, in particular these books by bell hooks: All About Love: New Visions (Perennial/Wm. Morrow Paperbacks 865th Ed., 2018), Salvation: Black People and Love (Harper Perennial, Reprint, 2001), and Communion: The Female Search for Love (Wm. Morrow Paperbacks, 33,539th Ed., 2002).

bell hooks Institute (Berea College)

 

Saturday Short

American Animals Poster

Today, Saturday Short brings you the trailer for American Animals (The Orchard, 2018). The mostly-well-reviewed film is about four college friends who decide to steal a rare folio of artist John James Audubon's bird illustrations from the library of Transylvania University. The 120-minute movie, written and directed by Bart Layton, stars Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Jared Abrahamson, and Barry Jenner. It premiered in January at Sundance 2018 and releases to theatres June 1.

Thought for the Day

Hands are good at almost everything

we ask them to do.

~ Bob Hicok

______________________________

Quoted from "The class visit" from Bob Hicok's Forthcoming Collection Hold (Copper Canyon Press, Fall 2018) (The poem about gun violence appeared April 9, 2018, as "Your Monday Poem from Copper Canyon Press" as part of National Poetry Month.)

Bob Hicok, Award-Winning Poet and Translator

Bob Hicok at Academy of American Poets, Copper Canyon Press, Poetry Foundation, and Poetry International

Saturday Short

Film Poster

Today, Saturday Short features the trailer for Lou Andreas-Salome, The Audacity to be Free (Cinema Libre Studio, April 20, 2918), appearing in the United States this week. Directed by Cordula Kablitz-Post, the film, which premiered in March in New York City, takes a look at the German polymath Lou Andreas-Salome, who was a novelist, psychoanalyst, and pioneering feminist, a disciple of Freud, and the muse and lover of Friedrich Nietzsche and Rainer Maria Rilke.

Read a review of the film in Hyperallergic and posts about Andreas-Salome at brainpickings and World Literature Today.

Lou Andreas-Salome on FaceBook and Twitter

New Artist Watch Feature at Escape Into Life

The work of renowned photographer Adrien Broom, who lives and works in Connecticut, is the subject of my new Artist Watch column at the international online arts magazine Escape Into Life. Note: The images shown in this post are not shown in the feature at EIL; together with the latter, they are intended to show the wide arc of Adrien's marvelous ouevre.

The images above are from Adrien Broom's "Colorful Dream" project.

© Adrien Broom

PLEASE DO NOT COPY IMAGES

The above images are from Adrien Broom's "My Own Tales and Fables" project. 

© Adrien Broom

In addition to commercial photography, Adrien produces superb contemporary fine art and commissioned portrait photography. (See images below.) A highly imaginative, highly visual storyteller who can't help but betray her love of creative play, Adrien often can be found building elaborate and fantastical sets in which she places the characters that tell her stories. (See the images above.) Life-sized and in miniature, her "alternate universes", as she calls them, frequently include elements of painting and film and are as colorful and extraordinarily beautiful as they are dreamy and strange. Notably, they hold to no single interpretation.

Today's Artist Watch showcases a selection of representative images from Adrien's most recent and ongoing project "HOLDING SPACE: the Historic Houses of Artists and Writers". Adrien's settings include the Mark Twain home and Florence Griswold house, both in Connecticut, as well as Wentworth Woodhouse in England, United Kingdom. Also included are Adrien's Artist Statement and a biography, as well as Adrien's social media outlets. Be sure to explore the many hyperlinks featuring Adrien's creative take on the past, the present, and the otherworldly, the known and the unknown.

The above image is an example of Adrien Broom's commissioned portraits.

© Adrien Broom

The image above is a selection from Adrien Broom's commissioned portraits
 with set designs.

© Adrien Broom

Thought for the Day

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness,

to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.

~ Marcel Proust

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Quoted from Sodome et Gommorhe, or Cities of the Plain (1921-1922), Vol. IV, Pt. II, Ch. 1

Marcel Proust (1871- 1922), French Novelist, Essayist, Critic

Marcel Proust at The New York Times

ProustInk

Saturday Short

Today's short previews 25 in 24 (2018), a 65-minute documentary about Jon Foreman, lead singer for the alternative rock band Switchfoot, who, following the release of the four-EP project The Wonderlands, decided in 2017 to perform 76 songs in 25 different shows in 24 hours in San Diego, California. He played in a Mexican restaurant and a children's hospital, at a wedding, and on a beach, among other locations.

The indie is from Brainstorm Media.

25 IN 24 from Brainstorm Media on Vimeo.

(My thanks to The Rabbit Room and Chris Yokel for the link. Read Chris's post "Jon Foreman's 25 in 24".)

Thought for the Day

Haunted is an apartment where a woman lived.

~ Taylor Mali

________________________________

Quoted from "The New Ash on the Roof of Our Building' in The Whetting Stone (Rattle, 2017), page16 (This is a beautifully written and very moving chapbook. It comprises the poems Mali wrote after the death of his wife Rebecca.)

Taylor Mali, Brooklyn-Based Poet, Educator, Voiceover Artist

Thought for the Day

Strange how shameful sorrow feels.

 ~ Richard Solly

_____________________________

Quoted from Richard Solly, "The Immensity" in From Where the Rivers Come: Poems (Holy Cow! Press, 2006, page 71

Richard Solly (1947-2015), Poet