Commonplacing

Links and a poem for the week

I am really intrigued about the portrayals in Scorcese’s upcoming film, Killers of the Flower Moon—so much so I’m contemplating sitting through the 3.5 hour running time (oof). But this article about the film’s attention paid to the Osage community to construct and create costumes, as well as the history of bridal regalia in Osage culture, had me thinking again it might be time well spent.

I love Jillian Hess’ posts on writer and artist notebooks (and commonplace books!), and this week I was intrigued by the idea of ghost autographs—which Mark Twain enjoyed making.

The history of Emily Dickinson’s home and its contents has an interesting history unto itself—and happily, the collection has now been archived and digitally scanned—and is available here.

Fascinated at how language changes—or holds on to older patterns of speech—and this article relays some of the ways American English departed from English.

I also am a fan of Anne Boyd Rioux and this post in particular had me reading more about Dora Maar (who Ann wrote about in detail on LitHub this summer), a woman who got caught in a relationship with Picasso, and her life and work as an artist.

Also on lithub, was this rather gutting but incredible account of having an illegal abortion—and all of the lives it saved, as well as risked—by Ursula K. LeGuin. It’s prescient, scary, and infuriating to find ourselves back to that same reality.

On a lighter note, I loved learning of how the rather perplexing Norwegian brown cheese (a French friend said calling it cheese is blasphemy—that if it was called solid jam, maybe that would be ok…) was started by a woman, and a woman has now made it popular in South Korea (hint: it’s really good on apples too).

And a favorite Anne Sexton poem:

I have gone out, a possessed witch,   
haunting the black air, braver at night;   
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch   
over the plain houses, light by light:   
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.   
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.   
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,   
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,   
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:   
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,   
learning the last bright routes, survivor   
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.   
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.   
I have been her kind.

Spot the moose….