The delightful Ruth Franklin just gave us in the Women Writing Women's Lives séminar a sketch of the kind of thing we should and could put on twitter and Facebook, neither of which I have been doing ANYTHING with, but was convinced it was a good idea, for the books we are about to publish and for getting in touch with those who might be able to help us with the ones we are now working on

I was convinced! So I think I sent out a tweet about my forthcoming Blaise Pascal: miracles and reason, and about my présent work on artist colonies, and also went on Facebook, because so many of my friends do seem to be using them both

I LOVED my class on Film Arts giving me a Golden Bowl the last day, and loved showing Derek Jarman's grand and moving Caravaggio on the next to last day, and now will be speaking about the Golden Bowl at a club next year or, I hope, the next

now off to sim, boring but probably a good idea

oh, new year's day 2017

eons ago, my father, who didn't speak a lot, as I perhaps faultily remember, said we should say Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit, to begin each New Year
so when we woke this morning, I was saying inside my head just that, but then we launched into how delightful it was to have lots of friends over last night on New Year's Eve instead  of going out --
and it was, even if the goose was rather (very) overcooked, why did it matter at all ? It didn't and it was a joy all around, including even dishes -- never bothers me, putting in, taking out -- that isn't important, and friends are
so the 2nd ave. subway opens officially today, 2 hours ago -- we will go down to Canal Street and Chinatown tomorrow and have dim sum, of which actually I only like the fried shrimp or whatever comes all frizzled, have never liked those damp pockets of stuff, but I like Boyce's liking and that again is what matters
am about to launch into the next 2 years' project, which is at the moment called Modernist Gatherings: tables and moments, and is about how artistic personae are happy leaving tables where pp either ritually or just occasionally, like happenings, persons either of like or different minds gather either once or many times and go then later about their artistic business more creatively... I signed a contract for it with beloved REaktion Books, who have done, what, six or seven books of mine, the latest being a Pascal (miracles and reason, I don't feel deeply allied with  either of those sides, but his being fascinates me and has for years: the self-punishment and the manysided brain workings and the revelation and the haunting)
ah, happy new year to anyone who might read this!

after nochlin, pascal

After reviewing the wonderful Linda Nochlin Reader (women artists) and the Bernard Jacobson Motherwell: the Making of an American Giant for the TLS,  I didn't allow myself to write another of these blogs until I had at least finished my next try at my Blaise Pascal: Renaissance Lives, as I think  it will be announced... but it is far harder than any other Life, critical or illustrated or any other kind I had ever done-- not just because of history, but also because who knows what tale is correct, what interpretation more than biased...? Mine too, since I do remember reading the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola and being overcome by the way you get to envision all that: the pregnant Mary coming down the road and the rest.. I was taking a philosophy class at the Catholic Institute in Paris in 1952... so very very long ago, yet I feel it in my marrow now...

and of course then Pascal's hiding in his jacket his memorial that bore witness to his experience,  parchment folded in upon itself, so I ended on Dorothea Rockburne's Pascal construction and Jorie Graham's "Manteau de Pascal"
so the chapter on "thinking on thinking" takes much of the room -- will see if it works, this whole proejct, just sent it off two minutes ago

Pascal

So here I am, again, writing on Blaise Pascal, my Critical Lives: Blaise Pascal, for which I just signed a contract, and am thinking about how secrecy and suffering go along together with mystery -- that is the preface to the preface I have just written, and the ordering of the chapters is of course the major major major problem
but how moving is his life!