thinking new year stuff!

so one gathers that one, I gather that we, we gather that we should make all sorts of turnoverthings now for the year to come, such as 1) tidy up (this will not be happening) 2) make our desk straight and put the papers somewhere (this will probably not be happening) 3) finish some of the projects started (well, maybe, some of them, maybe) 4) and under contract (this would be SimplyWoolf, an e-book, and also Jean Cocteau et le cinema, for Jean-Michel Place)

and whee, I did put on reserve books for my forthcoming seminar in TURNINGS for the English Ph.D program, and have almost finished reading final papers for this past term, which I loved:
From Mannerism to Modernism in Art and Text, great students, great auditors, it was just plain delight, I hope all around, and have sent in my possible Film course for the fall, after which I retire, and that would be Film Art: visual and verbal interconnections -- with ballet and novels and stories and avant-garde stuff and all sorts of things to show in the film room downstairs at the Graduate School, which I really love, and am glad Paul Krugman is joining us at the graduate school: when asked what would tempt him away from Princeton, he said, Zabar's -- now that is cute

loved having French friends here, Philippe and Francoise Heuze, classicists, and recently Camille Morando (archives at the Pompidou, here to bring back to the Pompidou Francis Bacon's portrait of Michel Leiris from the Gagosian) and Fabrice Flahutez (such  brilliant art historian, here to speak on Matta at the Pace, with Matta's daughter) and Catherine Maubon (with whom and with Boyce we got to hear my son Matthew Caws and Nadasurf play at Webster Hall, the night after the Bataclan massacre, about which he spoke of course, since that is where they play when the group  is in Paris)

so goes New York, and I love writing for the Brooklyn Rail, where I have so many friends, and just brought out GLORIEUSES MODERNISTES: ART, ECRITURE ET MODERNITE AU FEMININ  avec les presses universitaires de Liege that I did with Anne Reynes-Delobel, who had the graciousness of translating my Glorious Eccentrics into French and adding super chapters on Isadora Duncan and Kay Boyle, and introductions and afterwords, so it feels, with lots of illustrations and photographs of Suzanne Valadon, Judith Gautier,Dorothy Bussy, Dora Carrington, Paula Modersohn-Becker, and Emily Carr... lovely book, with an Emily Carr on the cover of a Canadian forest... we are all very fortunate!

happy new year to anyone who reads this, Mary Ann

In the Cabanon, Vaucluse

Here in my cabanon, where I have hung out in the summers for, what, forty and over summers?? it is rather unlike New York in any season at all. Steps of stones gathered from here and there over the years, flagstones put down whenever I could afford it (you know, a book on Virginia Woolf, add a terrace, one on Henry James, add stones leading to the bathroom, when I finally had what you  might think of as that, and so on), and the light and the neighbors on the right, on the left, across the way, and up the hill. Magnificent, getting up in the morning, having our coffee  upstairs with our juices -- grapefruit for me, yes, pamplemousse rose, and for Boyce, orange juice, or then, and then, whichever, either our leftover superb boule from the grand boulangerie/patisserie down the hill, which we had for supper last night, by the way, with the lady in the garage (yes) next to the parking lot (good thing Boyce can drive and Does Not go to Sleep at the Wheel, which I have done 3 times, so try not to get next to the steering wheel, which somehow puts me to sleep deliciously until, well, not a good thing, once turned over completely, twice into trees), anyway, her just laid eggs from her chickens, usually given to her children, but today we purchased six of  them and promised NOT to use them in an omelet or any other waybut soft-boiled, which we did, with our fresh bread and demi-sel butter, and red wine from the Bedoin cave, oh heavens, what to say?
Right, stop there.
So then we can tomorrow drive to Carpentras, where the TRAIN ACTUALLY NOW GOES, after Avignon, and so then mosey around this town I so love, and maybe I can take the train to the TGV in Avignon to Paris for the Eurostar to get to London to get to Portsmouth to give a talk on Turnings (yes, but I can't find the Nicolas de Stael ROAD which was my inspiration, oh well), then Paris for my friend Marie-Claire Dumas, and Yves Bonnefoy, and some interview AGAIN about Dora Maar and then back to Carpentras for Mormoiron and our cabanon and various beloved visitors, including Matthew and Emily Bidwell, and my cousins Liz and B and so on and on, with our friends and neighbors and Boyce says: all we do is see people and friends and eat and drink and cook and OH MY GOODNESS WHAT COULD BE MORE DELIGHTFUL???