I write with a fountain pen. An Esterbrook plunger model. Not just because it’s eco, or because Patricia Highsmith favored Esterbrooks, or because I’m a luddite contrarian, although all these things are true. I use it because it feels good in my hand and the ink goes from dark to peacock blue as it dries and because every time I have to refill it– Continue reading
I’m always on the look out for traces of past pop culture in contemporary offerings. Perhaps in honor of The Bourne Legacy I should call this DNA or something, but I don’t know enough science to work the term into an apt metaphor. Continue reading
From 1942 to 1944, Barbara Deming worked for the Library of Congress as a film analyst. Her job was to go to the movies and take detailed notes about what she watched. By her own account, she saw a quarter of Continue reading
Dora and Inspector Antoine
Lesbians pop up when you least expect it. Back in the old days, we used to call this “content,” (shorthand for lesbian content) as in “that book/movie/tv show has some content.” Last night I tripped, quite unexpectedly, across some content.
I was at the movies, a 1947 french film called Quai des Orfevres. And there she was–an attractive blonde in pants and thick-soled shoes all mixed up in a murder for love of her upstairs neighbor, the aptly named Jenny Lamour. Continue reading