"American housewives can be given the sense of identity, purpose, creativity, the self-realization, even the sexual joy they lack—by the buying of things." Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 1963.
Click here, it goes great with coffee. Americana Muxtape from the divine Hollister Hovey. Photo from the first ever Hovey Vintage sidewalk sale.
"In my films I always want to make people see deeply. I don't want to show things but to give people the desire to see." Agnès Varda. Watching a few of her films at my house this weekend, beginning with The Gleaners and I.
My goddaughter has begun to design and made a beautiful dress this summer. This shirt was made by a 16 year old in Sweden. Sunshine not included.
The Art of Lee Miller at SFMOMA, through September 14. Photo, "Lee Miller Wearing Yraide Sailcloth Overalls" by George Hoyningen Huene.
"These were pretty long and silly looking, but then I cut and hemmed them! Hooray! Now they are sexy and cool." From Flight of the Radish. Also, check out these.
Going to see Gilberto Gil tonight - thanks Clara! I will wear my uniform of jeans and flats. Lovely photo Of Josephine from un fille comme moi.
"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." Flannery O'Connor. Maude Newton found a 10 minute film version of "Good Country People" (9:17 is the ticket). Photo of O'Connor's desk from NYT.
I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library. Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified.
He said, What? What life? No life of mine.
I said, O.K. I don’t argue when there’s real disagreement. I got up and went into the library to see how much I owed them.
The librarian said $32 even and you’ve owed it for eighteen years. I didn’t deny anything. Because I don’t understand how time passes. I have had those books. I have often thought of them. The library is only two blocks away.
From "Wants," by Grace Paley. Painting by Amanda Blake.
Autumn Leaves - Eva Cassidy
"So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, and intolerable waiting, a longing for another place and time, another condition." Theodore Roethke. 
I admit it. But I love the idea of a serialized story. Playboy is going to serialize Denis Johnson's next novel. Too bad it's not French Playboy. Via Maud.
After the 1906 earthquake, San Franciscans wrote letters on anything they could to let the outside world know they were alright. My beau's great grandparents wrote to their relatives on the cuff of a white shirt. It said, "We're OK. Everyone is fine."
For C: “I believe that always, or almost always, in all childhood and in all the lives that follow them, the mother represents madness. Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met.” Marguerite Duras.
"You take the knife, you use it to cut the bread, so you'll have the strength to work; you use it to shave, so you'll look nice for your lover; on discovering her with another, you use it to cut out her lying heart." Leadbelly, quoted in Three Uses of the Knife by David Mamet.
"It was as if my life were a play, and the prop mistress had finally showed up. Suddenly there were packs to unwrap, matches to strike, ashtrays to fill and then empty. My hands were at one with their labor, the way a cook’s might be, or a knitter’s." David Sedaris quits smoking.
Don't go to eBay without Christene Barberich (I needed a vintage puffy romper, I just didn't know it).
"Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech." Susan Sontag.
I feel a little stuck in the blog echo chamber. Lyell, Mayle, Mulberry -- my imaginary self is exhausted from trying stuff on.
"His suit was too big. So was his white shirt...The cuffs of the shirt were wrinkled. They were also too big. When Sugimoto supported his head with his hand, his head seemed in danger of disappearing into his sleeve." From Arts Journal.
"In studies where children are observed in their natural environment, a 4-year-old will lie once every two hours..." Great article by Po Bronson in New York Magazine that appeared, oh, three months ago. Painting by Paulina Archambault.
"I don't know what love is." Imogen Cunningham. Katherine Hamnett Love Tank.
"This was made in 1915 when I was first married. You could never chase a naked husband around Mount Rainier today." Imogen Cunningham. On Mount Rainier 5, 1915.
