darlings
well that was a Lovely weekend.
we met all our deadlines (and there’s one at noon which we have Every Intention of being caffeinated up and thus and completed by) and we even managed to get out into the world and see people and write and generally participate (while still having Enough Time To Read and sip tea which is of paramount importance to our level of happiness).
almost completed re-reading the Rumer Godden autobiography (part ii) and the first part has Just arrived from the Los Angeles Library Request Materials service so we shall be in RG’s world for a while longer which feels sumptuous and splendid.
do you remember our (most interesting) Theory about all the people we’ve been connecting with via the interweb (and sometimes through Introductions with people we know in RL too, just to be deliciously old-fashioned about it) and how They are the Sort of People that one would have met in Paris at Shakespeare & Co?
Francesco is definitely one of those people. 
and so is Alessandra – 
it’s very good to know beautiful Italians.
especially when they are as Adventurous as the other people that one would have met in Paris when one was 19 or thereabouts (this is metaphorical because we weren’t all 19 at the same time – so more of 19 on the spirit-plane or something close to mystical).
we drove over to the Airport to get Francesco and Alessandra and then we drank coffee (Francesco had an espresso because that’s what Italians do) and we walked along the beach and took photographs and talked about what’s happened in our lives since we last met up in Manhattan and then we dropped them at the place they’re staying before they head on a Road Trip up the Coast.
isn’t that adventurous and wonderful?
you know what else is wonderful?
a bookshop. 
and a quote on a building. 
and a gorgeous shop 
and watching the early evening sun fade into the white stone of the Vedanta temple, high up in the Hollywood Hills.
and now it’s Monday.
*looktocamera(
darlings – what are you Reading right now (not exactly right now because we’re aware you’ll be Working depending on your time zone) – do send links!
I am reading Moving Pictures: American Art and Early Film 1880-1910. I am also re-reading some Ibsen.
you had us at “re-reading Ibsen”
divine sentence.
that film book looks good too – *clicksonlosangelescountylibrarysite*
Haha, thanks. He is my second or third favourite playwright (he and Chekhov have been fighting it out for 25 years), so I re-read his plays often.
The film book is fascinating. There was initially a companion exhibit, and the book comes with a DVD.
Well, you can turn up your nose if you wish for he is a very commercial writer but I just finished “In one person” by John Irving. I like his quirky sensibility and humour–and frankly, it felt good to read something that wasn’t so da*n hard for a change!
And today…after EIGHT YEARS…I got my Arles library card. :)
Thought you would like that.
Bisous!
how on earth would someone who professes a love for Jacqueline Susann dismiss Irving? ;-)
take pictures of the Library!!!
Am reading “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.” – witty, and scathing and precise. A look at the literary scene in Brooklyn, and, of course the review in the Times wishes it had been less meta and more macro (humph!) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/books/in-love-affairs-of-nathaniel-p-women-flummox-a-writer.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
very interesting.
why do we think Ayelet when we see Adelle?
they’re not related are they? House Of Chabon and all that Brooklyn-esque-life?
Spent most of the weekend either at the office or working at home, but I did manage to whip up some baked pasta, complete with basil and parmesan (and I posted a picture of the lovely pot!). Cooking and devouring comfort foods that I grew up with in the States are all the more pleasurable to me in Korea precisely because the ingredients are so difficult to find.
Needless to say I’ve been reading lots of recipes (I’m going to tackle curry this weekend, and perhaps bake a batch of muffins for breakfast—I actually want to be able to make brunch food really well), but I’ve also been reading Catherine the Great by Robert Massie. I just hope to be able to write as much as I read!
a few people have said they enjoyed the Catherine The Great book – must try it for ourselves.
have you ever read any Nigel Slater recipe books? We have “Ripe” in the kitchen and use it for inspiration (not to cook – but to write – but maybe one day we’ll cool something from it).
we came to look for your pot on IG but forgot your name there – it’s not seoul flaneur and we did a search but came up blank – do tell! or tag us there so we can come and admire the baked pasta pot.
*smiling*
and *wavingfromLosAngeles*
I did have a lovely weekend, thank you, but perhaps not as lovely as yours with your beautiful shops and blue skies and gorgeous Italians. Though there was some connection with Italians and Espresso when I was watching (via the web) the beautiful Luna Rossa and Team New Zealand sailing (?) for the Louis Vuitton Cup http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2ZyMg3btrM
As for what I am reading …..finished A Fugue in Time, which was confusingly, but delightfully, in three tenses. About to start a re read of China Court, dedicated to John Betjeman, and subtitled The Hours of a Country House. I am going to adore it , all over again; how could one not, when the preface states, “Life, Chaucer says, is a ‘thinne subtil knittinge of thinges’ “.
quelle delicious comment! RG, catamarans on the whooshing waves, Chaucer and Betjeman!
you have outdone yourself dear one.
And more than that; I pre-ordered your book. My first ever pre order of anything :)
Dearest G
What a lovely gent!
And… your theory?
Well, a number of years ago you could have met The Dandy at S&Co, I did not live between the shelves but just around the corner between a tumbledown patisserie and a ramshackle bar in an hotel just one up from a ‘passe’, my days, however, belonged to Shakespeare, and al the other writers within.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
you SEE!
we knew.
we just knew.
Happy Monday, Team Gloria and Who-You-Are-in-RL.
The thought of meeting at Shakespeare and Co. haunts me. I picture that infamous blue hour before twilight, la Tour Effel has a cloud stola round her neck, and mystical young or rather ageless creatures coming from all over the world just to see each other, to connect, and to disappear for another 100 years…
What a gorgeous image!
i second that motion…
it has a ring of real-ness to it, doesn’t it?
Indeed! I felt sure I was there, in that moment.
mysteriousness rising!
*shivers*
you do write like a dream….
because it is one.