J.D. Salinger, January 1 1919 – January 27 2010

One of the giants of post war American literature is gone.  J. D. Salinger, known for his seminal work Catcher In The Rye, died of natural causes at his home in New Hampshire aged 91.

Salinger’s literary career started with the publication of short stories in the early 1940s and reached its zenith with Catcher In The Rye in 1951.  In addition he is known for his short story collections, For Esme – with Love and Squalor: and Other Stories (which features one of my favourite short stories A Perfect Day for Bananafish) and Nine Stories.

Known for being a recluse, Salinger disappeared from public life in the mid 1960s and his last published work was a novella, Hapworth 16, 1924, which appeared in The New Yorker.

About a decade ago, it was revealed that Salinger had written at least 15 novels which had never been published.  Phyllis Westberg, Salinger’s literary agent, declined to comment last night on whether the novels are in existence or will be published.

Tinged with controversy and steeped in mystery, Salinger was an enigmatic figure in his lifetime.  It will be very interesting to see what his legacy will be in the coming years.

I am a Parisian Lady

The voyeur in me loves to see other people’s apartments and living spaces and if you do too, then I recommend a trip to Baudoin’s website.  He is a French photographer, who started taking pictures in Ireland and now appears to live in France.  I adore the series on his website called I Am A Parisian Lady. It is comprised of photographs of French women in their houses and they are identified by Metro stop, first name and occupation. The composition and attention to colour is breathtaking in these photographs and each seems to achieve the mission statement set out by Baudoin on his biography; “…to stop time…”.

About freakin’ time

The Princess and the Frog is released in Ireland on Friday 5th February and is notable for being the first Disney movie to feature an African-American princess, Princess Tiana.

The movie premiered in the USA last year just before Christmas and the Washington Post had this to say: “Her appearance this holiday season, coming on the heels of Michelle Obama’s emergence as the nation’s first lady, the Obama girls in the White House and the first line of Barbie dolls modeled on black women (“So in Style” debuts this summer), will crown an extraordinary year of visibility for African American women.”

I’m delighted to see that African American girls now have a Disney princess they can directly relate to.  It was a hell of a long time coming.

Exit Through The Gift Shop

The Sundance Festival is abuzz with Banksy fever as the premier of his movie Exit Through The Gift Shop was screened last Sunday night.  Below is a trailer.  It looks suitably funny and irreverent.  Am looking forward to seeing it when it’s released here.

One of my favourite quotes from the Banksy book happens when he arrives home to his girlfriend having just had the realisation that his graffiti would take less time to do using stencils and therefore he would be less likely to get caught.  He said to his girlfriend, “I’ve just had an epiphany”.  She replied, “You shouldn’t do those, they’re bad for your heart.”  Brilliant!

Internet Cover Versions

As January draws to its miserable, cold and penurious close, I thought we could all do with a laugh. There are a wealth of amazing cover versions online ranging from the sublime and unexpected, to the ridiculous and hysterical. Below are a few of my favourites for your delectation.

Bulgarian Idol, ‘Ken Lee’ by Mariah Carey. This is nothing short of priceless. Check out the expressions on the judges’ faces.

 

 

‘The Final Countdown’ as performed on the Kazookeylele. This gentleman has created a hybrid of a baby grand piano, a kazoo and a ukelele. For this alone, he’s my hero and needs to get his ass on Dragon’s Den ASAP.

 

 

‘Paper Planes’ by M.I.A., as performed on ukulele by Kitten Mildew. This is  sweet and unique interpretation.

 

 

I’ve left my personal favourite to last. It’s ‘Enter Kazoo Man’. Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ performed by Mister Tim.

 

 

(If you enjoyed that, there’s a wealth of Kazoo cover versions on the web, not least of which is Northwestern University Kazoo Choir performing the Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah… “because everyone else plays it on real instruments.”)

Would love to hear from any readers who have other great covers to share!

More Armour!

Now that one of my hands is armoured up with the knuckle ring, I think I should look at encasing the other one too.  Fannie Schiavoni creates amazing chain mail gloves which are stocked on Brown’s Fashion.

Schiavoni’s designs are receiving lots of press and have been featured in many magazines from Grazia to Elle, and across the blogging community, with Susie Bubble looking particularly great in Schiavoni’s chain mail dress.  I already have a chain mail bracelet designed by Stella McCartney for H & M (one of the best designer/high street collaborations in my opinion, the fabrics were great quality and the designs were signature Stella) but more chain mail couldn’t be a bad thing, could it?  Of course not! Hmmm…I’m sensing a new obsession developing…

One ring to rule them all

I know I have said it before, but it bears repeating: my friends truly are marvellous people.  I received a belated Christmas present last Friday from two of my best mates, Mark and Mo (who were married in Malta last year –  mmmmmmmmm).  The present was something I have been lusting after for a very long time – a knuckle ring. Regular readers will remember that I posted about my unsuccessful quest to find one a couple of months ago.  Being the resourceful and thoughtful friends they are, they managed to track one down and in a size that fits me! 

I love how the four silver plates overlap each other.  It reminds me of the body of an armadillo!  Needless to say I shall be wearing it with everything.

(Worn here with antique teaspoon ring dating from 1928)

Nothing Serious – Justine Lévy

I am steadily making my way through the bedside pile at the rate of one book per week.  I would usually get through at least two a week but I am now writing my second novel so reading time has had to be considerably trimmed.  Yesterday I finished a book called Nothing Serious by Justine Lévy.  The book, published originally in 2004 in France as “Rien de Grave” and published in English in 2005 as Nothing Serious, is autobiographical and caused a scandal in France upon publication.

It tells the story of Louise, a young woman who is a writer and who is suffering greatly after the breakup of her marriage.  The novel deals with loss in all its forms; Louise loses her marriage, her grandmother dies, she loses her health to an addiction to amphetamines, she loses a baby, and she almost loses her sanity as she tries to cope with everything that life has thrown at her.

Her husband, an immature and exceedingly vain man called Adrien, has left Louise for Paula, a woman Louise calls The Terminator.  Paula was originally having an affair with Adrien’s father and then moved onto Adrien, who then left Louise and had a baby with Paula.  When you realise that this is all based upon a real situation and Paula is Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the current first lady of France, you can understand why the novel caused such a sensation when it was first published.

While allegedly having an affair with Jean-Paul Enthoven, Bruni fell in love and started an affair with his son, philosophy professor Raphaël Enthoven who was at the time married to Justine Lévy, daughter of world reknowned philosopher and French celebrity Bernard-Henri Lévy.

The portrait painted of Paula is certainly not a flattering one.  Louise describes her plastic surgery in detail, calls her “a leech of a woman with a Terminator smile”.  Louise’s eventual hope is that Paula ends up like the Marquise de Merteuil, outcast from society, her beauty ruined. 

The writing in Nothing Serious is remarkable.  The almost total lack of proper punctuation and sentence structure gives it a dreamlike hypnotic quality which underscores Louise’s obsessive state of mind.  After almost unrelenting misery, the novel ends on a note of optimism courtesy of Louise’s new partner Pablo who shows Louise a new way to love and helps her regain her sense of self.

Although I was initially attracted to the book for its sensationalist reputation, I found that Lévy’s writing stands alone and is very accomplished.  Lévy’s last novel, Une Mauvaise Fille, was published in France last year and I hope an English translation is in the pipeline.

Mr Good Enough

Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough is published next week and to me smacks of a woman projecting her own regrets onto a book buying public.  The author, Lori Gottlieb, is a forty year old single mother who freely admits that she wishes she had settled for any of the dull “uninspiring” men she had previously rejected in her romantic history.

She says, “every woman I know—no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure—feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried”.  Well Ms. Gottlieb, I respectfully suggest you widen your circle of friends to include less needy Bridget Jones types.   I am staring 34 in the face and have no sense of desperation, tinged with panic or otherwise, at the fact that I am single and nor do many of my friends in the same situation. Of course she has already thought of this.  As she says “if you say you’re not worried, either you’re in denial or you’re lying”. There is also a third possibility Ms. Gottlieb; you’re wrong.

She needs to stop looking at marriage with such jaded eyes.  Here is a woman who posits “marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane and often boring non-profit business…and I mean this in a good way.”  There is a way to leech the positivity and happiness out of most situations if you try hard enough and it would seem that Ms. Gottlieb has surely achieved this.  She believes that women should reappraise marriage and have “a more realistic understanding of its cold, hard benefits”.  Perhaps if you’re going to look at it this way, committing oneself to a nunnery might be the more logical solution?

Of course the author blames feminism for this problem.  Rather a facile argument and not one I’m inclined to believe.  Surely one of the best things about feminism was the fact that it enabled women to not have to endure awful relationships in order to exist in society.  Women do not now need to get married for money, social status, to have children or their own property, therefore the only logical reason to get married is for love.  Because your life will be better with this person in it.  Because you can’t imagine your future without them.  Not because you are desperate and unable to enjoy your own company.

I obviously won’t be buying this book and I sincerely hope that Ms. Gottlieb spends her book royalties on a good therapist rather than inflicting any more of this condescending nonsense on an unsuspecting public.

Pink Paris

Paris is my favourite city in the world.  I have been there several times and I try to visit every couple of years.  Given that my last visit was in 2007, I am very overdue for a trip and think it’ll have to go on my agenda for 2010.

I discovered these beautiful hand cut maps of Paris online at Famille Summerbelle, a store which sells designs and accessories for children’s bedrooms.

Famille Summerbelle also produce hand cut maps of London and New York, however I think the Paris map is the one I will frame and hang on my bedroom wall.  Check out their online shop here – it’s filled with gorgeous prints and wallpapers which adults will love as much as children.