January 2, 2020 at 5:58 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Family, Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links, Lists, Niece, Places, postaday, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: art, Bacolod, Christmas, Cork, Cornwall, Events, Filipino food, Fowey, Ireland, London, memories, Menlo Park, Oxford, Prague, Redwood City, restaurants, The Philippines, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Great theme!
In 2019, self traveled the world. Her life triangulated between home in Redwood City, California, to England and Ireland, to the Philippines. Side trip to Prague with her niece, Irene!
Here goes, all the images that mattered most to self in 2019, arranged from most recent — December 2019 — to the earliest, January 2019: Starting with her home in Redwood City in early December; to London’s Blackfriar station; to Manggapuri Villa in Don Salvador Benedicto, Negros Occidental, Philippines; to Prague; to Oxford University’s Exam School for Alice Oswald’s first reading as Oxford’s first woman Poet in Residence; to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park; to the Main House of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig; to the fire pit in Manggapuri Villas; to the Daku Balay in Bacolod City, the Philippines; to self’s bedroom; to the Blue Room in Café Paradiso in Cork, Ireland; to Fowey in Cornwall; to Courthouse Square, Redwood City; to the cover of last winter’s issue of Prairie Schooner, which included her story Things She Can Take
Prague, May 2019
Waiting for the Alice Oswald lecture to begin, 13 November 2019
Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Republic of Ireland, last week of October
Manggapuri Villas: September 2019
Daku Balay, 50 Burgos Street, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, The Philippines
Self’s headboard in Redwood City, CA: Made in the Philippines
Paradiso, Cork, May 2019: She bought the Converse sneakers in London a few weeks earlier. Now they are scuffed and smudged, everywhere.
Stay tuned.
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January 1, 2020 at 9:47 pm (Artists and Writers, Holidays, Lists, Recommended)
Tags: adaptations, favorites, performances, praise, Redwood City, review
- The casting was so on point! Though self was initially skeptical, she eventually fell in love with Timothée Chalamet as perpetually lost rich boy Laurie. A scene towards the end, with the youngest sister, Amy, was one of the best in the movie.
- Amy was always her favorite sister. Why? Who knows. Was it the fact that she always felt left out, that she had artistic ambitions, that no one ever seemed to take her seriously? The actress who plays her has a doll-like appearance BUT (and this is a good thing) a surprisingly deep voice. Also, she has a sharp practicality. Kudos to the screenplay for highlighting this aspect of her character.
- Loved Laura Dern as Marmee, who has to utter the film’s treacliest lines, but who always brings a dash of spice to her delivery. Even when she says, Girls, we are offering up our Christmas breakfast to a needy family who has nothing, self never thought of saying, You cannot be serious! Dern just brings it.
- Also loved the merging of timelines — Self has read the book many, many times (at least 10 times) so she was waiting for particular scenes. All the scenes she loved most were in the movie. And she did not think this merging of timelines made the film in the least bit choppy. In fact, everything seemed to work better this way.
Self’s only quibble was that Beth the consumptive did not look consumptive, her face was too round.
But the cinematography, the framing of shots, the way the camera would linger on the actors’ faces and then pull back, all the wide angle shots of houses and fields — lovely.
Details of absolutely no importance: Saoirse Ronan has the longest, slenderest fingers self has ever seen. Timothée Chalamet has the longest eyelashes. The actor who plays John Brooke is gorgeous. Emma Watson looked a little mouse-y (perhaps it was the hair color?). A short clip where Laurie does an exuberant dance (while out on a porch with Jo) looked very 2000-modern and was the only jarring thing in the entire movie.
Self never felt the slightest temptation to nod off (which is happening to her more often, even while she is watching the best movies)
Overall: an enthusiastic 5 stars!
Stay tuned.
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December 26, 2019 at 6:47 am (Books, Holidays, Recommended)
Tags: English writers, fantasy, novel, reading lists
In a great hall with pillars hewn out of the living stone sat the Elvenking on a chair of carven wood. On his head was a crown of berries and red leaves, for the autumn was come again.
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December 25, 2019 at 8:05 am (Holidays, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Recommended)
Tags: Christmas, history, New Mexico
Self read the following in a brochure she picked up from the Double Eagle, a restaurant facing Mesilla’s old plaza, itself a National Historic Landmark:
The name Mesilla is first found and inscribed on a map in a report to the King of Spain by Don Juan de Onate dated 1598. This makes it predate the arrival of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock by 22 years. It was first part of Mexico: the US border lay just 3 miles north. It became part of the United States as part of the Gadsden Purchase of 1854.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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December 24, 2019 at 5:51 pm (Food and Drink, Holidays, Links, Niece, Places, postaday, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling)
Tags: Cee Neuner, Christmas, England, London, Prague, restaurants
Excited that it’s ALMOST CHRISTMAS!
Excited, too, to be able to participate in Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this weeK: ONE BASIC COLOR.
Here are some pictures self took earlier this year, in May. She was in London and then joined her niece Irene in Prague, her first-time ever in that wondrous city:
- The Church of St. Martin-in-the-Field, just off Trafalgar Square, London
- The London Eye
- St. Martin restaurant in the Mala Strada district of Prague, just a few doors away from the American Embassy
Self just realized, looking at her shots and comparing to Cee Neuner’s, that self’s are extremely monochromatic. Ah, well!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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December 18, 2019 at 1:49 am (Family, Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links)
Tags: Christmas, happiness, Home, memories, Redwood City
I adore this week’s Tuesday Photo Challenge.
- Common… Whether it is the every day, common object or the things that you have in common, or crossing the town common…
There is such beauty in everyday things.
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December 15, 2019 at 1:21 am (Conversations, Holidays, Lists, Movies, Recommended)
Tags: comedy, horror, satire, Saturday
- There is one grand entrance that will have you on your feet and cheering. So unexpected, maybe cheesy, but self loved it. If you didn’t love it, you should not watch any horror movies set on campuses.
- Props to any student attending Hawthorne College despite the creepy founder.
- Never join a frat. Frats are bad.
- Cary Elwes! Lookin’ good. Please be in more movies, Cary Elwes.
- This is a gag movie. Therefore, as required by the genre, the heroine must be very, very, very dense.
- There is this line: “We’ll split up.” Yes! It is always wise to split up when there is a murderer in the house.
Solid B.
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December 14, 2019 at 8:51 pm (Dearest Mum, Family, Holidays, Pianos, Relatives)
Tags: Bacolod, Half Moon Bay, Manila, memories, nostalgia, Redwood City, Saturday, The Philippines, Ying
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November 28, 2019 at 7:39 pm (destinations, Flowers, Holidays, Links, Lists, Relatives, short story collections, Traveling)
Tags: art, Cee Neuner, exhibits, London, museums, Redwood City, Thanksgiving, The Philippines, websites
This week, Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge is WHITE.
Self loves having an excuse to go back through her photo archives. Here are her selections:
- Greek antiquities, British Museum
- Self’s Iceberg roses, last summer
- a shell from the Philippines, in a wooden bowl from the Philippines
Love the prompt. Self doesn’t often think of white as a color.
Stay tuned.
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November 28, 2019 at 5:24 pm (Books, destinations, Food and Drink, Holidays, Memoirs, Niece, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Publishers, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, art, England, Events, Fowey, Fowey Festival, Ireland, Liverpool, London, memories, Oxford, Prague, Thanksgiving, The Philippines, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Prague, May 2019
Two Handmaidens, London’s Canary Wharf: November 2019
Waiting for the Alice Oswald lecture to begin, 13 November 2019
Currently Reading
Christ Church, Oxford: Remembrance Day
Prague Castle, Last Week of May 2019
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