Cassandra Langer

Hi just a heads up to let you know that my paper on Romaine Brooks’ Queer Heroic Portraits is now in print in the Journal of Lesbian Studies. I am only two chapters away from finishing my draft of the Brooks book and hoping to have the entire ms. in hand and polished for the market place by the end of the summer.

It has been a long and very interesting project that is finally coming to fruition after many years of research. Brooks has been an elusive subject but I think my book will shed new light on her as a person and artist. It is a contextual study that will re-frame how we see Brooks and perhaps generate new research. Everything has been drive by Brooks’ own Ur text. The text is misleading as Brooks’ biographer Meryle Secrest indicated in her book back in the 1970s. I think readers of my book will see a heretofore unseen side of Brooks; a side she was very careful NOT to present for reasons all her own.

Stay tunned for more updates as the project reaches its conclusion. pictures of more of Brooks’ work <a href=”http://www.flickriver.com/photos/freeparking/tags/brooks/”><imgborder=”0″ width=”80″ height=”15″ title=”freeparking’s photos tagged with brooks on Flickriver” alt=”freeparking’s photos tagged with brooks on Flickriver” src=”http://data.flickriver.com/images/flickriver-80×15.png”></a>

The upcoming ASJA conference is always stimulating and alive with ideas to inspire your best writing as well as making new friends and meeting interesting people. Reserve April for refueling after the rigors of being chained to your word processor, computer what have you.

The last few months have been overwhelming with published interviews in HG&L Review with artists. Am now getting through the new Highsmith biography which is hop, skip and a jump on the dark and underside of Pat Highsmith and her demons, mostly her mother. It is a fascinating if fragmented read. Not a pretty picture or a lovable character. Somewhat like my own subject, Romaine Brooks. Fascinating but not one who inspired love at first sight. A cultivated taste at best.

Memory is that thing that seems to run on its own track through you mind, especially this time of the year. I find myself mulling over my life in the context of both big and small picture. I am not a global historian who concentrates on the larger issues exclusively. I think along with Proust and others that it is the small things of life that make it truly extraordinary rather than the Big Bang about which none of us can do anything.  We all are running around busy with life trying to make things happen that matter to us. At the same time we are part of the cosmos happening.  In the coming year I am going to try and remember that emptiness leaves room for miraculous things to happen.

Wishing each and everyone of you a New Year filled with everything you desire and deserve. More than anything I would like to see 2010 be a year of peace on earth and good will toward all things large and small on this little planet of ours.

Am reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It is beautifully written and the pacing keeps your attention. Saw Up in the Air two days ago. The scriptwriter’s are terrific and this is a film for our times. It is really nice to see an adult film that doesn’t take the cheap shots way out with high speed chases, vampires, etc. Rereading Shakespeare’s sonnets–the Peter Pauper Press edition. There is something so comforting and delightful about holding a beautifully made slim volume in your hands and turning really lovely thick paper with beautiful dark print; page after page of some of the best sonnets ever written. In Shakespeare’s verses “beauty’s Rose” never dies.

All my friends say I should blog more. My question is always who has the time? Between living a life–and I do have one and writing and painting there are not enough hours in the day and into the night to get on top of everything much-less blog more.  So working on revisions for Romaine Brooks book, writing poetry, painting and doing my reviews and interviews. My Patti Cronin interview will be featured on the cover of HG&L review in the next issue. That’s exciting for me and for the artist as well as her subject the 19th century lesbian sculptor, Harriet Hosmer.  The reclaiming of GLBT history is very important to me as it off-sets all the lies that are told about our community by those who hate us and do not want us to have our full citizenship. I have never understood how gays having the same rights as other citizens in any way takes anything away from straight people. Instead the truth is that straight people exploit gay people. How you may ask? Under federal law we cannot marry the partners we love and even in states that may allow it on the federal level we do not have the same rights as other married couples. So in essence we pay the same taxes as our straight counterparts and they get all the benefits because their spouses get to collect social security if a partner dies, their children get taken care of as well and worse yet their widows don’t have to pay estate taxes where as gay people get none of these rights much less the acknowledgement that they were ever in a committed and loving relationship for a lifetime where as again straights do. What can I say–life is far from fair but people can do better when it comes to equal rights for all citizens of this country under the constitution. As it now stands we are a community set apart from the rest of society because of who we love and how we are. If we don’t acknowledge ourselves and our achievements and contributions to society very few among straight society will.  I guess in terms of good will–a Jackie Lawton card will have to do. Take your choices–I use them often to remind people they are loved, cared about and in my thoughts.

So there you have it I am a big bombers fan and have been since the 1950s. I think the game last night was awesome. They really pulled it out and I hope they can do it again tonight with some luck. I like baseball. I suppose this goes to show that intellectuals are more than their gray matter. I like those heart stopping moments when you think all is lost and then a miracle happens. A grand slam or a pop fly or a bunt that turns the whole thing around. Rather like the game of life–totally unpredictable.

I think that life unlike the games we play has a set of rules that are constantly in flux. If we can go with the flow and not get bend out of shape by what is thrown at us we have a pretty good chance of coming out ahead.

Everyone seems to be going crazy about Swine flu-or H1N1 who the heck can remember all this nonsense. The main thing is that they said they had enough to treat us. Oh just kidding! This is health care and concern in the United States of America in 2009. Every magazine, flyer on the planet seems to have made it their business to spin panic. Why am I bothering to blog this. Because as Stein would have it a cold is a cold is a cold and there is a difference between a common cold and a virus. So while it would be nice to think that they really, really care what happens to us peasants down here paying health care and doing without everything else to afford the outrageous fees and denials of drugs and services we get for our shrinking dollars–don’t kid yourself; they really, really, don’t give a rats ass if we live or die as long as they can make money off us. This being said, sure go get a flu shot if you can find a place that will give it to you in a timely fashion at a price you can afford. Even if you have Medicare–by the way–the only government run service that actually works fairly well most of the time–SORRY you REpulsiicans (this includes the DEmock-rats as well–) out there–but it is not socialized medicine. All us wage slaves pay for it and the congress gets the best of it regardless of income etc. as they do with social security which many of them take without any shame at all even though many of them are millionaires.

Listen up corrupt politicians which means most of you. EVER hear of a sliding scale–Congress should vote themselves one first before they start belly aching about how much health care is going to cost. Just think how much money that would save the average Joe and Jane lunch pack!

So I am down with a common cold, doctoring it myself, and hoping to fight it off the old fashion way–Chicken soup anyone.

Went to the Caro lecture Tuesday night. A sold out event-actually free. Some times the best things in life are and this was one of them. He talked about how crucial “setting” is. I think this is true of biography and of fiction as well. If you can’t set the scene and get readers to picture it in their mind’s eye than you really haven’t conveyed the sense of a a person’s landscape. This goes for interior as well as exterior. Caro walks the talk. He actually spent three years in the Texas Hill country doing his research on Lyndon Johnson. I know Austin a little and have been to the hill country. There is some thing burnt out, enduring and elemental about it that you have to experience to really get a sense of the folks who live there. I was fortunate to meet Riba and Joe, both natives of the hill country. I liked them a lot. Riba has a great sense of humor and is as smart of a whip. So forget that old BS about how dumb those folks are–they aren’t and in many ways are far more savvy and fit for survival than me or thee. We could learn a lot from them and most of it is not in the books we read but rather in the hard earth they scratch a living out of and call home.

It was a great evening despite missing my connection with a writer friend due to a change in location of the room and a standing room only turnout. Read his biography–it’s masterful.

The rest of the week back to entering poetry contests and finishing my proposal for the Romaine Biography.

There are hundreds of them out there that you can apply for. If you are really, really good at this sort of writing you may even get some money at some point in the process. For most of us the time it takes and the effort just makes it counter productive. Yet here I am once again pushing the rock up the hill in hopes of getting some money, time and space to finish my work. You would think I would have learned after all these years what a waste of my time it is. I simply do not write grant speak. I’d rather be really writing with a voice that doesn’t have to conform to formula. I’ll let you know if that works this year.

Enjoyed watching Tennis matches, particularly the women’s competitions. New stars on the horizon. Can hardly wait to see who will be the winner.

The political song and dance goes on with more stupidity than I can comment on here. I would need volumes to comment on the absurdity of it all. We need universal health-care coverage for every citizen in this country. That’s the long and short of it. Our so called representatives need to stop mucking around with their puppet masters and get back on track with what is moral and human in a civilized society. Clothed the naked, feed the hungry and provide health-care for the sick as well as a living wage for the majority of their citizens. It’s really very simple.

Am getting ready to go to Allen Frame’s opening tomorrow at Gittleman gallery off 75th and Lexington here in NYC. Allen is a wonderful photographer. He illustrates the Robert Bolano covers with his noirishly alluring black and white photographs. His new show, however, features some of the most nuanced and subtle color available in contemporary photography.