Cassandra Langer

Check out the article on Linda Stein in the current Sinister Wisdom. Aside form a few editorial slips it works and gives a new slant on Stein’s work.

Even writers have to leave the keyboard once in a while to boo with everyone else. In my case kids and grown-up kids to parade in Jackson Heights. It’s a tradition that makes for happy children with safe trick or treats and only happy horror stories.

Flying to Venice this evening to take in some of the art and then on to Florence where I hope to try and see with Romaine Brooks’ eyes. Have been reading Violet  To Vita-the letters of Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville West edited by my friend Mitchell A. Leaska and John Phillips. the obsessive passion of Violet is hard to take and I can well understand why Vita felt she had to put a boundry between herself and Violet. It is very different from the way Romaine and Natalie Barney ran their relationship. It puts me in mind of various couples and their “arrangements” straight and gay. I am more and more of the mind that gender is a matter of being who you are regardless of what anyone thinks and society demands. It’s good that our era is a little more understanding of this reality than previous eras. There is progress despite the drawbacks of flat earthers and anti evolutionaries who fear freedom more than they fear damnation. You would think having an open mind would kill them. Instead they kill others.

The struggle to be free goes on

The world is full of them. I’m not much for platitudes however, what becomes clear as you meet the challenges in your life is that as Scarlet so wisely declared, “Tomorrow is another day.” There’s always a better tomorrow in between the whirlwinds we just have to keep that in mind while we are getting through the day. So here’s to a good day.

Finally finished chapter 10 and feel much lighter than I have for months. The last of Romaine has been a rather heavy trip. For those of you interested in how this evolved you can go to HLLQ (Harrington Lesbian Literary Quarterly) Vol. 8, No. 2, 2007 To see–Representative Art Historian: My Romaine Brooks: A Love Affair. Happily this has been a love affair that has culminated in a book that I believe will finally give a more complete picture of Romaine Brooks and shed light on her life and art in a way that has not been done before by what is out there. The magic of the unlikely encounter that I had with Brooks over 35 years ago has not worn off and I doubt that I could find a subject as fascinating and engaging as Brooks has been over the course of my moving from a callow young scholar to the mature writer I have become. She has been with me throughout the journey. I have perhaps learned more than I ever wanted to know.

I expect this book will find publication some time next year and I look forward to seeing what readers think.

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.