Featured Post

That time I wanted to pass myself off as Joyce Carol Oates #TBT

Image
I submitted my first piece of writing when I was seventeen, a story about my first job, working at the employee cafeteria at General Telephone where my mother was a dispatcher. Rolling the 20# white bond backed by a sheet of thin blue carbon paper into my Smith Corona, I typed it out slowly, carefully, on a piece of erasable paper—and mailed it off to Cosmopolitan along with a cover letter. Not just to any editor at Cosmo, by the way, I sent it directly to Helen Gurley Brown. 

The piece itself, meant to be comical, was full of clumsy attempts at self-effacing humor.  I strived for a similar tone in the cover letter I addressed to Brown, completely clueless that the high powered editor in chief wasn’t the one reading unsolicited manuscripts. After I signed off I added the following PS. I could have said I was Joyce Carol Oates. What I thought that would accomplish I can’t imagine. That an unsatisfactory submission would get published because of a lame joke? 

No surprise, in the SASE I’d …
Post a Comment

Victoria & Albert: How does it all end?

The V&A Chandelier by Dale Chihuly at the Victoria & Albert Museum*

Watching the new season of Victoria, the young queen played the beautiful Jenna Coleman and Prince Albert by the equally gorgeous Tom Hughes, I find myself wondering how it all ends. How does this tender young queen, seeking out her own voice, come to spend so much of her life in widow’s black? When does Jenna Coleman’s lovely Queen Victoria turn into Judi Dench’s aging powerhouse?

 Albert lives until 1861, at which point he dies at the age of 42, of what was probably stomach cancer. Victoria, who herself said she ‘moved not a finger, didn’t put on a gown or bonnet if he didn’t approve it,’ was devastated. 

 According to HistoryInAnHour.com the whole of England went into mourning, sharing the queen’s pain in an outpouring of grief that wouldn’t be seen again until the death of Princess Diana 136 years later.

 “The Blue Room in which Prince Albert died remained unaltered for the rest of Victoria’s life, a snapshot of the time when her life changed forever. The glass from which he had taken his last sip was kept on his bedside table, his blotting book and pen forever opened at its last entry, fresh flowers delivered every day.’’

Victoria would reign another forty years after Albert’s death. She never again wore anything but black.

 As far as the Victoria & Albert Museum goes—which we were lucky enough to visit last May when I took the photo of the eye-popping chandelier—the Queen officially opened the then-named South Kensington Museum in 1857. In 1899, in her last public outing, the Queen presided over the official renaming to the Victoria & Albert Museum. Queen Victoria died in 1901. She was eighty one years old.

  * Originally titled the Ice Blue and Spring Green Chandelier 

Comments

  1. Joy8:15 AM

    We were only in the V&A for about twenty minutes. My husband was much more entranced with the steam engines over in the Science Museum, but I got us in the V&A to see if the lunch options were any more interesting. We never got to the menu because the cafe was so big and noisy that we just went back to the Science Museum. Next time, I think I'll send him over to the Science Museum while I take more time at the V&A on my own.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sim Carter8:59 AM

      I stuck my head into the cafe because it was designed by William Morris but you're right, it was mobbed. I think that was the day we went to a little cafe where they made me a fried egg sandwich even though it wasn't on the menu. Heaven.

      Delete
  2. Tina4:49 AM

    I’ve never been at all as the only trips we have taken to England were spent in the rural areas. We’d get a car from Gatwick and head west but the plan is, one day, to stay a week in London and take public transport to see the museums .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sim Carter9:00 AM

      We flew into Gatwick as well! Funny, next time my husband and I want to hit the coast, and leave London for another trip. Dreams.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your comments. Insecure writer at work.

Popular Posts

10 Ways to Know You're a Brit at Heart

Image
We can't all be British. Yes, some of us love our British telly, are dotty for real football players—especially when they look like David Beckham—and actors like Benedict can grab our Cumberbatch anytime, but that doesn't make us True Brits. True Brits know teddibly, teddibly brilliant British-y things. Like the fact that being married to a prince doesn't mean we call Kate Middleton, Princess Kate. Her Royal Highness is actually a duchess. And William? He's not just a prince, he's a duke. Somehow that's even better than being an ordinary Royal type prince. Don't worry, even True Brits don't know exactly why.

But you might be a Brit at heart if :
You know PG Tips aren't pointers on your golf game.

You know pasties are a kind of pie, not something that would make the Queen blush.

When the flags start waving on the fourth of July, you pour one out for King George.

You know a cock-up is just another way of saying snafu. Unless you're a wanker.

You know mi…
Continue Reading »

That time I wanted to pass myself off as Joyce Carol Oates #TBT

Image
I submitted my first piece of writing when I was seventeen, a story about my first job, working at the employee cafeteria at General Telephone where my mother was a dispatcher. Rolling the 20# white bond backed by a sheet of thin blue carbon paper into my Smith Corona, I typed it out slowly, carefully, on a piece of erasable paper—and mailed it off to Cosmopolitan along with a cover letter. Not just to any editor at Cosmo, by the way, I sent it directly to Helen Gurley Brown. 

The piece itself, meant to be comical, was full of clumsy attempts at self-effacing humor.  I strived for a similar tone in the cover letter I addressed to Brown, completely clueless that the high powered editor in chief wasn’t the one reading unsolicited manuscripts. After I signed off I added the following PS. I could have said I was Joyce Carol Oates. What I thought that would accomplish I can’t imagine. That an unsatisfactory submission would get published because of a lame joke? 

No surprise, in the SASE I’d …
Continue Reading »

Marching for THEIR Lives in Santa Monica

Image
So proud to march with my husband & my family in Santa MonicaWow! What an amazing moment in our country’s history. Just got home from the March for Our Lives event in Santa Monica and turned on the TV to see the massive numbers of people who marched in Washington—as many as a million—and millions more who marched around the country and the world. Including my sister in law Susan and her husband Dave, marching in Riverside. Not exactly the liberal bastion Santa Monica is. A question for the politicians: Can you count the votes?

I love Eva’s sign “Arms are for Hugging’’While there was a much larger march planned for downtown Los Angeles we chose to go to the smaller community of Santa Monica because it’s where my brother, sister and I went to high school. No matter where else I live, it’s the city I’ll always consider home. 

Thousands marched in Santa MonicaWe met my brother Russ & my sister in law Eva at their place—they’re lucky enough to still live in Santa Monica, just blocks …
Continue Reading »

#11 BEACH MUSIC: A time of tans, blonds and hot pants

Image
IT WAS A TIME OF TANS, BLONDS AND HOT PANTS, WHEN THE ENDLESS SUMMER WAS JUST A SHORT WALK DOWN A HOT SIDEWALK
Beach Music, an On the Street Where I Livestories is really a tale of two cities; San Juan, Puerto Rico and Santa Monica, California. It was originally published in the LA Times Sunday Magazine.



Beach Music We came to California from Canada, with a detour to Puerto Rico that lasted one endless summer of a year. A year in which I turned 15, and my hair turned blond from living in the sun. “Psst,” the boys and men would call after me in the blue-cobbled streets of San Juan. “Psst! Hey, blondie. Psst! Hey, cutie pie.” I was devastated when my parents said we had to go, that it was time to leave the island so that my older brother, Russell, could get a first rate education. The plan was to drive cross country from Miami and settle in San Francisco so that my brother could finish high school before going on to UC Berkeley. But, once we got there in the fall of 1968, we found that …
Continue Reading »

We'll Always Have Nobu : Robert De Niro

Image
Reposting on the occasion of Robert De Niro’s 75th birthday. I guess you know you're old when all your crushes have turned into old men! Anyway ... here’s the one about the time ...

I put down the phone, hoping no one could see my hand was literally shaking. Bob's assistant, Elena, was calling from New York, wanting to see if I could organize some lunch for her boss. Her boss Bob. Bob as in Bob De Niro. Oh, that Bob. The actor was going to be in LA and planned on squeezing in a quick meeting with Rowdy Herrington, the director shooting the next episode of Tales from the Crypt. As the APOC at Tales, it fell to me to take on the task. 

An APOC—Assistant Production Office Coordinator to the uninitiated—is nothing more than an overworked secretary to about 150 people. Twelve hour days minimum. No overtime. My job meant inputting every single one of those names, phone numbers and addresses into the Crew List data base and keeping it updated. I generated the cast list which included t…
Continue Reading »