Blogging Woolf

Nine days worth of Woolf sightings here. Some are difficult to understand, like Kirstie Alley’s claim that she will do a TV series that is “sort of Virginia Woolf.” Others are the usual — references to Woolf’s writing, Woolf reading, Woolf’s mental state, and Woolf-inspired plays and music. Oh, and a new book on the River Ouse.

1. Virginia Woolf’s Words, a Singer’s Voice, New York Times
   This astringent line, about Thomas Hardy’s funeral, is from the diary of Virginia Woolf, and also from Dominick Argento’s classic 1974 song cycle, “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf.” Jennifer Johnson Cano The mezzo-soprano, accompanied by Christopher …
2. Hay Festival has its own blogger, Telegraph.co.uk
   Read Virginia Woolf’s story ‘A Mark On The Wall’ for proof. Reader, I got a job. A dream of a job! The offer came from Literature Wales, formerly known as Academi, a beautiful institution run by wizards who love books and don’t seem to mind …
3. Behind the Beat: Horse Stories, Valley Advocate
   These days she draws motivation from the likes of Catherine Ribeiro, Kim Gordon, Ally Harris, Virginia Woolf and “teenagers.” Kahn has been known to throw anything and everything into her work—even kitchen appliances—to complement Horsebladder’s core …
4. Save Ferris: Pop-Culture Origins Of 16 Famous Band Names, Houston Press (blog)
   … on a speech-therapy exercise he was forced to repeat as a child, Brock actually chose the name “Modest Mouse” via a passage from Virginia Woolf’s “The Mark on the Wall,” rearranging words from the line “the minds of modest, mouse-colored people. …
5. Dear Book Lover: Critically Acclaimed but Almost Forgotten, Wall Street Journal
   Virginia Woolf called their work “a mixture of geniality and sentiment stuck together with a sticky slime of calf’s-foot jelly.” I don’t know about the calf’s-foot jelly, but I don’t mind the occasional geniality and sentiment. …
6. Festival of Books: Susan Straight and novelists examine the cultural fallout …, Los Angeles Times
   At one point Reynolds referred to Prose as “fierce,” a “combination of Frida Kahlo and Virginia Woolf”, but that descriptor could easily be applied to all the panelists. Yet, beyond the politics, the authors also illuminate nuanced corners of American …
7. Artists profile, Calgary Herald
   With a nod to Virginia Woolf’s essay, A Room of One’s Own, Toronto-based artist Virginia Mak offers a series of photographs that comment on the conditions required to engage in the creative process. …
8. Edna O’Brien’s Haunted at Sydney Opera House, StreetCorner
   Her plays include A Pagan Place (Royal Court, London), Virginia (on the life and writings of Virginia Woolf at Haymarket, London), Iphigenia (Crucible, Sheffield), Our Father (Almeida, London), Family Butchers (Magic Theatre, San Francisco) and …
9. Dramatic Paws: JR Ackerley, The Independent
   He persuaded many of the leading writers of the time to become regular contributors: Forster, Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell, Wyndham Lewis, Kenneth Clark, Maynard Keynes, Geoffrey Grigson, Cecil Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice, …
10. crazy life of Gérard Depardieu, The Independent
    But I also learnt a lot from female writers, like Virginia Woolf and Anaïs Nin. I prefer them to, say, Hemingway, and I would always prefer them. Although I very much like F Scott Fitzgerald, I would prefer Colette, for example. …
11. Cheeshahteaumauk, Class of ’65 (1665), Wall Street Journal
    Her situation recalls that of the hypothetical sister that Virginia Woolf imagined for William Shakespeare in “A Room of One’s Own,” a brilliant woman denied education or self-expression. “Tend to your huswifery,” Bethia’s father tells her, …
12. How Writers Build the Brand, New York Times
    The frumpy Virginia Woolf even went on a “Pretty Woman”-style shopping expedition at French couture houses in London with the magazine’s fashion editor in 1925. But the tradition of self-promotion predates the camera by millenniums. In 440 BC or so, …
13. Kirstie Alley scores top marks for confidence as she pours her curves into …, Daily Mail
    It’s sort of Virginia Woolf.’ Alley is also said to be in talks about another HBO series to, which is rumoured to be a currently unnamed cable series being written for her. The actress also took the time to use her Twitter to try and drum up aid for …
14. ‘Dancing for Hope’: Cancer survivor turns body into tool of expression, Centre Daily Times
    The dance draws images from the writings of Kate Chopin, Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf, Halpin said, and delves into identity and “how we so often kind of submerge our true self to meet societal demands.” Halpin also will perform a solo created on . . . 
15. No: Ted R Bromund: Are we voting for a better democracy or simply ignoring the …, Yorkshire Post (press release)
    The enthusiasts were gently rebuked by Sir Leslie Stephen – father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell – who pointed out that they were mistaking the waterwheel for the water. The campaigners thought it was the political system – the waterwheel – that …
16. Magical Messi leaves Mourinho’s Real reeling, American Chronicle
    Thus wrote one of the great British writers of the 20th century, Virginia Woolf in her highly acclaimed ‘Mrs Dalloway’, but the same could well have been applied to football and the Champions League semifinal …
17. The Big Smoke comes to Aberystwyth, News Wales
    The one woman play is inspired by the lives and works of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and American poet Anne Sexton, The show is performed by Canadian actor Amy Nostbakken and directed by Nir Paldi. An original and unforgettable piece of theatre, …
18. Classical Music/Opera Listings for April 29-May 5, New York Times
    That organization is now bringing her to Merkin Hall with a terrifically varied program, including a Porpora aria, Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer,” Ravel’s “Cinq Melodies Populaires Greques,” and Dominick Argento’s “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf. …
19. Rae Meadows’ ‘Mothers and Daughters’ a tender and perceptive tale, Madison.com
    It’s no coincidence that Iris is reading Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse” as she prepares for her own death. Iris is in many ways a typical woman of her generation — divorced after raising two children in a passionless marriage. …
20. Ruhl’s ‘Orlando’ premieres at Muhlenberg, Allentown Morning Call
    James Peck, a professor of theater at Muhlenberg College, admires the work of Virginia Woolf so much that he regularly re-reads her books. “Woolf’s writing is one of the most sensuous and beautifully … Read Sara Ruhl’s Orlando playing in Allentown
21. Kirstie Alley, have you called HBO yet?, SheKnows.com
    We’re not quite sure what the adjective “Virginia Woolf” connotes, but we’re thinking something along the lines of “lesbians” and “high tea.” Juuust kidding — sort of. Woolf was a famous British writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries whom …
22. To The River by Olivia Laing, The Skinny
    Skimming and deep-diving alternately into lives evermore bound by varying degrees to rivers, it also looks at the life of Virginia Woolf through her relationship with the river. With Woolf at the centre, Laing nurtures a theme of mental illness with …
23. Rabbit Hole, Cinema Blend
    When we think of a movie about closed-in people, instinct often goes to a Virginia Woolf-like figure — a lonely person languorous in a walled room. John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole is about closed-in people, but he chooses to begin his film in the …
24. Education calendar, GoErie.com
    Corrine Egan will lead discussions on selections by Plato, James Baldwin, Virginia Woolf, TS Eliot,Jane Austen and others. The cost is $50 plus materials. Visit www.JESerie.org. – America’s most underrated president: James K. Polk, …
25. Creating the perfect space to fill with nothing, Irish Times
    Roy Foster quotes Virginia Woolf describing Bowen’s Court as “merely a great stone box,” which happens to be a remarkably apt description of the houses that we find in English’s paintings. They are often monolithic edifices standing incongruously in …
26. Walking with Socrates, Canada.com
    Those Toronto-based classes have grown; this summer, from July 17 to 22, Classical Pursuits will offer 11 sessions, accommodating 125 to 130 people, and covering everything from Chekhov and Virginia Woolf to “Vienna: World Capital of Classical Music. …
27. Better Than Renting Out A Windowless Room: The Blessed Distraction Of Technology, Publishers Weekly (blog)
    I think Nietzsche would have endured non-BCC’d e-mail dispatches in exchange for pills to de-spongify his syphilitic brain, and we can all agree Virginia Woolf could’ve used a scrip for serotonin reuptake inhibitors. I digress. ...