Podcast appearances and mentions of Alice B Toklas

Beau Shipley and Keeby Styles barely survive the WWI battle of the Meuse-Argonne. Beau returns to Charleston in a fatalistic attempt to stop his former girlfriend's wedding to a rival, while Keeby remains in Paris to become a writer.Beau discovers that time, the war, the Spanish Flu, and a dark family secret have left the Charleston he remembered unrecognizable, so he returns to Paris to live as a painter.On separate but intertwining paths, Beau and Keeby are swept up in what Gertrude Stein called the Lost Generation, two aspirants mired in the panoramic parade of ambitious expats seeking fame and fortune in the world of arts and letters.Then, drunken and desperate, Beau one night makes a fateful choice that will change both their lives—forever.22 Rue Montparnasse is a tale about high aspirations and bad decisions, with cameo appearances by the likes of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Tsugahiro Foujita, Ernest Hemingway, Georges Brach, Amedeo Modigliani, Misia Sert, Coco Chanel, and Ezra Pound.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/houseofmysteryradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vi tipsar om intressanta böcker. Inte bara kokböcker med en massa recept, utan också böcker som handlar om mat i en vidare mening. Kanske julklappstips? Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. Menys Tomas Tengby och Nina Frogneborn får sällskap i studion av Jesper Lindkvist, matentusiast och hobbyodlare, för att prata om kokböcker och annan måltidslitteratur.Böckerna som de pratar om är:Alice B Toklas kokbok av Alice B Toklas — en nyutgåva av en bok från 1950-talet. Mer litteratur är kokbok, men det finns recept.Simple av Ottolenghi — en översatt bok av Yotam Ottolengi. Smaker med inspiration från köken i Mellanöstern.Italian coastal — recipes and stories from where the land meets the sea av Amber Guinness. Britt som vuxit upp i Italien. Mat från kusterna längs Tyrrenska havet (Toscana, Lazio, Neapel och Amalfikusten, samt norra Sicilien). På engelska.Kocken & fiskaren av Mikael Einarsson och Hubbe Lemon. En fiskresa genom Sverige som inspirerar till eget prestigelöst fiske. Handbok, fiskeskildring och kokbok i ett.Pasta wizard av Oskar Montano. Väg in till att göra egen färsk pasta. Inte bara fylld pasta, utan också syditaliensk på durumvete och vatten.Matarv — berättelser om mat och kulturarv. Redaktörer: Anita Synnestvedt och Monica GustafssonochMatarvets trådar — Från antik fisksås till svenskt fredagsmys. Redaktörer: Jenny Högström Berntson och Pernilla SchedinTvå äldre böcker (från 2021 och 2023) med populärvetenskapliga artiklar om mat- och dryckeskultur i Sverige och världen. Resultatet av projektet Kulturarvsakademin, initierat av Göteborgs universitet för att samla folk från universitet och kulturarvsinstitutioner.

En el París de principios del siglo XX, Gertrude Stein fue mucho más que una escritora: fue la anfitriona de los artistas y escritores que definieron la vanguardia. Este episodio explora su vida desde sus años en Estados Unidos hasta su llegada a París, donde su apartamento en la rue de Fleurus se convirtió en el centro de la modernidad artística. Stein, conocida por su estilo literario experimental y su relación de casi 40 años con Alice B. Toklas, desafió las convenciones literarias y sociales de su tiempo. Analizamos cómo su obra, desde Tres vidas hasta Tender Buttons, rompió con las estructuras narrativas tradicionales, y cómo su mecenazgo fue clave en el éxito de figuras como Picasso y Hemingway. Una pionera del modernismo literario y del amor entre mujeres, Stein dejó una huella imborrable en la historia cultural del siglo XX. Las musiquitas, aquí: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4j1Gl0KfgZxNHWmAMFECvf?si=de1ab7f7ee9f4d23

In this episode, host Lyle Perez guides listeners through the shadowy history of Washington State. From foggy coastal towns to eerie castles, Washington's mix of historic landmarks and rainy, mystical landscapes creates the perfect backdrop for the supernatural. Discover 10 haunted spots in Washington where spirits are said to linger—whether in a vintage saloon or the haunted remains of an old hospital. Featured Locations: Oxford Saloon, Snohomish 913 First St, Snohomish, WA 98290 The Oxford Saloon in Snohomish has a reputation for dark encounters, particularly in its basement, where violent clashes are said to have taken place. The saloon is haunted by Henry, a bouncer and former policeman, whose spirit often appears near the basement stairs. Henry is known for being especially active around female visitors, with some reporting a sudden, unexplained pinch. Another spectral figure, Kathleen, was a madam who worked in the saloon, and her spirit is often seen in a purple dress, keeping close watch over the space she once managed. Mount Baker Theatre, Bellingham 104 N Commercial St, Bellingham, WA 98225 Built in 1927, this historic theater has become home to a young ghost named Judy. Employees report encounters with Judy's spirit in the balcony, where her soft laughter echoes, and occasionally feel her cold touch on their shoulders. Judy is known to have a playful nature, especially around male staff members, making her presence more charming than frightening. Other strange occurrences include the appearance of glowing orbs and faint, unearthly whispers throughout the building. Northern State Hospital, Sedro-Woolley 25625 Helmick Rd, Sedro-Woolley, WA 98284 Now part of the Northern State Recreation Area, this former mental hospital housed thousands of patients during the early 1900s, many of whom endured controversial treatments. Visitors often see an apparition of a nurse pushing a wheelchair or hear the faint cries of former patients. The abandoned buildings and ruins give off a chilling, otherworldly atmosphere, especially at night, making it a popular spot for paranormal investigations. Thornewood Castle, Lakewood 8601 N Thorne Ln SW, Lakewood, WA 98498 Thornewood Castle, a Tudor-style mansion, was constructed in the early 1900s and has its own share of resident spirits. Its original owner, Chester Thorne, and his wife Anna are said to haunt the hallways, making occasional appearances to guests. Paranormal investigators frequently capture cold spots in the castle's sprawling gardens, and ghostly apparitions have been reported in rooms where the Thornes once stayed. The castle's appearance in Stephen King's Rose Red has only added to its eerie allure. Port Gamble, Kitsap Peninsula Port Gamble, WA 98364 Port Gamble is known for the Walker-Ames House, a Victorian mansion that has attracted ghost hunters from across the nation. Visitors often report the sounds of children laughing and sightings of a woman, possibly a former nanny, roaming the halls. The house is a centerpiece of Port Gamble's annual Ghost Conference, where paranormal enthusiasts gather to explore the haunted locations around town. Manresa Castle, Port Townsend 651 Cleveland St, Port Townsend, WA 98368 Built in 1892, Manresa Castle is famed for its tragic ghost stories, including that of a Jesuit priest who allegedly took his own life in one of the towers. The priest's spirit, along with that of a young woman who is said to have leaped to her death, lingers in the castle's halls. Guests report feeling sudden drops in temperature and hearing faint voices when the halls are empty. Hotel Sorrento, Seattle 900 Madison St, Seattle, WA 98104 Seattle's Hotel Sorrento is haunted by Alice B. Toklas, a prominent literary figure often associated with the seventh floor. Guests staying in Room 408 frequently hear ghostly piano music and encounter an unsettling tall figure that is often seen in the hotel's historic elevator. In the Madrona Room, glasses have been known to shatter on their own, adding to the hotel's ghostly atmosphere. Walker-Ames House, Port Gamble 100 NE Rainier Ave, Port Gamble, WA 98364 The Walker-Ames House is considered Washington's most haunted residence, where a female spirit is seen peering out from the windows, and a ghostly young girl, known as Annabelle, often plays on the stairs. The basement and attic are the most active areas, with visitors reporting cold spots and unexplained movements, especially around old toys left out for Annabelle's spirit. The Rucker Mansion, Everett 412 Laurel Dr, Everett, WA 98201 The Rucker Mansion, built in 1904, is haunted by Jane Rucker, who died tragically after a fall. Jane's presence is often sensed on the staircase, where a faint scent of lavender lingers—a favorite of hers during her life. Guests and caretakers report doors slamming shut on their own and shadowy figures seen in the mansion's windows, watching over the grounds. Kell's Irish Pub, Seattle 1916 Post Alley, Seattle, WA 98101 Located in the former Butterworth Mortuary, Kell's Irish Pub has chilling roots as Seattle's first mortuary. Shadows appear near the bar, where a tall man in old-fashioned attire is often seen watching patrons. Another frequent ghostly sighting is that of a young girl, whose laughter echoes eerily from the basement. Staff and patrons frequently report cold drafts, shattering glasses, and a feeling of being watched, making Kell's one of Seattle's most infamous haunted spots. Like Our Facebook page for more Halloween fun: www.Facebook.com/TheHalloweenPodcast ORDER PODCAST MERCH! Website: www.TheHalloweenPodcast.com Email: TheHalloweenPodcast@gmail.com X: @TheHalloweenPod Support the Show: www.patreon.com/TheHalloweenPod Get bonus Halloween content and more! Just for Patreon supporters! Check out my other show! Find it on iTunes - Amazing Advertising http://amazingadvertising.podomatic.com/ Keywords and Tags: Haunted Washington, Ghosts of the Evergreen State, Haunted America, Washington Ghost Stories, Paranormal Activity, Halloween Podcast, Haunted Locations in Washington

"... Sellers is very funny. Unfortunately, the movie's general approach to hippiedom is what we've come to dread. Hippies wear funny clothes, sleep on the stove, don't wash, read the Los Angeles Free Press, bake pot brownies, put up posters everywhere and operate with a sort of mindless, directionless love ethic. So the movie becomes conventional after all. If they'd dropped Sellers into a real hippie culture, we might really have had a movie here." (Roger Ebert, 1968) Despite the misgivings of the exalted Mr Ebert, I Love You Alice B. Toklas is a pretty good film generally. This week's guest, the writer John Williams, and Tyler both had fun watching it and talking about it, and were particularly impressed by Peter Sellers' winning turn as lawyer Harold Fine who undergoes a mid-life crisis and embraces the patchouli-scented hippy lifestyle. With solid support from the likes of Joyce Van Patten and Leigh Taylor-Young, the film is a fine showcase for Sellers' talents and despite dated fashions more or less holds up. So turn on, tune in, drop out and enjoy Goon Pod this week!

In this episode, conference director Matthew Biberman talks with Robert Archambeau about his novel, Alice B. Toklas is Missing, as well as the current state of humanities in academia. The Chair of English at Lake Forest College and an author, Archambeau discusses his view of the intersection of arts, culture, and higher education. This LCLC podcast episode is intended for graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and anyone interested in literature and the humanities in higher education as well as historical fiction.

The late ballplayer Billy Bean talked about his intentions when he was first named Major League Baseball's gay Ambassador for Inclusion in 2014 (interviewed by Chrisanne Eastwood and Wenzel Jones), and his success is proven by the response to last week's homophobic incident involving Boston Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas are known for being literary mavens, and for Toklas' mastery of French cooking. In this rare Pacifica Radio Archives selection from a Verve record, Ms. Toklas herself reads the most popular recipe from The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, and tells the story behind its publication. And in NewsWrap: the U.S. Supreme Court denies an emergency request from the Department of Justice to enforce its queer-inclusive interpretation of “Title IX” bias protections, Pope Francis joins with LGBTQ activists from Uganda and Ghana in condemning anti-queer legislation in both nations, Team LGBTQ would have finished in 7th among nations for the most medals at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, gay British Olympic diver Tom Daley is retires after winning another Silver medal, Kim Coco Iwamoto will be the first out transgender candidate to win election to state office in Hawai'i, gay Chilean flamingoes Curtis and Arthur give birth to their new chick at South West England's Paignton Zoo in Devon, and more international LGBTQ news reported this week by Marcos Najera and Sarah Montague (produced by Brian DeShazor with technical assistance by Daniel Huecias).  All this on the August 19, 2024 edition of This Way Out! Join our family of listener-donors today at http://thiswayout.org/donate/

There are eight major planets, but more than a million minor ones, including asteroids. If you discover one, you get the honor of naming it. The Dictionary of Minor Planet Names includes minor planets named for rock bands, jazz musicians, poets, and more. Plus, if you're waaaaaaaaaay interested in something, you can say so in writing: just add lots of A's to the word way. This linguistic trick is called expressive lengthening. Also, where can you find pinkletinks? Hint: Listen for their high-pitched peeps. All that, and describing the voice of Alice B. Toklas with an evocative simile, all stove up, footloose and fancy-free, a punny quiz, gray vs. grey, how to pronounce mayonnaise, tinkletoes and pink-winks, Diamond Loop, and Humpty-Bump Pull Top Read full show notes, hear hundreds of free episodes, send your thoughts and questions, and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org/contact. Be a part of the show: call 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; worldwide, call or text/SMS +1 (619) 800-4443. Email words@waywordradio.org. Twitter @wayword. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The second episode of the reading group, When A Guy Writes, on Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas. August 4th, 1 PM CST: Kate Bornstein's A Queer and Pleasant Danger: https://discord.gg/D4JDKzpTPh?event=1254870250487545988 The intro and outro music is by Lynn July. You can listen to more of her music at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tinytachyon.bandcamp.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow the pod on twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/WhenAGuyHas⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The patreon is on pause for a little while Jolene recalibrates some stuff, you can find it here anyways: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=85347146 The RSS Feed: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://anchor.fm/s/9877d600/podcast/rss⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Donate to our Kofi, if you're so inclined: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/whenaguyhas⁠⁠⁠

Kultūros publikacijų spaudoje apžvalga.Kas yra Broka zona ir kaip ji prisdėjo pire tolimesnių smegenų tyrimų?Anykščių Antano Baranausko ir Antano VIenuolio-Žukausko muziejui saugoti bus perduodamas autentiškas Antano Baranausko smuikas.Elžbieta Banytė apžvelgia Gertrude Stein knygą „Alice B. Toklas biografija“ ir Davido Lyncho ir žurnalistas Kristine McKenna bendrą darbą „Sapnų kambarys“.Valkininkuose įvyks pirmasis šiuolaikinio meno festivalis „Sūkuriai“.Buvusi Ukrainos švietimo ministrė, nevyriausybinės organizacijos „SavED“ vadovė Anna Novosad pasakoja, kad dėl Rusijos atakų Ukrainoje neįmanoma užtikrinti saugaus mokymos proceso, o šalyje sunaikinta kas septinta mokykla.Į Klaipėdą kviečia tarptautinis nematerialaus kultūros paveldo festivalis „Lauksnos“.Vilniuje duris atveria nauja kultūrinė erdvė „Retrito Smarsas“VII-ajame Pinjeto filmo festivalyje pripažinimo sulaukė režisierė Margarita Bareikytė.Ved. Marius Eidukonis

Jolene hosts a reading group for Herculine Barbin's memoir! S/o to Rhea, Harper, and Logan for joining, discussion was lovely. You can join us for the next meeting on June 23rd, at 1PM CST for a discussion of the Autobiography of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein, or for the meeting after that, a discussion of Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, on July 7th, also at 1PM CST. Both of those meetings will take place in the discord server linked here: https://discord.gg/DmxXMhJnu6 Also, pop into the discord to keep the conversation going! I know at least a few of you read but couldn't make it so. If you have ideas that we didn't also have, or different reactions, or just. anything worth sharing! Go to the discord. Check out the episode of Perfect Taste Forever Jolene was on here (I have no idea why I didn't mention this in the episode bit I rerecorded up front but. Whoops): https://open.spotify.com/episode/5GK5rAsEXZQ0TBZW58MjLp?si=7737f74ad79a4dea The intro and outro music is by Lynn July. You can listen to more of her music at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tinytachyon.bandcamp.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow the pod on twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/WhenAGuyHas⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://whenaguyhas.neocities.org/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (IN PROGRESS) Subscribe to the patreon for more like this!!! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=85347146 The RSS Feed: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://anchor.fm/s/9877d600/podcast/rss⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Donate to our Kofi, if you're so inclined: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/whenaguyhas⁠⁠⁠

Explorez la vie excentrique et l'héritage artistique de Gertrude Stein, de ses salons parisiens aux rencontres avec Picasso, le tout dans l'écrin du film "Minuit à Paris" de Woody Allen. Une plongée dans le monde fascinant de cette figure majeure de l'avant-garde.Gertrude Stein, poétesse, écrivaine, dramaturge, collectionneuse et intellectuelle féministe, a laissé une empreinte indéniable sur le monde de l'art moderne. Une exposition au Luxembourg met en lumière son rôle central et son influence sur les avant-gardes artistiques à partir des années 1940.Explorez également la vie personnelle de Gertrude, son amour avec Alice B. Toklas, et comment elles ont survécu à la Seconde Guerre mondiale en se réfugiant dans des villages pour échapper à la persécution.Références : Minuit à Paris (2011) - Film de Woody Allen.L'Autobiographie d'Alice B. Toklas - Roman de Gertrude Stein.Tender Buttons (1914) - Recueil de poésie de Gertrude Stein.Exposition Gertrude Stein / Picasso - Musée du Luxembourg, Paris. (2023)Bienvenue dans « Purple Theorie », Là où les questions deviennent féministes , le podcast qui explore les questions de féminisme à travers la culture, l'histoire et bien plus encore. Bienvenue dans « Purple Theorie", le podcast qui explore les questions de féminisme à travers la culture, l'histoire et bien plus encore.Chaque chronique a pour déclencheur, une scène de film de cinéma, qui nous entraine dans les trajectoires féministes, en abordant des questions culturelles, historiques et philosophiques. Écoutez, partagez et laissez-vous emporter par "Purple Theorie" sur Apple Podcast et Spotify & Co. Préparez-vous à vivre des sensations fortes à chaque épisode !Production: Mikrophonie Emission écrite et réalisée par Marie SuchorskiMusique: Royalty-free music by Slip.stream / https://slip.stream Rejoignez-nous pour une exploration passionnante du féminisme….Instagram : www.instagram.com/purpletheorieSite web : www.purpletheorie.com#purpletheorie #podcast #féminisme #feministe #femme #art #cinema #Mikrophonie#GertrudeStein #ArtModerne #Exposition Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

We're celebrating all different kinds of love in the Smoke Circle for Valentine's Day! First up, Laurel travels through time recounting iconic stories of love and friendship suggested by listeners--from John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Next, Kt travels through the life and family tree of Norman king William I--also known as William the Conqueror. *~*~*~* Mentioned In the Stories: ⁠Family Tree for William the Conqueror⁠ ⁠Adams/Jefferson Letters⁠ ⁠Alice B. Toklas's Special Recipe⁠ *~*~*~* The Socials! Instagram⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠@HightailingHistory⁠⁠⁠⁠  TikTok⁠- ⁠⁠⁠⁠@HightailingHistoryPod⁠⁠⁠⁠  Facebook⁠ -⁠⁠Hightailing Through History or ⁠⁠@HightailingHistory⁠⁠⁠⁠  YouTube- ⁠⁠Hightailing Through History⁠⁠ *~*~*~* Our Love Stories Were Suggested By... Heloise and Abelard from ⁠@rue.chemin.vert⁠ John Adams and Thomas Jefferson from Dr. Darren R. Reid ⁠@thathistorianinsta⁠ Marquis de Lafayette and Adrienne from Brendan Dowd at History Nerds United ⁠@histnerdsunited⁠ Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine from TK at For The Love of History ⁠@fortheloveof_historypodcast⁠ Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas from Derek at History's Greatest Idiots ⁠@historysgreatestidiots ⁠ *~*~*~*~ Source Materials: Love Stories-- ⁠https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14268/pg14268-images.html  ⁠ ⁠https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35977/35977-h/35977-h.htm⁠ ⁠https://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-Abelard⁠ ⁠https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/trend-tradition-magazine/trend-tradition-spring-2019/friends-divided⁠ ⁠https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/adams-interview-historians/⁠ ⁠https://www.history.com/news/jefferson-adams-founding-frenemies⁠ ⁠https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/lafayette-marie-adrienne-de-1760-1807⁠ ⁠https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/us-history-biographies/marquis-de-lafayette⁠ ⁠https://www.history.com/news/napoleon-josephine-bonaparte-love-story-marriage-divorce⁠ ⁠https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/napoleon-josephine-true-relationship-infidelity-influence?loggedin=true&rnd=1707024549853⁠ ⁠https://theconversation.com/napoleon-and-josephines-real-relationship-was-intense-but-they-loved-power-more-than-each-other-218160⁠ ⁠https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/josephine-1763-1814⁠ ⁠https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37499/37499-h/37499-h.htm⁠ (Napoleon's letters) ⁠https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/gertrude-stein-alice-b-toklas-love-story⁠ ⁠https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/stein-gertrude-and-alice-b-toklas-1874-1946-and-1877-1967⁠ ⁠https://www.getty.edu/news/good-food-conversation-with-gertrude-stein-and-alice-b-toklas/⁠ William the Conqueror-- ⁠https://www.royal.uk/william-the-conqueror⁠ ⁠https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/discover-the-bayeux-tapestry/who-was-william-the-conqueror/⁠ ⁠https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-william-the-conqueror⁠ ⁠https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings⁠ ⁠https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/william-conqueror-parents-0010669⁠ ⁠https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rollo-duke-of-Normandy⁠ h⁠ttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Harald-I-king-of-Norway⁠ ⁠https://englishhistory.net/vikings/king-canute-the-great/⁠ *~*~*~*~ Intro/outro music: "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hightailing-history/message

We're celebrating all different kinds of love in the Smoke Circle for Valentine's Day! First up, Laurel travels through time recounting iconic stories of love and friendship suggested by listeners--from John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Next, Kt travels through the life and family tree of Norman king William I--also known as William the Conqueror. *~*~*~* Mentioned In the Stories: ⁠Family Tree for William the Conqueror⁠ ⁠Adams/Jefferson Letters⁠ ⁠Alice B. Toklas's Special Recipe⁠ *~*~*~* The Socials! Instagram⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠@HightailingHistory⁠⁠⁠⁠  TikTok⁠- ⁠⁠⁠⁠@HightailingHistoryPod⁠⁠⁠⁠  Facebook⁠ -⁠⁠Hightailing Through History or ⁠⁠@HightailingHistory⁠⁠⁠⁠  YouTube- ⁠⁠Hightailing Through History⁠⁠ *~*~*~* Our Love Stories Were Suggested By... Heloise and Abelard from ⁠@rue.chemin.vert⁠ John Adams and Thomas Jefferson from Dr. Darren R. Reid ⁠@thathistorianinsta⁠ Marquis de Lafayette and Adrienne from Brendan Dowd at History Nerds United ⁠@histnerdsunited⁠ Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine from TK at For The Love of History ⁠@fortheloveof_historypodcast⁠ Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas from Derek at History's Greatest Idiots ⁠@historysgreatestidiots ⁠ *~*~*~*~ Source Materials: Love Stories-- ⁠https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14268/pg14268-images.html  ⁠ ⁠https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35977/35977-h/35977-h.htm⁠ ⁠https://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-Abelard⁠ ⁠https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/trend-tradition-magazine/trend-tradition-spring-2019/friends-divided⁠ ⁠https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/adams-interview-historians/⁠ ⁠https://www.history.com/news/jefferson-adams-founding-frenemies⁠ ⁠https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/lafayette-marie-adrienne-de-1760-1807⁠ ⁠https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/us-history-biographies/marquis-de-lafayette⁠ ⁠https://www.history.com/news/napoleon-josephine-bonaparte-love-story-marriage-divorce⁠ ⁠https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/napoleon-josephine-true-relationship-infidelity-influence?loggedin=true&rnd=1707024549853⁠ ⁠https://theconversation.com/napoleon-and-josephines-real-relationship-was-intense-but-they-loved-power-more-than-each-other-218160⁠ ⁠https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/josephine-1763-1814⁠ ⁠https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37499/37499-h/37499-h.htm⁠ (Napoleon's letters) ⁠https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/gertrude-stein-alice-b-toklas-love-story⁠ ⁠https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/stein-gertrude-and-alice-b-toklas-1874-1946-and-1877-1967⁠ ⁠https://www.getty.edu/news/good-food-conversation-with-gertrude-stein-and-alice-b-toklas/⁠ William the Conqueror-- ⁠https://www.royal.uk/william-the-conqueror⁠ ⁠https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/discover-the-bayeux-tapestry/who-was-william-the-conqueror/⁠ ⁠https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-william-the-conqueror⁠ ⁠https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings⁠ ⁠https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/william-conqueror-parents-0010669⁠ ⁠https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rollo-duke-of-Normandy⁠ h⁠ttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Harald-I-king-of-Norway⁠ ⁠https://englishhistory.net/vikings/king-canute-the-great/⁠ *~*~*~*~ Intro/outro music: "Loopster" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hightailing-history/message

I thought I'd repost a part of the review I did of Baby Precious Always Shines: Selected Love Notes Between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, published by St. Martin's Press in the year 2,000 – fifteen years before same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in the United States. The review is recorded below and the text is below that. From my blog: Janet Mason, author | Just another WordPress.com site

Welkom bij aflevering 16 van het eerste echte seizoen van Ballet Kroket! We hebben het over alle dingen waarmee je het leven kunt vieren, versieren en verdiepen, kortom over alles op de lijn van ballet tot kroket. De Kok van de Week is onze eigen Lone Poulsen, de kok die uit het Noorden kwam. Ze vertelt over een zeer feestelijk december aperitief met dennensiroop. Kom op 22 december tussen 16 en 21 uur naar Kookhaven om kerstinkopen te doen in Lone's pop-up winkeltje waar je al haar nordic heerlijkheden kunt krijgen. Host Francien Knorringa zag de documentaire Tante Iki op NPO Start over actrice Sigrid Koetse. https://npo.nl/start/serie/2doc-kort/seizoen-5/tante-iki/afspelen?at_campaign=npostart_player&at_channel=npostart&at_creation=share-link&at_detail_placement=1:lqcqmbgo:0facac3ed6cf433bb6c9e7f69a0624b6&at_format=share_button;;0_0&at_general_placement=serie||2doc-kort||seizoen-5||tante-iki&at_medium=display&at_variant=organic Host Jannekee Kuijper las The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein in de door Mairaa Kalman geïllustreerde uitgave. https://www.deslegte.com/the-autobiography-of-alice-b-toklas-2256767/ Gids Bart Prinsen leest voor uit De Avonden van Gerard Reve, een titelloos gedicht van Femke Zwiep uit de bloemlezing Voor alle dagen (Uitgeverij Podium), het gedicht An Advent Poem van Mary Oliver https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2006/09/25/making-house-ready-lord, en laat een fragment horen van Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet van Gavin Bryars, Bron GB Records: https://open.spotify.com/track/3LhUvATbveDYzSp9q86Cjf en ook van de versie van dit nummer met Tom Waits: https://g.co/kgs/EfyfCW (Bron: Decca Music Group Ltd.). Gids Emma Simmelink breekt een lans voor de jonge up and coming zangeres Néomi en laat een stukje uit het nummer If I wasn't made for love horen: https://open.spotify.com/track/0gTQHu2jECAp9qSw1t5dkr?si=7789cb5d9caf4764, bron: Pias Recordings. Onze adverteerders zijn: Hermit Gin - de lekkerste gin die er is, gemaakt met Oosterscheldewater en nog een trits aan geheime ingrediënten, te koop bij Gall en Gall. www.hermitgin.com Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonic, de lekkerste tonic voor de perfect serve van een gin tonic met Hermit Gin. https://fever-tree.com/nl_NL/products/mediterranean-tonic-water De Kookhaven - te gekke locatie aan de rafelrand van Amsterdam, geschikt voor al uw culinaire uitspattingen, van private dining tot kookworkshop, van vergadering tot culinair feestje. Iedereen viert weleens een feestje dat thuis of op kantoor niet past. Bespreek de mogelijkheden met uitbater Dick Ferwerda. www.kookhaven.nl Don Ostra - oestermannen Arend Bouwmeester (de jonge) en Dick Ferwerda serveren oesters en gin op geheel eigen wijze. Voor luisteraars van Ballet Kroket geldt een 99% glimlachgarantie. www.donostra.nl Lone Poulsen, de kok die uit het noorden kwam en private dinings verzorgt in het teken van de nordic cuisine. Kijk op haar website: www.shecamefromnorth.com Adverteren in Ballet Kroket? Mail alles@balletkroket.nl Ballet Kroket wordt op maandagavond opgenomen in Studio Kookhaven in Amsterdam. Wil je een opname bijwonen? Dan krijg je vooraf aan de opname ook een concert van de Ballet Kroket Huisband o.l.v. Arend Bouwmeester en Mathijs Goené, niet zelden ontvangen zij extra special guests. Mail alles@balletkroket.nl Of kijk op onze insta: https://www.instagram.com/balletkroket/ en stuur ons een DM. www.balletkroket.nl KOM NAAR KERST IN DE KOOKHAVEN! Op vrijdag 22 december ben je welkom om tussen 16 en 21 uur langs te komen. Alle lekkernijen van Dick en Lone zijn dan te koop. Verras je dierbaren met leuke culinaire cadeautjes en trakteer ze op lekkere oesters of gin. Oesters even vantevoren bij Dick bestellen. Kijk op www.kookhaven.nl En dan kun je meteen een van de twee Kerst-specials bijwonen die we dan met de podcast opnemen. Tot dan!

Join co-hosts Annie Liontas and Lito Velázquez in conversation with LitFriends Lucy Corin & Deb Olin Unferth about their travels in the Sahara, ancient chickens, disappointments, true love, and why great books are so necessary. Our next episode will feature Melissa Febos & Donika Kelly, out December 22, 2023.   Links Libsyn Blog www.annieliontas.com www.litovelazquez.com https://www.lucycorin.com https://debolinunferth.com LitFriends LinkTree LitFriends Insta LitFriends Facebook   Transcript Annie Lito (00:00.118) Welcome to Lit Friends! Hey Lit Friends!   Lito: Welcome to the show.    Annie: Today we're speaking with Lucy Corin and Deb Olin Unferth, great writers, thinkers, and LitFriend besties.    Lito:  About chickens, the Sahara, and bad reviews.    Annie: So grab your bestie   Annie & Lito: And get ready to get lit!   Lito: You know those like stones that you can get when you're on like a trip to like Tennessee somewhere or something, they're like worry stones? Like people used to like worry them with their thumb or something whenever they had a problem and it would like supposedly calm you down. Well, it's not quite the same thing, but I love how Deb describes her and Lucy's relationship is like, “worry a problem with me.” Like let's, let's cut this gem from all the angles and really like rub it down to its essential context and meaning and understanding. And I think essentially that's what like writers, great writers, offer the world. They've worked through a problem and they have answers. There's not one answer, there's not a resolution to it, but the answers that lead to better, more better questions.    Annie: Yeah, and there's something so special about them because they're, worry tends to be something we do in isolation, almost kind of worrying ourselves into the ground.   Lito: Right. Annie: But they're doing it together in collaboration.    Lito: It's a collaborative worry. Yes, I love that.    Annie: A less lonely worrying.    Lito: It's a less lonely place to think through these things. And the intimacy between them is so special. The way I think they just weave in and out of their lives with each other, even though they're far away from each other.   I think there's a romantic notion that you're tuned into about Lucy and Deb's trip to the desert. Do you want to say something about that? There's a metaphor in it that you really love, right?    Annie: (1:52) Yeah. Well, so I remember when we first talked about doing this podcast and invited them, we were at a bar at AWP, the writer's conference. And they were like, oh, this is perfect. We just went to the Sahara together. And I was like, what? You writers just decided to take a trip together through the desert? And they said, yeah, it was perfect. And they have adorable photos, which we of course are going to share with the world. Um, but it felt like such a, I mean, the fact that they would go on that kind of adventure together and didn't really plan ahead, I think it was just Deb saying, I really want to go to the desert. And Lucy saying, sure, let's go. Which feels very much a kind of metonym of their friendship in some ways.    Lito: Absolutely.    Annie: (2:42) Yeah. That they wandered these spaces together. They come back to art, right? Art is a way for them to recreate themselves and recreate their friendship. And they're doing such different things on the page.    Lito:  Oh yeah, no, they're very different writers but they do share a curiosity that's unique I think in their friendship, then unique to them.    Annie: Yeah and a kind of rigorousness and a love for the word.    Lito: (3:10) Oh and a love for thinking and reading the world in every capacity.    Annie: Tell me about your friendship with Lucy because you're quite close.   Lito: I was at UC Davis before it was an MFA program. It was just a Master's. After undergrad, I went to the master's program because I wasn't sure if I wanted to be an academic or do the studio option and get an MFA. I loved how Lucy and the other professors there, Pam Houston, Yiyun Li, showed us the different ways to be a writer. They couldn't be more different, the three of them. And, I particularly was drawn to Lucy because of her sense of art and play and how those things interact.    Lito: (03:59) And here was someone that was extremely cerebral, extremely intelligent, thinking through every aspect of existence. And yet it was all done through the idea of play and experimentation, but not experimentation in that sort of like negative way that we think of experimentation, which is to say writing that doesn't work, but experimentation in the sense of innovation. And. Lucy brought out my sense of play. I got it right away, what she was going for, that there is an intellectual pleasure to the work of reading and writing that people in the world respond to, but don't often articulate. Lucy's able to articulate it, and I admire her forever for that.    Lito: (4:52) And perhaps I'm not speaking about our friendship, but it comes from a place of deep admiration for the work that she does and the way she approaches life. You have a special relationship with Deb. I would love to hear more about that.    Annie: (5:04) Yeah, I think I've been fangirling over Deb for years. Deb is such a special person. I mean, she's incredibly innovative and has this agility on the page, like almost no other writer I know. Also quite playful, but I love most her humanity. Deb is a vegan who, in Barn 8, brings such life to chickens in a way that we as humans rarely consider. There's an amazing scene which she's like with a chicken 2000 years into the future. Also, I know Deb through my work with Pen City, her writing workshop with incarcerated writers at the Connally Unit, a maximum security penitentiary in Southern Texas.   Lito: How does that work? Is it all by letter or do you go there?    Annie: (5:58) Well, the primary program, you know, the workshop that Deb teaches is on site, and it's certified. So students are getting, the incarcerated writers, are getting now college credit because it's an accredited program. So Deb will be on site and work with them directly. And those of us who volunteer as mentors, the program has evolved a little bit since then, (06:22) but it's kind of a pen pal situation. So I had a chance to work with a number of writers, some who had been there for years and years. And a lot of folks are writing auto-fiction or fiction that's deeply inspired by the places they've lived and their experiences. It's such a special program, it's such a special experience. And what I saw from Deb was just this absolute fierceness. You know, like Deb can appear to be fragile in some ways (06:53.216), and it's her humanity, but actually there's this solid steel core to Deb, and it's about fortitude and a kind of moral alignment that says, we need to do better.    Lito: We have this weird connotation with the word fragile that it's somehow bad, but actually, what it means is that someone's vulnerable. And to me, there is no greater superpower than vulnerability, especially with art, and especially in artwork that is like what she does at the penitentiary. But, can I ask a question?    Annie:  Sure.   Lito: Why is it so special working with incarcerated folks?    Annie: (7:27) Oh, that's a great question. I mean, we need its own podcast to answer it.   Lito: Of course, but just sort of the...    Annie:  I think my personal experience with it is that so many incarcerated writers have been disenfranchised on all levels of identity and experience. Voting rights, decent food, accommodations, mental health, physical, you know, physical well-being. And we can't solve all those problems necessarily, at least all at once, and it's an up, it's a constant battle. But nothing to me offers or recognizes a person's humanity like saying, "tell us your story. Tell us what's on your mind. We are here to hear you and listen."  And those stories and they do come out, you know, there have been other programs that have done this kind of work, they get out in the world and there's, we're bridging this gap of people we have almost entirely forgotten out of absolute choice.  (8:27) And Deb is doing that work, really, I mean she's been doing that work for a long time and finally got some recognition for it, but Deb does it because she's committed.   Lito: That is really powerful. Tell us your story. Tell us your story, Lit Fam. Tell us your story. Find us in all your social media @LitFriendsPodcast or email us at LitFriendsPodcast@gmail.com   Annie: We will read all your stories. We'll be right back with Lucy and   Deb.   Lito: (09:00) And now, our interview with Lucy Corrin and Deb. Lucy Corin is the author of two short story collections, 100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses and The Entire Predicament, and two novels, Everyday Psychokillers and The Swank Hotel. In addition to winning the Rome Prize, Lucy was awarded a fellowship in literature from the NEA. She is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow and a professor of English in the MFA program at UC Davis.    Annie:  Deb Olin-Unferth is the author of six books, including Barn 8, and her memoir, Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Deb is an associate professor in creative writing at the University of Texas at Austin. She founded and runs Pen City Writers, a two-year creative writing certificate program at Connally, a maximum security prison in southern Texas. For this work, she was awarded the 2017 Texas Governor's Criminal Justice Service Award.   Lito: (09:58) Annie and I thought this up a year ago, and we were talking about what is special about literary friendships and how writing gets made, not as we all think, totally solitary in our rooms alone, but we have conversations, at least I think this way. They're part of long conversations with our friends, our literary friends and living and dead, and you know, all times, in all times of history.   But the idea here is that we get to talk to our literary friends and people we admire and writers who are close friends with each other and friendships in which literature plays a large role.   Annie: (10:37) Yeah, and I'll just add that when we first floated the idea of this podcast, you know, your names came up immediately. We're so in awe of you as people and practitioners and literary citizens, and we love your literary friendship. I mean, I really hold it dear as one of the best that I know of personally.    Lucy, I think of you as, you know, this craftsperson of invention who's always trying to undo what's been done and who's such an amazing mentor to emerging writers. And Deb, you know, I'm always returning to your work to see the world in a new way, to see something I might have missed. And I just, I'm so moved by your generosity in your work and in your life's work with Penn City and elsewhere, which I'm sure we'll have a chance to talk more about.   Annie: (11:30) But I think I recall the first day I realized how close the two of you were when Deb told me that you all were taking a trip to the Sahara. And I was like, oh, of course, like, of course, they're going to have desert adventures together. Like, this makes so much sense. So I hope we'll, you know, we'll talk more about that too.    Annie (11:53) But we're so grateful to have you here and to have you in our lives. And we're going to ask you some questions to get to know a little bit more about you.    Deb:  Sounds great.    Lucy: Thanks.    Deb: It's great to be here. It's really great to see everybody.    Lito: Thank you so much for being here. Deb, will you tell us about Lucy?   Deb: (12:16) I mean, Lucy's just one of my very favorite people. And I feel like our friendship just started really slowly and just kind of grew over a period of many years. And some of the things that I love about Lucy is she is, well, of course, she's a brilliant genius writer. Like, I mean, no one writes weird like Lucy writes weird and no one writes like more emotionally, and more inventively and some of her books are some of my favorite books that have ever been written. Especially her last two books I think have just been such just major literary accomplishments and I just hold them so dear.    (13:05) And as a friend some things that I really love about her is that she will worry a problem with me that's just bugging me about like literary culture or about writing or about, you know, just it could be anything about aesthetics at all. And then she'll literally talk to me about it for like five or six days straight without stopping. Like we'll just constantly, dinner after dinner, like, you know, if we're on a trip together, just like all day, like I'll wake up in the morning and I'll be like, here's another piece of that pie. And then she'll say, oh, and I was thinking, and then we'll like go off and work and then we'll come back at lunch and be like, "and furthermore," you know? And by the end, I remember at one point we were doing this and she said, this is a very interesting essay you're writing. And of course, like it wasn't an essay at all, but it was just like a way of thinking about the way that we were talking.   (14:06) And then she is hilarious and delightful and just like so warm. I don't know, I just love her to pieces. She's just one of my favorite people in the whole world. I could say more, but I'll stop right there for a minute.    Annie: Lucy, tell us about Deb.    Lucy: (14:24) Yeah, I mean, Deb, I mean, the first thing, I mean, the first thing you'll notice is that Deb is sort of effortlessly enthusiastic about the things that she cares about. And that's at the core of the way that she moves through the world and the way that she encounters people and the way that she encounters books.   (14:44) I'm more reserved, so I'll just preface what I'm going to say by saying that like, my tone might not betray my true enthusiasms, but I'll try to list some of the things that I think are special and extraordinary about my friend Deb.   One is that there's this conversation that never stops between the way that she's thinking about her own work and the way that she's thinking about the state of the world and the way that she's thinking about the very specific encounters that she's having in daily life. And so like moving through a conversation with Deb or moving through a period of time with Deb in the world, those things are always in flux and in conversation. So it's a really wonderful mind space to be in, to be in her presence.   (15:35) The other thing is that she's like the most truly ethical person that I am close to and in the sense that like she thinks really hard about every move she makes.   The comparison I would make is like you know Deb is like at the core like, the first thing you might notice about Deb's work is that she's a stylist, that she works sentence by sentence and that she always does. But then the other thing she does is that she's always thinking hard about the world and the work, that it never stays purely a love of the sentence. The love of the sentence is part of the love of trying to understand the relationship between words and the world.    (16:15) And, and they're both an ethics. I think it's an ethics of aesthetics and an ethics of trying to be alive in as decent way as you can manage. And so those things feed into the friendship where she's one of the people who I know will tell me what she really thinks about something because we can have a baseline of trust where then you can talk about things that are either dangerous or you might have different ideas about things or you may have conflict.    (16:47) But because of my sense of who she is as a person, and also who she is with me, we can have challenging conversations about what's right about how to behave and what's right about how to write. And that also means that when the other parts of friendship, which are just like outside of literature, but always connected, which, you know, about your own, you know, your other friendships, your, the rest of your life, your job, your family, things like that, that you wanna talk about with your friends. Yeah, I don't know anybody better to sort through those things than Deb.    And it's in part because we're writers, and you can't separate out the questions that you're having about the other parts of your life from who you're trying to be as a writer. And that's always built into the conversation.   Annie: (17:40) I knew we asked you here for a reason.   Lito: We'll be right back.    Lito (17:58) Back to the show.    Annie: I'm hearing you, you know, you're both, you're sort of really seeing one another, which is really lovely. You know, you're, Deb, you're talking about Lucy wearing a problem with you, which I think conveys a kind of strength and... Of course, like I'm quite familiar with Deb's like strong moral anchors. I think we all are and truly respect, but I'm just wondering, what do you most admire about your friend? What do you think they give to the world in light of this portrait that you've given us?   Deb: (18:28) Lucy is a very careful thinker, and she's incredibly fair. And I've just seen her act, just behave that way and write that way for so many years and it just the quality of it always surprises me.  Like I mean, there was a writer, most recently there was a writer who's been cancelled, who we have spent an enormous amount of time talking about and trying to figure out just exactly what was going on there. And I felt like Lucy had insights into what had happened and what it was like on his end and what about his culture could have influenced what happened. Just all of these things that were.   (19:36.202) It was so insightful and I felt like there's no way that I could have moved that moved forward that many steps in my understanding of what had happened. And in my own like how I was going to approach what had happened. Like there's no way I could have done that without that just constant just really careful thought and really fair thought. Just like trying to deeply understand. Like Lucy has an emotional intelligence that is just completely unparalleled. That's one thing I really love about her.    Another thing is that she's like up for anything. Like when I asked her to go to the Sahara with me, I mean, she said yes in like, it was like not even 12 seconds. It was like 3 seconds, I think, that she was like, yeah.   Annie: You need a friend who is just gonna go to the Sahara.    Lucy: Deb, I don't even know if you actually invited me. The way I remember it is that you said something like, Lucy, no one will go to the Sahara with me. And I said, I would go to the Sahara with you.   Lito: That is lovely.   Lucy: (20:53) It's in Africa, right?    Lito:  Was there something specific about the Sahara that you need to go over for?   Deb:  Yeah, I mean, there was. It's a book I'm still working on, hopefully finishing soon. But it's mostly it's like...I just always wanted to go to the Sahara. My whole life, I wanted to go to Morocco, I wanted to go to the Sahara, I wanted to be surrounded by just sand and one line. You look in 360 degrees and you just see one line. I just wanted to see what that was like so badly, stripping everything out, coming down to just that one element of blue and beige. I just wanted that so much. And I wanted to know that it just went on and on and on and on.   (21:48) Yeah, and you know, people talk a big talk, but most people would not go. And so at one point I was just kind of rallying, asking everyone. And then Lucy happened to be in town and I just mentioned to her that this is happening. And then she said, yeah, and then we went for like a long time. Like we went to Morocco for like over three weeks. Like we went for like a month.    Lucy:  A month.    Deb: Yeah, crazy. But she's always like that. Like whatever I want to do, she's just up for it. I mean, and she called me up and she's like, hey, we want to come to Austin and like, go to this place that's two hours from Austin where you can see five million bats, right? Five million bats? Or was it more? Was it like 20 million?    Lucy:  That's right.    Deb: It was like 20 million bats and a lot of them are baby bats. It's like mama bats and baby bats.     Lucy: Yeah, like it's more when there's the babies.   Deb: (22:46) And yeah, and you were like, I want to come with them as the babies. Yeah, we like went and she just like came and Andrea came, and it was just absolutely beautiful.    Lucy: Well, you were just right for that adventure. I knew you would want to see some bats.    Lucy: Well, I could I could say a couple of more things about what Deb gives the world.    Annie: Sure. Love it.    Lucy: So some of the things that Deb gives the world and though when I listen to you talking about me, I realized why these things are so important to me, is that you have a very steady sense of who you are and a kind of confidence in your instincts. That I know that some of the ways that I worry things through are really productive and some of them are just an ability to see why I could be wrong all the time, and that can stymie me.    (23:48) And one of the things that I love about you and the model that you provide for me in my life is an ability to understand what your truth is and not be afraid to hold onto it while you're thinking about other people's perspectives, that you're able to really tell the difference between the way that other people think about things and the way that you do.   And it doesn't mean that you don't rethink things, you constantly are, but when you have a conviction, you don't have a problem with having a conviction. And I admire it enormously. And I think it allows you to have a kind of openness to the world and an openness to people who are various and different and will challenge you and will show you new things because you have that sense that you're not gonna lose yourself in the wind.    Deb: Mmm. That's really nice.   Lito: I am in awe of everything you've said about each other. And it makes me think about how you first met each other. Can you tell us that story? And why did you keep coming back? What was the person like when you first met? And why did you keep coming back to each other? Do you want to tell Lucy?     Lucy: Yeah, I'll start and you can add what I'm missing and... (25:06) tell a different origin story if you want. But I think that what we might've come to for our origin story is that it was one of the, one of the early &Now Festivals. And the &Now Festival is really great.   Lito: Could you say what that is? Yeah, say a little bit about what that is.   Luch: Oh, it's a literary conference that was started to focus on small press and more innovative—is the term that they used at the time anyhow—innovative writing as a kind of response to the market-driven culture of AWP and to try to get people who are working more experimentally or more like on the edge of literary culture less mainstream and give them a place to come together and have conversations about writing and share their work.   So it was one of the early ones of those. But I think it was, I think we figured out that there were like, yeah, there were three women. It was me, you, and Shelley Jackson. But it was, there were not that many women at this conference at the time. And we were, and I think we were noting, noting our solidarity. Yeah. And that, that's what. That's like some of the first images.   But I knew we were like aware of each other because in some ways we have tended to be up for the same jobs—Deb gets them—up for the same prizes—Deb gets them first, I'll get them later. And so I see her as somebody who's traveling through the literary world in ways that are... I mean, we're very different writers, but as people... You know what I mean? But I still... We still actually...come from a lot of the same literary roots. And so it makes sense that there's something of each other in the work that makes us appeal to overlapping parts of the literary world.   Deb: Yeah, I definitely think that there was in our origins, not only do we come from the same sort of influences, and just things that we admired and stuff, but I also feel like (27:28.018) a lot of our early work would have appealed more easily to the exact same people. As we've gotten older, our work isn't quite as similar. We're a little more different than we used to be. But there's still enough there that, you know, you can see a lot of the same people admiring or liking it.   But I was remembering that first time that we met, you playing pool. And we were, so we were like at a bar and you were like, and you were playing pool, and you had like just had a book out with FSG, I think, or something. I don't know if I even had—   Lucy: FC2. Very different.   Deb: FC2. That's right. FC2. And the FC2 editor was there. And I don't think I even had a book out. I don't remember what year this was. But I don't think I had any kind of book out. All I had was I had nothing, you know. And I was just so in awe of FC2 and the editor there, and you there, and like you could play pool, and I can't play pool at all. And it was just, it was—   Annie: Lucy's so cool. Yeah, she was cool. She was cool. And Shelly Jackson was cool. And it was like all the cool people were there and I got to be there, and it was great.   And then, yeah, and then I think how it continued, I don't know how it continued, we just kind of kept running into each other and just slowly it built up into a really deep friendship. Like at some point you would come through town and stay with me.   (29:25.782) And we moved, we both moved around a lot. So for a while there, so we kind of kept running into each other in different places. We've never lived in the same place.   Lucy: No, never.   Lito: How have you managed that then? Is it always phone or is it texting, phone calls?   Lucy: Well, we'll go through a spate of  texting.   Deb: Yeah, we do both. I think I like to talk on the phone.   Lucy: Yeah, I will talk on the phone for Deb.   Annie: The mark of a true friendship.   Lito: (30:01) Time for a break.   Annie Lito (30:12.43) We're talking with Lucy Corin and Deb Olin Unferth.   Lito: How has literature shaped your friendship then? Despite being cool. What kind of books, movies, art do you love to discuss? You can name names. What do you love talking about?   Deb: Well, I remember the moment with Donald Barthelme.   Lucy: That was what I was gonna say.   Deb: No, you go ahead.   Lucy: Well, why don't?   Deb: Oh, okay, you can tell it.   Lucy: I mean, I'll tell part and then you can tell part. It's not that elaborate, but we were, one of the things that Deb and I do is find a pretty place, rent a space, and go work together. And one time we were doing that in Mendocino and Deb was in the late stages of drafting Barn 8 and really thinking about the ancient chickens and the chickens in an ancient space. And we went for a walk in one of those very ferny forests, and Deb was thinking about the chickens and among the giant ferns. And I don't know how it happened, but Deb said something with a rhythm. And we both said to each other the exact line from Donald Barthelme's "The School" that has that rhythm.   (31:34) Is that how you remember it though? You have to tell me if that's how you remember it.   Deb: That's exactly how I remember it. Yeah. And then we like said a few more lines. Like we knew even...    Lito: You remember the line now?   Lucy: I mean, I don't... You do. If you said it, I could do it. I'm just... I was thinking before this, I'm like, oh God, I should go look up the line because I'm not going to get it right, like under pressure. It was just in the moment. It came so naturally.   Deb: It was one of those lines that goes... (32:03) Da da da-da da, da da da-da-da. There's a little parenthetical, it's not really in parentheses in the story, but it might be a little dash mark. But it has, it's something like, "I told them that they should not be afraid, although I am often afraid." I think it was that one.   Deb: I am often afraid. Yeah. And then it was like, we just both remembered a whole bunch of lines like from the end, because the ending of that story is so amazing. And it's, so the fact that we had both unconsciously memorized it and could just like.   And it was something about just like walking under those giant trees and having this weekend together. And like we're like marching along, like calling out lines from Donald Barthelme. And it just felt really like pure and deep.   Annie: It's I mean, I can't imagine anything sounding more like true love than spontaneously reciting a line in unison from Barthelme. And, you know, you both are talking about how your work really converged at the start and that there are some new divergences and I think of you both as so distinct you know on and off the page. There's like the ferociousness of the pros and an eye towards cultural criticism and I always think of you as writing ahead of your time. So I'm just wondering how would you describe your lit friends work to someone, and is there something even after all this time that surprises you about their writing or their voice?   Lucy: I mean, what surprised me recently about Deb's voice is its elasticity. I came to love the work through the short stories and the micros. And those have such a distinct, wry kind of distance. They sort of float a little separate from the world, and they float a little separate from the page.   (34:10) And they have a kind of, they have a very distinct attitude and tone, even if the pieces are different from each other, like as a unit. And that's just really different than the voice that you get in a book like Barn 8 that moves through a lot of different narrators, but that also has just a softer relationship with the world. Like it's a little more blends with the world as you know, it doesn't stay as distant. And I didn't know that until later.   Vacation is also really stark and sort of like has that distinctiveness from the world. And so watching Deb move into, you know, in some ways like just more realistic, more realistic writing that's still voice-centered and that still is music centered was a recent surprising thing for me.   But I'm also really excited about what I've read in the book that in the new book because I think that new book is sort of the pieces that the bits that I've read from it are they're marking a territory that's sort of right down the middle of the aesthetic poles that Deb's work has already hit I mean the other thing is that you know Deb does all the genres. All of the prose genres. Every book sort of is taking on it is taking on a genre And the next one is doing that too, but with content in a way that others have been taking on new genres and form. And so...    Lito: I love that. And I like that it's related to the music of the pros and sound. I feel like musicians do that a lot, right? There's some musicians that every album is a new genre or totally different sound. And then there's artists who do the same thing over and over again. We love both those things. Sorry, so Deb...   Deb: So I love how complicated Lucy can get with just an image or an idea. I just feel like no one can do it the way that she can do it. And my like her last in her last book, which I love so much, we're just brought through all these different places and each one is sort of (36:31.29) dragging behind it, everything that came before, so that you can just feel all of this like, pressure of like the past and of the situations and like even like a word will resonate. Like you'll bring like, there's like a word on maybe page like 82 that you encountered on like page 20 that like the word meant so much on page 20 that it like really, you can really feel its power when it comes on page 80.   And you feel the constant like shifting of meaning and just like the way that the prose is bringing so much more and like it's like reinterpreting that word again and again and again, just like the deeper that you go, like whatever the word is be it you know house or home or stair or um you know sex, whatever it is, it's like constantly shifting. (37:40.952) And that's just part of like who Lucy is, is this like worrying of a problem or worrying of a word and like carrying it forward. And so yeah, so like in that last book, it just was such a big accomplishment. And I felt like it was like her best work yet.   Lucy: So I will say, try and say something a little bit more specific, then. (38:09) Like I guess in the sort of 10 stories that I teach as often as possible in part because I get bored so easily that I need to teach stories that I can return to that often and still feel like I'm reading something that is new to me is the title story from Wait Till You See Me Dance and that story is a really amazing combination of methodical in its execution, which sounds really dull.   But what it does is sort of toss one ball in the air and then toss another ball in the air and then toss another ball in the air. And then, you know, the balls move, but you know, the balls are brightly colored and they're handled by a master juggler. So it's methodical, but it's joyful and hilarious. And then, and then, and you don't   And the other thing is that Deb's narrators are wicked and like they're wicked in the way that like… They are, they're willing to do and say the things that you secretly wish somebody would do and say. That's the same way that like, you know, in the great existential novels, you love and also worry about the protagonists, right? They're troubled, but their trouble allows them to speak truthfully because they can't help it. Or they can't help it when they're in the space of the short story. It's that like, you know, the stories are able to access—a story like this one and like many of Deb's—are able to access that really special space of narrator, of narration, where you get to speak, you get to speak in a whisper.   Annie: You get to speak in a whisper. That's beautiful, Lucy. You get to speak in a whisper.   Lito: We'll be right back.   Lito: (40:15) Welcome back.   Annie: I'm wondering about what this means, you know, how this crosses over to your own personal lives, right? Because of course, literary friendships, we're thinking about the work all of the time. But we're also, you know, when I think of my literary friendship with Lito, I think of him as like a compatriot and somebody who's really carrying me through the world sometimes. I'm wondering if there was for either of you, a hard time that you went through personally, professionally, you know, whether it's about publishing or just getting words on the page or something, you know, um, you know, family related or whatever, where you, um, you know, what it meant to have a literary friend nearby at that time.   Lucy: I mean that's the heart of it.   Deb: Yeah, I mean for sure.   Lucy: One happened last week and I'm sort of still in the middle of it where you know my literary mentor is aging and struggling and so that's painful for me and who gets that? Deb gets that.   The other one, the other big one for me was that the release of my last novel was really complicated. And it brought up a lot of, it intersected with a lot of the things going on in my family that are challenging and a lot of things that are going on in the literary world that are challenging. There were parts of that release that were really satisfying and joyful, and there were parts of it that were just devastatingly painful for me.   And, you know, Deb really helped me find my way through that. And it was a lot, like it was a lot of emotional contact and a lot of thinking through things really hard and a lot of being like, "wait, why do we do this? But remember, why do we do this?" And Deb was the person who could say, "no, you're a novelist." Like things that like I was doubting, Deb could tell me. And the other thing is that I would come closer to being able to believe those things because she could tell them to me.   Annie: Lucy, can you talk a little more about that? Like what did that? (42:27.126) What did that look like, right? Like you talked about resistance to phone calls, and you're not in the same place.   Lucy: It was phone. Right, it would be phone or it would be Zoom or it would be texting. And then, you know, when we would see each other that would be, we would reflect on those times in person even though that wasn't those immediate moments of support and coaching and, you know, wisdom.   Annie:  And that requires a kind of vulnerability, I think, that is hard to do in this industry, right? And I'm just wondering if that was new for you or if that was special to this friendship, right? Or like what allowed for that kind of openness on your part to be able to connect with Deb in that way?   Lucy: I mean, I think I was just really lucky that we've had, like even though we have really, I think, only noticed that we were close since that Morocco trip. Like that was a little bit of a leap of faith. Like, "oh my gosh, how well do I know this person and we're gonna travel together in like circumstances, and do we really know each other this way?" But the combination of the years that we've known each other in more of a warm acquaintance, occasional, great conversation kind of way towards being somebody that you, that you trust and believe and that you have that stuff built in.   And, you know, that over the years you've seen the choices that they've made in the literary world, the choices they've made in their career, when they, you know, everything from, you know, supporting, you know, being a small, being small press identified and championing certain kinds of books over other kinds of books. And like those, just like watching a person make choices for art that you think are in line with the writer that, watching her make choices in art that are in line with the writer that I wanna be in the world makes it so that when you come to something that is frightening, that's the kind of person you wanna talk to because she's done that thinking.   Deb: Yeah, I mean, I feel like there are like so many things that I could say about that. Like one thing is that the kind of time that I spend with Lucy is really different from the kind of time that I spend with most people. Like most people, (44:51) they come to town and I have dinner with them. Or I go to like AWP or whatever and we go out for dinner. Or maybe I spend like one night at their house like with their partner and kid or something, you know. But Lucy and I, we get together and we spend like four days or something all alone, just the two of us, you know, or a month or whatever. And we don't spend a ton of time with other people. And so there's, but then we also do that, but just like not very much.   And so there is something that just creates, like that's a really good mode for me. It's a, that's like the way that I make really deep friendships that are kind of like forever-people in my life. And I've always been like that. And so, but not a lot of people are willing to sort of do that with me. Like, I have so many acquaintances, I've got like a million, I feel like I could have dinner with someone just about any night, as long as it's only like once every few months or something, you know, but I don't have people who are willing to be this close to me, like spend that kind of time with me one-on-one. And the fact is like, they're not that many people that I really feel like doing that with.   And you know, every time Lucy and I do one of these, I just come away feeling like I thought about some really important things and I talked about some really important things and I saw some beautiful things because Lucy always makes sure that we're somewhere where we can see a lot of beauty. And so that just means so much to me. And it's like, and so for me it creates like a space where, Yeah, I can be honest and vulnerable, and I can also tell her, if I can tell her things that I don't tell other people, or I can be really honest with her if I feel like, if I'm giving her advice about something, I can just be honest about it. And so it's really, really nice.   (47:07) I mean, the other thing is like, we're so similar. Like we've made so many similar life choices. And we've talked about that. Lucy and I have talked about that. Like, you know, we both chose not to have kids. We live pretty, like we're both like kind of loners, even though we have partners. Like I think our partners are more like, they just kind of would, they would prefer that we.   I don't know, I shouldn't probably say anything, but I know that Matt would prefer if I was not quite as much of a loner as I am. Yeah, so I look at Lucy and I see the kind of person that I am, the kind of person I wanna be, so if I have a question, I mean, it happens.   Lucy mentioned a couple of things. I have... You know, she's had some pretty major, major things. I have like little things that happen all the time, and they just like bring me to tears.   Like there was this one moment during the pandemic when I was like driving across the country by myself. I was like in Marfa, and I was trying to get to California and I had like a toilet in the back seat. Remember when we were all doing that kind of thing?   Lucy: It was really amazing.   Deb: It was so crazy.   Lucy: But Deb, not everybody had a toilet in their back seat.   Annie: I know. I need that now.   Deb: It still comes in handy.   Annie: I'm sure.   Deb: (48:43) And I was in, and yeah, Lucy is amazing. She'll talk to me on the phone, but Lucy will do because I love to talk on the phone and I love to Zoom. Lucy does not. So she'll tell me in advance, okay, I will talk to you, but it's gonna be for like 20 minutes or I'm gonna have to get off like pretty soon.   But she Zoomed with me and Marfa and I just didn't realize how upset I was about this one rejection that I'd gotten. And it was a really small rejection, I don't know why it bothered me so much, but I just like started crying and like I was like way out in like so many miles from any so many hours from anyone I knew and you know the world was going to shit, and I'd gotten this like tiny rejection from a magazine like a little like I had it was the page was it was like a piece that was like a page long or something, and Lucy just like knew exactly why I I was so upset, and just was able to talk to me about what that meant to me. And just refocus me to like, "look, you don't have to write those. You don't have to be that writer. You don't have to do that." And it was so freeing to know that I didn't always have to be, I don't even know how to describe it, but it was meant a lot. And things like that happen all the time.   Annie: (50:15.265) That's such a wonderful model of mutual support.   Lucy: We'll be right back.   Annie: Hi Lit Fam. We hope you're enjoying our conversation with Lucy Corin and Deb Olin Unferth, and their love for the word, the world, and each other. If you love what we're doing here at LitFriends, please take a moment now  to follow, subscribe, rate, and review our podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Just a few minutes of your time will help us so much to continue to bring you great conversations like this week after week.  Thank you for listening. Back to a conversation with Lucy Corin and Deb Olin Unferth.     Annie: I'm also aware that we're working in an industry that's a zero-sum construct. And, you know, Lucy, you were sort of joking earlier about... Deb winning all of the awards that you later got. But I am curious, like, what about competition between literary friends when we're living in a world with basically shrinking resources?   Lucy: I feel competition, but I don't really feel it with my literary friends. Does that make sense? Like, I'll feel it with my idea of somebody that I don't really know except for their literary profile, right? But when someone like Deb gets something, it makes the world seem right and true, right? And so that's not hard to bear, right? That's just a sign of a good thing in a world that you're afraid isn't so good.   Deb: I guess I feel like if Lucy gets something, then that raises the chances that I'm gonna get something. I'm gonna get the same thing. Because if we're kind of in the same, like we both published with Grey Wolf, we both have the same editor, so we've multiple times that we've been on these trips, we've both been working on books that were supposed to come out with Graywolf with Ethan. (52:16.3) You know, so I feel like if Lucy gets something, then the chances go up.   Like there was just, something just happened recently where Lucy was telling me that she had a little, like a column coming out with The Believer. And I was like, "oh my God, I didn't even know that they were back." I'm like, "man, I really wanna be in The Believer. Like, I can't believe like, you know, they're back and I'm not in them. I gotta be in it. I said that to Lucy on the phone. And then, like the very next day, Rita wrote me and said, "Hey, do you want to write something?"   And so I wrote to Lucy immediately. I was like, did you write to Rita? And she was like, "no, I really didn't." So it's like, we're in the same— Did you, Lucy?   Lucy: No, I didn't! Rita did that all by herself.   Lito: You put it out into the universe, Deb.   Annie: Lucy did it. Hot cut, Lucy did it!   Deb:  So we're like, we're like in the same, I feel a lot of the time like we're kind of in the same lane and so that really helps because like, I do have writer friends who are not in the same lane as me and maybe. Like I'm not as close, but maybe that would be, but if I was as close, maybe that would cause me more confusion. Like I would be like, you know, "geez, how can I get that too? Or it's hopeless, I'll never get that, you know? So I just don't do that thing," or something. So that's really comforting.   Lito: What are your obsessions?   Lucy: Well, I mean-   Lito: How do they show up on the page?   Lucy: I feel like it's so obvious with Deb that like, you know, Deb got obsessed with chickens, and there was a whole bunch of stuff about chickens. First there was a really smart, brilliant Harper's essay where she learned her stuff. And then there was the novel where she, you know, imagined out the chickens (54:19) to touch on everything, right?   Annie: Then there was a chicken a thousand years in advance.   Lucy: Right, and then there's a beautiful chicken art in the house, and there's, you know. And I'm sure that she's gotten way more chicken gifts than she knows what to do with. But then the Sahara, like, you know, she was obsessed with the Sahara and you'll see it in the next book. It's gonna be— It's not gonna be in a literal way, right? But it'll be like, you'll feel the sand, you'll feel that landscape.   So I don't know, like I feel like the obsessions show up in the books. I mean, are there, I mean, this is a question like, Deb, do you think you have obsessions that don't show up in your work? We both have really cute little black dogs.   Deb: (55:07) Oh, not really. I mean, but I do get obsessed. Like I just get so, so like obsessed in an unhealthy way. And then I just have to wait it out. I just have to like wait until I'm not obsessed anymore. And it's like an ongoing just I'm like, OK, here it comes. It's like sleeping over me. Like how many years of my life is going to be are going to be gone as a result of this?   So I'm always like so relieved when I'm not in that space. Like Lucy's obsession comes down to that, with her language, that she's like exploring one idea, like she'll take an idea and she like worries that over the course of a whole book and that she'll just it's like almost like a cubist approach. She'll be like approaching it from so many different standpoints. And that is like, I mean, Lucy is so smart and the way that she does that is just so genius. And so I feel like that's the thing that really keeps drawing me to her obsessions, that keeps bringing me back to that page to read her work again and again. And yeah, and that's how she is in person too.   Lito: Why do you write? What does it do for the world, if anything?   Lucy: (56:37) I know I had a little tiny throat clear, but I think it was because I'm still trying to figure it out because I feel like the answer is different in this world order than it was in earlier world orders. Like when I first answered those questions for myself when I was deciding to make these big life choices and say, "you know, fuck everything except for writing," like I was answering, I was answering that question a different way than I would now, but I don't quite have it to spit out right now, except that I do think it has something to do with a place where the world can be saved. Like, writing now is a place of respite from the rest of the world where you can still have all of these things that I always assumed were widely valued, that feel more and more narrowly valued. And so I write to be able to have that in my life and to be able to connect with the other people who share those kinds of values that are about careful thinking, that are about the glory of the imagination, that are about the sanctity of people having made things.   Annie: Lucy, I need that on my wall. I just need to hear that every day.   Deb: I mean, I feel like if I can think about it in terms of my reading life, that like art changes my mind all the time. Like that's the thing that teaches me. Like I remember when I was a kid, and I lived right near the Art Institute of Chicago, and I remember going in, and they had the Jacob Lawrence immigration panels, migration panels up there that was like a traveling exhibition. And I had none of that information. I did not know about the Great Migration. I just didn't know any of that. So I just remember walking from panel to panel and reading and studying it, (58:47.952) reading it and studying it and just like getting like just getting just it was like a It was such a revelation and I just learned so much and like changed my mind about so many things just in that moment that it was like I'll never forget that.   And I feel like I, I totally agree with Lucy that the reasons that I write now and the reasons that I read now are very different than they were like before, say 2015, or something. But that, that maybe it has its roots in that sort of Jacob Lawrence moment where, you know, just I read these things and it's, I like, I love sinking deep into books that are really changing my mind and like teaching me about the world in ways that I never could have imagined, and I love that so much and I… I don't know if I have that to offer, but I really try hard, you know. Like I tried that with the chicken book. I'm kind of trying that, I hope, in this book that I'm trying to finish and— ha finish!—that I'm trying to get through. And so I think that that's why I think that art is so important.   I don't know if that's truly why I write though. I feel like why I write is that I've always written, and it's like I love it so much. Like I just, sometimes I hate it, sometimes I hate it for like a whole year or whatever, but it's just, it's so much a core of who I am. (01:00:39) And I just, I can't imagine my life any other way. It's just it's just absolutely urgent to me.   Annie: Yeah, urgent. Yeah. I think we all feel that in some way.   Annie:(01:01:04.374) Thank you both for talking to us a little bit about your friendship and getting to know a little bit more about how you started and where you're at now. We're going to move into the lightning round.   Lito: Ooooo Lightning round.   Annie: (01:01:16) Deb, who were you in seventh grade? Who was I in seventh grade? In one sentence, oh my God, the pressure is on. I was unpopular and looked, my hair was exactly the same as it is now. And I wore very similar clothes.   Lucy: (01:01:44) I was a peer counselor, and so I was like the Don who held everybody's secrets.   Lito: Beautiful. Lucy.   Lucy: It saved me. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had a place in that world.   Annie: Makes so much sense.   Lito: Wow. Who or what broke your heart first, deepest?   Lucy: I mean, I would just say my mom.   Deb: I guess, then I have to say my dad.   Annie: Okay, which book is a good lit friend to you?   Deb: Can I say two? The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein and The Known World by Edward P. Jones.   Annie: Excellent.   Lucy: My go-to is White Noise. Still. Sorry.   Lito: No need to apologize.   Lucy: Yep.   Annie Lito (01:02:27) Who would you want to be lit friends with from any point in history?   Lucy: For me it's Jane Bowles.   Deb: Oh, whoa. Good one. She would be maybe a little difficult. I was gonna say Gertrude Stein, then I was like, actually, she'd be a little difficult.   Lucy: What a jerk!   Deb: I think Zora Neale Hurston would be fun.   Lucy: Well, yeah, of course. For sure.   Annie: We were gonna ask who your lit frenemy from any time might be, but maybe you've already said.   Lucy: Oh, right. I accidentally said my lit frenemy instead of my lit friend.   Annie: Yeah.   Lucy: Mm-hmm.   Deb: (01:03:08) A frenemy from any time?   Annie: Any time. Yeah, it doesn't have to be Jonathan Franzen. I feel like most people will just be like Jonathan Franzen. But it could be any time in history.   Deb: I mean, if you're gonna go that route, then it would probably be, um, like...   Lito: Kierkegaard.   Deb: I don't know, maybe Nietzsche? If you're gonna go that route, if you're gonna go like, like existential philosophers.   Annie: (01:03:34) That's great.   Lito: That could be a podcast too.   Annie: Just like epic frenemy. The most epic frenemy.   Lito: (01:03:35)  Well, that's our show.   Annie & Lito: Thanks for listening.   Annie: We'll be back next week with our guests Melissa Febos and Donika Kelly.    Lito: Find us on all your socials @LitFriendspodcasts   Annie: And tell us about an adventure you've had with your Lit bestie. I'm Annie Liontas.   Lito: And I'm Lito Velazquez.   Annie: Thanks to our production squad. Our show was edited by Justin Hamilton.   Lito: Our logo was designed by Sam Schlenker.   Annie: Lisette Saldaña is our Marketing Director.   Lito: Our theme song was written and produced by Roberto Moresca.   Annie: And special thanks to our show producer Toula Nuñez.   Lito: This was Lit Friends, Episode 2.

Private notes between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas are the literature of love in “Precious Baby Always Shines” (commentary by Janet Mason). The funny, sophisticated, and slightly ribald 1931 film “Girls About Town” takes us on a festive cultural sojourn in search of vintage queer gold (commentary by John Dyer V). And in NewsWrap: the Church of England will “experiment” with special services to bless queer partners for a trial period, activists are not buying the official explanation of the shocking death of non-binary Mexican judge Jesús Ociel Baena, Asia's first Gay Games leaps all of the official hurdles that China could lay before its Hong Kong hosts, the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to grant an emergency request to overturn an injunction against Florida's ban on family-friendly drag shows, One Million Moms protest Macy's “non-binary and transgender extravaganza” Thanksgiving Day Parade, and more international LGBTQ news reported this week by Joe Boehnlein and Elena Botkin-Levy (produced by Brian DeShazor).  All this on the November 20, 2023 edition of This Way Out! Join our family of listener-donors today at http://thiswayout.org/donate/

Tucker Carlson for Trump VP? From trial balloon to electric Trump-Tucker entrance at UFC 295, host approves of this concept. Same instincts, trusted by the base. A once in a lifetime opportunity to help save America from globalist socialism. The time is now. Fox in a box. Praise for the high energy hard to control UFC people. Propaganda doesn't work on them, and the Ruling Class has no idea what to do with them. Essential for our democracy. Why is GOP so loudly silent about plans for election integrity 2024? Discourses on Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. A Moveable Feast. Slippery Elm Bark. Notes on Aunt Gertrude from the Hardy Boys, and Aunt Bea from The Andy Griffith Show. Uncle Albert. It Don't Come Easy. What Is Life? Ringo, Paul and George. With Great Listener Calls.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kontakt: buchklub@mail.de Instagram: @derbuchklub_ [https://www.instagram.com/derbuchklub_/] Instagram Igor: @igor_yesyo [https://www.instagram.com/igor_yesyo/] Redet mit: Discord [https://discord.gg/pEqEgC48pC] Folgt uns: Goodreads [https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/129399110] Lovelybooks [https://www.lovelybooks.de/mitglied/Der_Buchklub/]

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Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 956, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: it's "ok" 1: It begins "You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out". "The Hokey Pokey". 2: It joins 2 oxen together. yoke. 3: You can sing like a star at one of these bars where you accompany pre-recorded tapes. karaoke. 4: According to Guinness, you'll find the world's highest sea cliffs on this "friendly island" of Hawaii. Molokai. 5: Gertrude Stein's constant companion. Alice (B.) Toklas. Round 2. Category: in a teacup 1: Studies show that drinking an herbal tea made from this flower may have heart-healthy benefits. hibiscus. 2: In an idiom, a big to-do over a tiny matter is described as this "in a teacup" or "teapot". a tempest. 3: Yup, it's a teacup one of these terrier breeds in a teacup. a Yorkshire Terrier. 4: Reese Witherspoon pays homage to her grandmother and her southern heritage in the lifestyle book called this booze "in a Teacup". whiskey. 5: A house one of these birds enjoys some seeds and rest in a teacup bird feeder. a finch. Round 3. Category: thriller 1: This author's techno-thriller "Rainbow Six" focuses on John Clark, also a hero in "Clear and Present Danger". Tom Clancy. 2: This author made a University of Virginia law professor the protagonist of his 2002 novel "The Summons". (John) Grisham. 3: You were born to identify this author of "The Bourne Identity". (Robert) Ludlum. 4: "The Numa Files" are paperback spin-offs of this writer's novels featuring Dirk Pitt. Clive Cussler. 5: "The Attorney" Paul Madriani appears in several legal thrillers by this lawyer-turned-author. Steve Martini. Round 4. Category: 1920s news flash! 1: News flash! This less-than-yappy pappy is sixth veep to be nation's top dog after chief takes deep sleep!. Calvin Coolidge. 2: Aug. 3, 1927! Bay State gov says no to anarchy! Denies clemency to these 2 Italians! It's the chair for the pair!. Sacco and Vanzetti. 3: 1927! Gene Tunney takes a long count in the squared circle but rises to defeat this "Manassa Mauler"! Howzabout that!. Jack Dempsey. 4: 1922: It's the end of an empire! This empire, in fact! After 600 years, it's goodbye, this, hello, Turkish Republic!. the Ottoman Empire. 5: Nov. 28, 1929! This man and his chief pilot Bernt Balchen fly to South Pole! Yowza! You'll be an admirable admiral, sir!. (Richard) Byrd. Round 5. Category: author last name in common 1: Novelist Henry and playwright Arthur, both Brooklyn boys. Miller. 2: Journalist Tom and novelist Thomas, both southern boys. Wolfe. 3: Jackie, Suzanne, Wilkie. Collins. 4: E.B., T.H. and Australian Nobelist Patrick. White. 5: Henry and Helen, who both wrote about title characters with the last name Jones. Fielding. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia! Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/

Grab your favorite munchies, pull up a beanbag, and join us and our guest, The Weedium.  Shannon is a highly skilled medium who communicates with spirits and offers healing through her gift. Check out her podcast Convos with the Dead!Ever wondered how cannabis can influence one's psychic abilities? Shannon explains how these substances can tune out external distractions, encouraging a deeper presence and focus. With her intuition heightened, she's able to perceive signs more clearly. As we unravel the mysteries of our conversation, we wander into the haunted halls of Hotel Sorrento, Seattle's oldest hotel, and the alleged ghost of Alice B. Toklas. Who, among many amazing things, was a renowned marijuana activist and cookbook author.One of Alice's legacies, introducing “pot brownies” to America, impacts cannabis culture to this day. So, light up a joint with friends on a patio and get ready for an insightful episode that transcends boundaries as it explores the complex intersection of intuition, spirituality, and cannabis. Don't wait, get set to ignite  your curiosity and elevate your senses with us.Today we shared a promo for HILF hosted by Dawn Brodey!Come see us at: True Crime & Paranormal Podcast Festival! If you're enjoying our podcast, please consider leaving a rating & review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps get us seen by more creepy people just like you!  Stay connected with us for more creepy content.   Visit our website!  Find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Patreon,  & more!  If you have any true crime, paranormal, or witchy stories you'd like to share with us & possibly have them read (out loud) on an episode, email us at pnwhauntsandhomicides@gmail.com or use this link.  There are so many ways that you can support the show: BuyMeACoffee, Apple Podcasts or the Buzzsprout Subscription Feature, or by leaving a rating & review on Apple Podcasts. Pastebin: for sources.Support the show

Autobiografía de Alice B. Toklas - Gertrude Stein --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/irving-sun/message

CHEST #41 - - - - - recipes from Alice B. Toklas curling, curling& in light of all this eating our weekly chest has an offering of new methods, some recipes written down by Alice B.,, we hope it accumulates to an audio banquet, &*i*f u are very fast: u can cook along TRACKLIST: No Queda Nada - Arca Teeth - Perfume Genius the Jutlandia Saxophone Quartet - Aase Nielsen, Boli Group Lemon Salad - Alice B. Toklas Salad Aphrodite - Alice B. Toklas Thank You Lord - Gossiwor Stuffed Eggplant With Sugar - Alice B. Toklas Browned In The Oven White Beans - Alice B. Toklas Mashed Potatoes Luxembourgeoise - Alice B. Toklas Afternoon - S.Maharba Qasida - Sunet Fever 2 - Fatima Al Qadiri Laurel Leaf Soup - Alice B. Toklas Blue - Barbro

Social media has warped what it means to be in relationship to other people, their experiences, and their opinions. Algorithms force-feed us predictable content based on what they predict we will consume.How do we break the cycle—and rethink what division means in 2023? Can disagreements, governed by shared values, actually save us—and democracy, itself?Alissa Wilkinson is a senior culture reporter and critic at Vox.com, where she writes about film, TV, and culture. She is also an associate professor of English and humanities at The King's College in New York City, where, since 2009, she has taught courses on criticism, cinema studies, literature, and cultural theory. She joins us to discuss her book, Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women, which features the biographies of nine, 20th-century figures who challenged norms and defied conventional wisdom, including Ella Baker, Alice B. Toklas, Hannah Arendt, Octavia Butler, Agnes Varda, Elizabeth David, Edna Lewis, Maya Angelou, and Laurie Colwin.In this interview, Alissa shares how one figure in her book, Hannah Arendt, viewed friendship and disagreement as an anti-authoritarian tool that was necessary for a healthy and functioning democracy. She shares how culture has changed since 2009, and how we might challenge ourselves outside of Netflix-driven comfort zones by dining solo.Please rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to help other listeners find our work!Visit TheNewStory.is to listen to our full catalog of interviews.Support our partners and affiliates for exclusive discounts:Bookshop.org: Buy cheap books and support local, independent bookstores with every purchaseFathom Analytics: Get beautiful, secure website data without trading your customers' private browsing data to Google and FacebookFlywheel: Seamless WordPress website hosting on US-based serversHover: Register domains with ease. Save $2 on your first purchaseMailerLite: A lite, powerful, affordable email marketing platform with premium plans starting at just $9/mo.Sanebox: Take back your inbox with machine learning to automatically organize your emails. Save $5 when you join.Trint: Turn recordings of meetings, calls, and interviews into transcripts with 99% accuracy.Affiliate Disclosure: Our show is listener supported, including through affiliate and partner links. By clicking one of the above links and registering or making a purchase, we may earn a small commission, which helps pay for the costs of our show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

(00:28) Intro(00:42) The Very Best Host in the World(01:33) Alice B. Toklas(02:32) Decorating by the Book Podcast(03:35) Unusual Lives Well Lived(04:45) François Catroux(05:22) Serve it Forth(06:27) 6 Helpful Dinner Party Tips(07:36) Decorating by the Book Podcast(08:56) The Secret to Entertaining(09:43) Deeda Blair(11:25) Wendy's Pea Salad(12:00) Fanny Brice(12:57) Holiday Main Dish Rec from Alex(14:33) Decorating by the Book Podcast(16:37) Buche de Noel(17:42) How to Make a Festive Holiday Table(19:53) Outro(20:42) Follow DBTB on IG

Leena Parkkisen uusi romaani on kirjaimellisen kiehtova keitos viime vuosisadan kulttuurihistoriaa yhdistettynä ripauksiin ajankohtaisia (tai ikuisia) eettis-taiteellisia kysymyksiä siitä, kuka kertoo ja kenen tarinaa, ja kuka käyttää ja millaista valtaa, sekä juurevaan tutkielmaan naisesta, joka on kokenut kovia, mutta ehkä rakkauttakin, selvinnyt sitkeästi eteenpäin ja joka jää lopulta arvoitukseksi kaikille, ehkä itselleenkin. Sekä Gertrude Stein että Alice B. Toklas kertovat teksteissään heidän legendaarisessa pariisilaisasunnossaan työskennelleestä, tyylikkäästä ja salaperäisestä suomalaisesta keittäjästä. Leena Parkkisen romaani avaa monenlaisia kulmia niin yhteen dokumentoiduimmista 1900-luvun alkupuolen kulttuuripiirien lesboparisuhteista ja sen molemmista osapuolista, kuin mysteeriseen Margitiin. Keskustelemme kunnianhimoisen historiallisen ja kirjallisen romaanin rakentamisesta, tehtävistä, joita Parkkisen kaltainen kokenut kirjailija ja kirjoittamisen opettaja asettaa myös itselleen. Gertrude Steinin ja Alice B. Toklasin suhdetta on tutkittu, kritisoitu, kauhisteltu ja ihailtu noin sadan vuoden ajan, miksi se kiehtoo meitä edelleen? Onko nykyfeministipolven tehtävä ”vapauttaa” menneisyyden naisia, vai voisimmeko ymmärtää ja arvostaa heitä omaehtoisina, oman aikansa toimijoina? Entä miten kirjoittaa naisista, jotka elivät paljon väkivaltaisemmassa, ennaltamäärätymmässä yhteiskunnassa kuin me? Millaisen työn kirjailija tekee ylitsepursuavan aineiston, oman mielikuvituksen ja kunnianhimoisen kirjoittamisen välillä, jotta lukijan on nautinnollista viipyillä maailmassa, jossa ääneen pääsevät Alice B. Toklas ja paraislaisen kartanon puutarhuri? Entä miksi pelkkään ”autofiktioon” keskittyminen on kuin valikoisi yltäkylläisestä kaunokirjallisuuden karkkikaupasta pelkkää lakritsia? Leena Parkkisen kuva Jonne Räsänen, Otava

This week it's all about Bohemia and Bohemians. Iranian-born writer Jasmin Darznik talks with Lobo and Trash about her latest book and where and how to find one's own wilderness. Jasmin Darznik Ambrose Bierce -- The Devil's Dictionary Jasmin Darznik -- The Bohemians Rebecca Solnit -- Recollections of My Nonexistence Gertrude Stein -- The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

Tonight I'll be reading aloud from Gertrude Stein's 1922 collection Geography and Plays. Following an earnest introduction by Sherwood Anderson, the experimental texts by Stein include Susie Asado, Ada, Miss Furr and Miss Skeene, A Collection, France, Americans, Italians, Ladies' Voices, and many many more. So get into bed, turn off the lights, close your eyes, and let Ricky read you to sleep. Photo of Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein in Paris, 1922, by Man Ray.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/messageSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rick-whitaker/supportSupport the show

You know that classic question, if you could have a dinner party with anyone dead or alive, who would it be? Well, Alissa Wilkinson’s new book, Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women, is her fascinating and perhaps a tad unconventional answer to that question. She has gathered a hypothetical table of women who challenged norms and defied conventional wisdom: Ella Baker, Alice B. Toklas, Hannah Arendt, Octavia Butler, Agnes Varda, Elizabeth David, Edna Lewis, Maya Angelou, and Laurie Colwin. And she explores the ways food managed to root these women into their various callings. As the book jacket describes, “Salty is Alissa Wilkinson's invitation to you. Join these sharp, empowered, and often subversive women and discover how to live with courage, agency, grace, smarts, snark, saltiness, and sometimes feasting--even in uncertain times.”Salty is out this week from Broadleaf Books so it seemed like a good time to chat about some of the best food writing out there. So, in addition to sharing some of her favorite books, Alissa also shared her Mount Rushmore list of the best very books of food writing. Alissa Wilkinson is a senior culture reporter and critic at Vox.com, where she writes about film, TV, and culture, often where they intersect with media, religion, and rhetoric. She is also an associate professor of English and humanities at The King's College in New York City, where since 2009 she has taught courses on criticism, cinema studies, literature, and cultural theory. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit closereads.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 503, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Date Night 1: Estee Lauder's Uncircle is a treatment for dark circles under these. Eyes. 2: Marilyn Monroe said she slept in nothing but this famed Chanel perfume; splash some on. Chanel No. 5. 3: When asked where this female floral accessory looks best, Miss Manners replied, "In the refrigerator". Corsage. 4: Prepare pesto sauce for your date the classic way, with fresh leaves of this herb, a main ingredient. Basil. 5: These foil-wrapped after-dinner chocolate mints have the name of a South American mountain range. Andes. Round 2. Category: Silent "K" 1: A finger joint. a knuckle. 2: To fold and stretch bread dough into a smooth, uniform mass. knead. 3: It's a British term for women's underwear. knickers. 4: The sound of a bell rung ominously. knell. 5: A backpack for a hiker. a knapsack. Round 3. Category: You're Scaring Me 1: Little Miss Muffet couldn't tough it out and one of these scared her away. spider. 2: A literary character named Brom Bones may have been the one who scared this schoolmaster out of town. Ichabod Crane. 3: Matthew 14 tells that this disciple also walked on water until he got scared and started to sink like a stone. Simon Peter. 4: This captain scared the locals in Jamaica in 1504 when he predicted an eclipse and it happened. Christopher Columbus. 5: Jonathan Edwards literally scared the hell out of New England with this "angry" 1741 sermon. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". Round 4. Category: Soft News 2003 1: In 2003 this young L.A. Laker became the third NBA player to average 40 points per game for a month. Kobe Bryant. 2: On Sept. 9, 2003 Snapple was announced as the official beverage of this American metropolis. New York City. 3: Billy Bush, a first cousin to W., hosted a 2003 revival of this classic Monty Hall game show. Let's Make a Deal. 4: Oprah made news reviving her book club in June 2003; the new pick was this Steinbeck classic from 1952. East of Eden. 5: This soccer midfielder for Manchester United signed with Real Madrid on July 1, 2003. David Beckham. Round 5. Category: Writers At Rest 1: She and Alice B. Toklas are buried next to each other at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Gertrude Stein. 2: Ray Bradbury's headstone calls him the author of this 1953 classic. Fahrenheit 451. 3: Ray Bradbury's headstone calls him the author of this 1953 classic. Fahrenheit 451. 4: In Asheville his gravestone bears the line "The last voyage, the longest, the best" from "Look Homeward, Angel". Thomas Wolfe. 5: This author of "Light In August" was laid to rest in Saint Peter's cemetery in Oxford, Mississippi. (William) Faulkner. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

Before we get started… Writing elsewhereI have recently written about modern Russian literature for CapX, as well Victorian YIMBYs and Katherine Mansfield and 1922, for The Critic.Tours of LondonSign up here to get updates when we add new tour dates. There will be three tours a month, covering the Great Fire, Barbican, Samuel Johnson and more!Helen Lewis is a splendid infovore, which is how she has come to be one of the most interesting journalists of her generation. You will see in this conversation some of her range. We chatted before we recorded and she was full of references that reflect her broad reading. She reminded me of Samuel Johnson saying that in order to write a book you must turn over half a library. I recommend her book Difficult Women to you all, perhaps especially if you are not generally interested in “feminist” books. Helen is also working on a new book called The Selfish Genius. There's an acuity to Helen, often characterised by self-editing. She has the precision — and the keenness to be precise — of the well-informed. She was also, for someone who claims to be a difficult woman, remarkably amiable. That seeming paradox was one of the things we discussed, as well as biography, late bloomers, menopause, Barbara Castle, failure, Habsburgs and so on... I had not realised she was such a royal biography enthusiast, always a good sign. Helen's newsletter, by the way, has excellent links every week. It's a very good, and free, way to have someone intelligent and interesting curate the internet for you. Her latest Atlantic feature is about defunct European royals who are not occupying their throne. Let's hope one of Helen's screenplays gets produced…(I do not know, by the way, if Tyler Cowen would endorse the reference I made to him. I was riffing on something he said.)[This transcript is too long for email so either click the title above to read online or click at the bottom to go to the full email…]Henry: Is Difficult Women a collective biography, a book of connected essays, feminist history or something else?Helen Lewis: Start nice and simple. It was designed as the biography of a movement. It was designed as a history of feminism. But I knew from the start I had this huge problem, which is that anyone who writes about feminism, the first thing that everybody does is absolutely sharpens their pencils and axes about the fact that you inevitably missed stuff out. And so I thought what I need to do is really own the fact that this can only ever be a partial history. And its working subtitle was An Imperfect History of Feminism, and so the thematic idea then came about because of that.And the idea of doing it through fights, I think, is quite useful because that means that there was a collision of ideas and that something changed. You know, there were lots and lots of subjects that I thought were really interesting, but there wasn't a change, a specific "We used to be like this, and now we're like this," that I could tie it to. So I don't think it is a collective biography because I think there's no connection between the women except for the fact that they were all feminists, and to that extent, they were all change makers. And I've read some really great collective biographies, but I think they work best when they give you a sense of a milieu, which this doesn't really. There's not a lot that links Jayaben Desai in 1970s North London and Emmeline Pankhurst in 1900s Manchester. They're very disparate people.Henry: Some people make a distinction between a group biography, which is they all knew each other or they were in the same place or whatever, and a collective biography, which is where, as you say, they have no connection other than feminism or science or whatever it is. Were you trying to write a collective biography in that sense? Or was it just useful to use, as a sort of launching off point, a woman for each of the fights you wanted to describe?Helen Lewis: I think the latter because I felt, again, with the subject being so huge, that what you needed to do was bring it down to a human scale. And I always feel it's easier to follow one person through a period of history. And weirdly, by becoming ever more specific, I think you'll have a better chance of making universal points, right? And one of the things that when I'm reading non-fiction, I want to feel the granularity of somebody's research which, weirdly, I think then helps you understand the bigger picture better. And so if you take it down all the way to one person, or sometimes it's more... So Constance Lytton and Annie Kenney, that's sort of two people. I think probably Constance is bigger in that mix. It helps you to understand what it's like to be a person moving through time, which is what I wanted to kind of bring it back. Particularly, I think, with feminism where one of the problems, I think, is when you get progress made, it seems like common sense.And it's one of the things I find I love about Hilary Mantel's, the first two of that Thomas Cromwell trilogy, is there is a real sense that you don't know what's going to happen. Like the moment, the hinge moment, of Anne Boleyn's star appears to be falling. It's very hard not to read it now and think, "Well, obviously that was destined to happen. You'd obviously jumped ship to Jane Seymour." But she manages to recreate that sense of living through history without knowing the ending yet, right? And so maybe you should stick with Anne Boleyn. Maybe this has all just been a temporary blip. Maybe she'll have a son next year. And that's sort of what I wanted to recreate with feminism, is to put you back in the sensation of what it is to be like making those arguments about women having a vote at a time when that's seen as a kind of crackpot thing to be arguing for because obviously women are like this, obviously women are delicate, and they need to be protected. And when all of those arguments... Again, to go back to what it's like to just to live in a time where people's mindsets were completely different to... Which is to me, is the point of writing history, is to say... And the same thing about travel writing, is to say, "Here are people whose very basis, maybe even the way that they think, is completely different to all of your assumptions." All your assumptions that are so wired so deeply into you, you don't even know they're assumptions. You just think that's what consciousness is or what it is to be alive. And that's, I think, why I try to focus it on that human level.Henry: How do you do your research?Helen Lewis: Badly, with lots of procrastination in between it, I think is the only honest answer to that. I went and cast my net out for primary sources quite wide. And there was some... The number of fights kept expanding. I think it started off with eight fights, and then just more and more fights kept getting added. But I went to, for example, the LSC Women's Library has got a suffragette collection. And I just read lots and lots of suffragette letters on microfiche. And that was a really good way into it because you've got a sense of who was a personality and who had left enough records behind. And I write about this in the book, about the fact that it's much easier to write a biography of a writer because they'll fundamentally, probably, give you lots of clues as to what they were thinking and doing in any particular time. But I also find things that I found really moving, like the last letter from Constance Lytton before she has a stroke, which has been effected by being force fed and having starved herself. And then you can see the jump, and then she learns to write again with her other hand, and her handwriting's changed.And stuff like that, I just don't think you would get if you didn't allow yourself to be... Just sort of wade through some stuff. Someone volunteered to be my research assistant, I mean I would have paid them, I did pay them, to do reports of books, which apparently some authors do, right? They will get someone to go and read a load of books for them, and then come back. And I thought, "Well, this is interesting. Maybe I'll try this. I've got a lot of ground to cover here." And she wrote a report on a book about… I think it was about environmental feminism. And it was really interesting, but I just hadn't had the experience of living through reading a book. And all of the stuff you do when you're reading a book you don't even think about, where you kind of go, "Oh, that's interesting. Oh, and actually, that reminds me of this thing that's happened in this other book that's... Well, I wonder if there's more of that as I go along." I don't think if you're going try and write a book, there is any shortcut.I thought this would be a very... I'm sure you could write a very shallow... One of those books I think of where they're a bit Wikipedia. You know what I mean. You know sometimes when you find those very 50 inspirational women books, those were the books I was writing against. And it's like, you've basically written 50 potted biographies of people. And you've not tried to find anything that is off the beaten track or against the conventional way of reading these lives. It's just some facts.Henry: So biographically, you were perhaps more inspired by what you didn't want to write than what you did.Helen Lewis: Yeah, I think that's very true. I think writing about feminism was an interesting first book to pick because there's so much of it, it's like half the human race. It's really not a new subject. And to do the whole of British feminism really was a mad undertaking. But I knew that I didn't want to write, "You go girl, here's some amazing ladies in history." And I wanted to actually lean into the fact that they could be weird or nasty or mad. And my editor said to me at one point, and I said, "I'm really worried about writing some of this stuff." She said, "I think you can be more extreme in a book," which I thought was really interesting.Which I think is also very true in that I also feel like this about doing podcasts is that I very rarely get in trouble for things I've said on podcasts because it's quite hard to lazily clip a bit of them out and put them on Twitter and toss the chum into the water. Right? And I think that's the same thing about if you write something on page 390 of a book, yeah, occasionally, someone might take a screen-grab of it, but people hopefully will have read pages 1-389 and know where you're coming from, by that point.Henry: Maybe trolls don't read.Helen Lewis: Well, I think a lot of the stuff that annoys me is a shallow engagement with complexity, and an attempt to go through books and harvest them for their talking points, which is just not how... It's just such a sad, weathered way of approaching the experience of reading, isn't it? Do I agree with this author or not? I like reading people I disagree with. And so for example, the fact that I call the suffragettes terrorists, and I write about that, I think people are reluctant to engage with the fact that people you agree with did terrible things in the pursuit of a goal that you agree with. And I think it's very true about other sectors. I always think about the fact that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for terrorism. And that gets pushed down in the mix, doesn't it? When it all turns out that actually, he was a great man. And that incredibly long imprisonment in Robben Island is its own totemic piece of the history of modern South Africa, that you don't wanna sit with the awkward bits of the story too.Henry: You've had a lot of difficult experiences on Twitter? Would you have written this book if you hadn't lived through that?Helen Lewis: I think that's a hard question to answer. I tried not to make it a “Here is the cutting of all my enemies.” And actually, my friend, Rob read this book in draft and he insisted that everyone I knew that I was going to argue with had to be of sufficient stature to be worth arguing with. He's like, You cannot argue with, I think I put it in my drawing piece, a piece like Princess Sparklehorse 420. Right? That's quite hard when you're writing about modern feminism, because actually if you think about what I think of as the very social justice end of it, right? The end of it, that is very pro sex work, very pro self-identification of gender, very pro prison abolition, police abolition, it's actually quite hard to find the people who were the theorists of that. It's more of a vibe that you will find in social media spaces on Tumblr, and Twitter and other places like that. So trying to find who is the person who has actually codified all that and put that down to then say, "Well, let's look at it from all sides", can be really difficult. So I did find myself slightly arguing with people on Twitter.Henry: I'm wondering more, like one way I read your book, it's very thought-provoking on feminism, but it's also very thought-provoking just on what is a difficult person. And there's a real thing now about if you're low in agreeableness, that might mean you're a genius, like Steve Jobs, or it might mean you're a Twitter troll. And we have a very basic binary way of thinking about being difficult. And it's actually very nuanced, and you have to be very clever about how to be difficult. And in a way, I wondered if one of the things you were thinking about was, well, everyone's doing difficult in a really poor way. And what we need, especially on the left, is smart difficult, and here is a book about that, and please improve. [chuckle]Helen Lewis: Yeah, there was a lot of that and it's part of the sort of bro-ey end of philosophy is about maybe women have been less brilliant through history because they're less willing to be disagreeable, they have a higher need to be liked, which I think is kind of interesting. I don't entirely buy it. But I think there's an interesting thing there about whether or not you have to be willing to be iconoclastic. The thing that I find interesting about that is, again, there's another way in which you can refer to it, which is the idea that if you're a heretic, you're automatically right.Henry: Yes.Helen Lewis: And there's a lot of...Henry: Or brave.Helen Lewis: Or brave, right? And I think it's... You can see it in some of the work that I'm doing at the moment about the intellectual dark web being a really interesting example. Some of them stayed true to the kind of idea that you were a skeptic. And some of them disbelieved the mainstream to the extent that they ended up falling down the rabbit holes of thinking Ivermectin was a really great treatment for COVID, or that the vaccines were going to microchip you or whatever it might be. And so I'm always interested in how personality affects politics, I guess. And yeah, how you can be self-contained and insist on being right and not cow-tow to other people without being an a*****e is a perpetually interesting question. It's coming up in my second book a lot, which is about genius. Which is sort-of the similar thing is, how do you insist when everybody tells you that you're wrong, that you're right. And the thing that we don't talk about enough in that context, I think Newton is a very good example is that, obviously, he made these incredible breakthroughs with gravity and mathematics, and then spends literally decades doing biblical chronology and everyone tells him that he's wrong, and he is wrong. And we don't really talk about that side of it very much.All the people who spent all their time studying phlogiston and mesmerism, or that's more complicated because I think that does lead to interesting insights. A lot of people who the world told was wrong, were wrong. And we're over-indexing, always writing about the ones who were the one Galileo saying the Earth still moves, and they turned out to be correct.Henry: Yes. There are good books about biographies of failures, but they're less popular.Helen Lewis: Which is tough because most of us are going to be failures.Henry: Yes. Well, you're not gonna buy a book to reinforce that.Helen Lewis: No, but maybe there could be some deep spiritual learning from it, which is that a life spent in pursuit of a goal that turns out to be illusory is still a noble one.Henry: That's a fundamentally religious opinion that I think a secular society is not very good at handling.Helen Lewis: Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I've been doing lots of work for Radio 4 about the link between politics and religion, and whether or not religion has to some extent replaced politics as Western societies become more secular. And I think there is some truth in that. And one of the big problems is, yes, it doesn't have that sort of spirit of self-abnegation or the idea of kind of forgiveness in it, or the idea of just desserts happening over the horizon of death. Like everything's got be settled now in politics here, which I think is a bad fit for religious impulses and ideas.Henry: What is the role of humour in being difficult?Helen Lewis: I think it's really important because it does sweeten the pill of trying to make people be on your side. And so I had a long discussion with myself about how much I should put those jokes in the footnotes of the book, and how much I should kind of be funny, generally. Because I think the problem is, if you're funny, people don't think you're serious. And I think it's a big problem, particularly for women writers, that actually I think sometimes, and this happens in journalism too, that women writers often play up their seriousness, a sort of uber-serious persona, because they want to be taken seriously. If you see what I mean, it's very hard to be a foreign policy expert and also have a kind of lively, cheeky side, right? We think that certain things demand a kind of humourlessness to them.But the other thing that I think humour is very important, is it creates complicity with the audience. If you laugh at someone's joke, you've aligned yourself with them, right? Which is why we now have such a taboo and a prohibition on racist jokes, sexist jokes, whatever they might be, because it's everyone in the audience against that minority. But that can, again, if you use your powers for good, be quite powerful. I think it is quite powerful to see... There's one of the suffragettes where someone throws a cabbage at her, and she says something like, “I must return this to the man in the audience who's lost his head.” And given that all the attacks on the suffragettes were that they were these sort of mad, radical, weird, un-feminine, inhuman people, then that was a very good way of instantly saying that you weren't taking it too seriously.One of the big problems with activism is obviously that people, normal people who don't spend every moment of their life thinking about politics, find it a bit repellent because it is so monomaniacal and all-consuming. And therefore, being able to puncture your pomposity in that way, I think is quite useful.Henry: So if there are people who want to learn from Helen Lewis, “How can I be difficult at work and not be cast aside,” you would say, “Tell more low-grade jokes, get people to like you, and then land them with some difficult remark.”Helen Lewis: Use your powers for good after that. It's tricky, isn't it? I think the real answer to how to be difficult at work is decide what level of compromise you're willing to entertain to get into positions of power. Which is the same question any activist should ask themselves, “How much do I need to engage with the current flawed system in order to change it?” And people can be more or less open with themselves, I guess, about that. I think the recent Obama memoir is quite open about, for example on the financial relief in 2008, about how much he should have tried to be more radical and change stuff, and how much he... Did he actually let himself think he was being this great consensualist working with the Republican Party and therefore not get stuff done?And then the other end, I think you have the criticism I made of the Corbyn project, which was that it was better to have kind of clean hands than get things done. There's a great essay by Matt Bruenig called Purity Politics, which says... No, what is it called? Purity Leftism. And it said, “the purity leftist's approach is not so much that they're worried about that oppression is happening but that they should have no part of it.” And I think that's part of the question of being difficult, too, is actually how much do you have to work with and compromise yourself by working with people with whom you're opposed? And it's a big question in feminism. There are people who will now say, “Well, how could feminists possibly work with the Conservative Party?” Entirely forgetting that Emmeline Pankhurst ran as a Conservative candidate.Henry: She was very conservative.Helen Lewis: Right. And there were members of the suffragettes who went on to join the British Union of Fascists. That actually... Some of the core tenets of feminism have been won by people who didn't at all see themselves on the left.Henry: If I was the devil's advocate, I'd say that well-behaved women, for want of a better phrase, do make a lot of history. Not just suffragists but factory workers, political wives, political mistresses. What's the balance between needing difficult women and needing not exactly compliant women but people who are going to change it by, as you say, completely engaging with the system and almost just getting on with it?Helen Lewis: There's a scale, isn't there? Because if you make yourself too unbelievably difficult, then no one wants to work with you and it's... I think the suffragettes is a really good example of that actually. The intervention of the First World War makes that story impossible to play out without it.But had they continued on that course of becoming ever more militant, ever more bombings, and pouring acid on greens, and snipping telephone wires... The criticism that was made of them was, “Are they actually turning people off this cause?” And you get people saying that, that actually the suffragettes set back the cause of women's suffrage, which I'm not entirely sure I buy. I think I certainly don't buy it in the terms of the situation in 1905. Fawcett writes about the fact that there were loads of all these articles decrying the suffragettes, whereas previously they'd just been... The cause of suffrage, which had been going on for 70-80 years, quite in earnest, in legal form, had just been completely ignored. So there was definitely a moment where what it really needed was attention. But then, can you make the same argument in 1914 about whether or not the suffragettes were still doing an equal amount of good? I think then it's much more tenuous.And there was a really good article saying that, essentially your point, well-behaved women do make history, saying that a lot of boring legal heavy-lifting... And it's one of the things I find very interesting about where modern feminism in Britain is. A lot of the work that's most interesting is being done through things like judicial reviews, which is a lot of very boring pulling together large amounts of court bundles, and people saying, “Is this obiter?” This word which I once understood, and now don't anymore. But it's not people chaining themselves to railings or throwing themselves under horses. It's people getting up in the morning and putting another day shift in at quite boring admin. And I do think that maybe that's something that I underplayed in the book because it's not so narratively captivating. Brenda Hale made that point to me that she would have been a suffragist because she just believed in playing things by the book. You won it by the book.And I do think now I find I don't agree with throwing paint and pies and milkshakes and stuff like that at people whose political persuasions I disagree with, right? I fundamentally don't believe in punching Nazis, which was a great debate... Do you remember the great Twitter debate of a couple of years ago about whether it's okay to punch a Nazi? I think if you live in America or the UK, and there are democratic ways and a free press in which to make your political case, you don't need to resort to a riot. And that's not the case all over the world, obviously. But I do think that I am... I think difficulty takes many, many forms.Henry: A question about Margaret Thatcher.Helen Lewis: Yes.Henry: Was she good for women, even though she wasn't good for feminism? So millions of women joined the labour force in the 1980s, more than before or since. It was the first time that women got their own personal allowance for income tax, rather than being taxed as an extension of their husband's income.Helen Lewis: I'm trying to remember. Was that a Tory policy?Henry: That was 1988 budget, and it came into effect in 1990. And she also publicly supported. She said, “You should be nice to mothers who go out to work. They're just earning money for their families.” So even though she definitely did not, consciously I think, help the cause of feminism, you would probably rather be a woman in the '80s than the '70s...Helen Lewis: Oh yeah, definitely.Henry: But because of her. That's my challenge to you.Helen Lewis: No, it's a good challenge. And I think it's one that has a lot of merit. I'm not sure whether or not she would be grateful to you for positioning her as Margaret Thatcher, feminist hero. And it's really into having... I wrote a screenplay last year about the women in politics in the years before Margaret Thatcher, and it's very... And I cover this a bit in the book. That women have always struggled in Labour, a collective movement, where it's like if you let one woman through, you've got to let them all. Like, “I'm the vanguard” versus the Thatcher route, which was like, “I'm just me, a person. Judge me on who I am,” and not making such a kind of radical collective claim. So that's the bit that holds me back from endorsing her as a kind of good thing for women, is I think she was Elizabeth I in the sense where she was like, “I'm good like a man,” rather than saying, “Women are good, and I'm a woman,” which I think are two different propositions. But it's definitely true that... I think that growing up in a society that had a female prime minister was a huge deal. America still hasn't had a female president. It's just not... If you're a girl growing up there, it's just... That's something that you've never seen. And the other half of it is, I think it was incredibly powerful to see Denis Thatcher. The true feminist hero that is Denis Thatcher. But genuinely, that's somebody who was older than her, who was willing to take a back seat. And he found a role for men that was not being the alpha. It was kind of the, “I don't have anything left to prove. And I like playing golf. Haven't I got a great life while the little woman runs around with her red boxes. All a bit much.” I think that was almost a more radical thing for people to see.And it's interesting to me that he was somebody who had fought in the Second World War because I think the '70s and the feminist revolution, I think in some ways depends on there being a generation of men who didn't have anything to prove, in terms of masculinity. And it's really interesting to me that... So Barbara Castle's husband Ted was also, I think, a little bit older than her. But he was also very much in that Denis Thatcher mould of, “Woman! Right, you're exhausting.” And Maureen Colquhoun, who I also write about in the book, her husband Keith was, by all accounts, a very decent guy who was totally accepting of her ambitions. And then he conducted himself with incredible dignity after she left him for a woman. And I think that's a story that I'm interested in hearing a bit more about, is of the men who weren't threatened. So I do think that's a big challenge that the Thatchers did present to orthodox values. But let's not underplay them as conservatives.Henry: Oh no, hugely conservative.Helen Lewis: And also the fact that, to some extent, Margaret Thatcher was reacting to an economic tide that was very useful to her. More women in the workforce meant more productivity, meant higher GDP. And I think it was at that point a train that was just not... Why would you throw yourself in front of it to try and reverse it and get women back into the home?Henry: Her advisors wanted a tax break for marriage.Helen Lewis: Oh, that's a classic Conservative policy.Henry: Because they said, “We're in office, and this is what we're here for.” And she said, “I can't do it to the mill girls in Bolton. I can't give a tax break to wives in Surrey playing bridge.” And in a way, I think she was very quietly, and as you say for political reasons not entirely openly, quite on the side of the working woman for moral reasons that we would usually call feminist. But which because it's her and because of everything else she believes, it doesn't really make sense to call them feminist, but it's difficult to think of another Prime Minister who has had so much rhetoric saying “Yes, women should go to work, that's a good thing. Don't yell at them about it.” And who has implemented economic policies that's giving them tax breaks and trying to level the playing field a bit. So it's a sort of conundrum for me that she didn't want to be called a feminist, but she did a lot of things that quotes, if you were that sort of person would say “undermined” the traditional family or whatever.Helen Lewis: Yeah. And she found a way to be a powerful woman and an archetype of what that was, which I think again, is based enormously on Barbara Castle, I think Barbara Castle is the template for her.Henry: Oh yeah. Down to the hair. Yeah.Helen Lewis: With the big hair and the fluttering the eyelashes, and that kind of, what I think of as kind of “Iron Fem” right? Which is where you're very, very feminine, but it's in a steely ball-crushing kind of way. Although interestingly, Barbara Castle cried a lot. She would have frequently burst into tears about stuff, which again was, I think kept the men around her slightly off balance, they didn't know how to... Which I think any good politician uses what they've got. But the thing that struck me when I read more about Thatcher last year, was about the fact that if she hadn't been the first female Prime Minister, I think we would write a lot more about her lower-middle middle class background and what a challenge that was. And the fact that that really, in some ways, I think the Tory Party really loved having a female leader once they got over the initial shock because it was kind of like, “Well, aren't we modern. And now Labor can't have a go at us about all this kind of stuff, 'cause look at our woman leader.” What I think was more of a profound challenge for a long time, was the kind of arriviste sort of idea that she was, as you say, a representative of working people, upwardly mobile, or from right to buy being an example of one of these policies. I think that was a big challenge to the kind of men in smoky rooms.Henry: I don't think they ever got over it. Carrington called her “a f*****g stupid petit-bourgeois woman.”Helen Lewis: Petit-bourgeois is exactly the right, I think the right term of abuse. And there was a... And I think that's why... I mean, I think it came out as misogyny but actually it was also driven by class as well, the fact that she was no better than she ought to be, right?But that's about... I think that's how you see, and honestly I think Ted Heath experiences as a great... Leading to the incredible sulk, one of my favorite phrases, [chuckle] that he just never kind of got over that he had been beaten by a woman. I think that was an extra kind of poisoned pill for him, of the ingratitude of the party, that they would replace him with a woman.Henry: And a woman of his own class.Helen Lewis: Right. And exactly, it's not like she... So she wasn't sort of Lady Aster wafting in a cloud of diamonds and violet scent. It was, “Hang on a minute, you're saying this person is better than me.”Henry: Now, before Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Tory Party, almost nobody thought that she was going anywhere, right up to say a week before the leadership election. People would have meetings about who the candidates were and they wouldn't even discuss her. Who are the people in politics today that no one's really sort of gathered actually have got this big potential?Helen Lewis: Yeah, I think that's really interesting isn't it, that essentially she goes into that leadership context and they sort of think, “Well, someone's gonna shake it up a bit, someone's gonna represent the right to the party.” And then they go round... And it was Airey Neave who was running her campaign, going around sort of saying, “Well, you know, vote for her, it'll give Ted a shock.” And then the first ballot result comes in and they go, “Oh God, it's given us a shock as well.” And then I think at that point, Willy Whitelaw piles in, doesn't he? But it's too late and the train's already moving. And the other one who's... It's Hugh Fraser is the other... And he runs very much from the sort patrician candidate background. I love that, that leadership election, it symbolizes what I like about politics, which is just that sometimes there is a moment, that is a hinge when a force that's been bubbling away suddenly pops up. And not to get too much into the great man or in this case, a great woman theory history, but someone makes a big decision that is either going to be the right call or the wrong call.And for Margaret Thatcher is almost insanely ambitious, and she could have ended up looking incredibly stupid, and because the life didn't take that fork in the road, we'll never look back on that. But there are many people who have made that gamble, and again, go back to failures point, have crashed. You have to have that kind of instinct in politics. Who's good now? I was just thinking this morning that Bridget Phillipson of Labor, who is now currently shadow education, I think has been underrated for a long time. Finally less so, given that she's made it to the Shadow Cabinet, who knows if she can make an impression there, but she is smart. So I'll give you an example, she was asked the inevitable question that all labor politicians are now asked, like, “What is a woman?” And she said, “The correct... “ This is Richard Madeley asked her this. She said, “What to my mind is the correct legal ounce that would also makes sense to normal human beings who don't follow politics all the time, which is, ‘It's an adult human female or anybody with a gender recognition certificate. And there are difficulties in how you might sometimes put that into practice, but those are the two categories of people.'”And it was like this moment, I was like, Why? Why has it taken you so long to work out an answer to this question that is both correct and explicable. And I think that is an underrated gift in politicians, is actually deciding what issues you're going to fudge around and which issues you actually have to come out and say what you think even if people disagree with it. It was one of Thatcher's great strengths, was that she made decisions and she stuck to them. I mean, obviously then you get to the poll tax and it becomes a problem. But I think there's... One of the problems I felt with the Ed Miliband era of Labor was that he didn't want to annoy anybody and ended up annoying everybody. Wes Streeting, I think is also... No, I won't say underrated, I will say he's now rated and clearly has got his eye on the leadership next.Bridget Phillipson has a much more marginal seat than you'd like to see from somebody who's going to be a leader. Wes is an interesting character. Grew up on free school meals, has been through cancer in the last couple of years, is gay, has a genuinely kind of... But is also on scene as being on the right to the party. So he's got lots of different identity factors and political factors that will make people very hard to know where to put him, I think, or how to brand him, I guess. But those are two of the ones who you make me think that there's some interesting stuff happening. On the Tory side, there are some people who are quietly competent. So Michael Gove, I think, whatever you think about his persona or anything like that, is the person they put in when they want stuff actually to happen. I think Nadhim Zahawi did very well as Vaccines Minister without anyone really noticing, which is probably not what you want when you're a minister, but it's probably what you want from the public.Henry: Why are so many women late bloomers? Well, obviously, the constraints of having a family or whatever.Helen Lewis: I think the answer is children, I think is the answer to that one.Henry: But there must be other reasons.Helen Lewis: I think... I mean, who knows? I may be straying into territory which is pseudo-science here, but I do also think that menopause is quite important. When you lose all your caring for others, nicely, softly, softly hormones and your hormone profile becomes much more male, I think that makes it easier to not care what people think about you, to some extent. As does the fact that you can no longer be beautiful and play that card. And I don't know, I think also... Again, this is... I don't know if this is supported by the evidence, I think there's more of... I think more of the men fall away. I don't know, I think if you're a guy who's found it very hard to form personal relationships, then maybe your 50s and 60s can be quite lonely, whereas I think that's often the time in which women kind of find a sort of a second wind. Does that make sense? This is all... I mean, none of this is... There's no evidential basis for this, this is just based on my sort of anecdotal reading of people that I'm thinking of.Henry: Camille Paglia once wrote, she put it in very strict terms, she said something like, when the menopause happens, the wife becomes this sort of tyrant and starts flourishing.Helen Lewis: Yeah. No, I'm very much looking forward to that, yeah. Oh yeah.Henry: And the husband becomes this kind of wet rag and his testosterone level drops and the whole power balance just flips. And you're sort of, you're saying that, but not in quite that... Not as quite an aggressive way as she's phrased it.Helen Lewis: Yeah, and it's not a universal truth.Henry: No, no, not at all.Helen Lewis: I just think for the people for whom that happens, that is quite an arresting thing that often gives them the liberation. I also do think there's a kind of mindset change. I don't have kids, but I know from women that I know whose kids have gone off to university, that if you have been the primary caregiver, there is suddenly a great, big hole in your life, and what do you fill it with? And actually, do you have to find a new focus and direction and purpose, because you don't want to be sort of turning up at their halls of residence going, “Hello, just thought I check in, see if you're alright.” And whereas for men, who've maintained a sort of career focus throughout, whilst also adding on a family, that's not such a kind of big realignment of their day and their life and what they feel the focus of their life is.Henry: I spoke to Tyler Cowen about this and he wondered if there's something about women become more acceptable in their looks. So you think about Angela Merkel and Margaret Thatcher as... I think you were sort of implying this, when a woman reaches middle age, the public or the people around them are less likely to judge them on whether they're good-looking, and so some of that sexism slightly falls away, because when you are a woman in your 20s or 30s, you're very susceptible to being looked at or rated or whatever, whereas Margaret Thatcher had a sort of, I don't know, a motherly quality that no one would... There was a kind of cult of finding her attractive and Alan Clark said disgusting things about her.Helen Lewis: Yeah, and also we've had a queen for 70 years, right? So we do have that sort of idea of what female power looks like, which is icy and so it's non-emotional, but yeah.Henry: But I've seen that in the office, that women in their 20s have a difficult time if they're good looking because there are a certain type of men...Helen Lewis: Well, people assume you're stupid as well.Henry: Well, and also it's just what men go to. They talk about you being that, whereas once a woman gets slightly past that, men don't automatically sort of go, “Oh, how would you rate her out of 10” or whatever? And that creates a space to see them as the person.Helen Lewis: And see them as actual human. I think that's a really interesting thesis. I also think that there's a... I think being a young woman is a particular kind of problem. So I think there's definitely a form of ageism against women, where it's silly old bat, right? Which I do think you get silly old duffer as well, but there is some extra level as well about women, it's like, “Why are you still talking? No one wants to hear from you? Your... “ This is a phrase they use in the internet now, “You're dusty, you and your dusty opinions.” But I think you get the contrary version of that as a young woman, whereas I think we find... The phrase Young Turk implies man, doesn't it?It's like, thrusting young guy, on his way up, super ambitious, he's the new generation, whereas I don't think you necessarily have that whole sort of coalition of positive stereotypes about young women. It's untested, learner, still needs to learn the ropes, that kind of... I'm eternally grateful to my boss in my 20s, Jason Cowley of the New Statesman, for making me deputy editor of the Statesman when I was 28, which I think was a pretty radical thing to do. When I don't think it would have necessarily felt so radical to make a 28-year-old guy.Although I say that, but then Ian Hislop became editor of Private Eye when he was 26, and there was like a revolution among the old guard. And he had to metaphorically execute a few of them outside the woodshed. So I do think that... I also think people begin to... There's... Now, this is really straying to some dangerous, choppy feminist waters. Competition between women can be very fierce, obviously. I write about this in the book in the terms of Smurfette Syndrome. The idea that there's only one place for a woman, and by God, I've got to have it. But I do think that there can be some jealousy that maybe recedes. And I think it's probably true for men and women. As you get older, people don't see you as a threat because they think, “Well, by the time I'm 40, maybe I'll have all the stuff you have.” But if you've got that stuff at 28, I think there's a real feeling from other people in the generation that those, the stars are peeling away, and there's a real resentment of them. So one of the things I do is I provide kind of counselling services to young journalists who've just suddenly had like a really big promotion or career lift or whatever it is. And I feel indebted to go and say to them, “By the way, this is amazing, but people will hate you because of it.”Henry: It's very striking to me that we've had a period of very young politicians being leaders, but they're men. And the women who've either competed with them or become leaders afterwards are in their 50s. And I do think there's something about what's an acceptable public woman.Helen Lewis: And the idea of authority, I think that's the thing. I think as you get older as a woman, it's easier to seem authoritative.Henry: Someone like Stella Creasy, I think, has had a much more difficult time just because she happens to be under a certain age.Helen Lewis: Yeah, I think that's interesting. And I think the fact that she's now got very young children at a relatively older age. I know that's... Sorry. Apologies to Stella, if you're listening. But it is comparatively old to have children after 40, still. That that will be interesting of how that complicates her next decade in politics.And I do think those super top jobs… There was a really brilliant piece of research which I put in the book about the sort of so-called demanding jobs, the kind of lawyers, the top lawyers, and I think journalists and politicians. Greedy jobs, they're called. And the fact is that they have become more demanding in terms of hours as women have entered the workforce. And now the thing has become fetishized as can you do the 14-hour days? And it becomes a soft way of excluding women with young kids.The problem, I think, will come with all of this when both men and women end up needing to look after elderly parents, as we're having more and more of that extension, those decades at the end of life when you're alive but maybe you're not as mobile as you were. Maybe you need more help from your family. And I think there is a lot of anger among certain types of women that they just feel like they're finally free from their caring responsibilities, and then they get landed with another one. But I know, I've been to some feminist conferences recently where... There's a famous saying which women are the only minority that get more radical with age, which I think is probably true. You can meet some groups of 50-something women, and they are fuming, really fuming. And they've now got the time and the sort of social capital with which to exercise that fuming-dom, as it were.Henry: Is Roy Jenkins overrated?Helen Lewis: [laughter] That's the most random question. He's not my favourite politician, mainly because I'm Team Castle for life, right? And I think she was treated very badly by the men in that Wilson cabinet, the first, the '66 to '70 one, of whom he was one, right? I think that, yeah. I think... Do you know what? I haven't got very strong opinions on him compared with my strong opinions on James Callaghan, who I am anti. And I know there are some Callaghan-stans out there. But I think the utterly cynical way in which he sucked up to the unions in order to get the leadership at the cost, ultimately, of then Margaret Thatcher in '79, out-strikes me as one of the most sort of cynical pieces of politicking.Henry: You are sailing very close to being a Thatcherite.Helen Lewis: I'm not a Thatcherite. I'm not.Henry: No, I know.Helen Lewis: But I can see... I think you... And I think Rachel Reeves has basically written about this, who's now Labour's Shadow Chancellor, that if Barbara Castle had succeeded with In Place of Strife on what were, now, to us, very mild measures, right? A conciliation pause where you have negotiations, strike ballots, no wildcat strikes. If she'd managed to push through some of those, then some of the excesses of the '70s would not have happened. Or at least, Labour would have been able to show that it had a grip of them. But you have a situation where the teachers were asking for something like 25% pay rise in the run up to the '79 election. And the Labour government just looked completely out of control. And so yeah, that's my Callaghan beef. What's your Roy Jenkins beef, then?Henry: I don't have beef. I can't remember why I wrote that question. I read about him in your book. I suppose I think that he did implement some good progressive measures, but that he was essentially a sort of patrician wannabe. And that his whole career in politics is much more middling and establishment, and his radicalism was... I don't know. Perhaps overrated, when we look back.Helen Lewis: Well, I will go away and read some more. I read quite a lot of the... The mad thing about the cabinet, particularly in that Wilson government, is that they were all obviously sitting there writing copious amounts of... To the extent that Barbara Castle would actually write literal notes in cabinet, save it for diary later on. But Tony Benn was writing notes. Crossman was writing notes. Jenkins essentially wrote lots of... A very full memoir. Harold Wilson wrote one of the most boring memoirs that the world has ever seen. The trade union leaders wrote memoirs. Jack Jones wrote a memoir. It was an astonishingly literate and writerly sort of set of people. And yet the cabinet was, in some respects, kind of utterly dysfunctional, but with Wilson still running a sort of... You know, sort of like who was kind of currently had been nice to me. And he went... And of course in his second term, he became incredibly paranoid.It was not a model of good government really. And again, Callaghan is one of the greatest political resurrections ever, right, when he completely screws up the Treasury and then uses Northern Ireland's Home Secretary in order to kind of make himself back into a respectful mainstream figure. But before we go and fight Roy Jenkins-stans, we should both go and find out what our beef is with him.Henry: I'm gonna say her name, well, Colquhoun?Helen Lewis: Colquhoun.Henry: Colquhoun. She said, “Labor would rather fight Powell than solve poverty.” Is that still true?Helen Lewis: What read it out there is a phrase that I think Maureen Colquhoun said after not “the rivers of blood” speech, but another Enoch Powell speech in the '70s, which got her in enormous trouble. Would you like to endorse this sentiment that got her called a racist? And it was used as a pretext for drumming her out of the Labor party. So what happened to Maureen after that is that she... Her local party tried to de-select her, it then went to an appeal at the NEC. She eventually ended up holding on to her candidacy and then she lost in '79 to a guy called Tony Marlow, who's one of the most... Talk about Thatcher, I mean... He was bristly, to the extent that his nickname was Tony von Marlow. But yeah, he has some terrible quote about Harriet Harman as well, which is something like, “These bra burners have got a chip on their shoulder,” or something. It was something terrible mixed metaphor involving how you couldn't wear a bra if you also had a chip on your shoulder. Anyway, I digress.Henry: I'm not trying to endorse her quote, but if you replace Powell with Boris.Helen Lewis: I think it's a really interesting quote about... It comes back to purity leftism, what we were talking about before, is actually, “Do you want the win or do you want the fight?” And there is, I think, more of a tendency on the left than the right, to want to be on the right side of history, to want to be pure, to want to be fighting, and that sort of sense that... The perpetual struggle is the bit that you want to be in, that's the bit that's exciting, rather than the win. I think one of the really interesting sounds to me is gay marriage. I was just reading this Jonathan Rauch piece this morning about the fact that... His argument being, that there was a coalition of kind of right-wingers and centrists and liberals in America who fought with the radical left, who wanted gay rights to be predicated on the idea of sort of smashing the nuclear family and everything like that, to say, “Let's make gay rights really boring, and let's talk a lot about how much we want to get married. And maybe we wanna adopt. Let's recruit all the people who happen to have been born gay, but are also Tories or Republicans.”And I think a similar thing happened to him here, where you have David Cameron saying, “I support gay marriage not in spite of being a conservative, but because I'm conservative.” And you frame it as essentially a very norm-y, boring thing. And I think that has been really interesting to watch in the sense of... I think that's why gender is now come much more to the fore because it's a sense that, “Well, if even Tories are okay with people being gay, it's not... Like what's left? How is that interesting anymore?” And so, I think the criticism that she was trying to make there is very true in the sense that sometimes Labor wants to look right more than it wants to win a halfway victory.Henry: What are some of the best or most underrated biographies of women?Helen Lewis: That's a really interesting question. I read a lot of royal biographies, so I very much like Leonie Frieda's biography of Catherine de' Medici, for example. There is also... You're gonna think this is terrible, Princess Michael of Kent wrote a joint biography of Catherine de Medici and Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II, which is called The Serpent and the Moon, which is a really... I think it's... Actually, it's not a bad biography, but I think it's quite interesting to write a biography of the wife and the mistress together.Henry: Yeah, I think that's a great idea.Helen Lewis: Because the story of them is obviously so intertwined and their power relationship obviously changes, right? Because Catherine is the dowdy wife who bears the 10 children, Diane is the kind of unbelievably gorgeous, older woman. But then of course, the king dies and it's like, “Oh, nice chateau you've got there. Shame, one of us is the dowager queen and one of us is now just some woman,” and makes her hand back her Chenonceau to her. So I enjoyed that very much. I'm trying to think what the best political women biographies are. Do you have a favourite Elizabeth I biography? I think there must be a really great one out there but I can't... I don't know which one actually is best.Henry: Well, I like the one by Elizabeth Jenkins, but it's now quite out of date and I don't know how true it is anymore. But it's, just as a piece of writing and a piece of advocacy for Elizabeth, it's an excellent book. And it sold, it was sort of a big best seller in 1956, which I find a very compelling argument for reading a book, but I appreciate that a lot of other people might not.Helen Lewis: No, that's not to everyone's taste. That's interesting. I like Antonia Fraser as a biographer. I don't know if you'‘e got a strong feelings, pro or anti. Her Mary Queen of Scots book is very good. Her Mari Antoinette book is very good. And I actually, I interviewed her once about how she felt about the Sofia Coppola film, which is basically like a two-and a half hour music video. She was totally relaxed, she was like, “It's a film, I wrote a book.”She didn't say it like that, she didn't go, “Film innit,” sucking on a roll-up, she said it in a very lofty, Antonia Fraser kind of way. But I think that's a good thing if you're an author, to kind of go, “What works in a biography is not what works in a film,” so...But yeah, I grew up reading those Jean Plaidy historical novels, so I guess I read a lot of biographies of Queens. I'm trying to think whether or not I read any biographies of modern women. I haven't read... I have on my shelf the, Red Comet, the Sylvia Plath biography. And I also, which is on my to-read pile, as is the biography of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas by Janet Malcom, which I one day, will treat myself to. Henry: What are the best or most underrated biographies by women?Helen Lewis: By women? Well, again, then we go back to...Henry: I mean, you've named some of them, maybe.Helen Lewis: The interesting thing is, I remember when I did Great Lives, they said... The Radio 4 program about history. That they said, the one thing that they have tried to encourage more of, is men nominating women. Because they found there was no problem with getting women to nominate men and men to nominate men, but they found there weren't that many men who picked women, which I think is interesting. I really wanted, when Difficult Women came out, I wanted a man to review it.Henry: Did that not happen?Helen Lewis: No, it didn't happen. And I think everybody would've... I think, from the point of view of your male reviewers, why would you review a book on feminism when you're gonna get loads of people going, “Ew, what are you doing?mansplaining feminism?” But it's an intellectual project, right? It's not a... It should be open to criticism by absolutely anyone, not on... You don't have to pass an identity test. It's an ideology and a school of history. And so I would... What's the best biography of woman written by a man, is kind of a question I'm interested in.Henry: Yes. That's very difficult to think of.Helen Lewis: And how many of them are there? Because it just strikes me that when I'm naming all my women, biographies of women, that they're all by women.Henry: Yes. It's difficult to think... It'‘ easy to think of biographies of men written by women.Helen Lewis: Right. Hermoine Lee's out there repping for Tom Stoppard biography recently. But yeah, people can send in answers on a postcard for that one.Henry: Should there be less credentialism in journalism?Helen Lewis: Yes. I started as a sub-editor on the Daily Mail. And I worked alongside lots of older guys who had come up through local papers at the time when the trade unions were so strong that you had to do two years on local paper before you got to Fleet Street. And therefore, I worked with quite a lot of people who had left school at either 16 or 18 and were better at subbing than people who'd... than recent university graduates. And so, the way that journalism has become first of all, a graduate profession and now a postgraduate profession, I don't think it's got any real relationship to the quality of journalism. There are a sort of set of skills that you need to learn, but a lot of them are more about things like critical thinking than they are about literature, if you see what I mean?That's the thing. That is what I find very interesting about journalism, is the interesting marriage of... You have to have the personal relationships, you have to be able to find people and make them want to be interviewed by you and get the best out of them. Then you have to be able to write it up in prose that other humans can understand. But then there is also a level of rigour underneath it that you have to have, in terms of your note-keeping and record-keeping and knowledge of the law and all that kind of stuff. But none of that maps onto any kind of degree course that you might be able to take. And so, I think that's... And the other huge problem, I think in journalism is that, everyone in the world wants to do it, or at least that's how it seems when you're advertising for an entry level position in journalism.When I was at the New Statesman, we used to recruit for editorial assistants and I once had 250 applications for a single post, which was paid a fine amount, you could live on it just about in London, but was not... It was a plum job in intellectual terms, but not in economic terms. And I think that's a real problem because I could have filled every position that we had, with only people who'd got Firsts from Oxford or whatever it might be. But it wouldn't have been the best selection of journalists.Henry: No. Quite the opposite.[laughter]Helen Lewis: Yes. I enjoy your anti-Oxford prejudice. [chuckle] But you know what I mean is that I... But the fact that you had to have at least a degree to even get through the door, is sort of wrong in some profound way. And actually, some of the places have been... I think Sky did a non-graduate traineeship for people who were school leavers. And I think that there are profound problems in lots of those creative arts, publishing is the same, academia is the same, where you could fill every job which is low paid, and in London, with middle-class people whose parents are willing to fund them through. And the credentialism just is a further problem in that it just knocks out bright people from perfectly normal economic backgrounds.Henry: Do you think as well, that in a way, the main criteria for a good journalist, whether they're a sub-editor, or writing leaders or whatever, is common sense? And that a good English degree is really no guarantee that you have common sense.[laughter]Helen Lewis: Yeah. I couldn't put my hand in my heart and say that everybody I know with an English degree demonstrates common sense. I think that is actually not a bad... The famous thing is about you need a rat-like cunning, don't you? Which I think is also pretty true. But yeah, you do need to come back to that kind of idea about heresy and you do need to have a sort of sniffometer, not to be... I think you need to be fundamentally cynical, but not to a point where it poisons you.The right amount of cynicism is probably the thing you need in journalism. Because my husband's a journalist and quite often, there'll be a story where we just go, “I don't believe that. I just don't believe that.”And it really troubles me that that's become harder and harder to say. So I wrote a piece a while ago, about TikTok and people who claim to have Tourette's on there and actually quite a lot of them might have something else, might have functional neurological disorder. But there are whole genres of that all across journalism, where people will talk very personally and very painfully about their personal experiences. And the other half of that is that, we are not... It's mean, to question that. But they're often making political claims on the basis of those experiences. And you therefore can't put them in a realm beyond scrutiny. And so it's interesting to me, having been a teenager in the '90s when journalism was incredibly cruel. I'm talking about the height of bad tabloid, going through people's bins, hate campaigns against people. And a lot of this “be kind” rhetoric is a response to that and a necessary correction, but I do think there are now, lots of situations in which journalists need to be a bit less kind. That's a terrible quote. [laughter] But do you know what I mean?Henry: I do know exactly what you mean.Helen Lewis: When you have to say, “I know you think you've got this illness, but you haven't.” That's tough.Henry: People need to be more difficult.Helen Lewis: That's always my marketing strategy, yes.Henry: I want to ask if you think that you are yourself a late bloomer? In the tone of voice that you write in, you very often... You write like an Atlantic journalist and there are these moments, I think, of real wit. I don't mean jokey. I mean, clever. And so, a line like, “Your vagina is not a democracy,” is very funny but it's also very...Helen Lewis: It's true.Henry: Sort of Alexander Pope-ish.[laughter]Helen Lewis: That's the best possible reference. Yes, I hope to write very mean epigrams about people, one day.Henry: Please do. But you can also be very jokey like when you said, I think in a footnote, that you don't watch porn because the sofas are so bad.Helen Lewis: True.Henry: Now, there is something in those moments of wit that I think suggest that you could, if you wanted to, go and do something other than what you've already done. Maybe like Charles Moore, you'd become a biographer, or maybe you'd become a novelist, or maybe you'll run a think tank, or maybe you'll set up a newspaper and only employ 16-year-old school leavers, or... I don't know. Is that how you think about yourself or am I...Helen Lewis: You are trying to tell me I need to just grow up.[laughter]Henry: Not at all.Helen Lewis: Stop clowning around like a sea lion for applause after throwing fish.Henry: My theory on Helen Lewis is, you've got all the accolades that someone could want from a journalistic career.Helen Lewis: Not true. I've only ever won one award for journalism and you'll love this, it was Mainstream Video Games Writer of the Year.Henry: Oh my god.Helen Lewis: That's it. From the Games Awards in 2013, which I only remember this because every so often my publisher will put award-winning journalist as a merit that I have. Not really gov, not if I'm honest. You're right though. I have one of the plum jobs in journalism which is I work three days a week at the Atlantic, and then I make radio documentaries on the side and write books, and that is a position which is enormously enviable. But I have also... So I've moved away from column writing, in the last couple of years — I used to write a regular op-ed column — because I found it a deeply unsatisfying form. And I think, when you do jokes, you begin to realize that you can actually just say stupid, easy clap lines and with sufficient confidence, and people will respond to them, and after a while, you begin to hate yourself for doing that.[laughter]Well, that's one of the reasons I again... Like getting off Twitter. You know what I mean? You see some of those accounts that just exists to do lazy little dunks about the people that are appointed, that are sort of designated hate subjects. So if someone gets designated as a hate subject, then you can say nasty things about them and then everybody will applaud you. And I fundamentally revolt from that and I don't like it.I think that as a journalist, you should always try and be at right angles to whatever the prevailing opinion is. And actually as I've got older, I value the sort of... The people I think of as contrarians who I think really believe it rather than the people who are doing it for effect. Someone like a Peter Hitchens. He's got a whole ideology that's very much not mine and a set of interesting opinions and he believes them, and he truly argues them, and although they... Whether or not they're popular or unpopular is of no interest to hi

Sheila Heti joins Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher to speak about her latest novel, Pure Colour. A mythical and tender telling of the life of a woman named Mira, Pure Colour imagines our present day as taking place in the first stages of God's creation. The world as we know it is but God's first draft, and the complaints of human beings about its difficulties are being logged by him as input for his second. In this first draft world, people come in three categories: birds, fish, and bears. Mira is a bird — she relates to the world aesthetically and studies writing and criticism — while the woman that beguiles her, Annie, is a fish — a pragmatist who believes in justice for all of humanity. Mira's father, meanwhile, is a bear, devoted most to the people he loves. When he dies early in the novel, questions of how to reconcile these different positions, how and at what distance to love someone, and how much to let go of that love, take the fore, as do other deeply philosophical inquiries about time, the future, art, and the universe as we know it. Also, Francesco Pacifico, author of The Women I Love, drops by to give a glowing recommendation for Gertrude Stein's classic The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

PLUS: What are the unwritten rules of America? AND Sources say Kayne isn't letting go of Kim? Sure, Jan...

Das Paris der Zwanziger ist voller Frauen mit freiheitsliebendem Geist. Adrienne Monnier und Sylvia Beach bringen die avantgardistische Literatur unters Pariser Volk, Alice B. Toklas backt Hashish Fudge, Natalie Clifford Barney verdreht halb Paris den Kopf, Eileen Gray entwirft Art-Nouveau-Möbel und Bricktop muss den betrunkenen F. Scott Fitzgerald nach Hause fahren. Ein Streifzug durch das Paris der Zwanziger.

“La carretera ascendió a una colina y entramos en un bosque espeso. Seguía la cuesta. A veces descendía, pero volvía a empinarse de nuevo. Todo el tiempo se oían las esquilas del ganado. Por último la carretera ascendió a las cimas de los cerros, que era la parte más alta de la cadena de montañas que se veían desde Burguete. La fruta silvestre crecía en el lado del sol, en algunos ligeros claros entre los árboles”. Fragmento de “Fiesta”. La moderna literatura norteamericana nace en París en la casa de Gertrude Stein (1.874-1.946). Por su salón, decorado con cuadros famosos pasan los llamados que en la capital francesa quieren iniciarse en la creación literaria. La Stein era una mecenas caprichosa, con aspecto masculino, fuerte y esquiva. Era de nacionalidad estadounidense y era una mujer culta y muy rica. En su autobiografía nos dejó prueba concreta de cómo era aquella atmósfera bohemia y cómo surgió la . Si lo importante era su compañía, más aún era el matriarcado que su estilo implantaba, o sea una escritura directa, descarnada y sencilla a la vez y eso era lo que precisamente Hemingway necesitaba para pulir sus pretensiones juveniles barrocas. Alice B. Toklas, el amor de su vida, le dedicó un libro, “Autobiografía de Alice B. Toklas” de 1.933, y en él vemos una panorámica parisina, con Matisse, Braque, Picasso, Juan Gris, Max Jacob y Apollinaire, entre otros, así como los recién llegados desterrados americanos; es un testimonio insuperable de aquel momento de esplendor creativo. Ernest Hemingway (1.899-1.961) amaba vivir la violencia y poseía un carácter fuerte que sólo le permitía descubrirse a sí mismo en una extraña confrontación con la adversidad. Le gustaba plasmar momentos heroicos en sus novelas ; las guerras serían una de sus fuentes de inspiración y tal vez la metáfora de su propia lucha interior. Llevaba desde dentro la emoción de lo cotidiano y la mitificación de los pequeños sucesos; su vocación de periodista le hizo intentar transcribir el espectáculo de la realidad con el menor número posible de palabras, buscando así una intensidad expresiva que haría de él un maestro incomparable. Seguía así la línea de los grandes realistas americanos como, por ejemplo, Mark Twain, y Gertrude Stein sería decisiva en este proceso de decantación de su estilo. De su infancia en Chicago (había nacido en un barrio de esa ciudad, Oak Park) le quedaban unos extraños recuerdos familiares que perseguiría toda su vida: en su obra no hay un dilema amoroso sino una extraña confrontación del héroe con la acción, no hay tiempo de afectos en este mundo de , y hasta el último héroe, Santiago, el viejo que pescaba en solitario, es un ejemplo de como en Hemingway la vida es una ceremonia de intimidad: ésta es la lección del héroe de “Adiós alas armas”, Frederick Henry, o de Harry, el protagonista herido de “Las nieves del Kilimanjaro”; incluso Robert Jordan en “Por quién doblan las campanas”. Hay una lucha contra el destino, el héroe presenta heridas externas e internas, se sabe víctima de una extraña amenaza y busca una forma de superación que no siempre llega. Sus primeros cuentos ya marcan este ritmo. En “Nuestro tiempo” de 1.924, nos va a conmover por su anhelo implacable de veracidad, en un tono de patetismo inolvidable. Nick Adams es el centro de una serie de aventuras, que tienen un principio feliz y van hacia un final taciturno y triste. Le reconocemos sentado junto al . Vemos su incapacidad afectiva, su tendencia a dialogar con la naturaleza. Cuando nos entrega “Fiesta” de 1.926, ha alcanzado ya la plenitud de un estilo y nos encontramos ante un fascinante viaje que, desde París, concluye en Madrid, pasando por la Arcadia de Burguete y los momentos de fiesta de San Fermín. Hemingway sentía por España un enorme amor y ese ambiente bohemio y pseudointelectual que Lady Brett congrega a su alrededor, y esos satélites que son Jake Barnes, Robert Cohn o Bill Gorton no son sino el ejemplo claro de un mundo que ha perdido las ilusiones. El mismo narrador, Jake Barnes está castrado, y desea apasionadamente a Lady Brett, constituyendo un ejemplo claro de la impotencia entre deseo y acto que tanto gusta mostrar al autor. Hay una explosión de sensualidad del instante, casi religiosa, como comprobamos en el fragmento inicial que nos ha leído Antonio. Es preciso huir de Lady Brett y ese ámbito bucólico es cono una salvación. Los momentos de los sanfermines o las descripciones de Pamplona, son sencillamente magistrales. “Adiós a las armas”, publicada en 1.929, es una de las cumbres de la literatura universal. Ambientada en Italia y Suiza durante la I Guerra Mundial, está centrada en el amor de un oficial norteamericano, Frederick Henry, por una enfermera británica, Catherine Barclay. Ambos deciden huir juntos del absurdo de la guerra, escaparse a Suiza, refugiarse en las montañas. Cuando ya han llegado a Lausana ella muere como consecuencia de un parto difícil, Frederick queda solo y pensativo frente al cuerpo de su compañera: . La guerra queda brutalmente descrita, los combates de Caporetto componen un mosaico tan patético como el Sebastopol de Tolstoi en “Guerra y Paz”. No se puede alcanzar el paraíso. No es posible dejar la guerra y querer escapar con el amor. Estamos ante una novela donde el estilo alcanza sus más altas cotas. España aparecerá en “Por quién doblan las campanas”, del año 1.940, como categoría de protagonista, completándose así la visión que dió en ella en otras obras. El título es de un poema de John Donne, en el que simplemente nos advierte que no preguntemos por quién doblan las campanas, ya que en realidad están sonando por nosotros. Esta metáfora, iniciada con aquella frase nos remite a una pretensión de Hemingway por unir amor y muerte, dando así una visión de la guerra donde el amor es parte fundamental. Robert Jordan es un americano que está en España y se enamora de María; durante tres días, tiempo de la novela, va a vivir con intensidad el encuentro con unos valores de heroísmo que en él estaban ocultos. Su actitud ante la muerte es metafísica : , piensa el protagonista. África también fue fuente de inspiración de Hemingway que la frecuentó en sus safaris. “Las nieves del Kilimanjaro”, que apareció en la revista Esquire en 1.936, va a convertirse en uno de los relatos más bellos de toda su obra. Un escritor, Harry, está agonizando frente a la mole inmensa del Kilimanjaro. En su agonía, tras cientos de recuerdos que se hilvanan en su mente, va a soñar que asciende a las cumbres nevadas. Aparece el pasado, momentos dedicados a otros escritores, como la mención a Scott Fitzgerald, llena de compasión, instantes de soledad y amargura trenzados con la patética atmósfera de la muerte. Hay una magia mística en todo el relato: >. El tema de la caza, que se repetirá en “Las verdes colinas de África” de 1.936, se une con una búsqueda entrañable de eternidad. Se funden en la mente del escritor herido miles de recuerdos y en las páginas de la novela nos encontramos ante la ceremonia de conversión de lo cotidiano en lo mítico, y estas sensaciones sobre las que se debía haber escrito son el eje central de una nueva literatura que no se hizo. Harry está herido, como Frederick Henry o como Robert Jordan y esta incapacidad de respuesta nos llena de una amargura sin límites; es la apoteosis de la inacción, la necesidad de hacer un examen de conciencia, cierto que no en los tonos religiosos en que los hace James Joice, sino con una infinita nostalgia, una belleza del pasado casi redentora. Era preciso llegar a “El viejo y el mar”, publicada en 1.952, para poder comprender hasta qué punto Hemingway es un autor magistral. Si repasamos sus obras podremos ir advirtiendo que hay un proceso de individualización; por ello cuando llegamos a la historia de este viejo que pesca en el Caribe, no estamos sino ante una imagen que nos revierte lo mismo a Harry, como, por supuesto, a Nick Adams. Santiago es el símbolo del esfuerzo humano por subsistir, tiene tinte emersionanos en su conducta, se nos muestra como una figura casi religiosa. Leemos: >. Este arranque nos funde la “Biblia” en una alegoría robinsoniana de la lucha contra la soledad. Santiago vive errante en su sueño por subsistir y triunfar, es el héroe solitario por antonomasia, lo podemos aproximar incluso a Cristo y no alejarlo de aquella imagen del viejo marino de los poemas góticos del XIX. Hay en su conducta un amor indecible por la naturaleza, nos recuerda el de las “Florecillas” de San Francisco de Asís, posee una bella aureola de redención y sometimiento a la vez. Esta es su mayor enseñanza moral: . La ternura y la bondad de Hemingway por lo minúsculo, y hasta por lo indefenso, alcanza ahora una aureola de vibrante belleza. Lo que más asombra en este modo de narrar de Hemingway es su capacidad para extraer situaciones literarias de la vida cotidiana. Del mismo modo que Robert Jordan en “Por quién doblan las campanas” pasa de una situación bélica a una confrontación con su destino moral, Santiago en “El viejo y el mar” puede hacer un ejercicio consistente en convertirse en un auténtico apóstol de los oprimidos. Su mismo final, durmiendo y soñando con África, tiene el valor de un ritual de catarsis y casi nos parecería un cierre religioso si no tuviera ecos de “robinson Crusoe”. El lenguaje acepta estas normas y se constituye en expresión íntima de la subjetividad. También existe una ceremonia al ensalzar el oficio humilde: . Esta mirada de Santiago es la manera de extasiarse con el espectáculo sublime de la Creación; un hombre solo intenta con sus medios abrirse paso en la vida: he aquí unas bases que nacidas de Emerson se van adueñando del espíritu americano, que predica la doctrina del , y hacen de Santiago un ejemplo singular y fascinante de la lucha contra la adversidad. El final de “El viejo y el mar” tiene ecos de crítica social. Los turistas representan a los que no saben comprender la humildad aunque sean testigos impasibles de la destrucción de los humildes: . Esta descripción está marcada por la pérdida de lo deseado en Santiago. La obra concluye así: . Esta forma de concluir un texto nos muestra hasta qué punto su autor hace del sueño una evasión de la realidad. Hemingway también buscaba el objeto redentor; lo buscó en guerras y continentes sin encontrarlo. “El viejo y el mar” puede ser una metáfora de esa ardorosa necesidad de encontrar lo que más necesitamos y que los demás, la sociedad, nos arrebatan. No podemos dejar a Ernest Hemingway sin mencionar “París era una fiesta”, publicada, postumamente, en 1.964. Los años de artista adolescente como escritor en París, son recordados con una nostalgia realmente apasionante. Hemingway nos ofrece un cuadro donde intervienen Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald y tantos más; nos da la mejor descripción de aquellos años, cuando surge la llamada “generación pérdida”. Es además un bello documento sobre las dificultades de la creación, sobre el oficio de escritor, narrado con una humildad franciscana. Un bello libro que nos hace pensar en las mejores líneas de nuestro autor y un gran testamento espiritual. Hay una poesía especial en el texto además de estar ante una auténtica confesión y el nombre mágico de Miss Stein, acaba de aparecer junto a una sinfonía de colores y situaciones que componen de por sí una atmósfera inolvidable que Hemingway convierte casi en milagro. El estilo de “París era una fiesta” es prodigioso. En la obra nos encontramos ante la forja de un escritor; Gertrude Stein le está enseñando cómo alcanzar el estilo magistral, sencillo e intenso que él va a aprender. La ironía también es el mecanismo obvio del maestro, como se cita en un fragmento del libro: . Esta, digamos, prohibición, que tiene raíces muy americanas ya que la Stein quería componer ella misma su propia tradición, que ya se sugiere en “Tres vidas”, y así dejar al descubierto toda una temática nacional que incluiría obras como “El ascenso de Silas Laphan” de William Dean Howells, “Martin Eden” de Jack London o “La roja insignia del valor” de Stephen Crane. En esta obra la ironía se cierra sobre sí misma; es una novela de costumbres donde Paris y Hemingway son sus más íntimos protagonistas. La obra de Hemingway tal vez debe ser comprendida como una especie de romanticismo moderno, que aúna el sentido del honor, la acción, el amor, el escepticismo y la nostalgia como sus vectores principales. Sus relatos incorporan un nuevo tipo de realismo que, aunque tiene sus raíces en el cuento norteamericano del XIX, lo transforma hacia una cotidianidad dura y a la vez poética, que influiría enormemente en grandes narradores posteriores. Ernest Hemingway recibió el premio Nobel de literatura en 1.954. En la madrugada del 2 de Julio de 1.961, el autor se suicidó disparándose con una escopeta de caza. Tenía entonces sesenta y un años.

"What LSD clothes is he wearing?" I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! (1968) Directed by Hy Averback and starring Peter Sellers, Jo Van Fleet, Leigh Taylor-Young, Joyce Van Patten and Roy Glenn. Next Time: Strait-Jacket (1964)

"Even smiling makes my face ache." The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) directed by Jim Sharman and starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, Little Nell and Meat Loaf. Next Time: I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! (1968)

In Episode 77, Gen and Jette finally cover a topic they've had planned since Another Book on the Shelf was born—cookbooks! Do cookbooks count as books? Do they count as reading? What makes a great cookbook? We discuss these questions and talk about some of favourite cookbooks, as well as cover what is about cookbooks that we love so much. Show Notes: This conversation was a so much fun, so please add to it by letting us know your favourite cookbooks (or nostalgic recipes!). Our minds are working over cookbook ideas of our own, so let us know what novel you think deserves it's own cookbook. What bookish cookbook have you always wanted? Maybe we'll fulfill your dreams at some point in the future! Here's the flow chart for How to Measure Things Like a Canadian Jette's Cookbook Recommendations All the Milkbar cookbooks Better Homes and Gardens - The CookBook Gifts from the Kitchen Gen's Cookbook Recommendations How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson Sugar by Anna Olson Love & Lemons by Jeanine Donofrio Other Books Mentioned Milkbar Life by Christina Tosi The Jane Austen Cookbook by Deirdre LaFaye and Maggie Black How Baking Works by Paula Figoni The Total Me-Tox by Beth Behrs The Rural Diaries by Hiliarie Burton-Morgan (Listen to the episode:) Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver Next Episode: Wattpad Books New Release—Big Boned by Jo Watson Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook or email us at hello@anotherbookontheshelf.com. We'd love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

Jan Weissmiller has long been on the staff of Prairie Lights Books, where she is the poetry buyer and arranges poetry readings for the “Live from Prairie Lights” series. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, teaches at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, occasionally reviews poetry for the Boston Review, and was awarded the Loess Hills Poetry Award for her collection In Divided Light. Prairie Lights sprang to life in May 1978 as a small, intimate bookstore offering titles by the newer voices of Raymond Carver and Alice Munro and by established authors like Eudora Welty and George Orwell. As the staff and customers tended the books with care, the store grew and blossomed much like a garden. By 1982 Prairie Lights transplanted itself from South Linn St. to South Dubuque and has gradually spread to three and a half floors, the half being an 1100 square foot coffee house located in the same space that the local literary society met throughout the 1930s, hosting writers Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, e e cummings and others. Gertrude Stein and friend Alice B. Toklas were scheduled for a reading but were sleeted in at Waukesha airport-- or so the story goes. Perhaps the strength of reputation lies in the reading series of local, national and international writers who have read their works which were broadcast live on stations WSUI and WOI and which was the only regular literary series of its kind. All of this could not have been possible without a loyal customer base and a dedicated staff. Prairie LightsBrandon Taylor, author Brandon Taylor, booksElizabeth Weiss, The Sisters SweetJane Hartshorn, poet, episode 21 The Bookshop PodcastDeborah Eisenberg, Your Duck Is My Duck   Support the show

A Sydney institution, the Gertrude and Alice Bookstore & Coffeehouse has become part of the fabric of the surf-themed Bondi suburb where it is located. Named after Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas who were notoriously part of the Parisian artistic elite in the roaring 20s, the bookstore was also designed to be a salon itself where literary conversations flourish over good food, coffee and chai. Gertrude and Alice houses tens of thousands of new and used books and was rated as one of the top 10 bookstores in the world by National Geographic. Our guest today is owner Jane Turner who was born and bred in Bondi. Life took her to Fiji and then back to Bondi, where it was no coincidence she ended up opening Gertrude and Alice given her childhood fascination with books and working behind the counter. Jane is a strong pillar of the Bondi community, a community she credits for the success of Getrude & Alice - that and the good coffee. We chat to Jane today about her bookshop, being a bookseller and books that stay with you. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gotbooks/message

Í dag kemur út ný þýðing hjá Tunglinu forlagi sem heitir 30sti júní, 30sti júní eftir Richard Brautigan. Þetta er eins konar ferðasaga um Japan, þar sem tungumálaerfiðleikar og framandi menning framkalla einsemd og undrun. Bókin kom út árið 1978 og var síðasta ljóðabók Brautigans. Þórður Sævar Jónsson þýddi bókina og hann kemur og segir frá bókinni. Flökkusagan segir að hvar sem stungið er niður skóflu í Hljómskálagarðinum megi finna rusl vegna þess að lengi vel var í garðinum einn helsti ruslahaugur borgarinnar. Í dag er sorpið sem þar er grafið orðið afar sérstakt rusl sem mætti jafnvel skilgreina sem fornminjar. Árið 2020 gróf Ágústa Edwald Maxwell, fornleifafræðingur, lítin skurð í garðinum og skoðaði þessar minjar. Víðsjá tekur hana tali í dag um ruslið í Hljómskálagarðinum. Sumartónleikahátíðin í Skálholti hefst í kvöld og stendur til 11. júlí. Í Víðsjá í dag verður rætt við Ásbjörgu Jónsdóttur, annan tveggja listrænna stjórnenda hátíðarinnar, og Eygló Höskuldsdóttur tónskáld sem ásamt Hauki Tómassyni er annað tveggja staðartónskálda í Skálholti í ár. Og Gauti Kristmannsson verður á sínum stað með bókmenntagagnrýni í Víðsjá í dag. Hann las Ævisögu Alice B. Toklas eftir Gertrude Stein sem nýlega kom út í þýðingu Tinna Bjarkar Ómarsdóttur undir merkjum sígildra samtímaverka hjá Unu útgáfuhúsi. Umsjón með Víðsjá í dag: Tómas Ævar Ólafsson og Jóhannes Ólafsson

Í Víðsjá í dag verður hugað að nýrri en samt sígildri bók. Sjálfsævisaga Alice B. Toklas kom út í íslenskri þýðingu í síðustu viku í ritröð Unu útgáfuhúss Sígild samtímaverk. Bókin er sjálfsævisaga en samt eiginlega ekki sjálfsævisaga. Víðsjá fær til sín þýðanda verksins Tinnu Björk Ómarsdóttur til að útskýra hvað er á seyði. Umskiptingar hafa verið á flestra vörum undanfarið, allt frá því að sjónvarpsþættirnir Katla voru frumsýndir á streymisveitunni Netflix. Þættirnir glíma við þetta dularfulla þjóðsagnaminni, þegar huldufólk og álfar skipta út mannabörnum fyrir sín eigin afkvæmi. Víðsjá fær til sín Kristinn Schram, þjóðfræðing, til þess að segja betur frá umskiptingum. Og Arnljótur Sigurðsson verður einnig með tónlistarhornið Heyrandi nær á sínum stað á mánudegi. Arnljótur tekur fyrir döbbskáldið Linton Kwesi Johnson, hvers rödd verkaði jafnt á stéttir, hátt og lágt. Umsjón: Jóhannes Ólafsson og Tómas Ævar Ólafsson

#DiePodcastin mayröckert über die Liebe: Isabel Rohner & Regula Stämpfli zunächst zu Baerbock-Interview, halbwegs gelungenen Fernseh-Frauen-Prodution, der Schmerz der Unsichtbarkeit, Jolanda Spiess-Hegglin, ahistorische Livefetischismen der sog. jungen Feministinnen und endlich über Liebe: Friederike Mayröcker mit Ernst Jandl, Gertrude Stein mit Alice B. Toklas, Susan Sontag & Annie Leibovitz, Hedwig& Ernst Dohm, Simone de Beauvoir & Sartre (Streit), Michelle & Barack Obama ... bis es "stop" macht.Und dann ist es soweit: LaStämpfli und die Rohnerin sprechen über die Liebe. Liebe, die beflügelt, die unterstützt, die auf Respekt und Unabhängigkeit basiert. Und über Paare der Gegenwart und Vergangenheit: Michelle und Barack Obama, Hedwig Dohm und ihr Mann Ernst, Margrith Bigler-Eggenberger und Kurt Bigler, Rosa Bonheur und Natalie Micas, Anita Augspurg und Lida Gustava Heymann, Alice B. Toklas und Gertrude Stein, Erika Mann und Therese Giehse. Ja, und auch über Simone de Beauvoir und Jean-Paul Sartre, wobei die Meinungen auseinandergehen. Wo sich die beiden allerdings einig sind: Liebe und finanzielle Abhängigkeit gehen nicht zusammen.

Well it's really almost a cliché - Paris as a city of love. And a city of art. Indeed French capital has been a background for numerous love stories and romances also among great artists. In our 3rd episode we're confronting two inspiring art couples that were shining in Paris, especially in the first half of 20th century - meet Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas and Sophie Taeuber-Arp & Jean Arp. May love and avant-garde be with you!

Clitoris B. Toklas is a performer and producer residing in the tristate area who approaches her burlesque academically. She is one half of the producer team behind Bibliotheque Burlesque-- "Burlesque with a Reading List." ... recorded: August 27, 2019 ... topics: anatomy lesson, Alice B. Toklas' pot brownies, burlesque as an essayist, dramaturgy, sex work and fiber arts, mom jeans, editing, nerdlesque, Outlander, literary burlesque, co-producing, Jenga, Broadly Entertaining, acadamia, the youth of today, the adjunct shuffle ... shoutouts: Jo Boobs Weldon, Lillian Bustle, Rhoda Dendron, Jezebel Express, Teasy Roosevelt, Anja Keister, Rocco Chanel, Striker Posie, Clara Coquette, Spookey, Stella Nova, Moe Cheezmo, Petite Renard .... keep in touch: https://www.facebook.com/pg/mscltrsbtoklas/ • IG: @clitorisb • https://www.facebook.com/BibliothequeBurlesque ... give love to the pod at patreon.com/weburlesque and see capsule reviews of previous episodes at http://www.weburlesquepodcast.com ... intro/outro music: "On A 45" This Way to the Egress (http://www.thiswaytotheegress.com) ... used with permission ... download it at: https://www.amazon.com/This-Delicious-Cabaret-Explicit-Egress/dp/B005D1GROO ... interlude music: "Harpsichord Fugue" (Sir Cubworth) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ .. see us live: http://www.weburlesque.com/upcoming-shows ... follow us: @weburlesque @viktordevonne on instagram and twitter & talk to us: https://www.facebook.com/groups/157673948280099

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (written by her partner Gertrude Stein) recounts the couple's lives in early twentieth-century Paris among painters, writers, and composers—and, during the First World War, soldiers.

A heartfelt meditation on the (in)visibilty of gay women. Writer and theatremaker Stella Duffy describes growing up lesbian in New Zealand in the 60s and 70s and considers what the 40 year expatriate 'marriage' of novelist, poet and playwright Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas, author of The Alice B Toklas Cookbook, means to her. Part of Gay Britannia, a season of programming marking the 50th anniversary of The Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised homosexual acts that took place in private between two men over the age of 21.Writer: Stella Duffy Reader: Stella Duffy Producer: Simon Richardson.