Is it a Blog...

Hi again! Sorry about the hiatus in posting to the blog. I stopped because I thought no one was reading it and wasn't sure I should continue. But I was pleasantly surprised at last night's meeting disussing "My Love Affair with Modern Art" that several of you ARE reading the blog and noticed I hadn't been posting!

So, I will start again (I did miss doing it) and hope that if and when you log on you will leave a comment or just a note that you looked.

I enjoyed our discussion last night about what the definition of art is - and is it 'art' if no one sees or hears it? Hence, the title of the blog entry. I will use this book as a jumping off point to learn more about modern art, but right now I'm focused on finding - somehow in my piles of books I managed to lose my copy - "Shakespeare & Company" for next month's meeting. I ordered another (used) copy from Amazon, just in case the original never turns up.

So, thanks for reading the blog. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Beth

Fashion is Forever

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06345/745153-84.stm
http://www.thebudgetfashionista.com/tags/tag/political+fashion

Here are just a couple of the web sites I found when I entered "political fashion" into my search engine. While it may may no longer be a matter of life and death - style still matters!

Fashion Links

Here's the first item I found regarding dress & fashion relating to Marie Antoinette. I'll look for more, but this one provides at lot of detail that I think will supplement the information in the book.

Queen of Fashion

This weekend I started reading Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. It only took a couple of pages for this book to draw me in! It's marvellously well-written and I am enthralled with Marie Antoinette and the life of the French court of Louis XV and XVI. While we talk about making "a fashion statement," today - it's clear that modern American fashion decisions are not a matter of life and death! We may imitate Michelle Obama's sweater sets and boost the bottom line for J. Crew, but first-lady fashion in the Bourbon Court was another slice of cake altogether (sorry, I couldn't resist!).

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I am. I'm going to get on the web & see if I can find additional information and will post links with my next post.

2010 List Updates

www.booksonthenightstand.com

There are a couple of changes to the 2010 reading list. I added a second novel and replaced another book. The list on the blog is now up to date. The link above is for the web site of Books on the Night Stand. I have been listening to their excellent podcasts and recently e-mailed them and got a lovely e-mail in response. It's possible they will mention our book club on next week's podcast! If you download podcasts you might find their web site and check it out or use iTunes. Other podcasts that I listen to are the NEA's "Big Read" podcasts, which feature short and very informative and lively presentations about classics like Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms; the New York Times Book Review; and the Washington Post Book Review. There are others out there...but these are my favorites! Also, there is now a link on this blog to the Cultural Arts Center's Facebook page. Under the "We Read" section you can find our 2009 and 2010 booklists in the My Bookshelf area.

The Studio

I started reading The Studio this week and it IS a quick read. It's a good summer book. Dunne is a good writer and I am enjoying his descriptions of meetings and characterizations of people. The movies date the book - definitely 60s - and reading about those old movies is fun and almost like reading a gossip column! Definitely light reading but gives a good sense of the business side of creating art and entertainment.

John Gregory Dunne

At last night's meeting there was some discussion about the author of our June book, The Studio - John Gregory Dunne. Here is a link to an obituary for Dunne, who died in 2004. He was married to the author Joan Didion, who wrote The Year of Magical Thinking about the death of Dunne and their daughter within a short span of time. His brother is Dominick Dunne.