Love obsessions—this one is cute! I was waiting to hear what was your favorite entry and what that meant to you at the time…At that age in a small town Mexico I was obsessed to find out how babies were conceived—until a tailor got tired of me (and my brother) asking around for days and said—fucking, kid, just like dogs!
Last, have you read Word Exchange by Alena Graedon? It’s about saving an encyclopedia. Yet, if yours turned into a novel, I’d probably be more compelling!
Funny, I think many of us are eternally drawn to these—actors, leaders, wars, countries. I have to keep a tap on myself when browsing through history books. Two (ok three) women I find intriguing for different reasons (that probably everyone knows but I didn’t) are Josephine Baker, American French actress who helped with WW II (1906-1975), Julie d’Aubigny 1674-1707), opera singer who loved fencing and dueling men (and dressed as a man), and Camille Montfort (1868-1896), also an opera singer living for a while in Brazil dubbed the Amazonian Vampire and was stunningly beautiful, incredibly selfish, and probably bored!
Ugh, my Puerto Rican childhood. My Nuyoriqueñan shortcomings. Too Latina to fit into one social construct, and too gringa when we got to Salinas. You had that encyclopedia, I had the big, brown Merriam-Webster, that was half my size, and whose crisp, onion-skin pages turned for hours at a stretch while my parents argued in Spanish in the background.
Love obsessions—this one is cute! I was waiting to hear what was your favorite entry and what that meant to you at the time…At that age in a small town Mexico I was obsessed to find out how babies were conceived—until a tailor got tired of me (and my brother) asking around for days and said—fucking, kid, just like dogs!
Last, have you read Word Exchange by Alena Graedon? It’s about saving an encyclopedia. Yet, if yours turned into a novel, I’d probably be more compelling!
didnt want to go on... but i loved the entries on famous actors and leaders, on wars, all the country sections (which is ironic).
never read the Graedon. thank you, now its on my list!
Funny, I think many of us are eternally drawn to these—actors, leaders, wars, countries. I have to keep a tap on myself when browsing through history books. Two (ok three) women I find intriguing for different reasons (that probably everyone knows but I didn’t) are Josephine Baker, American French actress who helped with WW II (1906-1975), Julie d’Aubigny 1674-1707), opera singer who loved fencing and dueling men (and dressed as a man), and Camille Montfort (1868-1896), also an opera singer living for a while in Brazil dubbed the Amazonian Vampire and was stunningly beautiful, incredibly selfish, and probably bored!
Ah, childhood. We lived so intensely!
Soooo... You just got them from eBay... Did the entries live up to your hopes?
no, i just found them, i got way too many books as it is lolol.
Haha ok your self control is impressive!
Quite the insightful friend! Wild how we so often think in metaphors and symbols without being conscious of it.
I loved this! Thank you.
Beautiful. ❤️❤️
Ugh, my Puerto Rican childhood. My Nuyoriqueñan shortcomings. Too Latina to fit into one social construct, and too gringa when we got to Salinas. You had that encyclopedia, I had the big, brown Merriam-Webster, that was half my size, and whose crisp, onion-skin pages turned for hours at a stretch while my parents argued in Spanish in the background.
As someone who was born and raised in Syracuse, it's always surprising to me seeing it referenced in print.