tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215512513130458852009-12-16T11:28:27.591ZMary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-10166615840631273532009-12-16T11:19:00.008Z2009-12-16T11:28:27.599Z

Limits of Control, Jim Jarmusch’s film about art and life and what we can and cannot control, perhaps about how we know what we think we know is running at the theater next to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the glass towers of books that go on and on and on—that Sebold writes about in Austerlitz—and that you cannot enter unless you know the code: how I think about the doors, the maze one

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-40758228297744781622009-12-15T11:06:00.006Z2009-12-15T11:29:33.273Z

Have you ever seen an American movie with French subtitles? Jim Jarmusch has a new film Limits of Control that I'm going to see today. Check out the preview: http://www.mk2.com/filmscinema-5257-thelimitsofcontrol.html Click on the camera.Will seeing a movie in the language I speak with subtitles in the language of the country where I am be like discovering the unconscious? I am full of questions

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-17915512378800542002009-12-14T11:23:00.007Z2009-12-14T11:32:05.601Z

Can't believe it: 125 square feet, small French appliances with minds of their own, window on the courtyard: all at 7 Rue des Francs Bourgeois. Peace and quiet surrounded by the hubbub of Paris, beautiful stores with treasures I ogle. Want to write in my little attic room but Paris, irresistible.

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-78279388218835792742009-12-11T13:57:00.003Z2009-12-11T14:05:50.406Z

Dear Readers,I am off to the city of lights. Perhaps reread "Light" while I am away... I'm going to do that. I will post notes to keep you informed about sights and moments, then write a new entry on my return. My thanks to all my readers and especially to my commenters. I am in your debt: readership has grown. On the deeply personal side, I say, Let the Rom-Com roll. --Mary

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-29781154248124856112009-04-04T19:24:00.037Z2009-12-08T14:58:20.238Z

Michelle Obama wows Paris, arrives on a Friday, kisses Sarkozy while Barack tries to figure out the ‘bise’ with both Carlo Bruni and a young girl in a crowd. He demurs I read in Britain’s The Daily Mail, “Mr. Obama … apparently pointed out that his wife, Michelle, was watching." Finally Sarkozy persuades him to allow himself to receive the traditional French greeting.And aren’t we all wondering

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-66717817987001978522008-10-23T19:58:00.006Z2009-12-08T14:55:53.242Z

I have slept for a month, metaphorically, in that I’ve not written. Before I began this story that I am unfolding “live,” I’d slept for three years: When husband D. left me, the writing stopped.This month while I slept, two more d.’s pursued: the crazy psychiatrist and the CEO. One scared me with his silent and then spoken presence; the other wrote of death, the death of the woman he has loved

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-29839014627169951942008-08-25T18:56:00.005Z2009-12-08T14:54:13.186Z

I was sixty years old when my husband dumped me—old story, I know. But wait, as the commercials for fancy French Fry cutters say.I begin: August 25: my parent’s anniversary. They were married fifty-four years. Can you believe it? This morning An AP report in the New York Times, dateline: Chamonix, France (Isn’t that where Cary meets Audrey in Charade’s first scene? “Can’t he do something

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-37753953410925995002009-12-06T20:13:00.004Z2009-12-07T15:46:21.060Z

I am about to travel to Paris. And before I embark, I contemplate the journey at stake.In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, published in 1899, Chopin’s main character says, “I would give up the unessential; I would give my money. I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself, I can’t make it any clearer; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-86345961524096071172009-11-19T22:41:00.005Z2009-11-19T22:51:23.801Z

I am stuck on romantic comedies: good ones, middling ones, the watch-me-over-and-over again ones: Runaway Bride is like a children’s book for me. Remember when you were a kid and your mother or father read you a story before you went to bed and you said, “Read it again”? It’s that way for me with Runaway Bride.It was that way for me with The Runaway Bunny, the Margaret Wise Brown classic—but not

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-5943097400520995532009-10-27T15:51:00.010Z2009-10-27T16:22:59.551Z

Last week I reminded D. about Canada and he answered, Clive Owen. One of Owen’s movies we both love is entitled Duplicity. No one is who they seem to be.When we were together we often spoke in code to one another. For days on end we couldn’t remember the name of the actress in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, a movie we both love because no one is who they seem. We’d come up with Lee Remick when

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-59267240132963780542009-10-08T22:39:00.004Z2009-10-09T01:29:31.917Z

After seeing the movie Paris with D. last Saturday, we go to sit on his balcony and drink good red wine that I cannot name though I would like to say it was French, suspect it was Spanish—we are a little drunk. His apartment is near the Verizon Center and the Capitals are playing. We are so close that we can hear the blare of horns. When he checks the scores, we learn that the Caps are beating

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-48408672458133460682009-09-29T13:46:00.019Z2009-10-01T02:13:43.787Z

I am reading in The Washington Post a movie review of Paris. Ann Hornaday says, “Cédric Klapisch’s intoxicating portrait of a city that, despite (or more likely, because of) being in a state of constant flux, retains timeless energy and allure.”I have not seen the movie that is playing at E Street but I plan to go instead of going to Paris. It is hard to go to the city of love without love. I had

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-46248842007058247012009-08-18T21:08:00.021Z2009-09-20T23:36:10.538Z

The chase begins in earnest, on my part anyway, with another widower, an aerospace engineer, who some eight months before lost his wife to lung cancer (quick and pernicious and I don’t think she smoked).I believe in rescue. I mistyped that at first and wrote rescure, saw the word cure inside and wondered how crazy or crazed I am. I know we must rescue ourselves. You don’t have to tell me that.

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-23586557971347623232009-09-19T20:36:00.004Z2009-09-20T23:22:06.972Z

D. makes me think about baseball. In particular about Albert Pujols.“Pujols … really does take 'em one game at a time, one at-bat at a time, one pitch at a time… . Questions are beside the point. Talk is beside the point. The point for Albert Pujols is to hit the ball hard. Everything else is just noise.“This doesn’t make him especially fun to approach after a game, even a two-home run game. But

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-72771651319396041342009-09-06T19:27:00.009Z2009-09-06T23:12:25.269Z

In August the Obamas went for a week’s vacation in Martha’s Vineyard: Ten-year-old Malia’s head already sprouts almost above her father’s shoulder—she is tall and willowy, feminine like her mother, lithe like her father. Gorgeous Michelle follows behind the two with her arm around Sasha: all the “girls” wearing shades as Barack waves from the tarmack at the camera.He does not wave as he boards

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-68385213573874246412009-08-05T23:06:00.016Z2009-08-06T13:42:17.831Z

“So Who Owns Chrysler Now?” Time Magazine in January asked. Fiat owns Chrysler—or at least 35 percent of it when that article was published— with an option to raise its share to 55 percent. Detroit rethinks. The merger of Chrysler and Fiat occurs in June, the bridal month. Mary rethinks: An Italian owns the Plymouth?In the Grimm Brothers’ story, “The Wedding and the Fox,” the brothers include two

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-14053454488115963092009-07-27T20:08:00.010Z2009-07-27T21:13:54.476Z

P.S. I Love You is a 2007 film with Gerard Butler and Hillary Swank, two actors I adore in a Rom-Com that is not worth analyzing, that I don’t own, but that gave me pause. Sure Gerard Butler (now in The Ugly Truth: great title) stopped my heart but then so did Jeffrey Dean Morgan who closes the deal in the film. P.S. I Love You relies on the death of the character Butler so effectively plays with

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-67309542429248084132009-07-25T18:14:00.017Z2009-07-26T00:50:35.753Z

Read any love stories in the news lately? Except for Michelle and Barack?I love romantic comedies: weep over them, quote their dialogue without attribution in conversation as when I am with a man who says he wants to be friends with me, “You actually believe that men and women can be friends?” (When Harry Met Sally: Harry: “What I’m saying is—and this is not a come-on in any way, shape, or

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-35387836221610836862009-07-22T21:10:00.011Z2009-07-25T13:06:07.903Z

Judge Sotomayor is about to be confirmed to the Supreme Court, but I am more interested in her love life. She lives alone now. The New York Times tells me that some time ago, after her divorce (she married young), she “had fallen in love with the dapper and gray-bearded Peter White, a building contractor and that by 1998, they were engaged and living together, though they put off a wedding until

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-25160614981057022462009-07-18T15:27:00.004Z2009-07-23T12:57:21.672Z

My husband used to play the console piano we owned only for me—never for anyone else. Before he left me, he bought a $17,000 black baby grand and placed this Kawai in the front parlor of our old Victorian brownstone before we sold it.This piano now graces his condo where he lives alone.I had wanted to buy him a new piano for the last decade: a gift for his birthday. With his perfect pitch and

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-83866853050024169342009-07-11T21:04:00.007Z2009-07-12T14:35:01.684Z

Jenny Sanford, wife of the governor of South Carolina, was quoted in my favorite rag The New York Times, as she ended one foray with reporters obsessed with her husband’s admitted affair with an Argentine woman, “I wish we had room on the boat for all of you, but we do not.” She is about to go on a trip, in the middle of the sea, to, presumably, get away from the media storm.She appears to know

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-6222573955528193582009-05-22T21:12:00.011Z2009-07-09T20:10:49.228Z

The New York Times reported on July 16, 2007, on the front page that Japan is attempting to move to jury trials, but the jurors in a mock trial were reluctant to express their opinions. “They never engaged one another in discussion. Their opinions had to be extracted by the judges and were often hedged by the Japanese language’s rich ambiguity.” On the jump, I read: “Under the proposed system,

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-72986492718702221932009-04-25T17:59:00.013Z2009-07-09T16:26:37.596Z

I have a note on the poem quoting my professor Andrew Bongiorno (1900-98) at Oberlin: “cynical poem although jaunty and vigorous” (or perhaps this is my note as it is not in red pencil, the color I used during class, but I don’t speak this way. Therefore it must be Bongiorno.). Bongiorno, I learned long after I worshipped him, had begun teaching without the PhD he later earned. He would never be

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-40995123559002762392009-04-19T16:11:00.017Z2009-07-08T15:31:09.681Z

I weep when famous people die: I cried when Audrey Hepburn died and bought stamps and pictures. I cried when Princess Di died and taped and watched the funeral and all the gory tabloid details. I’m a staunch Democrat and I cried when Ronald Reagan died and watched every second of his funeral. I’m Jewish and I wept when John Paul the II died, and followed not only the funeral but watched TV

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-921551251313045885.post-44549483734853661372009-04-15T20:44:00.014Z2009-07-08T15:12:00.867Z

The prince and princess in the white house have a Portuguese Water dog. The Washington Post tells us that the dog’s name is Bo because Sasha and Malia’s cousins have a cat named Bo and because Mrs. Obama’s father was nicknamed Diddley, as in Bo Diddley. The dog is a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy, who owns three dogs of the same breed, known for high spirits and said to be a good fit for kids with

Mary L. Taborhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03658421279546763972noreply@blogger.com3