On Friendship

I wish I had friends. I see all these people who are part of a real group of people to which they belong. I see people loving others and sharing with others knowing they'll be understood. I wish I had that. It costs me to say it because it sounds like I can't be on my own and need other people to be dependent on to live. I thought that in coming to Oxford I would have more of a chance to finally have this life, to stop feeling so alone even in a room full of people. First of all, I'm in an English-speaking country. You've probably noticed everything I'm interested in is in English - I can't help it. I wish it could be different, it'd be easier if I found things in French to be infinitely more interesting than things in English, but I don't. It's a coincidence and I wish it were different and easier but I can't help it. It's not my fault that most, almost all, of my favourite things happen to be in English. At "home" (but isn't home where the heart is?) nobody understands what drives me, what makes me feel alive. It's different here, even if I didn't meet anybody I'd consider a friend, everything is eerily familiar, because the culture is more mine than "home" is. I wish I could never leave this place.

So why can't my hopes come true? I had great expectations when coming here, as I said, and yet today I'm as lonely as ever and don't know whom to call to complain about homophobic people in my neighbourhood and dream of a world where pansexuality would be the norm.
Am I cynical? Maybe. I don't know exactly. Most of the people I meet seem to be content with very simple things which I personally find simplistic and therefore dangerous. Perhaps I over-analyze, perhaps I ask too much and give too little.
I am hugely interested in fandom but don't feel like I belong there either. A lot of the people I meet are huge Disney fans - I can't stand Disney. It's moralistic in the worst way, racist (Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Aristocats) conservative (mariage is still everybody's goal), misogynist (do I need to give you examples? Seriously?) and full of saccharine (boy meets girl, happily ever after, birds sing and dress women up for crying out loud). I don't like musicals - people seem to love them, it makes them happy. I find them cheesy and forced. I don't celebrate Christmas, I'm an agnostic becoming more and more of an atheist with every passing day and I don't understand how even irreligious people can think it's okay to have a special day of the year to show others you love them. I'd say "I love you" every day if I had anybody I felt that towards, not just one day a year. I don't like animés - the girls are weak or used for their sexual availability, the humour is not mine, the interesting themes not developed enough for me. I'm not sentimental. I don't see life as a constant search for the perfect couple. What would interest me, at best, would be friendships because people have things in common, not love stories although I'd argue that friendship is love. Babies do nothing to me, it's not because people or things are small that they are pretty. Innocence does nothing to me, people call innocence what should be called ignorance. I don't believe in essentialism, I've already said it here but conversations that start with "men are" and "women are" make me want to break something. Men are not, and women are not. Pre-constructed ideas of what women should be and men should be according to an arbitrary model are not a way to keep me interested. Same goes for "the (insert favourite nationality here) are". Determinism can be, and thank humanity for that, conterbalanced by free will. We all have a brain, use it. I can't be bothered with people who haven't even reached that stage of understanding.
Perhaps it makes me a cynic indeed, but I'd like to thing of myself as a realist. I don't sugar-coat and can't stand cowards who do.
I'm interested in philosophy, in questioning the "why" behind everything and finding foolproof concepts to live by (why no death penalty? "it's not human" is not foolproof, if you were serious about having a strong point of view you'd see that and try to find something else. Personally, I say that mistakes are human and if a judge sentences a person to death and after the death further evidence makes it clear that the person was innocent, there's no way to repair anything, whereas if the person is still alive, things can be done. Right now that's the point I've reached, I'd like to find even stronger arguments when DNA tests make it clear the accused is the culprit). I stick to them. At the same time, I'm desperately interested in fiction, in how ideas that I have or should have can work in stories that to me could be real. It gives me hope. My favourite works of fiction depict my utopia. Always.

So there you have it. I know some people think I'm cold because I question "the child in them", whatever that means. It just leaves me frustrated and heartbroken to see people my age or even older haven't bothered to do what I did, which is to move on and look for truth. But it's nothing compared to shallow people who love the same works I do but because the physical appearance of this actor gives them a model to project their fantasies on (fantasies that include Mills and Boon-like scenes, mariage and children). On the other hand you can't deny I'm extremely passionate about some things. More than anything I wish to find in friendship is understanding, I can't explain what seem to be the most basic things to me to my friends, they have to come with this baggage already. But they also have to be passionate about worthy works of fiction which gives them a way to look at life in the face. Is it too much to ask for humanists who are free and open and would dance with me to Glenn Miller, go take Charleston classes and regroup to swap excellent books we read and for marathons of Gilmore Girls which we would watch for Lorelai, Rory, Paris and Emily? Apparently it is. I've been looking for them for 21 years and I'm still looking.

I have no idea why I'm posting something so personal here. I should buy a diary. I'm glad to have the comments turned off in moments like these as I'm definitely not looking for any.

The title of this blog, as I explained when I opened it, is a direct reference to Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, one of my favourite novels. Here it is in its entirety:

But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.

Follows a very dull list of quotations that are so generic they couldn't be useful to anybody (which is the point). Catherine, despite everything, is the heroine of this book. I am personally in training for a heroine - always trying to be a better person, and this journal is my attempt to be just that, through works of fiction because I'm a great believer in the power of texts (be they books, movies, shows, music) to change lives. As you've probably noticed, they're changing mine everyday!

Happy Birthday!

In Training for a Heroine turns 1 today! I'm obviously still in training and looking forward to a new and exciting year. This blog has proven to be everything I imagined: a place for me to talk about things I'm passionate about in the way that suits me best. I have never ever seen it as work so let's hope I'll have as much fun with it as I do now. I wish I could expand it, buy a new layout and perhaps a domain. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, please help yourself to some coconut cake!

Background music: The Andrews Sisters

Sibylle

Out and About (?)

This is a depressing post. I'm in Oxford and I'm a student. That means I don't have a salary at the end of each month and that means I'm not too far from London but not that close either. I'm going to list all the things I'm missing out on this year either because of money or because I don't feel like going back to Oxford alone in the middle of the night after a show.

1) Chuck Berry in concert in Oxford (New Theatre). That's what hurts the most, because I don't even know when he's going to tour again. Money problem and I only found out recently so the seats that remain are pretty dreadful and I would probably be better off listening to The Chess Box in my room for I doubt I'll see much of him from row R seat 16...

♥

2) John Barrowman in La Cage aux Folles in London (Playhouse Theatre). I could have gone to a matinée and be back in Oxford early in the evening but it doesn't erase the fact that it's very expensive.

3) The Puppini Sisters in London (Pigalle Club). The show is incredibly cheap (£20) but it starts at 8pm and hotel rooms are so expensive in Piccadilly, I couldn't possibly pay for one so I'd have to go back to Oxford on my own in the middle of the night after the show.

4) The Rat Pack Live from Las Vegas in Oxford. It's a musical about Frank, Sammy and Dean with a real live band. Expensive. It's actually not that expensive compared to the others and it's in Oxford, reviews are very good, although some are mixed. Ultimately, though, I think I'll pass. I'd rather listen to Frank, Dean and Sammy, not people imitating them, even if most of the audience must go for the ambiance.

I can't believe I'm not a millionaire.

Sibylle

Sibylle: A Manifesto

I started this blog on November 18, 2008, almost a year ago. So far, I've let my tastes speak for me but I think perhaps it's time I come out into the open. You won't find any picture of me but I think self-definition is important.

I'm a humanist. I'll take Wikipedia's definition because it's the broadest, strangely enough: "Twenty-first century Humanism tends to strongly endorse human rights, including reproductive rights, gender equality, social justice, and the separation of church and state." I'm an agnostic atheist ("the view of those who do not claim to know of the existence of any deity, but do not believe in any.") I tell people I'm an agnostic so they leave me alone.

Therefore I'm a feminist. "Women are not born, they're made." Hence my argument about why we still need feminism today: because a toddler doesn't care if the toy is pink or blue, because dolls are for everybody and cars for everybody. Society imposes its vision of gender differences from cradle to grave. I'm against that. It all goes against self-determination, and this for me is everything. The right to be whomever you are. Since we're talking about feminism, I might as well add right now: for me, getting married is admitting that you need state recognition for your love. I don't need the state to recognize my love for anybody or recognize my right to live or do whatever with whomever. I don't need marriage. On a practical side, divorces are too expensive, and I believe people should stay together if they feel they want to, not because they have to. In short, I don't believe in marriage.
I don't believe in having children either. I can be passionate about a lot of things and people but becoming a mother is beyond me. I refuse this. It's slavery: work for no pay, and actually it's expensive. I don't want my life to revolve around one person, I don't need this sense of purpose. My purpose in life, as far as I'm concerned, is to be happy and be the person I am.
I believe in open relationships, in catching moments of happiness whenever, I believe in being open and true and honest.

The reason I love Harry Potter so much is because it gave me, as Time magazine puts it, "social, moral and political inspiration". You can change what you think isn't right. There's an alternative to doing nothing and stare at the world. Take action. And the reason why I love Hermione is because she's the perfect example of this: "Get all the education you can, but then, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen." (Lee Iacocca) Education is important because it gives you your weapons to be the change you want for the world. That's why I want to teach.

Sentimentality saddens me. It's terrible and yet so many people indulge in it. I avoid sentimentality at all costs. When I tell people I'm working on Jane Austen, I can see they think I'm on their side - the side of the people who think Jane Austen is sentimental, somebody who writes for women (oh dear), places marriage at the center of things (oh dear) and loves romantic things (oh dear). She's not any of these things. She's witty and would mock so many people's idea of her today. I don't read her for escapism, I read her before her writings are not neat, because Elizabeth fell in love with Darcy when she saw how grandiose Pemberley was, because Brandon fell for Marianne because he reminded her of his childhood sweetheart, because Tilney fell for Catherine because it was obvious she liked him. I love Jane because none of her marriages work. I love Jane because she laughs at people swooning over wet shirts, I love Jane because she's daring. I love Jane because she's funny. I love Jane because she's on the side of justice and because her wittiest characters always win. I love Jane because she would laugh at Twilight, and yet she's one of Stephenie Meyer's favourite writers (another one who hasn't read the same books I did, obviously). She would laugh at people relaxing on a Sunday night while watching a period drama. She hinted at things they don't pay attention to: people died from a cold, poverty was everywhere and could happen overnight, women were trapped and went from father to husband. I love Jane for all these reasons, not because I want to live in early 19th century (oh dear) and swoon each time I reread Pride and Prejudice because it's genteel.

I don't think anything was "better back then" or worse, "simpler". I love a lot of black and white movies (the idea of "classic" is disturbing, like there's the canon and then the rest, we can do better than that, come on) because the stories are great, not because they're glamorous. Love Crazy is the story of a couple having fun, The Shop Around the Corner is the story of two people who fall for each other because they really have things in common, mainly literature.

I don't think television is not as good as cinema. Television is just as good. Gilmore Girls for me is the story of women who are a lot like me, who reference works of fiction all the time because they know how much they influence their lives. It's the story of a woman who raised a daughter alone, of independent women who are exceptional because they are interesting for themselves, not because being paired up makes them interesting.

I'm passionate about good food. However, I don't like chocolate, coffee or most teas. Now that I'm at it, I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke and I don't do drugs. Chocolate, tea and alcohol taste awful. Coffee smells incredible but tastes awful. Cigarettes smell awful. I'm not into destroying myself, I love life. Good food is high on my list of priorities.

I think most of all I believe in wit. Because there are so many funny details in life to miss out on these moments of fun. I'm looking for laughter in almost everything I do. Laughter and honesty, even bluntness. Because "people who are shocked need to be shocked more often" (Mae West said that, hear hear). Wit is hard to achieve because it raises you above a situation and makes you an observer, even if you're involved. I believe witty people are the best because they're subversive in the best way.

And this is Sibylle in a nutshell! I don't believe in changing for anybody. I know who I am. No excuses, no apologies, no regrets (that's Brian Kinney in Queer as Folk) - to me that means one has to be the best person they can the first time around and then, I say, it's take it or leave it.

Sibylle

Thoughts on feminism

I haven't posted anything here in ages. I love this journal dearly and it saddens me that my life seems to be too busy these days for me to take the time to properly talk about something. Frankly, it hurts, and you should probably expect a new post very soon because I can't go on like this for very long.
I just want to type something today because I was reading The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter (really good read, my third book by her and she's impressive every time) when someone told me they hated her, "she's such a feminist". This had me wondering:

Why do we still need feminism today?

Because when you enter a toy shop to buy a gift for a newborn baby, they still ask you if it's for a boy or a girl.

Talk to you very soon!

I mean, I’d like to have a good illness, something different, impressive. Like,"Yeah, I’m not feeling so good, my leg is haunted."

You can always tell when I'm sick because I simply go back to basics: the Potter books, Gilmore Girls and Billie Holiday. I need my blankie. This year, I added Torchwood: Children of Earth to the mix. I thoroughly recommend this new season, it's more of a political thriller than anything else and the quality has been fantastic so far. I'm nursing a really bad cold and the worst part is that I can't touch the ice cream I've just bought. I hope I'll be back very soon! I was planning on trying a whole new marathon this summer: watch lots of films noirs and read books about the 20s. We'll see how this goes. In the meantime, I hope you're enjoying this summer more than I do. I for one can't wait for fall.

Life's short, talk fast!

Works that Changed my Life - Three

Works that Changed my Life

I Capture the Castle

Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

Cassandra: I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy.

Cassandra: When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it.

Cassandra: Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

Cassandra: He stood staring into the wood for a minute, then said: "What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?" He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly.

Tim Fywell - I Capture the Castle

Cassandra: I am never going to fall in love. Life is dangerous enough.

Cassandra: There's only the last page left to write on. I'll fill it with words of just one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love.

Oh Rhett, is That You?

1930s

You do all the household chores - and still look fresher every day, darling. What's your secret? A bowl of Kellogg's PEP vitamin cereal for breakfast, naturally.

1953

You don't need a knife, a bottle opener or even your husband to unscrew the cap of this bottle - just a little twist of the Alcoa HyTop Closure, made of pure aluminium, and that ketchup is ready to pour.

1961

When you can't wait for your dinner, give her a Kenwood Chef food mixer and let her have some fun preparing your favourite dish!

2009's take on the 50s:

Works that Changed my Life - Two

Works that Changed my Life

A Room With a View

E.M. Forster - A Room With a View

George Emerson: "He [Cecyl Vise] is the sort who are all right so long as they keep to things--books, pictures--but kill when they come to people. He daren't let a woman decide. He's the type who's kept Europe back for a thousand years. Every moment of his life he's forming you, telling you what's charming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man thinks womanly; and you, you of all women, listen to his voice instead of to your own. But I do love you surely in a better way than he does." He thought. "Yes--really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms. As you came through the wood I saw that nothing else mattered. I called. I wanted to live and have my chance of joy."

Youth enwrapped them; the song of Phaethon announced passion requited, love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious than this. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing down the snows of winter into the Mediterranean.

ITV - A Room With a View

George Emerson: The poor man.
Lucy Honeychurch: Yes.
George Emerson: Half an hour ago he was so full of life, and now he's dead. It's such a tremendous thing. That he's dead and we're... alive.

I think the best day's gotta be the next day. Life is... all what's next. It's like those billboards where, before the actual ad goes up, they put in big block letters "Watch this space".
The West Wing 4x13 The Long Goodbye

Works that Changed my Life - One

Works that Changed my Life

The Hours


Michael Cunningham - The Hours

We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep - it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there where our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything, for more.

Stephen Daldry - The Hours

Virginia Woolf: A woman's whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day her whole life.

Clarissa Vaughn: You don't have to go to the party, you don't have to go to the ceremony, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You can do as you like.
Richard Brown: But I still have to face the hours, don't I? I mean, the hours after the party, and the hours after that...

Virginia Woolf: You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard.

Laura Brown: It would be wonderful to say you regretted it. It would be easy. But what does it mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. There it is. No one's going to forgive me. It was death. I chose life.

Virginia Woolf: Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.

Philip Glass - The Hours


LISTEN HERE

I Believe I've Seen Hell and It's White, It's Snow White

>>>CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE MORE!<<<

At least we know whom I'm rooting for tomorrow!

The vacuity of this journal astounds me sometimes. I've just spent hours reading a blog (in French so I won't link it here) which is so complete, the articles are huge. The blogger goes at the bottom of things. She's obsessed (and I mean obsessed, when you post a video of yourself taking earth from the grave of a dead author to put in a bag and give to nearest and dearest when back home, you are clearly obsessed) with James Matthew Barrie, Peter Pan's father. She takes trips to Scotland to visit anything related to him, posts videos of her trips with extremely detailed accounts of each piece of paper or plaque she found there, posts pictures of rare letters she was offered, others she collected, writes pages and pages of reviews of movies and books in a poetic style, buys tons of books, etc. I wish I could do more than just report what everybody else is reporting. At the same time, I don't have an obsession like she does (I would love to, although it does sound insane at times), and I didn't create this journal to share anything rare or substantial. I created it so I would know, a few months from now, what was in my life at any given time. What inspired me, what made me feel alive.
I don't feel good. I have papers to write and little time for myself. These days, I wake up, have breakfast, do research for various papers, have lunch, do research for various papers, have a snack, do research for various papers, have dinner, do research for various papers and go to bed. I feel life's being drained out of me.

I haven't read or seen anything good in a while. I finished Consuming Passions by Judith Flanders, a history book that focuses on the development of leisure in victorian Britain. It sounds better than it is, really. It felt like the draft of a book more than a published one : it's fact, after fact, after fact, with lots of numbers and no explanation that stuck. I was very disappointed, especially since the author has written some other books I wanted to check out, most notably one about the victorian home. Now I'm not sure her other works are worth buying.
I also read The Blue Sword, a fantasy book written by Robin McKinley which won numerous awards and is highly praised in the fantasy fandom. Unfortunately, I didn't think it was earth-shattering. I understand why some people would consider it a comfort read but it had trouble keeping my attention. Little happens. The only positive aspect of this reading was that it made me think about the "chosen one" leitmotiv in fantasy books. It's almost a cliché, really. I kept thinking about it when it occurred to me that every book ever written seems to focus on somebody special. The very fact that this character was chosen, out of thousands, to be focused on, is also a leitmotiv, really. A Room With a View is the story of Lucy Honeychurch who is transformed, changed and eventually finds a passion in herself, a fire, she never knew existed. She is special. Nan in Tipping the Velvet, leads a very singular life, meets plenty of different people who change her for the best. She is special. I could go on and on. It's not just in fantasy.

My only source of happiness these past few days was the rediscovery of the 2005 miniseries North and South. I remember my exact feelings when I finished watching the 4 episodes for the first time three years ago. I envy every person (I don't know if there's any left) who has yet to discover this magnificent production. It's an adaptation from a book by Elizabeth Gaskell. In 1851, Margaret Hale (played absolutely brilliantly by Daniela Denby-Ashe, who doesn't get enough praise), whose father has decided to leave his church and go teach in the North of England, finds herself thrown into busy Milton, where cotton mills flourish and where everything is so different from her native South. That's where she meets John Thornton (played by Richard Armitage, who's got a cult following similar to the one Colin Firth has since the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice), a master in a mill. At first, they don't understand each other. Margaret is clearly, despite her upper-middle class upbringing, on the side of the workers whom she befriends, and can't justify Thornton's apparent harshness towards them.
I think everybody who's ever seen this miniseries agrees that it is one of the best. The script is flawless, the social commentary wonderful, the actors spectacular and the score composed by Martin Phipps (which has never been released on CD, what is wrong with the BBC?) gorgeous. I never saw a train station the same way again after watching this. It's a comfort miniseries for me. I read the novel not long after being blown away by the adaptation and I couldn't experience the same emotions: it's very very religious, something the adaptation toned down and even rebelled against. Margaret Hale is a strong heroine in the adaptation, way stronger than in the book. I suggest seeing the adaptation first - and I almost never do that.
It's been often compared to Pride and Prejudice. I can't see how that could be. One is a book, the other a miniseries, first of all. North and South is not a comedy of manners and does not mock sentimental clichés, it's got a social conscience and shows an evolving working class during a turning point for the whole of Britain. Both works deal with prejudice, of course, in more ways than one, and there's love in both, but that's about it for the similarities.
You can find a very good, detailed review here. An excellent website entirely dedicated to the miniseries (yes, it is popular and justly so) can be found here. It's got clips and goodies. I don't think any miniseries ever got quite a similar following and legion of fans. C19, of which I am a member, is a forum created after the BBC board for North and South crashed because of too many connections. Today, it's got 6,500 members.

I've got so much great music to share. Let's begin with Rachel Portman's score for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. It's always summer somewhere.

LISTEN HERE

Premio Dardos Award

I don't even know what to say. I'm completely shocked. Obscure Classics , an excellent (and I do mean excellent) blog about "classic movies" that don't get enough recognition (don't look for Casablanca there, for example, we're talking mostly pre-code and more often than not movies that haven't made it to DVD yet) has granted In Training for a Heroine a Premio Dardos award. My blog was created last November, it seems awfully soon and sudden. Thank you so much, Obscure Classics team, for this award. I wish I could award it to you back!

"Premio Dardos" means “prize darts” in Spanish.

The Dardos Award is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.

Rules

1. Accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person that has granted the award and a link to his/her blog.
2. Pass the award to another five blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgement, remembering to contact each of them to let them know they have been selected for this award.

It was hard to choose just five, there are so many good blogs out there. So here are the journals I am awarding this Premio Dardos to:

A Work in Progress : I wish I could write book reviews as detailed as Dani's ones. I really enjoy her personal pictures of book covers and to be read piles, something clearly missing from this journal because I don't own a working camera.
Geranium Cat's Bookshelf : Her reading habits are very eclectic and she knows a lot about children's literature so there's always something new to discover there for me. Very good reviews.
Geata Póeg na Déanainn : Very interesting posts about many different things, mostly to do with life in Cambridge, fantasy and science fiction and YA literature. She doesn't post often but each one of her entries is food for thought and I'm always looking forward to them. A blog with a real point of view.
Charlotte's Library : YA reviews and news. She knows a lot, and I do mean a lot about what's going on in teenage writing. I love this colourful blog.
This is my Secret : Author Kristin Cashore's blog. It's incredible. She has lots to say about publishing and writing (of course) but some posts that have nothing to do with that are so good and really hit home. Her "personal values" so far are mine (see the whole journal, but perhaps more specifically this post). It's rare and brave for a writer to be so right and have such a great view of the world.

And last, but not least, I wish I could give this award to:

AustenBlog : but I would feel as if I were a mouse standing in front of a whale waving a trophy in the air (they don't post awards they receive on their blog). I would like to give this Premio Dardos to this journal, because it's the only Austen blog so far that has reflected my opinion on practically everything Jane (practically because we don't always agree on the adaptations for example, I thought PP05 and NA07 were excellent, they don't). It's witty and informative.

Once again, thank you so much, Obscure Classics!

Kate Winslet wins 2 Golden Globes

YES !

This and That

Have you seen the lovely new commercial for the Miss Dior Chérie perfume, directed by Sofia Coppola ? I really love her movies and she doesn't disappoint here. The song is Moi je Joue by Brigitte Bardot, from when she was great (changed a lot since then, and for the worst).

Last, but not least, a hilarious quote from Gilmore Girls 5x11 Women of Questionable Morals, which I've just watched again :

KIRK: (runs into Luke's diner) My girlfriend's the whore! My girlfriend's the whore! (runs out)
LORELAI: Great, now I’m not even the town whore.

Not goodbye, more like a see you later

I'm taking an Internet break to focus on studying for my January midterms. Plus, I really need to stay away from the Internet for a while to try and fight the addiction. I leave you with the gorgeous/talented/funny/great Mary-Louise Parker. If you want to make me really happy, buy/borrow/steal/watch the miniseries Angels in America and then buy the DVD. And then spread the love. And build Tony Kushner a statue. And one for Emma Thompson. And one for Meryl Streep. And one for Al Pacino. And one for Mary-Louise. And one for Ben Shenkman. And one for Justin Kirk. And one for Jeffrey Wight. And one for Patrick Wilson.

♥

You can obviously watch Mary-Louise in Weeds (I need to catch up by the way, I'm so behind on everything) but also in Fried Green Tomatoes, which is also a good movie in itself, based on Fannie Flagg's book. Warning : you'll fall in love with Thomas Newman's score. Unfortunately, it's out of print. Now if you don't want to be as miserable as I am checking Amazon and eBay every day to see if you can find a copy at an affordable price, do NOT fall in love with the score.

"Janel Moloney just told me she would pay me $1,000 if I thanked my newborn son for making my boobs look so good in this dress." — Golden Globe acceptance speech (2004)

The "ridiculously talented" (MLP's words, could be mine) Janel Moloney (please please watch The West Wing)

Watch this space

Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls promo)

I have quite a few projects for this journal. Before long, I'll be posting my list of things I look forward to in 2009 in terms of books, music, tv and cinema. Before the end of the year, I'm also preparing a list of my favourite reads of 2008. I also want to do my top 10 of Gilmore Girls episodes, my top 10 of The West Wing episodes, my top 10 of Once and Again episodes, of Dead Like Me episodes, of American Dreams episodes and I'll also be talking about the jewel that is My So-Called life.
Watch out for a Louis Garrel post, prompted by Di's comment on my last entry. Also for a Noel Streatfeild (one of my favourite authors) post and many more posts to come about Jane Austen because I'm doing my Master's dissertation on her (to be specific, on Humour in Persuasion and Northanger Abbey) and this has proven to be the best part of this year - I'm enjoying it so much !
You'll be seeing a lot more pictures on this blog next year as I've finally decided to buy a new camera (brand recommendations are welcome). I also have a big project for next year - I want to go to the UK to study for a year, so I expect you'll be hearing about that too.

In the meantime, I think you should watch this video. It's Elena Vitrichenko's ribbon routine performed in Berlin in 1997 during the World Championships. She won the gold medal for that one and it is still a performance watched today by young gymnasts as it created the standard of ribbon routine. I'm not interested in sports at all, but I do love rythmic gymnastics and Elena is probably the most robbed gymnast ever. If it were up to me, I'd have given her the Olympic medal she wanted so much a long time ago. The music is One Man's Dream by Yanni.



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Let it Snow !

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) Gilmore Girls 1x08 Love and War and Snow

I went to the kitchen to take a dessert and there it was. Because it's finally snowing in Paris, I want to dedicate this journal to my favourite TV show, Gilmore Girls :

Lorelai: When I was five, I had a really bad ear infection and I had been home in bed for a week and I was very sad. So I wished really hard that something wonderful would happen to me. And I woke up the next morning and it had snowed. And I was sure that some fairy godmother had done it just for me. It was my little present.

Gilmore Girls, 1x08 Love and War and Snow

♥

"You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty"

I was lucky enough to discover an uncommon woman this year, one of those who inspire and whom you try to emulate. Jessica Mitford was born in 1917 in a famous family which was front-page news for years. The Mitfords, conversatives, embraced fascism with a passion equal to the one Decca had for communism. Despite her lack of education (her father thought it was a waste of money to send girls to school, something which Jessica would regret all her life), she was a writer and a journalist who created investigative journalism (long months of research to write about a complex subject as opposed to traditional journalism that focuses on the events of the day). Her book The American Way of Death remains today a major reference : she targets the funeral industry she accuses of taking advantage of its customers' grief to make profit. At the exact moment Jessica realises there might exist something other than fascism, she runs away from her parents' house and from the easy life that waited for her (she will never see her father again, a man whose portrait can be found in The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, with the character of the horrible Uncle Matthew) and flies to Spain where republicans try to oppose Franco's regime. There, she meets one of her cousins, Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill's nephew (who doesn't want to hear from him again) who had joined republican forces and of whom she has read leftist newspapers he secretly gave away at Oxford. They get married and move to the USA where Jessica manages to find jobs when in her native country, her scandalous gesture is front-page news. She takes advantage of her free time to read and discover the USA - this period of exploration will allow her to have a glimpse of the issues that plague the country. When Esmond dies at war (he had enrolled in the Canadian forces and his planed crashed above Germany), Jessica breaks down (it will take her months to accept his death, and her autobiography stops just before the accident because, as she explains in her letters, she couldn't bear to write it down - Churchill in person will come and tell her).
However, the one who had seen nothing of the world becomes an autodidact - she takes up the torch Esmond left and participates in numerous marches in favour of African-Americans' civil rights, she organizes fundraising events to help the most underprivileged, physically opposes the Ku Klux Klan (she will be kept a whole night inside a church with several activists waiting for the police to dispatch the member of the KKK, an episode she relates but very briefly in her letters), all in all, goes in the streets to express her disappointment and works with her new husband, Robert Treuhaft, a lawyer, to defend African-Americans accused of all sorts of crimes, abandoned by justice (in her letters she explains that this is where the real work could be done on the field - in his notes, Peter Sussman explains that Robert and Jessica were in fact the only hope for some defendants, they went where even charities didn't go anymore, defending to the last difficult cases).

Jessica and Esmond Romilly at one of their jobs in the USA, in the Roma Bar of Miami (1939)

At the beginning of the 50s, they become members of the Communist Party (Jessica explains that there was then no other alternative because Democrats didn't do anything on the field, she preferred small structures and the Party gave her money she couldn't find elsewhere for her projects). She is then the target of McCarthyism in 1953 but her humour barely saves her. In 1958, Robert and Jessica leave the Communist Party as they have the feeling that they could accomplish more without its contraints. She spends the rest of her life fighting for inequalities : on the field but also in writing, she published books and newspaper articles targeting rich people like her sister Nancy who talk about a better world without lifting a finger to make it happen (by the way Nancy sounds very cold in all Jessica's answers to her letters). She doesn't speak to her sister Unity (though she was her favourite) when they separate, each at her end of the political spectrum, and the same goes for Diana who marries the leader of the British Fascist Party.

A few months ago, I read her autobiography Hons and Rebels, and her letters gathered and marvellously edited by Peter Y. Sussman the journalist. In a digital era, it seems difficult to believe that people would have the patience and the thirst for knowledge it takes to appreciate each of the 768 pages this collection of letters contains, and yet... Engrossing from cover to cover, it is a mandatory book for anyone interested in this exceptional life. Jessica appears as a generous and tremendously funny woman and everything from gossip on the many celebrities she meets (because she belongs to the Mitford family but she also meets more commendable, like activists and feminists, but also political men) to the developped narrative of how she occupies her days inspire and makes her, by the end, a familiar face.

In Jo Rowling's words :

"My most influential writer, without a doubt, is Jessica Mitford. When my great-aunt gave me Hons and Rebels when I was 14, she instantly became my heroine. She ran away from home to fight in the Spanish Civil War, taking with her a camera that she had charged to her father's account. I wished I'd had the nerve to do something like that. I love the way she never outgrew some of her adolescent traits, remaining true to her politics – she was a self-taught socialist – throughout her life. I think I've read everything she wrote. I even called my daughter [Jessica Rowling Arantes] after her."