Category Archives: On This Day

“Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing

Posted on April 14, 2026 by sheila

“As a writer, I am always trying to get past abstraction, the world of ideas, and putting actual objects in my writing — paintings, photographs — really helps with that. They’re beautiful tools with which to think.” — Olivia Laing … Continue reading →

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“It’s just one of the mysteries of filmmaking that sometimes you do something that you don’t even think it’s important, then it turns out to be.” — Lili Horvát

Posted on April 13, 2026 by sheila

Today is Hungarian director Lili Horvát’s birthday. The timing is fortuitous. I am overjoyed for the people of Hungary today, and also thinking of the theatre artistswho have been resisting within increasingly rigid and risky parameters. Back in November, during … Continue reading →

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“Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella

Posted on April 13, 2026 by sheila

Joan Acocella, longtime dance critic for The New Yorker, and regular contributor to the New York Review of Books died in 2024 at the age of 78, and I did not mark her passing. It’s her birthday today. Acocella brought … Continue reading →

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“I trust contrariness. I simply rebelled at being commanded.” — Seamus Heaney

Posted on April 13, 2026 by sheila

It’s his birthday today. For the winter issue of Liberties, I wrote about books, my father, and Seamus Heaney’s poem on Clonmacnoise. Every collection of Seamus Heaney’s work that I own, the poems, the essays, were given to me by … Continue reading →

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“I don’t think you go to a play to forget, or to a movie to be distracted. I think life generally is a distraction and that going to a movie is a way to get back, not go away.” — Tom Noonan

Posted on April 12, 2026 by sheila

It’s Tom Noonan’s birthday. He just died last year, a huge loss. Most well-known for playing supernatural-style “heavies” in movies such as Manhunter and Robocop 2, he got his start in the 1960s experimental theatre scene in New York City, … Continue reading →

Posted in Actors, Directors, Movies, On This Day, Theatre | Tagged , | 5 Comments

“If you don’t see the book you want on the shelves, write it.” — Beverly Cleary

Posted on April 12, 2026 by sheila

“I think children want to read about normal, everyday kids. That’s what I wanted to read about when I was growing up. I wanted to read about the sort of boys and girls that I knew in my neighborhood and … Continue reading →

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“For I am of the seed of the WELCH WOMAN and speak the truth from my heart.” — Christopher Smart

Posted on April 11, 2026 by sheila

“For in my nature I quested for beauty, but God, God hath sent me to sea for pearls.” — Christopher Smart, from “Jubilate Agno” Christopher Smart, born on this day in 1722, spent over 10 years of his life locked … Continue reading →

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“Those evils that inflame the imagination and make the heart sick, ought not to leave the head cool.” — William Hazlitt

Posted on April 10, 2026 by sheila

Self-portrait by William Hazlitt, who was born on this day in 1778. “We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves, and have neither thoughts nor feelings to impart to them. Give a man a topic in … Continue reading →

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“I prefer a national film to an international film.” — Jean-Paul Belmondo

Posted on April 9, 2026 by sheila

It’s his birthday today. I wrote about him on my Substack.     Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my … Continue reading →

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“Sometimes I can sing it when I can’t say it.” — Carl Perkins

Posted on April 9, 2026 by sheila

“The music was new, the kids were just eatin’ it up. They were claiming it as their own music. But I really think when the kids were comin’ to the sock hops and to the rock and roll shows, I … Continue reading →

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