I don’t know, it just really annoys me.
Blogelstein!
I'm Jean Hannah Edelstein, a writer, editor, and author, originally from New York, now a Londoner.
This is my personal blog, with things that I'm reading, writing, liking, and thinking about.
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Read my fiction and essays
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Read Himglish and Femalese
(the book I wrote)
I'm Jean Hannah Edelstein, a writer, editor, and author, originally from New York, now a Londoner.
This is my personal blog, with things that I'm reading, writing, liking, and thinking about.
About me
Email me
Follow me on Twitter
View my journalism portfolio
Read my fiction and essays
Discuss copywriting projects
See what I'm currently reading
Read Himglish and Femalese
(the book I wrote)
On when people call something to read ‘a read’
“Amanda tried writing a card or something. She wrote that she and her fiancé had decided not to marry. Then she wrote that her fiancé had decided not to marry her. She said that she was sorry for any inconvenience. She added that she would appreciate gifts anyway.”
—
Allegra Goodman: “La Vita Nuova” : The New Yorker
Hits the ‘Lorrie Moore’ side of spurned-romance writing.
(via looceefir)
‘In American politics, women’s bodies are not bodies, but parts. People like to talk about some parts more than others. Embryos and fetuses are the most charged subject in American political discourse. Saying the word “cervix” was the beginning of Rick Perry’s end. In politics, breasts are easier to talk about. I first understood this a few years ago, when I was offered, at an otherwise very ordinary restaurant, a cupcake frosted to look like a breast, with a nipple made of piped pink icing. It was called a “breast-cancer cupcake,” and proceeds went to the Race for the Cure.’
- In today’s Daily Comment, Jill Lepore writes about the announcement on Tuesday that Susan G. Komen for the Cure will no longer support Planned Parenthood: http://nyr.kr/xsaoeS
On my best (greatest) skirt
Today I am wearing my best skirt! When I say ‘best’, I don’t mean in the Sunday kind of way, but rather the greatest sort of best. This skirt is the greatest because I bought it seven years ago with some of the first money I ever earned from doing writing.
The money was paid to me by a couple of dodgy publishers (they were an actual couple, married, and also dodgy publishers) who employed me, via a small ad in the back of The Bookseller, to ghostwrite a book about hair colour. It was by a hair colourist who the couple declared to be a ‘celebrity hair colourist’, but whose most famous client seemed to be the woman who I was working for.
On winking
It’s a Tuesday night, so Brie and I are eating pho and discussing romance: in particular, my aversion to online dating.
You know, says Brie. You don’t have to meet men through online dating. You could go crazy and meet them in real life.
I could, I say. It’s true. I could! But I can’t wink. And I think that winking is a very helpful way of communicating interest in the real world. Otherwise, so often things never seem to progress beyond slightly over-long eye contact.
Really? says Brie.
She seems unsure.
Yes, I say. It has long been a great sadness that I can’t really wink. Maybe if I wore an eye patch.
I cover one eye with a hand and demonstrate.
Yes, says Brie. Because an eye patch is always appealing.
OK, I say. Maybe not an eye patch. How about this? I will wink at you and you will tell me whether it is something I could ever do to a man who I fancy. Or if it just looks scary.
We have just entered a sitcom, says Brie. OK. Go.
I wink once.
That’s fine, says Brie.
I wink again.
Hm, says Brie.
I wink a third time.
Oh my GOD, Brie says, recoiling to the other end of the sofa. Don’t do that again! I think three winks is too many! I have overdosed on winks!
Do you think I screw up my face too much? I say. I think winking only works if you can do it being fairly deadpan. The most effective wink I ever received was from a mostly deadpan face.
I think, says Brie, that maybe you should talk to someone first, before you wink at him.
Really? I say. Talk first? But this is England.
Yes, says Brie. I think winking is the second base of talking.
Dreams of space in Russian playgrounds, via a new exhibition in the Glaz Gallery, Moscow
“The technology I like is the American paperback edition of Freedom. I can spill water on it and it would still work! So it’s pretty good technology. And what’s more, it will work great 10 years from now. So no wonder the capitalists hate it. It’s a bad business model,” said Franzen, who famously cuts off all connection to the internet when he is writing.
“I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change.
“Will there still be readers 50 years from now who feel that way? Who have that hunger for something permanent and unalterable? I don’t have a crystal ball.
“But I do fear that it’s going to be very hard to make the world work if there’s no permanence like that. That kind of radical contingency is not compatible with a system of justice or responsible self-government.”
—
(via)
Dear Jonathan Franzen: I’m not that in to ebooks either. I own neither a Kindle nor an iPad and neither is on my to-buy list). I like to sniff at the glue of a paperback as much as the next person.
But you went wrong when you claimed that physical books were the domain of ‘serious readers’. And because of this, I’ll be among many enthused book glue-sniffers who can’t support your argument. Your rhetoric is that of a gatekeeper who wishes to slam the door on people who might like to explore the kind of literature that you consider “serious” - but who haven’t had the same opportunities that you have to access it. Readers whose opportunities might be expanded by access to ebooks, which are often cheaper than their analogue versions - especially in the case of ‘serious’ classics, which can frequently be downloaded for free.
In short: you’re great at writing. You make a good point about the lovely qualities of physical books. And you’re a snob.
Love, Jean
Anonymous asked: What do you think of the Costa Books Award list this year?
Anonymous asked: Who is your favourite fictional character?
On romantic advice
It’s been a while since I’ve had romantic advice from a cab driver, I think. But then, it’s a while since I’ve been taking cabs on my own late at night. Sure sign, I suppose, of a lady who needs romantic advice. From a cab driver.
How long have you been here? says the cab driver.
Eight years! I say, because I am incapable of lying to cab drivers, of pretending that I am a tourist. Even though I make a convincing tourist.
Have you met Mr Right? he says.
No! I say, with utmost cheer.
All the good ones are married and the handsome ones are gay! says the cab driver.
Sure! I say.
Let me tell you a story! says the cab driver. The best-looking woman I ever went out with – no offence to my wife - she was Australian. And I took her to a pub and I said, ‘what do you want? I’m having a pint of lager’ and she said, ‘I’ll have one too’ and I said, ‘I can’t buy you a pint of lager,’ and she said, ‘well, this isn’t getting off to a very good start’ and I said, ‘no’ and then she left!
Hm, I say. You can let me off anywhere here, I say.
£9.20, says the cab driver who won’t buy a woman a pint.
Keep the change, I say, giving him ten quid.
Keep looking! he says, with utmost cheer.
OK! I say. And then I slam the door.
“A man who assisted in autopsies in a big urban hospital, starting in the mid-1950s, describes the many deaths from botched abortions that he saw. ‘The deaths stopped overnight in 1973.’ He never saw another in the 18 years before he retired. ‘That,’ he says, ‘ought to tell people something about keeping abortion legal.’”
— Sunday was the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (via motherjones)
Anonymous asked: How many books do you read a week?
Sadly, only about 1-2 these days. Just yesterday I was recalling the heady days of 1992-1993 when I read a novel a day, usually by Agatha Christie. What a lifestyle that was! Maybe it will happen again when I am retired.
Edit: I was 11 in 1992-1993. I went to school for 6 hours a day and with the exception of a brief dinner break, spent all other waking hours reading. I had no other activities OR talents!
“I doubt that I was in the majority among my classmates in choosing to abstain from sex. But since almost all of us received the same sex education, I’d be willing to bet that the rates of pregnancy and STDs at my school were below average: because our health educators did their best to teach us to value and understand safe sex. And we were taught to value and understand it together: co-ed sex education sent the message that everyone was responsible for making smart decisions about sexual activity – not just the girls. Most of us ended up having sex with members of the opposite sex, so it made sense that we learned about it together, too.”
—
Jean Hannah Edelstein on why good sex education is not about preaching abstinence
(via guardiancomment)
[Flash 10 is required to watch video]
Some books do (extra) special things. In this case, Tom Bullough’s new novel, KONSTANTIN, out March 1st.
This is a rather beautiful idea.
(Source: onthestrand)
