http://www.christinepalma.com "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." –Theodor Adorno Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:27:26 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto completed the manuscript to this book just before her assassination in December 2007 at the age of 54. This book gives context to her recent martyrdom. It is also a plea to the West to mend our ways.   Only two months earlier upon her return to ... http://www.christinepalma.com/2008/12/11/benazir-bhuttos-reconciliation/   Tonight I went to a screening of Stephen Daldry's "The Reader," based on Bernhard Schlink's international bestselling novel of the same name. David Hare wrote the screenplay. Daldry says, "This is not a Holocaust movie, it is a movie about the second generation and how you come to terms with and ... http://www.christinepalma.com/2008/12/10/stephen-daldrys-the-reader/ In the entry for December 18, WIkipedia notes: 218 BC - Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia - Hannibal's Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic. In one of my five years of studying Latin, I had to translate parts of Livy's (59 BC to AD ... http://www.christinepalma.com/2007/12/18/december-18-today-is-my-birthday/ Hopefully I'll be able to see this exhibit before it closes and write a review.  Gordon Matta-Clark is one of my top five favorite artists. I'm a big fan of his films documenting his cut buildings, as well as, the cut building performances themselves. He first captured my heart fifteen ... http://www.christinepalma.com/2007/12/17/gordon-matta-clark-at-moca-until-january-7th/ I. In 2004, I lived with a crossword addict and caught the bug. I looked forward each Thursday for the (now gone) LA Weekly crossword. I rarely finished, but still found it relaxing to try. The person I lived with always finished. Since then I've attempted to do the "easy" "coffee-break" crossword ... http://www.christinepalma.com/2007/11/27/merv-griffins-crosswords-poison-cup-for-the-grandiose-and-elitist/ I don't need them. I don't need them. I don't need them, but I want them badly.  Crayola has "multicultural" fleshtone sets of their crayons, markers, paints, and clays. The crayon colors are: black, sepia, peach, apricot, white, tan, mahogany, and burnt sienna. How inspired! And how funny. The burnt ochre-ish ... http://www.christinepalma.com/2007/11/18/multicultural-colors-a-perfect-shade-of-flesh/ Yesterday, I was stopped at the intersection of La Cienega and Pico Blvd. when several fire trucks sped around me towards a 150-foot hydralic crane tipped on its side just half-a-block ahead. The 150-foot boom smashed into a building and maybe damaged a car. A pedestrian said yoga students from ... http://www.christinepalma.com/2007/11/18/150-foot-crane-smashes-building-and-almost-falls-on-children-and-yoga-students/ I came across this on Wikipedia: As expected for a common occurrence, laughter is frequently depicted in books and cartoons. http://www.christinepalma.com/2007/11/05/laughter-depicted/ Several months ago, I reread Alice Miller’s Drama of the Gifted Child as part of some research I am doing. Last week I had time to read more from her body of work translated into English from the German and released in the late-80s and early-90s. This includes Thou Shalt ... http://www.christinepalma.com/2007/11/02/freuds-cowardice-of-amnesia-why-drive-theory-trumped-trauma-theory/   http://www.christinepalma.com/2007/10/25/why-we-love-the-dogs-we-do/