Miss Jodie Smith

Sandra Cisneros, from "Tea Dance, Provincetown, 1982", Woman Without Shame

One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977)

“Jodie is terrific… She is the character the way I envisioned her, the way I wrote her. And it’s great to see that particular character coming alive.” –George R. R. Martin

— A. E. Stallings, from Archaic Smile: Poems; “Medea, Homesick,” c. 1999

O generation of the thoroughly smug and thoroughly uncomfortable, I have seen fishermen picnicking in the sun, I have seen them with untidy families, I have seen their smiles full of teeth and heard ungainly laughter. And I am happier than you are, And they were happier than I am; And the fish swim in the lake and do not even own clothing.

Bette Davis in The Letter (William Wyler, 1940)

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) dir. Barry Jenkins

I’m sick? Well, take a look at yourself, old dear. You’re so hot to play mental health week, what about you? Talk about dream worlds. You’ve got a pathological fix on a woman who’s not only an admitted criminal but who screams if you come near her! So what about your dreams, daddy dear?

— Mary Shelley, from a letter to Percy Bysshe Shelley written c. July 1814

Velimir Khlebnikov, from a letter to his sister written c. January 1921

everlasting mood

My birth name is Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore. In the Bible, that’s the name of the prophet Isaiah’s second son. He was instructed to write the name in capital letters on a rock, and it means “divine restoration” or “speedy to the spoils.”  (x)

Sans toit ni loi (Vagabond | Agnès Varda | 1985)