Ian McEwan's Mrs Dalloway

It seems strange that Ian McEwan's homage to Virginia Woolf in his new novel, Saturday, has not been more widely commented upon. The distinctive structure of the book, which follows one day in the life of a neurosurgeon, Henry Perowne, is the exact structure of Mrs. Dalloway, which follows a day in the life of a housewife, Clarissa Dalloway.

This satisfying framework allows both the neurosurgeon and the housewife to move through London, performing ordinary tasks that somehow contain all of life. Minor events like a game of squash or a walk in the park occasion sensual epiphanies and nervy reflections: Both characters are high-strung and unnaturally alive to the smallest triggers of memory and perception. For Perowne, shopping for shellfish to make stew for a dinner party that night stirs up primal feelings and deep thoughts—just as shopping for flowers launches Mrs. Dalloway into a dreamy investigation of her past. Both the surgeon and the housewife are conventional types, dimly aware of something lacking in their comfortable lives: a kind of daring.

Though each novel is very much of its era, Saturday and Mrs. Dalloway's larger preoccupations are virtually the same: namely, the smug self-satisfaction of a certain stratum of educated, well-to-do London society, and the exquisite cracks within that satisfaction. For each, one can imagine book-jacket writers dreaming up the phrase "until a random act of violence reveals the precariousness of their sheltered lives." The deranged man who shatters the peace of Mrs. Dalloway's party is a victim of shell shock, whereas the deranged man who threatens the family dinner party in Saturday has a neurological disorder. McEwan may have updated Woolf's preoccupation with psychology with his own riffs on neurosurgery, but at heart each writer is concerned with the workings and malfunctions of the brain, as well as the sublime and terrifying fragility of our domestic lives.

To say that Saturday is in dialogue with Mrs. Dalloway is not in any way to detract from its achievements. Ian McEwan has a remarkable, distinctive voice—it's testimony to his power as a writer that he is not eclipsed but energized by his preoccupation with Woolf's novel, even when there are moments where one feels Woolf's idiosyncratic intonations. Take the very Woolfian sentence at the end of Saturday: "There's always this, is one of his remaining thoughts. And then: there's only this."

Given the many parallels, one wonders why so few critics have interested themselves in McEwan's connection to Virginia Woolf. It may be that there is a certain gentle sexism at work: Is it too hard to imagine that a male writer of McEwan's stature might be channeling Virginia Woolf? Is the leap from a neurosurgeon to a housewife too distant for critics and readers to conceive? Does the separation we still have in our minds between a woman's novel, which is "domestic," and a man's novel, which contains wars and politics, still so pronounced that we can't clearly see the amazing, sexless feat of weaving the two together? It may be that McEwan has built into the novel his own clever test for his readers on the subject of literature's transcendent power—do we fail to recognize Mrs. Dalloway in exactly the same way that his well-meaning, educated Henry Perowne fails to recognize Mathew Arnold's "Dover Beach" when it is recited with such miraculous effect in his living room? It is a tribute to Woolf's immortal Mrs. Dalloway that it has spawned not just imitators, but truly distinguished works of art, like Michael Cunningham's The Hours, and now Saturday. It is as if something in Mrs. Dalloway calls out to be transported to other places and times, to be shared and updated and rethought. With her sensitive, aging hostess, Woolf created not just a character, but an entire form, infinitely flexible, eternally fresh: a new way to look at the real and imagined perils of the world.

excerpts from Slate Magazine. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? What critics didn't say about Ian McEwan's Saturday", By Katie Roiphe

Dream Job: Advertising

Sounds souless? I don't think so... Check these great campaigns out (all from IBelieveInAdvertising )

Slogan: "If you love the Zoo, the Zoo loves you" accompanies a bear's kiss

Every time this elevator door opens, the couple separates. Inside is the contact information for a divorce lawyer.

The subway in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, gets "flooded" to promote the new film "2012"

Anish Kapoor

The sculpture "Cloud Gate" (better known as "the Bean" for its leguminess) in Millenium Park in Chicago is definitely on my list of things to see. It weighs 110 tons (!) and consists of 170 or so stainless steel plates welded together seamlessly and polished to perfection. The statue is often lauded for its reflections of the city, the sky and the people it faces, but I prefer its whimsical shape above all else. Legume legume legume.


I only recently learned that the Bean was conceived by English (but Indian-born) artist Anish Kapoor. A quick Google image search under Kapoor's name reveals many, many more appealingly tactile and visually stunning pieces (including this one, called "Sky Mirror," which shares the polished exterior of the Bean but is worth a look nonetheless).

I recognized Kapoor's name from a work located much closer to home, at the SFMOMA. His piece "Hole" sits in the Contemporary Arts wing of the museum and just a wall away from the new rooftop garden. "Hole" highlights many of Kapoor's recurring motifs: monochromatic, bright color, inviting surface texture, and mystery in shape (what an unknown dark cavity you have there big blue bell!). Indeed the work was so tantalizing to touch that many visitors did just that, and smudges of the distinctive blue color found their way onto other pricey pieces located in rooms neighboring the "Hole" piece.

All in all, I am completely impressed by Anish Kapoor's work. It truly highlights that visual simplicity and aesthetic purity can still garner ooohs and aaahs in a gallery and that we don't need the grotesque or obscure to shock us into appreciation.

Joanna Newsom - The sprout and the bean

Mormon Movie Moguls

Jared Lawrence Hess and Jerusha Elizabeth Hess are husband-and-wife filmmakers known for their work Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre , both of which they co-wrote and directed. They also produced the video for The Postal Service's third single, "We Will Become Silhouettes."



The cover of this song by The Shins is one of my favorites of all time.

The Shins "We will become silhouettes"

Caffe del Doge headed to Palo Alto Station

The trendy, minimalist, mocha-colored Caffé del Doge is opening up a location at the retro Palo Alto Station where I get the CalTrain every morning. I can't wait! From now on, I'll be sittin on the 7:23 train sippin a fresh fresh (andsomewhatoverpriced/snooty) cappuccino...

The Knux - Cappuccino (remix)


More about Palo Alto Station:

The station is an excellent example of the Streamline Moderne style which has important connections with American social history, and which is not typically found in Palo Alto. During the 1920s and 1930s most of the significant buildings in town were designed by a single local architect, Birge Clark, who worked almost exclusively in the Mission Revival or Spanish Colonial Revival styles. Consequently, the other major buildings of that era, such as large commercial blocks and apartment buildings, the main Post Office, the Community Center and other civic buildings were built in the Mission Revival or Spanish Colonial Revival styles.^[3]

On October 22, 1940, the cornerstone was laid for the new railroad station which was designed by J.H. Christie, a full-time architect employed by the Southern Pacific Railroad. The new station replaced the one built in 1897. The building is 215 feet (65 m) long by 25 feet (7.6 m) wide with an arcade in front and a marquee at the rear including two buildings connected by an arcade. The station interior consists of the ticket office, waiting room, rest rooms, baggage room and a passageway between the waiting room and baggage room. ^[3] However, the interior is not currently accessible to the public. Tickets are currently purchased from machines on the platform.

The interior of the building features a mural by John McQuarrie. Its central theme is Leland Stanford's dream of a University influenced by a pageant of transportation. The mural depicts facts and events of significance and influence historically expressed in the development of California. This one-story streamlined Southern Pacific station personifies the tendency of the 1930s to style buildings in the imagery of transportation machinery, in this case the Streamline train. The building has all the classic trademarks of the mode: porthole windows, horizontal parallel lines to indicate speed and glass blocks.^[3]

The station was refurbished in the 1980s.

Scenes from Austin

Taco Trucks everywhere!

Texas State Capitol Building

Bats at the Congress Avenue bridge in downtown Austin. It's the largest urban bat colony in North America, 750,000 bats with up to 1.5 million bats at the peak of the bat-watching season.

Whole Foods Market Headquarters. Heaven.

Daniel Johnston's Jeremiah the Frog

Needless to say, Daniel Johnston's latest album was high up on Waterloo Record's sales when I visited. Here's a little trinket of the kooky dudes work:

Daniel Johnston - Freedom

200 one dollar bills => $43.7 million?

Andy Warhol's "200 One Dollar Bills" (1962), 80¼ x 92¼ inch

It was the sale of the season. When a seminal Warhol — one of the artist’s first silk-screen paintings — came on the block at Sotheby’s auction of contemporary art on Wednesday night, the auctioneer, Tobias Meyer, opened bidding at $6 million and was stunned when a bidder instantly doubled it.

Bids were taken over the phone for Andy Warhol's "200 One Dollar Bills" as it was auctioned off at Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale on Wednesday.

The price rose at breakneck speed as five collectors vied for the classic image, “200 One Dollar Bills.” It ended up selling for $43.7 million (including fees to Sotheby’s), more than three times its high estimate of $12 million. The buyer, whom Sotheby’s refused to identify, bid by telephone through Bruno Vinciguerra, the company’s chief operating officer. Sotheby’s would also not identify the seller, although people familiar with the collection said it was Pauline Karpidas, a London-based collector.

The new national anthem? (x2)

A contemporary interpretation of the American dream. What do you think, Bushy?

T.I. - Whatever you like

Anya Marina - Whatever you like

Things to see before death