Culture Vultures

The Palais Galliera, the city of Paris' fashion museum, is presenting an exhibition titled A Wardrobe of One’s Own: Dissident Femininities in the 19th Century until February 2027. The exhibition shines a light on a still little-known phenomenon: the appropriation by nineteenth-century women of the male dress codes of the day. Rosa Bonheur, the painter and inspiration for the name of our Book Shop Bill & Rosa's Book Room was one of the women who had a permit to travestir. (In 19th century France it was interdit for women to wear pants.) For her, dressing in pants was practical especially in the early days when she visited meat packing plants to observe the muscular structure of animals, particularly of cows, one of her favorite painting subjects. To learn more about Rosa see our article A Broad with a Brush. The exhibition boasts a remarkable and previously unseen collection: the wardrobe that once belonged to Rosa Bonheur, shown here in its entirety.   A War…

French literature quiz: 13 extracts Identify the French authors of the following 13 French literature extracts. This quiz was first published on page 13 of FUSAC 513 in 2013 - and today is September 13 - hence our theme of 13!

Try this mneomic device (un moyen mnémotechnique) to remember the names of 6 important French authors from the 17th century:

La Corneille, perché sur la Racine de Bruyère, Boileau de La Fontaine, Molière. 

Score : 0 – 3 pas terrible /  4 – 6 read on ! - better yet attend Felix Libris Master class next spring /  7 – 10 impressionnant ! / 11 – 13 prix littéraire for you! Extra point : Which author is not French ? Answers on the bottom of page. q 1 - Ah ! Mon Dieu, Madame, que je suis affligée ! Que je suis malheureuse ! Qui me consolera dans mes peines ? Qui me conseillera dans l’embarras où je me trouve ? Ce M. de Val­mont... et Danceny! Non, l’idée de Danceny me met au désesp…

Quirky booksellers You’ve probably already heard of Shaun Bythell, the famous Scottish bookseller, author of The Diary of a Bookseller and you’re surely familiar with the names and stories of George Whitman and Sylvia Beach from the famous Shakespeare& Co. in Paris. Let’s have a look at some other eccentrics who have built legendary bookstores around their own passions and interests and who have marked the bookselling business in their own way. We can start with David Ishii, owner of a bookstore in Pioneer Square, Seattle, who died in 2012. He was a fixture in the neighborhood, and his bookstore became a meeting place for writers, his friends, fly fishing amateurs and opera lovers, a public as diverse as David’s interests. He started out by working for The Seattle Times and the Seattle Magazine and when the magazine folded, he rented a space in Pioneer Square- this was his first used books bookstore. He had extensive collections in fly fishing literature, Asian Am…

"By midnight, the wind was straight out of the west, and he heard the moan leap to bellowing, a terrible wind out of the catalog of winds. A wind related to the Blue Northern, the frigid Blaast and the Landlash. A cousin to the Bull’s-eye squall that started in a small cloud with a ruddy center, mother-in-law to the Vinds-gnyr of the Norse Sagas, the three day Nor’easters of maritime New England. And uncle wind to the Alaskan Williwaw and Ireland’s wild Doinionn.  Stepsister to the Koshava that assaults the Yugoslavian plains with Russian snow, the Steppenwind, and the violent Buran from the great open steps of central Asia, the Crivetz, the frigid Viugas and Purgas of Siberia, and from the north of Russia, the ferocious Myatel. A blood brother of the prairie Blizzard, the Canadian Arctic screamer known simply as Northwind, and the Pittarak smoking down off Greenland‘s ice fields. This nameless wind scraped the Rock [New Foundland] with an edge like steel." From The Shipping Ne…