#regina barreca

[dabiconcordia]

House dresses are still available; I did my research. The only problem procuring them is that you’ll need to order from the kind of website where the pitch for their stylishness can be summed up by the following: “Zip-Front Housecoats for Elderly People - Faded Flowers Pattern.”

It’s as if the editor of Vogue penned that evocative line herself.” ― Regina Barreca

[mire-7viii]

Regina Barreca describes the self-deprecating joke as ‘the most “traditional” form of women’s humor’ and argues that ‘it’s okay to be funny if you’re a woman as long as the only thing you’re laughing at is yourself – or other women’

"Gender, Anonymity, and Humour in Women’s Writing for Punch," p.357, by Katy Birch in Women, Periodicals, and Print Culture in Britain, 1830s–1900s

[harrypotterhousequotes]

HUFFLEPUFF: "Anger can offer a sense of indignity to replace a sense of shame, and offer a voice—raised above others—which can finally be heard. Those voices are most effective when they are raised in unison, when they have mercy as well as anger behind them, and when, instead of roaring at the anger of old pain, they sing about the glorious possibilities of a future where anger has a smaller house than hope." –Regina Barreca (Too Much of a Good Thing Is Wonderful)

[madamemarmot]

Why doesn't Isabel simply leave Osmond? When Henrietta asks the same question, Isabel replies, "I'm extremely struck . . . with the off-hand way in which you speak of a woman's leaving her husband. It's easy to see you've never had one!" Isabel does not stay with her husband because of the usual social pressures or because of some abstract idea of what is expected of a woman in her position; she is quite willing to override convention. Isabel stays because of her commitment to the bond of her word, and she stays because she is unwilling to abandon what she still sees as a decision made out of her sense of independence. She married Osmond because she wanted to; she regards it as the representation of her will to choose and to not remain caged in someone else's vision of her life. Isabel tells herself that she must accept responsibility for her actions, even if she has blundered tragically.

Introduction by Regina Barreca, in Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

[stumblingoverchaos]

For the Get Messy Season of Heritage. Quotes to Start the Season. Collage, acrylic paint, gel plate printing, Posca paint pens.

“It’s good to be proud of your heritage and your culture, but pride can be perverted.” -Sam Hunt

“People are becoming more and more aware of how the dominance of development and business is altering their lives, and, in particular, their own heritage.” -Robert Redford

“Scientific thought and its creation is the common and shared heritage of mankind.” -Abdus Salam

“My father used to say that stories arre part of the most precious heritage of mankind.” -Tahir Shah

“Identity was partly heritage, partly upbringing, but mostly the choices you make in life.” -Patricia Briggs

“No one can take away my heritage of history. At the same time, it is up to me to discover and embrace that knowledge.” -The Thoughtful Beast

“I could do worse than become my own grandma or any one of the strong women who raised us. Our strengths emerged from theirs. We build on their heritage and transform their resilience and competence into our own.” -Regina Barreca

“You get to choose who you are. Legacy, memories of the past, can serve us well. But we cannot let them define us. When heritage becomes a box instead of an inspiration, it has gone too far.” -Brandon Sanderson

[blossomingbooks]

Book Review: Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

For this book review, I bring you Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, a book I’d had sitting on my bedside ledge shelf for years, mostly because the cover was so lovely, but also because every Christmas I had the intention to read it. But every Christmas I ended up not reading it, either because college studies wouldn’t allow me, or because parallel readings got in the way. Last year, upon hearing about Greta Gerwig’s new film adaptation, I decided I couldn’t postpone it any longer; and thus, on Christmas day, I opened it.

Alcott and her “little” women

I was already acquainted with the characters from the 90s adaptation that I used to love when I was younger, but upon coming back to the story in its purest form, I met each of them in a new, more complex light. The coming-of-age genre was always one of my favorites, so one focused on 19th century girlhood and the different ways each of them “come of age” was even more appealing to me. Plus, each of them is relevantly flawed, which makes this narrative of “little women” — who in a patriarchal society are brought up to be perfectly good in an idolized way — refreshing, therefore resonating the more with young female readers. As a matter of fact, Meg (although the oldest and wisest) can be pretty vain and jealous, while Jo has to deal with her anger issues and Amy starts off as a spoiled little brat. Even Beth, with all her purity and good heart, must learn to open up and trust others.

Alcott writes this realistic account of femininity from a deeply personal point of view, as proved by a passage in her journal from May 1868: “Never liked girls or knew many, except my sisters; but our queer plays and experiences may prove interesting, though I doubt it.” The way she’s able to step in the depths of girlhood even though she “never liked girls or knew many” is remarkable, while at the same time explains how autobiographical is Jo’s character. Like her, Alcott’s goal was to support herself and her family through her writing. As Regina Barreca says in the Introduction for this Signet Classics edition, with “a fierce sense of independence”, Alcott refused to follow the two obvious paths for women at the time: marriage and teaching. She tried to do the same with Jo: “Girls ask me who the little women marry, as if that was the only end and aim of a woman’s life”, she writes. “I won’t marry Jo to Laurie to please any one”.

Jo and Laurie — platonic soulmates

But the core of the story for me is exactly Jo and Laurie’s relationship. Not because of the romantic light in which her public at the time saw it, but exactly because of her refusal to bind them in a traditional heteronormative romance. In my opinion, they are one of the best literary representations of platonic soulmates. I’m aware that I’m using very contemporary terms to analyse a 19th century novel, but I take this liberty with Alcott since she was herself extremely ahead of her time. In fact, according to Susan Straight in the Afterword for this same edition, she was “a staunch supporter of women’s right and education, an enemy of corsets and a proponent of marriage as companionship, not a romantic and impractical love union”.

Laurie, the only main male character of this female-driven narrative, has, for starters, a very feminine name — while Jo shortens her name to seem more boyish. In this sense, their first interaction is very pertinent:

‘(...) thank you, Mr. Laurence. But I am not Miss March, I’m only Jo,’ returned the young lady. 

‘I’m not Mr. Laurence, I’m only Laurie.’ 

‘Laurie Laurence, what an odd name.’ 

‘My first name is Theodore, but I don’t like it, for the fellows called me Dora, so I made them say Laurie instead.’ 

‘I hate my name, too, so sentimental! I wish every one would say Jo instead of Josephine.’

Their androgyny acts as a mirror-image to each other, and they instantly connect. They first meet while hiding from a party inside a curtained recess, and then end up dancing away from everybody in the hall. Jo finds in Laurie the boy she always wanted to be, while Laurie seeks in her a liberation from his self-confinement. She is also his doorway for the March family, where he acquires the feminine figures that had been missing in his life thus far. 

That’s why the two of them work so well as kindred spirits, while romance would be an unnecessary plot device. As Laurie himself tells Jo after mistaking his love for her for a romantic one:

“I never shall stop loving you, but the love is altered, and I have learned to see that it is better as it is. Amy and you changed places in my heart, that’s all. I think it was meant to be so, and would have come about naturally, if I had waited”

Greta Gerwig’s reinvention of Jo March

For me, Jo was clearly, from the beginning, an aromantic character — the reason why I don’t really enjoy her ending with Mr. Bhaer. Greta’s twist in her film adaptation is delightful, and it gives us a deeper understanding of Alcott’s initial intentions for the story:

“DASHWOOD: So, who does she marry? 

JO: No one. She doesn’t marry either of them. 

DASHWOOD: No. No, no, no, that won’t work at all. 

JO: She says the whole book that she doesn’t want to marry. 

DASHWOOD: WHO CARES! Girls want to see women MARRIED. Not CONSISTENT. 

JO: It isn’t the right ending. 

DASHWOOD: The right ending is the one that sells. 

Jo thinks. Dashwood pounces. DASHWOOD (CONT'D): If you end your delightful book with your heroine a spinster, no one will buy it. It won’t be worth printing. 

Jo shifts. She considers. JO: I suppose marriage has always been an economic proposition. Even in fiction. 

DASHWOOD: It’s romance! 

JO: It’s mercenary. 

DASHWOOD: Just end it that way, will you? 

JO: Fine.”

(Gerwig)

Many argue that, by canonically marrying Mr. Bhaer and having his children, while at the same time opening her school, Jo is “the first American literary heroine to ‘have it all’, both love and career” (Christine Doyle). But I think that would be more the goal of someone like Amy, whose main desire is, throughout the whole novel, to be an artist, and who also ends up marrying Laurie. Jo is a different person who, in my opinion, isn’t made for marriage; not with the character I defend to be her soulmate, neither with the character whom I allow she may have an attraction for, but wouldn’t go as far as to marry. 

Of course, that is my “contemporary” point of view, but it’s a point of view that I believe many women already felt in the patriarchal 19th century society, only didn’t have the tools to express or the freedom to engage in. And that’s why Greta’s new take on this classic tale is so relevant and refreshing, by paying tribute to Alcott’s legacy, life and literature in every way.

[navajolovesdestiel]

What is your definition of love? I'm a freshman in college and I'm currently taking a class about love and sex and we were talking about how everyone's definition is different. I'm just curious.

JFC why don’t you ask something I have an easy answer to? Well, for starters, I agree with this quote: “Love is inconvenient. Love is untidy. Love is relentless, ruthless and rapacious. Done well, it’s hilarious, playful and redemptive.”― Regina Barreca

Love to me is not some sweet, always-getting-your-needs met flower. It can be a really thorny weed, but one that you nurture because you want to see it flower. It takes work. Sometimes you have to put your needs aside to care for them, knowing that they will care for you when you really need it. It’s wonderful, painful, awesome, fun and scary. It’s the best thing in the universe.

[iwaslisteningtotherain]

Students and patients who have had consensual relationships with, respectively, their professors and therapists, tend to report similar emotional consequences, particularly the feeling of having been betrayed.... The betrayal in question is not a lover’s betrayal: the therapist or professor need not have cheated on or lied to the patient or student. Rather, it is the betrayal of the trusted authority figure who fails to live up to the implicit terms set by the therapeutic or pedagogical relationship. The student is betrayed...not by the sex itself, but by the “corruption of [teacherly] love” it represents... The student is not only, in the eyes of her professor-boyfriend, transformed from a student, whose needs he is meant to serve, into someone who is meant to serve his needs (his errands, his ego). She is also transformed in the eyes of her academic community as a whole She is unable to relate any longer to her other professors as her teachers; they are now her boyfriend’s (judgmental) colleagues... The problem with professor-student sexual relationships is not that they can involve no genuine love. It is that they involve the wrong sort of love. Speaking as a teacher to other teachers, bell hooks commands us to “[t]hink: how can I love these strangers, these others that I see in the classroom?” The love hooks is speaking of is not the exclusive, jealous, dyadic love of lovers but something more distanced, more controlled, more open to others and the world—though no less love for that... When a student’s desire is inchoate—do I want to be like him, or to have him?—it is easy for the teacher to settle it in the latter direction. And it is similarly easy when the student (wrongly) thinks that sleeping with the teacher is a means to becoming, or a sign of already being, like the teacher (“he wants me so I must be brilliant”) or when the student (wrongly) thinks that sleeping with the teacher is the best she can have... I am not saying that teaching can or should be entirely free of narcissistic satisfactions. But there is a subtle and important difference between enjoying the desires one ignites in one’s students before, or at the same time as, turning them away from oneself— and making oneself their wholly consuming object... Adrienne Rich famously described the institution of “compulsory heterosexuality” as a political structure that compels all women, regardless of their sexual orientation, to regulate their relations to women in a way that is congenial to patriarchy. One mechanism of that institution is the tacit instruction in how women should feel, or interpret their feelings, about those women they admire.... but another mechanism of compulsory heterosexuality is the instruction women receive in how to feel, or interpret their feelings, about the men they find compelling. Here, women are taught that it is not envy they feel, but desire: you must want him, it cannot be that you want to be like him. Regina Barreca, speaking of and to women who ended up as professors, asks: “At what point . . . did the moment come for each of us when we realized that we wanted to be the teacher, and not sleep with the teacher?”... The professor’s failure in such cases—that is, most actual cases of consensual professor-student sex—is not simply his failure to redirect the student’s erotic energies toward its apt object. It is a failure that involves taking advantage of the fact that women are socialized in a particular way under patriarchy—that is, socialized in a way that conduces to patriarchy—for the satisfaction of his narcissistic gratification. On a feminist understanding of workplace sexual harassment, its harmful effects are not merely contingent—not merely a matter of women having certain consistent psychological responses to certain patterns of male behavior. Instead, as Lin Farley argued early on, it is the function of sexual harassment to harm women in these ways: to police and enforce their subordinate roles both as women and as workers. Similarly, Vicki Schultz has argued that many prevalent forms of workplace sexual harassment are “designed to maintain work— particularly the more highly rewarded lines of work—as bastions of masculine competence and authority. Is it such a stretch to think that the function of the widespread practice of male professors making sexual advances on their female students is to impress on women their proper place in the university? That, insofar as women are allowed into the university, it is to play the role not of student or would-be professor, but of sexual conquest, fawning girlfriend, emotional caretaker, wife, and/or secretary?

Amia Srinivasan, Sex as a Pedagogical Failure

I feel worryingly seen by this...

[dp237]

"So, what is love? It's an unbuttoning of the self. Not an unbuttoning of the clothing covering your sexy self, but the reassurance that, without any camouflage, cover-ups or compromise, you're safe. You're in the presence of another person who would rather be with you than anyone else." Regina Barreca, 1957- Trope | Dark and Light Axolotls https://www.instagram.com/p/B20d5F4Btva/?igshid=1mx6fo0zc6tu2

[dorothyparker19]

Ms. Parker once said, for every five words she wrote, she would change seven. Her work continually focused on subject matter that perhaps deemed unimportant, yet would skillfully underline and address social concerns that infuriated her. Her key concern appeared to be the objectification of women within specific roles designed for them by men. They existed to appeal to the sensory scrutiny of the men around them, becoming animated mannequins. Her stories were personal, but shaped the larger issues of the day, consistently illustrating that she was not bound by the limitations of her gender. By reading her work women of the generation could recognise that they could reinvent the definitions rather than living secondarily to others, women at the time started to step away from the domestic sphere and Parker was an example and inspiration of that, taking on a professional career that before only men would embark on. “She wrote about abortion when you couldn’t write the word”, Regina Barreca once said, Parker was the first to insult men for their ignorance and drag society for its narrow-minded views on racism and sexism but in a luring way.

[junefinnigan]

Martina Barreca, Marcello Mastroianni, A New Record Deck, Brit Floyd, Pisa Book Festival and Teatro Comunale Regina Margherita.

Martina Barreca, Marcello Mastroianni, A New Record Deck, Brit Floyd, Pisa Book Festival and Teatro Comunale Regina Margherita.

Welcome and Benvenuti to all my Lovely Followers around the World,

Now, I hope you don’t mind, but there is so much going on here in Tuscany by way of entertainment, this blog is rather full it!

Firstly, as you know, I mostly follow the Rock Music scene, my being an aging Rock singer, however, just occasionally I pick up on something else that really excites me.  This time it is the amazing…

[purpleavenuecupcake]

Seria A, ecco come si stanno muovendo le squadre italiane

Nel pieno della preparazione estiva e nell’immediata vigilia della partenza per le tournée all’estero delle big della serie A, proviamo a fare il punto della situazione di un calciomercato ricco e movimentato come mai lo era stato negli ultimi anni. La detentrice del titolo e sulla carta la squadra da battere resta la Juventus che dopo le partenze di Dani Alves(r.c.-PSG), Neto (Valencia) e Bonucci (Milan) si aggiudica le prestazioni di Douglas Costa (BayernMonaco) Szczesny (Roma via-Arsenal) manca solo l’ufficialità per De Sciglio (Milan) e continua serrata la trattativa per Bernardeschi (Fiorentina). Salta quando i giochi sembravano fatti, per una presuntainfiammazione cardiaca riscontrata durante le visite mediche, l’acquisto della giovane promessa Schick che torna alla Sampdoria, dove molto bene aveva fatto la scorsa stagione. Da non escludere il grande colpo finale di questo mercato. Sembrerebbe forte l’interesse nei confronti del fuoriclasse tedesco Toni Kroos (Real Madrid). Possibile formazione: Buffon - Chiellini, Barzagli, Rugani, Alex Sandro – Khedira, Pjanic – Mandzukic, Dybala, DOUGLAS COSTA – Higuain. La nuova Roma di Di Francesco perde rispetto allo scorso anno oltre alla bandiera Francesco Totti ed al portiere Szczesny passato alla Juventus via Arsenal, il forte esterno di attacco Salah (Liverpool), Rudiger che va al Chelsea a rafforzare la difesa di Antonio Conte, Paredes (Zenit San Pietroburgo) e Mario Rui (Napoli) ma acquista Moreno (PSV), Karsdrop (Feyenoord) Gonalons (Lione) oltre alle due giovani promesse Pellegrini (Sassuolo) e il turco Cengiz Under. Molto vicini sono Defrel (Sassuolo), Barreca (Torino) e Mahrez protagonista della favola Leicester nel recente passato.  Possibile formazione: Alisson – Florenzi, Manolas, Fazio, MORENO – Strootman, De Rossi, Nainggolan – Perotti, Dzeko, El Shaarawy.  Il Napoli “puntella” la già importante rosa che lo aveva portato con pieno merito al raggiungimento del terzo posto e di conseguenza dei preliminari di Champions League, acquisendo le prestazioni del difensore Mario Rui (Roma) e del franco-algerino Ounas (Bordeaux). Il colpo finale potrebbe essere Alberto Morenocentrocampista del Liverpool.     Possibile formazione: Reina – Hysaj, Albiol, Koulibaly, Ghoulam – Hamsik, Diawara, Zielinsky – Callejon, Mertens, Insigne. La vera regina del mercato al momento è senza dubbio il Milan che, dopo il rocambolesco rinnovo del giovanissimo portiere Donnarumma,  spende oltre 150 milioni di euro per assicurarsi le prestazioni di Bonucci (Juventus), Calhanoglu (Bayer Leverkusen), Biglia(Lazio), Conti e Kessie (Atalanta), Borini (Sunderland), Ricardo Rodriguez (Wolfsburg), Andrè Silva (Porto) e Musacchio (Villareal) , lasciando partire i soli Bertolacci (Genoa), Kucka (Trabzonspor) e Poli (Bologna). Sembra essere sfumato l’ingaggio di Aubameyang(Borussia Dortmund) ma resta calda la pista che porta aBelotti (Torino)  o Kalinic (Fiorentina). Probabile formazione: Donnarumma – MUSACCHIO, BONUCCI, Romagnoli – CONTI, BIGLIA, KESSIE, RODRIGUEZ – Suso, ANDRE’ SILVA, CALHANOGLU. La nuova Inter di Luciano Spalletti al momento ha integrato la rosa con gli arrivi di Borja Valero(Fiorentina) e Skriniar (Sampdoria), mentre sembra forte l’interesse per Keita (Lazio), Martial (Manchester United), Vecino (Fiorentina) e Dalbert (Nizza). Probabile formazione: Handanovic – D’Ambrosio, Miranda, SKRINIAR, Ansaldi – Kondogbia, Gagliardini, BORJA VALERO – Candreva, Icardi, Perisic La Lazio del confermato Simone Inzaghi cede il capitano Biglia (Milan) e lo rimpiazza con Lucas Leiva(Liverpool). Sembra concreto l’interesse per Pasalic(Chelsea) e Pavoletti (Napoli). Probabile formazione: Strakosha – De Vrij, Radu, Wallace – Felipe Anderson, Parolo, LUCAS LEIVA, Milinkovic-Savic, Lulic – Keita, Immobile.  Manca ancora oltre un mese alla fine di questa sessione di calciomercato e ad oggi sono solo i “primi colpi” per una serie A che punta a tornare protagonista in Europa come aveva saputo fare, quasi incontrastata, fino ai primi anni duemila. Click to Post

[blossomingbooks]

Book Review: The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

My third blossoming book review is... The Age Of Innocence (1920) by Edith Wharton. 

“Like the stone age or the bronze age, the age of innocence will pass, giving way to new social systems. (…) Individual destiny is to a large extent defined, and human potential frequently circumscribed, by social conventions as ephemeral as they are 'inscrutable'." 

As we can infer from this passage (taken out of Judith P. Saunders’ Afterword for the Signet Classics edition of the book), conformity is pointless when what restrains us today will be gone tomorrow. Indeed, the main key theme in The Age Of Innocence is the commonplace in society — "a world bound by convention and straitjacketed by conformity" (according to Regina Barreca’s Introduction for the same edition) — versus freedom of judgement, action and perspective. 

The innocence which drives that social order implicates the mental, moral and emotional development of women. There's a strong presence and questioning of feminism's empowerment in this 1920’s novel — so ahead of its time, it even made of Wharton the first ever woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize! 

“He stopped and turned away angrily to light his cigar. ‘Women ought to be free — as free as we are’.” 

This is not a love story. Yes, the plot unfolds around a love triangle opposite-sided by marriage and passion. But, in truth, this is a story about feminism, in a time when that word didn't even exist yet — and how it affects both women and men. Newland Archer is the main character, but not the one who molds the plot; he's "an articulate commentator, better able to describe his predicament than to confront it" (J.P.S.). 

The real actors of the story are the ones the wrongly things are "acted upon": it's a "sexual economy presided over by women: Ellen and May decide between them who will end up with Newland" and not otherwise… Because, numb, he resists rebelling against the system and doesn't have the courage to change his happiness (whilst May wins him over and Ellen also wins by making her independent choice and creating her own life the way she wants to). The strong characters here are the women who, supposedly "innocent" by convention, turn the concept around and the real innocent one is Newland, the weak protagonist. He sees beyond stigma, and that's why he falls in love with Ellen — she represents a new world to the limited horizon of his life - but the expectations imposed on him by the world he lives in keep him from acting upon change. 

In this way, people still make their lives around society's rules, sacrificing their own individualities. That's how Newland's character is defined: beautifully complex as an individual, but in a social spectrum, just one more artificial product.

[chumup]

“Nighttime Fires” by Regina Barreca

When I was five in Louisville we drove to see nighttime fires. Piled seven of us, all pajamas and running noses, into the Olds, drove fast toward smoke. It was after my father lost his job, so not getting up in the morning gave him time: awake past midnight, he read old newspapers with no news, tried crosswords until he split the pencil between his teeth, mad. When he heard the wolf whine of the siren, he woke my mother, and she pushed and shoved us all into waking. Once roused we longed for burnt wood and a smell of flames high into the pines. My old man liked driving to rich neighborhoods best, swearing in a good mood as he followed the fire engines that snaked like dragons and split the silent streets. It was festival, carnival.

If there were a Cadillac or any car in a curved driveway, my father smiled a smile from a secret, brittle heart. His face lit up in the heat given off by destruction like something was being made, or was being set right. I bent my head back to see where sparks ate up the sky. My father who never held us would take my hand and point to falling cinders that covered the ground like snow, or, excited, show us the swollen collapse of a staircase. My mother watched my father, not the house. She was happy only when we were ready to go, when it was finally over and nothing else could burn. Driving home, she would sleep in the front seat as we huddled behind. I could see his quiet face in the rearview mirror, eyes like hallways filled with smoke.

[gratifyinggratitude]

Freedom is scary; to stand or fall on your talents, intelligence, and energy is to take a risk. Grasping for success, you risk failure. But why not focus on the brilliant first possibility - the possibility of coming first? Somebody has to do it. Why not you?

Regina Barreca 

[dp237]

So what is love? It’s an unbuttoning of the self. Not an unbuttoning of the clothing covering your sexy self, but the reassurance that, without any camouflage, cover-ups or compromise, you’re safe. You’re in the presence of another person who would rather be with you than with anyone else. Regina Barreca https://www.instagram.com/p/BvLc3Nhh4RF/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=18rpbj1wea1te