20th century greats, Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, authors of…
Lillian: The Children’s Hour, The Little Foxes, Pentimento: A Book of Portraits
Dashiell: The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, The Continental Op
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instagram: toobeguiling, behind the scenes
“Lily harbored a den of coyotes in her back yard. They went about their nocturnal haunts stealthy-like, unless they were circling to prey and then they raised all hell. Yelps and howls, high-pitched and stunningly shrill, vibrated in the dark. In echoing canyons or flat streets stretching to meet the hilly wilderness, Los Angelinos — both dreaming and about to be eaten — startled into heightened perception.”
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Want to hear the beginning of a story? Let me read to you, link in the profile.
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#goodmorning #audio #losangeles #noir #goodreads #historichomes #amreading #amwriting #writer #storytime #bookworm #bibliophile #december #mood #explore #create #blackandwhitephotography #portrait #interiordesign #elegance #booklover #creative #antique
Do nondisclosure agreements apply to #fiction? I don’t think so... Link in the profile.
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“I had become a suit, and I vowed to myself, if not anyone else, I would never forget movies were made on cavernous stages and dusty streets all over the world; not in the corporate tower where my old boss had held sway.
What of my old boss? The guitar-strumming scion of the old Hollywood family had decamped the area for the trout streams of Montana... I do get distracted sometimes. Please forgive me. What was it I meant to say? Oh, yes. I remember. In Hollywood employees are contractually obligated not to squeal on social media about the internal workings of the dream factory.”
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#romanàclef, #hollywood, #studio, #behindthescenes, #amwriting, #writer, #novel, #explore, #reading, #visualsoflife, #agameoftones, #bookquotes, #wordsmith, #reflection #postitfortheaesthetic
Night falls on the red roofs of California. Sweet dreams.
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#historic #historichome, #historichouse #historicpreservation #oldhomelove #architecture #architecturelovers #exteriordesign #architecturaldetail #style #design #nightphotography #lightandshadow #nightsky #uplighting #nightscape #garden #curbappeal #losangeles #houseportrait #captivatinghouses #romantichome #californiadreaming #goodnight
What am I hiding? A spider bite! Do I hide much in the pages of my new Hollywood novel? Nothing you won’t have fun trying to figure out...
“Late in the summer following my sophomore year, I was living in the Beverly Hills home of a blonde former figure skater. She had met Mr. Major Movie Star on a commercial promoting California cheese...arguably a metaphor for something.”
There are more pages up on the blog today, link in the profile.
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#portrait #author #authorlife #blackandwhitephotography #bookaddiction #bookstagram #bibliophile #booklover #behindthescenes #hollywood #moviemagic #lovereading #bookworm #bookish #lovereading #excerpt #amwriting #readers #lovetowrite #californiadreaming
See what’s unfurling on the blog, it might be a new #Hollywood novel...
“Life never is a simple linear narrative; it’s too messy and senseless. On the other hand a memoir, no, make that a novel (a much less contentious prospect) is an attempt to resolve the random acts of a life and give them meaning — put them into some sort of context. Whether this reads as simply an insider chronicle of a life lived in Hollywood or another of those cautionary tales about the same, I’ll leave to you, gentle reader, my unknown confidant.”
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#bookaddiction #bookstagram #bibliophile #author #booklover #mustread #petals #rose #behindthescenes #moviemagic #lovereading #bookworm #bookish #ilovereading #amwriting #readers
It’s a good night when @kfullermendez calls me from the east to herald a moonrise over the west. #goodnight #supermoon #sweetdreams @heybillkuhn @antiquegoddess
“These stories seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationary store, and when almost everybody wore a hat. Here is the last of that generation of chain smokers who woke the world in the morning with their coughing, who used to get stoned at cocktail parties and perform obsolete dance steps like “the Cleveland Chicken,” sail for Europe on ships, who were truly nostalgic for love and happiness, and whose gods were as ancient as yours and mine, whoever you are.”
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I picked up a sweet #volume of short stories in the new year, continuing my #love affair with fictional Manhattan.
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#stories #manhattan #nyc #johncheever #bookbliss #bibliophile #exploretocreate #empirestatebuilding #architecture #streetscape #citylife #literature #author #writer #bookstagram #bookstoread #cityscape #skyscraper #bluesky #writerslife #thestoriesofjohncheever
Traveling SW I promised @heybillkuhn I’d take pictures... Over breakfast in the dining car I learned how to bet the horses. Sharing a meal with people I’ve never met is now one of my favorite things to do.
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So relaxing watching the country roll by, thinking about what to make for Christmas dinner back home. #Pavlova? #ChocolateMousse? For recipes check out the link in the profile.
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#trainstation #exploretocreate #artofvisuals #waiting #portrait #citylife #architecture #homewardbound #urban #dawn #interior #graphicdesign #art #lifeisbeautiful #journey #style #friends #everyonehasastory #itsinhiskissbyvickielester #amwriting another #hollywood #novel
Lillian and Dashiell, writers who were so fascinating that not merely their works but their *lives* were the inspiration for pictures. (Unrelated aside: they don’t *look* much like Nick and Nora do they?!)
Not by half! But then, Nick and Nora may not have looked much like Nick and Nora – out of makeup…
Touche!
Chandler and Hammett.Now you are really spoiling me.
Now, if I find out you named your daughters Chandler and Hammett we will have words 😉
Dearest V
More (then) living proof that writers have the most interesting and lived in faces of almost any species of artist.
In this sense of course WH Auden was essence of writer as artist.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Faces lined by experience – I see it.
Vickie,now, now.My daughters are named Alayla and Misha.
Beautiful, lyrical, names! I am very relieved 😉