Barbara Alexandra Szerlip's Blog
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Feb.08.2009
One of the clandestine pleasures of my childhood was reading Ripley's Believe It or Not! The hefty, yellow-fabric-bound volume, an uncle's hand-me-down, was liberally illustrated with Ripley's sketches of the unusual, the unique and the bizarre. "Oddities" was his preferred term...
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Feb.03.2009
Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897-1973) was an accomplished violinist. She was also the author of seven acclaimed biographies. I stumbled upon her work by accident and am finding her insights -- she also wrote about PROCESS -- extremely useful as I prod similar ground. I wish I'd had the opportunity to...
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Jan.31.2009
But I became a writer all the same and shall remain one until the end of the chapter, just as a cow goes on giving milk all her life, even though what appears to be her self-interest urges her to give gin.
-- H.L. Mencken (1880-1958)
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Jan.29.2009
Last November, I was one of nine writers chosen to have an original poem printed, billboard-size, and displayed for two weeks on one of San Francisco's imported (French) public toilets. Luck of the draw earned me the self-cleaning pissoir located between City Hall and the Main Library in Civic...
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Jan.15.2008
For anyone curious about my 'book sculptures' -- an eclectic adjunct to various writing and editing projects -- please consider checking out the double bay windows at MDVII Antiques (1507 1/2 Vallejo between Polk & Van Ness in SF). I was commissioned to create the shop's first-ever window...
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Jan.15.2008
Amy Tan and I have at least one thing in common. We both worked for Megaphone -- though not at the same time -- a 976 "audio entertainment" company, creating scripts transmitted by telephone. During a typical day, I watched two soap operas via satellite ('Santa Barbara' was one);...
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About Barbara
I've always had a voracious appetite for books, though I can't recall ever being read to by my parents when I was growing up. In the sixth grade, I wrote a science report in rhymed verse. As an undergraduate, I founded a "small press"...
Causes Barbara Szerlip Supports
Amnesty International
Barbara’s Favorite Books
The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie; Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison; the editorials of Lewis Lapham; anything by Dave Hickey.