Hello dear readers of Oldster. It's a deep pleasure writing in this environment and in collaboration with Sari Botton. I want to let you know lead Zoom conversations on the content of the posts and on writing craft once a month for paid subscribers at any level. I will be talking about today's post about Agnes Varda and Francine Prose at the next Zoom conversation on July 27 from 3 to 4pm EST. People who sign up are also invited to send ahead questions about their own writing projects. For more information and to sign up, please email me at: lauriestone@substack.com.
Thank you for this thoughtful, clear and provocative piece that manages to capture the desperation we feel now by looking back at older works. It makes me sad, this piece, and it makes me want to watch One Sings again.
Beautifully written and deeply reminiscent. Some men come to love women just as they are. Maybe they wish they were? Maybe they just appreciate how different they are?
I’ve always loved that title. I was young and approached it from a man’s POV. Like the coveting of “Claire’s Knee”. “Which one do I love, which one do I lust for? Which one do I choose? I was young.
Varda and life taught me otherwise. It can happen.
Laurie. I am always immediately interested when everI see your byline. But every so often you make me weep with recognition while I am simultaneously forwarding your piece to my little coven of women artists. In this case, the ones who I was with when we went to see One Sings circa 1977. Mama ain’t dead yet.
The Vertigo test!... "we’re called back to a sense of hope, however fragile it sometimes felt, that wafted over an entire generation."... "It was all sex and all please make life better for more people." This is so good I had to up my subscription again!
Laurie, I look forward to reading your latest book. I loved this piece. So many layers to it. Perhaps because I came of age in the 1970s, graduating from high school in 1979, that decade fascinates me. I was just old enough to notice all the seismic shifts. Now I can't wait to read Francine Prose's memoir 1974 as well. I didn't know about it.
Thank you so very much for this piece. I think about One Sings, the Other Doesn't all the time. Just wanting to express gratitude for the attention paid to this particular Varda film.
Brilliant essay! We live in our present with all its troubles, but we continue celebrate our past through the remembering the best art work. I love Agnes Varda art, nor only movies. I remember her remark how she sees herself as a young girl in her old age. I look differently at Casablanca. For me love of two characters goes to the second plan. The main theme is a tragedy of the people who are caught in this small town with no exit from their situation. They are trapped. That is why, I think, Bergman didn't consider herself as a main figure in this movie. And Francine Prose, what a name! Speaks for itself- beautiful prose with a lot of serious topics. Sorry that I cannot participate in Zoom conversation. I lost Zoom, it disappeared from my computer and I am absolutely ignorant about mechanics of computers. Thank you Laurie and Sari.
Great comment all around. You don't have to come, but you can reload Zoom into your computer, it's probably in "applications." Double click on it there, and it will return.
Thank you for your help, Laurie. But I am helpless about all things mechanical or mathematical. That's why I am Russian philologist. I use computers only as a typewriter, I have to confess. And I don't know so many thing how to use Substack also. So sorry. I loved your essay a lot.
I was only nine in 1974 but even at that tender age I remember feeling the tension of the war, sex, feminism all around me and being confused/scared by it. I hated the seventies!
"The movie was released in 1977, and I remember its enchantment at the time. I was 31 and had been in the women’s movement for ten years, which was about as old as the movement was in the US."
Your point is well taken, Melissa. But it was clear to me Laurie was referring to The Second Wave. But maybe that’s because it was the wave I was part of… and the name Second Wave itself remembers our foremothers.
Hello dear readers of Oldster. It's a deep pleasure writing in this environment and in collaboration with Sari Botton. I want to let you know lead Zoom conversations on the content of the posts and on writing craft once a month for paid subscribers at any level. I will be talking about today's post about Agnes Varda and Francine Prose at the next Zoom conversation on July 27 from 3 to 4pm EST. People who sign up are also invited to send ahead questions about their own writing projects. For more information and to sign up, please email me at: lauriestone@substack.com.
Thank you for this thoughtful, clear and provocative piece that manages to capture the desperation we feel now by looking back at older works. It makes me sad, this piece, and it makes me want to watch One Sings again.
Ah, Susan, you are the perfect reader. Cheers, Laurie
It's rare, isn't it, an image of female friendships that are not just a reaction to men, but in and for themselves.
Beautifully written and deeply reminiscent. Some men come to love women just as they are. Maybe they wish they were? Maybe they just appreciate how different they are?
I’ve always loved that title. I was young and approached it from a man’s POV. Like the coveting of “Claire’s Knee”. “Which one do I love, which one do I lust for? Which one do I choose? I was young.
Varda and life taught me otherwise. It can happen.
.
I love you, Laurie Stone, and this essay is an example of why. Keep writing!
Thanks!
Laurie. I am always immediately interested when everI see your byline. But every so often you make me weep with recognition while I am simultaneously forwarding your piece to my little coven of women artists. In this case, the ones who I was with when we went to see One Sings circa 1977. Mama ain’t dead yet.
Hey, love, stay in touch! xxL
The Vertigo test!... "we’re called back to a sense of hope, however fragile it sometimes felt, that wafted over an entire generation."... "It was all sex and all please make life better for more people." This is so good I had to up my subscription again!
Thanks, love. Let me know if you would like to attend Zoom conversation on July 27 3 to 4.
Laurie, I look forward to reading your latest book. I loved this piece. So many layers to it. Perhaps because I came of age in the 1970s, graduating from high school in 1979, that decade fascinates me. I was just old enough to notice all the seismic shifts. Now I can't wait to read Francine Prose's memoir 1974 as well. I didn't know about it.
So happy you found us both, and please subscribe to my Substack if you haven’t already.
F—k! So well articulated. Yes—the unfathomable IS what makes this moment so painful!
Thank you so very much for this piece. I think about One Sings, the Other Doesn't all the time. Just wanting to express gratitude for the attention paid to this particular Varda film.
Thanks so much for this comment and for appreciating the piece. xxL
Brilliant essay! We live in our present with all its troubles, but we continue celebrate our past through the remembering the best art work. I love Agnes Varda art, nor only movies. I remember her remark how she sees herself as a young girl in her old age. I look differently at Casablanca. For me love of two characters goes to the second plan. The main theme is a tragedy of the people who are caught in this small town with no exit from their situation. They are trapped. That is why, I think, Bergman didn't consider herself as a main figure in this movie. And Francine Prose, what a name! Speaks for itself- beautiful prose with a lot of serious topics. Sorry that I cannot participate in Zoom conversation. I lost Zoom, it disappeared from my computer and I am absolutely ignorant about mechanics of computers. Thank you Laurie and Sari.
Great comment all around. You don't have to come, but you can reload Zoom into your computer, it's probably in "applications." Double click on it there, and it will return.
Thank you for your help, Laurie. But I am helpless about all things mechanical or mathematical. That's why I am Russian philologist. I use computers only as a typewriter, I have to confess. And I don't know so many thing how to use Substack also. So sorry. I loved your essay a lot.
I always look forward to Laurie Stone's posts. This one was exceptionally good.
Thanks dear Katie! So happy to have readers like you.
Thank you for this. Made me laugh, made me almost cry, made me want to go watch Varda's film One Sings which I haven't seen yet...
It’s really wonderful and a time warp.
I was only nine in 1974 but even at that tender age I remember feeling the tension of the war, sex, feminism all around me and being confused/scared by it. I hated the seventies!
"The movie was released in 1977, and I remember its enchantment at the time. I was 31 and had been in the women’s movement for ten years, which was about as old as the movement was in the US."
Hi, this seems to say that the American women's movement began around in 1967, but have you considered the role of suffragettes and abolitionists starting in 1847 or before? Thanks https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-internationalist-history-of-the-us-suffrage-movement.htm
Your point is well taken, Melissa. But it was clear to me Laurie was referring to The Second Wave. But maybe that’s because it was the wave I was part of… and the name Second Wave itself remembers our foremothers.
And just for grins… Our foremothers were “suffragists”. (“Suffragettes” was a diminutive).
The English were suffragettes.
Thanks, Melissa. She's talking about the modern women's movement that she was part of.