If There Is Much In The Window There Should Be More In The Room

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Deena Metzger on Anais Nin 1/3




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7g6hPha1w

Deena Metzger talks about Anais Nin for Anais Nin @ 105 at the Hammer Museum. Organized by Steven Reigns

Metzger met Anaïs Nin in 1966 when she was the Literary and Arts editor of the LA Free Press and first became familiar with her work by reviewing Collages. They became close friends, sharing dreams, writing and their lives until Anaïs' death. When the first Diary was published, Deena reviewed it and they celebrated with a costume publication party at Deena's home: Come as one of Anaïs' Characters. In turn Anaïs endorsed Deena's first book Skin:Shadows/Silence: A Love Letter in the Form of a Novel. Since then the poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, healer has written many works including Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing; From Grief into Vision: A Council; Tree: Essays and Pieces; and Writing For Your Life: A Guide and Companion to the Inner Worlds. She co-edited Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals. Her novels include The Woman Who Slept with Men to Take the War Out of Them, The Other Hand, What Dinah Thought and Doors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn. Her most recent books of poetry are Looking for the Faces of God and A Sabbath Among The Ruins. Ruin and Beauty: New and Selected Poems is forthcoming in 2008. Her plays include Not As Sleepwalkers and Dreams Against the State.

8 comments:

  1. How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.

    (Anais Nin)

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  2. The dream has to be translated into reality.--The Novel of the Future (1969)


    I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls. -- The Diary of Anaïs Nin

    :-)

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  3. Every time I look at your page I find something inspiring, now you hit me right into the heart: this quote is very special to me, could have been mine if I had the gift of the word....
    Thank you so much.that

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  4. Mmmmmmmm, that sounds like a woman I would like to meet.
    Sharing passions and falling into exciting dreams sounds marvellous.

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  5. I know how that feels -
    there are moments,
    rare and powerful,
    in which a writer,
    long vanished,
    seems to stand in
    your presence and
    speak to you directly,
    as if she bore a message
    meant for you above all others.

    You, Stan, could be one step
    closer to getting acquainted
    with the works of this
    most important female writer
    of the twentieth century – Anaïs Nin –
    who died thirty-five years ago.
    Anaïs wrote with prolificacy,
    devotion, courage and
    an unknown poetic feminine voice.
    For sustaining a lifetime
    of fearless, feminine art,
    Anaïs Nin is a woman
    worthy of hero worship
    in its most positive aspects.
    Anaïs remains a source
    of inspiration for all
    dreamers and schemers
    who would defy convention,
    particularly women.
    Not only had she provided
    the most extensive record
    of the inner life of the
    female artist, but she did
    so with a profound understanding
    of the gift that such
    a feminine voice could
    bring to our time.

    She once wrote: "I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman."....
    (Precisely the ideals and values that I stand for)

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  6. When I was a young man ( and handsome and innocent) I read Delta of Venus and was deeply impressed. I must admit that I have forgotten most of these stories now. Shame on me.

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  7. Delta of Venus was
    my Schätzchen
    when I was in College
    and from thereon
    forever enchanted by it.
    I was blushing,
    squirming, giggling
    when I read it.
    Today we have all the hype
    about E. L. James and his
    50 Shades of Grey
    where the writing is
    elementary rotten
    and an absolute waste of time.

    Anais Nin would have flung
    that book across the floor
    and said
    "Who are you kidding, honey?
    If you're going to read filth,
    read well-written, smart,
    sexy and good filth."
    Nin's style is gorgeous,
    lyrical, hot, sexy
    and beautifully crafted filth
    was at the heart of every tale....

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  8. You are still handsome.
    Of course, in the course
    of your life you had
    experienced many
    turning-points that
    led you into fresh paths.
    Lost innocence is replaced
    by a far better virtue-
    you now hear the
    stable, constant
    voice of wisdom...

    ReplyDelete