Joan Didion

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Quote | | Paul Greer

“There is a common superstition that “self-respect” is a kind of charm against snakes, something that keeps those who have it locked in some unblighted Eden, out of strange beds, ambivalent conversations, and trouble in general. It does not at all. It has nothing to do with the face of things, but concerns instead a separate peace, a private reconciliation.”

— Joan Didion

3 x notes on notes and sketch pages

Aside | | Paul Greer

Lynda Barry:


Notes on notes and sketch pages

Guillermo Del Toro:

Among Guillermo del Toro’s most prized possessions is a leather-bound journal that he carries with him at all times. It is where he sketches and writes down his ideas and muses for future films. In this particular notebook was four years worth of ruminations that would eventually become Pan’s Labyrinth. The movie almost never came to be, as del Toro had exited a London cab one evening and neglected to take with him his notebook. The cab driver found the notebook, as well as a scrap of paper with a hotel logo on it. Recognising the logo, the cab driver returned the notebook and del Toro was so elated with its return that he rewarded the cab driver $900.
Among Guillermo del Toro’s most prized possessions is a leather-bound journal that he carries with him at all times. It is where he sketches and writes down his ideas and muses for future films. In this particular notebook was four years worth of ruminations that would eventually become Pan’s Labyrinth. The movie almost never came to be, as del Toro had exited a London cab one evening and neglected to take with him his notebook. The cab driver found the notebook, as well as a scrap of paper with a hotel logo on it. Recognising the logo, the cab driver returned the notebook and del Toro was so elated with its return that he rewarded the cab driver $900. via

 

Joan Didion:


Joan Didion

 

“Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle. Although I have felt compelled to write things down since I was five years old, I doubt that my daughter ever will, for she is a singularly blessed and accepting child, delighted with life exactly as life presents itself to her, unafraid to go to sleep and unafraid to wake up. Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.”