As a kid I grew up with my mother and grandmother’s copies of Rona Barrett’s Hollywood and The National Enquirer scattered around the house.

My grandmother especially was unapologetic about the gossip rags, and her ardor made it all the easier for me to revel in them too.

Some of my sweetest memories involve everyone in my family lying around on Sunday afternoons discussing Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand having sex together on the set of The Way We Were. Or at least how we imagined they were having sex together. Tabloid time like this was considered quality time in my family.

To this day I still argue with friends about the veracity of The National Enquirer, and why I still read it — explaining how the potential threat of high-cost litigation keeps the paper trustworthy. This pretty much guarantees that whatever sort of outrageous revelation they are publishing is fact-based (well, maybe). (read the full article)

Very Early Spring by Katherine Mansfield

The fields are snowbound no longer;
There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green.
The snow has been caught up into the sky–
So many white clouds — and the blue of the sky is cold.
Now the sun walks in the forest,
He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers;
They shiver, and wake from slumber.
Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls.
Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears….
A wind dances over the fields.
Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter,
Yet the little blue lakes tremble
And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver. (read the full article)