dear Suzanne d.C. … really admire your impressive knowledge and enthusiasm (a treasure trove always…) - re. St Joan of Arc: in the book-reading ‘question-of-the-day’. I listed as my final favorite, always re-reading it, “Joan of Arc - In her Own Words” (compiled + translated by Willard Trask, Books & Co., NY 1996) - which was given to me, wrapped in black lace, by a dear friend who wanted to let me know that she thought I was true warrior … and btw, this is on my ‘list of films to see’: ❍ “Joan of Arc” 1928 C.T.Dreyer, La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc 1935 Gustav Ucicky, Das Madchen Johanna 1948 Victor Fleming, Joan of Arc (Ingrid Bergmann) 1957 O.Preminger, Saint Joan (G.B.Shawn/Graham Greene) 1962 Robert Bresson, Proces de Jeanne d’Arc 1994 Jacques Rivette, Joan The Maid (Sandrine Bonnaire) 1999 Luc Besson, The Messenger 1999 Christian Duguay, Joan Of Arc (TV, Leelee Sobieski)

well, superheroine ladies … I am with Mugsy, never quite got with the comic book thing … but Tinkerbell, yeah! that is a lovely answer! … and as a little kid I wanted to be Pippi Longstocking, so strong and totally her own unique independent self, a little sad/lonely and very very funny …

dear Liz Smith … thanks for a wonderful article and those fab pictures … ordered the book today and can’t wait for what promises to be a great read … (the book is already at #1 on B&N’s list …) and also dear Jackie OhOh and Suzanne: loved your comments: re. the annoying Dr. Mark Klein … a weird coincidence today: while checking out an article on NYTimes re. Day Care Centers … there he was, with yet another nasty unproductive comment about women better stay home and raise children etc. - and it turns out, from other reader’s comments there, that he seems well-known for endlessly posting his favorite chauvinistic remarks on different NYTimes reader’s sites … the writer and reader’s on that NYT forum also tried to not get too aggravated, and take him with a sense of humor…

dear Liz Smith … thanks for a wonderful article and those fab pictures … ordered the book today and can’t wait for what promises to be a great read … (the book is already at #1 on B&N’s list …) and also dear Jackie OhOh and Suzanne: loved your comments: re. the annoying Dr. Mark Klein … a weird coincidence today: while checking out an article on NYTimes re. Day Care Centers … there he was, with yet another nasty unproductive comment about women better stay home and raise children etc. - and it turns out, from other reader’s comments there, that he seems well-known for endlessly posting his favorite chauvinistic remarks on different NYTimes reader’s sites … the writer and reader’s on that NYT forum also tried to not get too aggravated, and take him with a sense of humor…

dear mary lou s … I sincerely believe that the current Dalai Lama will rather retire the tradition or find a new one than allow the Chinese government to further destroy the culture of the Tibetans … and Buddhists all over the world will no support a ‘phony version’ … it is most saddening that all the peaceful world-wide protests and efforts on behalf of the Tibetans do not seem to move the Chinese government, and only very few of the people in that so-called people’s republic … yet continuous effort/practice will prevail … namaste

… great comments … I so agree with Mary M., but also really like Deni’s … ‘And I am beginning to wonder where in the world they could be held. Whose hands are clean? At least the Olympic Games are shining a light in a dark corner.’ … to keep alive old symbols and ideals (yes, Ms.Dee the history of the Olympics is an interesting topic!) seems such a wonderful idea/ideal … Yet, shining an Olympic light has not proven to prevent dark history (as seen in 1936) … And with all due respect to all the sports idealists here: Sports, and so the Olympics too, is big business (commercials, broadcasting, merchandise, etc.etc.) and therefore also always politic … As to friendship, cultural exchange, athletic competition and peace and pride of country that Lin Si, a.o., writes about: the daily tallies of which country won how many medals have always bothered me as nationalistic playground games for grown-ups, less about the individual athlete’s achievement, but more about how many resources a country can pump into their champions (… not so much a lofty Greek ideal but rather a chauvinistic concept from the dark ages … and frankly, who cares which one’s bigger…) And the wish to see one’s country ‘strong and beautiful’ (a previous comment from Lin Si) seems so outdated, - we should really by now be more concerned about seeing our whole world strong and beautiful … and that certainly requires not only shining lights into many dark corners (here and everywhere), but also ‘training’ (muscles and brains…) to strengthen our individual responsibilities toward this planet’s physical and cultural survival … promoting many other kinds of Olympic games, in science and art. As to this year’s Olympic Games in Beijing: mistake or not, it’s now a fact … and so one has to wish that it will be a peaceful event … and be glad that it keeps us discussing our world, here and everywhere.

This rather addictive website (kudos to all wOw women, and the readers/posters) seems to ask all the questions that swirl around my mind these days too (China, books, living ) … maybe just the zeitgeist of a certain age group … WHY do I live in New York City … all the way East on 14th Street, a little brownstone co-op island overshadowed by a power plant, Stuyvesant Town and the projects in back … not a particularly pretty site, but very much ‘home’ inside … these past 20 years! I am still stunned that I only recently figured out it has been this long … Why: love, work, life - it all happened so fast … Why I live in NYC and love it: for all the obvious reasons - Whoopi and Sheila said it so well, and it even seems that some of the wOw women are part of ‘my New York’ in some ways: can’t live without Liz’ column, learned a lot about my new world thru the humor of Lily, Candace and Whoopi, and Lesley’s TV news and Joan Juliet’s writing … well, I even worked for Sheila a couple of times … so very New York … and then of course there are the NY Times, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair … I loved being a (late)married woman here, with a busy working and social life, having my own company for a while … I now love walking the East Village alone, and that it is such a bizarre, multi-faceted village (my ‘tourists’, ie. guests/visitors, never get that NY-village thing), I love walking to the Union Square market, zig-zagging thru the E.V. to the Bowery, on to SoHo and downtown, crossing over to the Chelsea galleries on the 14th Street bus which now end-stops at the Gehry building…, zipping uptown (although I do hate the subway …) and then walking to all the museums (free times, memberships, and, yeah! the great ‘pay-as-you-wish’) and the park, still awed by the tall buildings, (and by where ‘the rich folks live’…) … And then again I love looking out my quiet back windows, at the white fire escape in the evening light … making me feel like I am on a big ship … and that is living in New York: a big crowded mad ship of fools … who wouldn’t want to live in New York … BUT: HOW ROOTED, that is the real question … this ship is not really anchored … even if 20 years in the same apartment would seem like it … and I fiercely fought my way to owning this tiny piece of NYC real estate (through mountains of debts, divorce and dire straits … at times feeling I own just the walls around me but nothing else to live on …) … This space has seen the happiest and the nastiest times … and yet, it is not anchored (and it’s build on land-fill … ) And as it seems the moving cycles in my life at least, work in chunky two-decade patterns (I noticed something similar in other posts here …) - so, I am currently in doubt about New York: I can’t imagine to live without the culture and diversity, but I also feel stuck … 19 years in small town Germany, then 17 years in Berlin, and now 20 years in ‘The City’ … when asked ‘where is home’, I used to always say ‘here’ (not naming the place though! …) … And I got to test the ‘one-can-never-go-back-again’ thing, just these past two years, through the illness and death of my father … living for several prolonged stays again in what my family still thinks is my ‘home-town’ … That was a very unsettling and thought-provoking experience - not just the family drama and sadness, but the ‘culture shock’ ! … Utterly familiar, even welcoming and so very strange at the same time, how could one ever go back, there?! … And there it was, Culture is what roots one to a place (besides the space and the flower pots on the window-sill and all the books finally on shelves around all walls) … And I have had the opportunities to be able to choose - to leave first the small town culture, then one big city culture (too German, too much ugly history …) for another big city culture, and move and immerse myself in another world … Yet also trapping myself squarely in the emigrant no-where land in the process … And now it seems time to make another choice: where and how to live now (made more poignant this time, as there maybe not so many more decade-long cycles …) … It is scary and exciting to think about: what next, where next, but mostly: HOW, what culture to choose: Stay, Move, Travel … live a ‘greener’, more responsible life … maybe not be in one place for such long times again … yet really living somewhere means to stay a while … be rooted … “Leaving one’s homeland achieves half the dharma”, that’s what Milarepa supposedly said in Tibet a very long time ago … Where does one go with what one has learned …

… books and book-lovers - a great topic … my own lists and piles of ‘to be read’ are so large already … well, a lot got added reading these posts (I admit, I find reading on-line tiring, and agree with all who just love the book as an object too … ) … having been on a reading rampage this winter/spring, I actually had thought a lot about reading/writing, and in that, very much enjoyed Francine Prose’s “Reading Like A Writer” (a great reading list too…) Scanning my shelves and tables, some recent and always Favorites: for Inspiration: Mathiessen’s “Snow Leopard”, Thurman’s “Infinite Life” and “Circling the Sacred Mountain”, Iyer’s new “Open Road, the Global Journey of the 14th Dalai Lama”, and anything by Thich Nhat Hanh; for sheer Reading Pleasure (and escapist comfort): just re-read all Austen and Brontes, and some Dickens and Thackeray, and Joyce’s “Dubliners”…; always Checking Back In with: Marguerite Yourcenar (all of it), but every few years one has to re-read “Memoirs of Hadrian”, and some of Colette and also Marguerite Duras, incl. just now “The War, A Memoir” (those French ladies … ); happy about D.Lessing’s Nobel Prize, got her auto-biographies; finally read/loved Willa Cather (about time, after 20 yrs in the USA…); re-discovering Herman Hesse, Erich Kastner and Kurt Tucholsky; and finally read J.W. v. Goethe’s “Italian Journey” ( the W.H.Auden/E.Mayer translation in Penguin Classics is amazing); for Poetry: Fernando Pessoa, and Leonard Cohen, and Grace Paley; for Thrillers: Fred Vargas (another great French lady …); re-discovering Ursula LeGuin, her newest “Lavinia” (and she has interesting reading lists/reviews on her website too…); for a Project: much Children’s and ‘young adult’ literature … incl. “Walk Two Moons”, “Witch Child”, and of course the amazing P.Pullman, and some of the best from the British 70’s, Joan Aiken and Diana Wynne Jones (that’s where that JK Rowling got a lot of ‘inspiration’ …); some Heavier Lifting: Jose Saramago, W.G. Sebald, Lion Feuchtwanger; some Exciting Reads: Colm Toibin, Monica Ali, Arundhati Roy, Siri Hustvedt, Colum McCann; just for Fun: Helen Mirren’s memoir; and gardening books, and historical novels, and travel essays (Traveler’s Tales series, Jan Morris, Pico Iyer); and Always: “Franny and Zooey”, and “Joan of Arc, In Her Own Words”

Thanks, Liz Smith, for a wonderful review … it was a very interesting event … that’s what good girlfriends are for: I would have missed it if a friend hadn’t called and got me to rush up to Carnegie Hall … the only little kvetch: the pretty program gave info on all the speakers, but no dates/booklist/bio etc. on Mr. Norman Mailer … that seemed a bit remiss , oh well …