![]() ![]() ![]() In spite of the room and its clock, the party proceeds gaily. This pause is soon over and forgotten until the next hour. When it sounds each hour the sound is so disconcerting that the musicians stop playing and the party halts momentarily. It houses a huge ebony clock which ticks loudly and chimes horribly. The final chamber provides another chilling aspect. This room is mostly avoided by the revelers. This seventh room is shrouded in black tapestries and carpet, but the windows of this room are blood red, so that the light coming through the windows casts a ghastly hue on the faces of anyone who enters. Each room is a different color, draped in velvet and other ornate furnishings, lit by braziers burning in a corridor beyond and shining through stained glass windows the same color as the furnishings. The dance is held in an elaborately decorated suite of seven rooms which flow into each other in a maze-like sequence. Eventually Prince Prospero holds a magnificent masquerade ball for his courtiers. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() I needed to find new ways forward and surround myself with people, like myself, who were struggling to establish their identity and support their mental health. A product of the Great Resignation, I came to CHOW in 2020 for support in detaching myself from an industry that I had hidden my discomfort in for so long. For years I struggled with High Functioning Anxiety, and it wasn’t until I delved deep into my behavioral patterns and life choices, that I could see how my most harmful traits and habits were nestled into the profession I had chosen. Here is her bio in her own words: "I am Jasmin Vitolo Parks-Papadopoulos, former toxic Chef, currently Certified Life Coach. ![]() On this episode, I chat with Jasmin Vitolo Parks-Papadopoulos. ![]() ![]() ![]() ‘This, in my opinion, was the best book in this year’s Wishing Shelf Book Awards. Best book I have read this year.’ Girl, aged 10 So much happens in it and it is so well written. ‘What a fantastic story! I loved the setting: Minnesota in 1904 and the cover was perfect for a book of this genre. This book was recently entered and was a BRONZE MEDAL WINNER in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards. Charming silhouettes provide previews of coming attractions for each chapter and the story moves along at a pace to ensure that the reader will want to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next! Though I am clearly not the target audience for the book, being a gentleman of a certain age, I truly enjoyed the story and recommend it without reservation to readers, young and old alike. The book contains tense moments, humor, and an exciting climax. Esme more than makes up for her short stature with spunk and intelligence. At the heart of the story is Esme, a vertically-challenged, 11-year old growing up in trying circumstances in Minnesota in 1904. The writing in Esme Dooley is both beautiful enough to satisfy adults and direct enough to be readily accessible to younger readers. ![]() Hail exploded from the starless sky and the silver wind sang wildly.” – so begins this lovely story of adventure and friendship. And no one, not even the old-timers, had ever seen its like. For on the night she was born, a storm swept into the valley. “A mysterious wind blew her into this world – or so they often whispered. ![]() ![]() The book’s jacket was wrapped with a warning that read, “NOT TO BE IMPORTED INTO THE UNITED STATES OR GREAT BRITAIN.” Even in liberal Paris, bookstores sold the novel under the counter but as word spread, copies were bought by American tourists and smuggled home disguised under dust jackets from other books. Tropic of Cancer has been described as “notorious for its candid sexuality” and noted as responsible for the “free speech that we now take for granted in literature.”Īnaïs Nin helped to edit the book and Obelisk Press published it with financial backing from Nin, herself, in 1934 in Paris, France. His was a true underdog story: a creative and challenging author who influenced such literary and pop culture icons as Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Phillip Roth, Paul Theroux, Erica Jong, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles but today, 34 years after his death, he remains a marginalized and largely forgotten figure in the footnotes of literature- all because his work was banned from the moment it saw the printed page. ![]() ![]() Henry Miller is one of the most important literary figures in American history, but most people don’t even know his name. ![]() |