Maggie Blaha
Bio
Maggie is a placeless writer who is wandering around Europe in search of a home—a place where she can live simply, write often, and read always. She's currently living in Spain.
Stories (11)
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Nellie LaRoy is the 'Pretty Woman' of 'Babylon'
When Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) first appears on screen in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much she looked like Julia Roberts’ character (Vivian Ward) at the beginning of Pretty Woman. You know, before Richard Gere gives her $3,000 and a new wardrobe to transform her into a suitable escort for his week of business meetings in Los Angeles. Nellie’s big curly hair, skin-tight red halter dress, and black ankle boots are certainly more reminiscent of 1990 than 1926, the year Chazelle’s lavish film about the early days of Hollywood begins. Is this intentional? Are we meant to see in Nellie LaRoy’s journey as a Hollywood it-girl a deconstruction of Vivian Ward’s “Cinderella” transformation?
By Maggie Blaha3 years ago in Geeks
The Diary of a Shakespeare Groupie
April 2nd, 1600 Dear Diary, 'Tis another night spent at The Globe. They've charged us working men two pennies to see the first performance of His play Richard III. Two pennies is a day's wage at the tannery, which means that I haven't eaten since yesterday morning, but 'tis worth it to see another play from England's greatest playwright. 'Tis only my mind that needs sustenance, and tonight my mind has amply supped on language so beautifully spoken by the stage's finest players. Aye, what was language before him?
By Maggie Blaha4 years ago in Fiction
Why the Food Acting on 'Gilmore Girls' Upsets Me
As I begin to write this essay, I'm watching Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) take the tiniest bite of a hamburger I've ever seen a person take. Oddly, she's chewing like that bite contains more than a crumb of bun, and I feel myself cringing as I sit here trying to find the words to convey what about this makes me so angry.
By Maggie Blaha5 years ago in Viva
The Meaning of "Being Alive"
I first heard the song "Being Alive"—from Stephen Sondheim's musical Company—when Adam Driver's character in Marriage Story, Charlie Barber, performs it at a piano bar. I didn't really connect with the song at the time, but the poignancy of this scene has stuck with me since I saw the film back in 2019.
By Maggie Blaha5 years ago in Beat
The Myers-Briggs Personality Gift Guide. Third Place in Gift Guide Challenge. Top Story - December 2020.
The thing about all the holiday gift guides you see this time of year is that they don’t tell you how to match their gift recommendations to the different types of people you have in your life.
By Maggie Blaha5 years ago in Lifehack
IRL
Inspired by John Green’s podcast ‘The Anthropocene Reviewed’ where he rates different aspects of our human-centered geological age on a 5-star scale, I decided to do the same for quarantine. You can read all my quarantine reviews and sign up to get them in your inbox here.
By Maggie Blaha5 years ago in Geeks
My Ideal Dinner Party: A Novel
In the early days becoming a writer, to me, meant hosting or attending sophisticated dinner parties in a brownstone apartment with crown molding and paintings on the walls in some city like New York or Paris. This might explain why I’m a much better dinner party hostess than I am a writer. My capacity for rigid discipline only extends to planning dinner party menus and playing the woman of society.
By Maggie Blaha5 years ago in Feast
Is There a Connection Between Julia Child's Politics and Her Kitchen?
It was Nora Ephron’s film Julie & Julia (2009) that really introduced me to Julia Child and her tome of French cuisine Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Ephron depicts Child as a dominating but charming figure, who is firmly set in her opinions but also curious and open to learning new things. The reason she even attended Le Cordon Bleu while living in Paris with her husband Paul was so she could relish in her love of French food and teach Americans to do the same. And even though Simone Beck, one of the co-authors of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, points out in the film that a degree really isn’t required to teach cooking classes, Julia is adamant about doing things “properly.”
By Maggie Blaha5 years ago in The Swamp
No one mistakes my tattoo for a hat. First Place in Tattoo Tale Challenge.
If I could have gotten my tattoo when I was a kid, I wouldn't have needed to show the elephant within the stomach of a boa constrictor. That's not how the young artist in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince originally intended to present his drawing.
By Maggie Blaha5 years ago in Geeks
