Quote of the Day (Lauren Groff, on Indie Rocker Florence Welch)

“[English singer-songwriter Florence] Welch [of Florence and the Machine] ran up from her garden a creature of flesh and blood, wearing a prim prairie dress with flowers speckled all over it. She is tall — somewhere near 5-foot-10 — ardent and elegant, with long red Pre-Raphaelite hair and the strong-boned face of a medieval saint. She has an incredible vigor to her speech, which is frequently crowded with images. She was talking even before coming into the room and spoke nonstop for hours, thoughtfully, in loops and circuits; I only interjected a few times. With other people, being monologued at like this might have been hellish, but Welch was a little goofy, quite funny — her laugh is deep, sudden, frequent and startlingly loud. On multiple occasions during our hours together, she paced in excitement. Once she sped off upstairs to fetch something, coming down the staircase with such fast footsteps that I was briefly afraid she’d tumble the rest of the way.”— American novelist and short story writer Lauren Groff, “Florence!”, T (The New York Times Style Magazine), Oct. 20, 2024

The image accompanying this post, of Florence Welch fronting Florence and the Machine, was taken Apr. 18, 2009, by Juan Bendana.