originally published on February 1st, 2007 I went to the doctor about two unrelated issues. The upshot was, no action or prescription. But I came out of there a new man, with a spring in my step etc, which lasted at least two hours. All week I'd been dreading it: the inevitable physical examination and… Continue reading a Shot at Redemption
Category: films and plays
The Old Grey Whistle Test
You can't get more British than this crossword. Go to 11 Across. Immediately grasp that "shredded" means anagram. Be aware of a TV programme that ran for many years called The Old Grey Whistle Test, but if not, Google and YouTube will tell you all you need to know. And if you like, we can… Continue reading The Old Grey Whistle Test
Rod Hull and Emu
Cryptic crosswords have appeared in the Daily Telegraph since 1925. We've been doing them daily for 20 years. The setters have fun and so do we. It helps to know that a setter is also a breed of dog, "lower" can mean "cow", "butter" can mean "goat. Spooner is a favourite. Revd W. A. Spooner… Continue reading Rod Hull and Emu
Tree of Life
First published on Blogger, Saturday March 17th, 2012 “If I can prevent just one person from watching this, it’ll have been worth suffering through it.” Thus begins a review of The Tree of Life by Kevin A Ranson, alias Grim D Reaper; unfortunately one which I didn’t read in time. I can’t blame Paula, from… Continue reading Tree of Life
Motherhood
FreyasHawk was an occasional commenter on my posts, back in the heyday of blogs. These started to decline in 2012. Hers continued until December 2016, and hasn't been taken down, like most blogs of my former commenters. This post stood out for me: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2015 I know a mother who never wants to… Continue reading Motherhood
My Best Film – Ever
I was 13, staying at Granny's house in Springfield Road, St Leonards-on-Sea. I lived on the Isle of Wight, but sometimes went there in the Christmas holidays. It was a rainy evening when I went to see the film, always on my own - I had no friends there.
Green Book
Green Book is based on real people, real events. It’s really about two characters: Tony “Lip” Vallelonga, famous for dealing with trouble, from a clannish Italian family in the Bronx ; Dr Donald Shirley, classical pianist from aspirational Jamaican parents, who’s grown up in an airy-fairy virtuoso-land, and happens to be black. In the course… Continue reading Green Book
Strange Angels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVrZZymiGPI Strange angels - / Singing just for me / Old stories - / They’re haunting me / This is nothing like I thought it would be ¶ Well I was out in my four- door / With the top down. / And I looked up / And there they were: millions of tiny teardrops… Continue reading Strange Angels
Dancing on the Bar
I'm finding that life is full of pointers from a friendly universe, to guide us on our way, if we are open to the moment like a small child seeing everything for the first time. These words from author Earl Mckenzie spoke to me this morning, and helped crystallize my resolve: Retirement gave me a sense… Continue reading Dancing on the Bar
Girl with a Pearl Earring
From Bryan White I just finished reading Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. A few posts back, when Vincent said that he was "inspired" by books that he was waiting to get in the mail, I was in a similar situation at the time with this book. It was sitting on my bookshelf,… Continue reading Girl with a Pearl Earring
Owen Glendower
Written in 2002 for La Lettre Powysienne, a periodical edited by Jacqueline Peltier I don’t know of any novel to compare it with, unless you feel able to imagine that Sir Walter Scott, whom Powys admired, had like Coleridge experimented with drugs and rewritten his Quentin Durward under the influence of peyote or LSD, and… Continue reading Owen Glendower
Girl who rocked the Government
We met on a summer afternoon in ’59, two 17-year-olds, Pisces born within days of each other. We discovered we had much in common. Both from fatherless backgrounds, lacking any proper home. Each had been granted a single talent, you might say, in compensation for the lack. As her father-figure Stephen Ward said, she… Continue reading Girl who rocked the Government
. . . Until the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse land at Heathrow
I listened this morning to Peter Hennessy being interviewed by Paddy O’Connell on Radio 4’s “Broadcasting House” (starts at 54:11). His views on the impact of Brexit largely match my own. It took an hour or so to transcribe, but has saved the much greater effort of trying to cover similar ground in my own… Continue reading . . . Until the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse land at Heathrow
The Soloist: Art is More than Life
retrieved from my original blog via the Internet Archive A Los Angeles journalist befriends a homeless Juilliard-trained musician, while looking for a new article for the paper. Director: Joe Wright. Writers: Susannah Grant (screenplay), Steve Lopez (book). Stars: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr. and Catherine Keener.(1) The film is the The Soloist and I’d never heard… Continue reading The Soloist: Art is More than Life
Film Noir
One of the most stylish and effective films I’ve recently seen is The Man Who Wasn’t There, starring Billy Bob Thornton. Set in 1949, it tells the story of Ed Crane, a small-town barber, who faces life with an eerie impassivity, whilst not enjoying his job, becoming a cuckold... He cuts the hair of a… Continue reading Film Noir
Why has Bodhi-Dharma left for the East?
It’s increasingly difficult to write anything, I mean write coherently. It’s probably not the first sign of dementia, more likely that “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” (John Muir) That’s my new excuse for rambling hither and thither. I wanted to write… Continue reading Why has Bodhi-Dharma left for the East?
In memory of George Whitman, 1913-2011
I once spent a few weeks as George Whitman’s guest in his bookshop opposite Notre Dame in Paris. Today I heard of his death on the news. I’ve mentioned him three times on this blog: in May 2008, May 2009 and Feb 2011*. It has always been difficult to write about the man himself, for… Continue reading In memory of George Whitman, 1913-2011
The interconnectedness of all things*
* as in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams I’m glad I went to the doctor about my backache. I feel much better now. I learned a great truth which I can’t wait to share with you. It wasn’t the doctor who revealed it, quite the reverse. But he was the catalyst—the midwife!—to… Continue reading The interconnectedness of all things*
Groping Blindly
I’ve been in a ferment, witness to a cascade of interconnectedness, from which it is surely possible to construct an overarching meaning—but I won’t try, and that is an instance of laziness (or what-you-may-call-it) which was a theme in my last: something which seems to me like a great creative principle. In Nature, or perhaps… Continue reading Groping Blindly
Seven stylish things
Bryan M. White, that onlie begetter of Nuclear Headache, has burdened me with an award nomination as a Stylish Blogger. Never fear: if you are already in my blog-list below, and have taken the trouble to read this far, you’re ipso facto stylish enough. There is, as always, a catch. You can’t win the lottery… Continue reading Seven stylish things
Angst and Angels
Abstract ideas are all very well but unless you can feel them in your body or soul, you have no way of knowing if they are real. They might be the bastard children of human intellect mating with heaven-knows-what. So when Raymond proposed that existential angst is a universal experience, it left me unmoved. I… Continue reading Angst and Angels
Finnegan’s
One of our group the other day, who shall be nameless because I can't for the moment remember which of two it was, commented that he was rather put off by this blog's title, "The Retreat". He associated retreat with defeat. That's how tricky words can be, like petards. For ’tis the sport to have… Continue reading Finnegan’s
Metaphors
By kindly grace of destiny, I have a whole house to roam in, so there should be no need to go wayfaring outside, where it’s cold, especially as my leg hurts and I’m waiting for the postman, who’s due to deliver a package that won’t fit through the slot in the door. I can roam… Continue reading Metaphors
Antonioni’s Blow-up (1966)
Straight after Raskolnikov, I’ve been letting my soul go for a ride with another reprehensible protagonist: the unnamed photographer of Antonioni's Blow-up, played by David Hemmings as a bored playboy, who in one scene reminds me of a remark by Marc, commenting on my last: “Every time I ever pointed to a passing girl or woman… Continue reading Antonioni’s Blow-up (1966)
Rainy day pilgrimage
Undissuaded by heavy rain, and having the day free, I hankered for a bus ride, distance no object. What could be more in accord with my temperament than a pilgrimage? In harmony with the Zen poet Basho, author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North. My destination this morning was “a small café in… Continue reading Rainy day pilgrimage
Bus ride
It is wonderful to be able to rejoice with the fortunate: to see someone beautiful and young who is making the most of what he or she has, in a simple way. When I was at university, I was preoccupied with my own loneliness and wasted my time. If only I could have appreciated what… Continue reading Bus ride
Witchcraft?
It’s been quite a week, the first I’ve worked full-time in an office for ten years. As it happens it’s the same company which took me on in 1965 (my first real job) and trained me in punched card equipment. These had been invented by Herman Hollerith and James Powers to speed up the US… Continue reading Witchcraft?
Mozart and Angels
I’ve been preoccupied with engineering of late, getting my hands dirty on oily metal, instead of this digital thing, tapping on a keyboard to send digital signals, using digits of the hand, co-ordinated by the eye. Coincidentally, I've been watching The Train (1964), starring Paul Scofield, Burt Lancaster and Jeanne Moreau. The drama of the… Continue reading Mozart and Angels
What Grandma told me…
In 1964 I became friends with my landlord’s son when he came to paint the window-frames. I was suffering from depression and he recommended a psychoanalyst by the name of Theodore Faithfull, a white-haired gentleman in his eighties, the grandfather of Marianne Faithfull, who had just recorded her first hit, "As Tears Go By". (These… Continue reading What Grandma told me…
Responsibility
The Simpsons is hard on religion. Poor Ned Flanders thinks it his Christian duty to persist in loving-kindness to Homer, who’s unfailingly rude and never returns things he’s borrowed. His verbal tics (“Okely-dokely!” Home Sweet-diddly Home!”) are the only evidence of his suppressed urge to go berserk against such an unlovable next-door neighbour. What about… Continue reading Responsibility
Angels and Grace
Personally, I’m glad to be able to simply say “What happens, happens”. I don't need metaphysical explanations such as Inshallah (if God wills it). Or poetic extravagances like the fall of Lucifer from the angels to end up as Satan, to explain the existence of evil in the world I've always thought there's more to… Continue reading Angels and Grace
Lust for Life
I wanted to write something inspired by Darius’ comment “… most of us have psychological stuff that interferes with getting in touch with the depth” but had no opportunity to post anything till now. Who in the world can be classed as normal, I wonder? Jung, in his Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ascribes the theory of sexuality… Continue reading Lust for Life
Last Temptation
I finally got to watch Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, after wanting to see it ever since it first came out in 1989. Wonderfully poetic fiction and superior to the official fictions so jealously guarded by the churches. As for the Da Vinci Code, I got as far as opening it in a bookshop a while… Continue reading Last Temptation
Mechanical Jane
A Play in One Act for three ladies By M. E. BARBER Copyright, 1910, by Samuel French* CHARACTERS Miss Priscilla Robins .. A middle-aged, angular Spinster. Miss Tabitha .. Her Elder Sister. Jane .. A Mechanical Servant. Scene—A Sitting room in a Suburban Villa. MECHANICAL JANE Tabitha is discovered hovering round a small table on… Continue reading Mechanical Jane