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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Robin Hood

It is almost entirely derivative of other movies (Ridley Scott's own Gladiator, obviously; Saving Private Ryan; The Return Of Martin Guerre and its Hollywood re-make Sommersby; Peter Pan ... for goodness sake; Elizabeth; The Fellowship of the Ring, oddly enough ... those are four 12th Century Hobbits making their way through the Shire - sorry back to England; El Cid; even Kostner's version).  Maybe Ridley Scott is tired or has run out of new ideas. 

And parts of the movie are simply ridiculous.  One thinks of the preposterous idea that King Richard would have debated the lack of moral fortitude in his Crusade with an archer; the 12th Century landing craft that pre-date the invention of such vessels by 750 years; the 'Allo 'Allo Frenchies; the risible arrival of Marian and the lost boys at Dover Beach; Russell's dad as author of the Magna Carta to name but several.

One really could pick it to death.  But why bother?  At the end of its two hours none of us felt cheated out of the ticket price.  It's silliness on a stick but enjoyable enough with (sadly too few) light-hearted fun moments, some impressive battles and a quite watchable portrayal of people getting on with life outside of battles and the Royal Courts. It ought not to work but despite itself, at times, it does.

And let's hope no one mentions the fact that I left my bag, phone, wallet, keys, credit cards ... the lot ... on the floor beside the seat in the front row and didn't notice until we reached the Spanish hot chocolate cafe.  Dumkopf!!
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Sunday, May 16, 2010

Gulliver's Travels

I've started on the final text of the university course entitled Narratives of Romance and Adventure.  I read an abridged version, many years ago, as a child.  As I recall, very vaguely, there were no references to defecation, concupiscence (a word I had to turn to a dictionary to confirm my guess at its meaning) or the enormous breast of the Brobdingnag nurse:

I must confess no object ever disgusted me so much as the sight of her monstrous breast, which I cannot tell what to compare with, so as to give the curious reader an idea of its bulk, shape, and colour.  It stood prominent six feet, and could not be less than sixteen in circumference.  The nipple was about half the bigness of my head, and the hue both of that and the dug, so varied with spots, pimples, and freckles, that nothing could appear more nauseous: for I had a near sight of her, she sitting down, the more conveniently to give suck, and I standing on the table.

Three hundred years after it was written, the ridiculousness of persecuting big-enders seems
like a contemporary comment on the absurdities of today's religious enmities.
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Friday, May 14, 2010

Prospero was not wrong

We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

The Tempest: Act IV, scene I


Thursday, May 13, 2010

The wise words of Aeneas

A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this.

This is how the day feels.  Thank goodness for the hope and optimism of an ancient Roman.











Peter Paul Rubens

Saturday, May 01, 2010

Nostalgia is never what it used to be

These are those days (whatever we will make
of them) we may, once upon a time, look back,
through rose-tinted spectacles, to name golden.

The sun will rise on days like these (our golden
days we’ll call them) and as we’re looking back
older, not necessarily wiser, we will re-make

the same mistakes we might have had to make
when we had little need for spectacles; way back
then on days like these when suns rise, golden:

rose-tinted spectacles before us in the glow of golden,
recollected, half-remembered moments we bring back
to something somehow less than what in life we make.

I found this excellent web site (Poetry Foundation) after reading about Natalie Merchant's new album Leave Your Sleep, which I think I read about in The Guardian, although that was a couple of hours ago so I've forgotton (and it's less than important, really).  I watched a couple of videos on the poetry web site; Poem Beginning with a Line by Frank Lima by Lisa Jarnot (which I like) and A Partial History of My Stupidity by Edward Hirsch (the title of which I like more than the poem).  The latter, however, inspired the first four words of my own effort as I made my way to the bathroom to empty my urine collection bag, which had filled as I sat at the computer reading and listening to poets and singer/songwriters at work.

It's another of those poems of mine that I doubt can be called a poem.  I heard that voice I sometimes hear inside my head.  It spoke those words to me.  When I started playing with the idea I wondered if one could construct a poem that revolved around the words that end the first three lines.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Don't ask me why.

Do you think Byron had such doubts?  No, I don't either.
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