Salman Rushdie on movie adaptations

"What is essential? It's one of the great questions of life, and, as I've suggested, it's a question that crops up in other adaptations than artistic ones. The text is human society and the human self, in isolation or in groups, the essence to be preserved is a human essence, and the result is the pluralist, hybridised, mixed-up world in which we all now live."

Salman Rushdie writes a brilliant essay on movie adaptations of novels in today's Guardian. It contains so much more than the technical and artistic challenges of translating. Well worth a read.

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I was thirteen years old ...

I loved this song. Not quite sure why it should appeal to a spotty adolescent, barely into his teens. What would I have known about about my love "gently sighing as the evening slips away"?

Never comes the day indeed ...

Steve Bell in today's Guardian

Even though he's an old Trot, I really enjoy Steve Bell's cartoons in The Guardian (most of the time) but I hate the cynicism he displays in today's paper. It bothered me enough to post the comment below on the newspaper's web site.

Mr Angry writes from Ashfield ...

I've been a fan of Steve's for as long as I can remember. I don't always agree with the message he sends but even the stuff I hate usually makes me grin. This, however, is simply a cheap shot; misrepresenting the manner, style and content of what the man said. Barak Obama is, indeed, a mainstream politician and he may well be hauled into and fully embrace the traditional role of chief spokesperson for the hegemonic force of our age. After all, he did put up his hand and asked to be President of the USA so it's not like he's pretending to be Che. But he's not leader of the parade Steve draws him as. At worst, right now he may be more like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. At best, however, he may put an end to the worst of the Bush era madness, opening up spaces in which the rest of us might see, once again, new opportunities to shake the tree.
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So long, farewell ...

... as the Von Trapp family children (whom you know so well and love, Spike) sing. Last day at the office. End of this phase, standing on the threshold of a dream (as the Moody Blues were wont to tell us in the sixties anvd seventies). We love you and will miss you.

(They don't write them like this anymore!!)

And today's word is ...

Grievance ...

As in that which has been lodged against me at work by a former colleague, posing as a friend, whom one might describe (at best) as fanciful.

As in what one feels at the necessity to work in the office until 11:30 p.m. responding to some genuinely barking mad claims. Truly ... barking ... mad.

Sue me if you don't like it.

Sue me.

Mirror Mask by Neil Gaiman

Brilliant, as ever. And read aloud to me, perfectly, by one's very own Helena.

Dreamer

And if we fade
when time has done
with all the games
we've often played
through years we knew
not how to count
the meaning of
the joy we'd found

with no hopes lost
before those lives
we thought we'd bought
were sold again
for half the cost
of old mistakes
and tired friends
surrendering

will we know how
to start again,
to see anew
this how and when
and if we do
will we see through
the eyes of men
yet wondering?

Oh, let me know
how easy lives go,
show me all
those tired men know,
remain my friend
to tell me when ...
the end
will one day be

but never tell me
not to play
with who we were
when we were free
nor dim the lights
of life to come
before at last
we must succumb.


(I listened too many times to Clint Eastwood and Jamie Cullum perform their brilliant Gran Torino. This came. And now I'm off to bed. Old fool that I am.)
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