queen_ypolita

Circles by R S Thomas

The astronauts could not conceal
their triumph. As the last star
drifted away on the port bow,
limitless space took them
to itself; weightlessness
possessed them. No hunger
anymore, no desire
for liquid. Immortality
was within their grasp as
an ability to travel
onward for ever. After how many
days? years? their instruments
were alerted; a forgotten gravity
began drawing them down to where
they had set forth. With a bleak
gleam the knowledge broke
on them that infinity also
was round. On a pitiless
runway no wives, children
awaited their return. Only the old
senators, statesmen were lined up
in their funereal clothing, ready
as ever to declare war.

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My Prehistoric Name by Moniza Alvi

I'm pulling myself out of one of my lives
as if I were an old tooth.

I'm calling up who I was yesterday
and what I was a hundred years ago.

I'll hurl myself down like a wildcard—
sitting here I've almost ceased to breathe.

Now the horse is in the igloo
and the rabbit's in the stable.

When the horse bolts I'll go with him
clinging to the tassels of his mane,

trailing remnants of a street, a dialect,
my childhood schemes, and I'll whisper

and repeat my prehistoric name.

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I spent most of today in York, where I dragged trueriver to hear University of Huddersfield Chamber Choir and Early Music Ensemble do some Spanish renaissance music for advent and Christmas at the NCEM (and then round some shops to see if I could fill my remaining Christmas shopping gaps). The concert was lovely and as always, it was wonderful to see TR, particularly since it had been quite a while since the last time. And I scored a spatula and icing kit from Lakeland for myself (but no Christmas shopping).

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Hard Water by Jean Sprackland

I tried the soft stuff on holiday in Wales,
a mania of teadrinking and hairwashing,
excitable soap which never rinsed away,

but I loved coming home to this.
Flat. Straight. Like the vowels,
like the straight talk: hey up me duck.
I'd run the tap with its swimming-pool smell,
get it cold and anaesthetic. Stand the glass
and let the little fizz of anxiety settle.
Honest water, bright and not quite clean.
The frankness of limestone, of gypsum,
the sour steam of cooling towers,
the alchemical taste of brewing.

On pitiless nights, I had to got for the bus
before last orders. I'd turn up my face,
let rain scald my eyelids and lips.
It couldn't lie. Fell thick
with a payload of acid. No salt—
this rain had forgotten the sea.
I opened my moth, speaking nothing
in spite of my book-learning.
I let a different cleverness wash my tongue.
It tasted of work, the true taste
of early mornings, the blunt taste
of don't get mardy, of too bloody deep for me,
fierce lovely water that marked me for life
as belonging, regardless.

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On Friars' Hill by Mary O'Malley

When you set out for Ithaca
Pray that your journey be long...
           Cavafy

This late at night household objects
are no longer inert or friendly,
they send out ashy emanations.
The cold TV, the stained glass panel
and the telephone tremble slightly
in their thingy dreams.

Almost eighteen years ago
we came back from the sun
with two young children
to this, our university town.
Here, unknown to us,
a street was being laid down.

On the opposite hill
two horses grazed, Summer and Winter
much loved by our small daughter.

High in the constellations
trajectories of burning stars
were converging. Despite
projections of disaster
each collision was avoided.

When I came home tonight
the cats flowed towards me,
a street-lit cloud, a grey shadow.

Home? There is no danger of elegy.
We will never be thirty years married now.
The wedding ring
that is out gold O of delight
and 'forever' and sits
in a dark drawer, still fits.
When we set out for Ithaca
with glowing faces I gave you youth
and fire as well as grief.
Although this barren island
was not the expected destination,
we acquired amber and ebony
and our journey was long.

The horses have gone,
replaced by houses.
On every street, in every new estate,
it is starting again.

This November night
there is a moon
caught in a fine mesh
of mist. It comforts me to know
I could walk up that opposite hill
where the white mare and brown horse were
and the bay would spread out
west, to water and escape.

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The Way We Live by Vicki Weaver

In rooms whose lights
On winter evenings
Make peepshows of our lives—

Behind each window
A stage so cluttered up
With props and furniture

It's not surprising
We make a mess of what began
So simply with I love you.

Look at us: some
Slumped in chairs
And hardly ever speaking

And others mouthing
The same tired lines to ears
That long ago stopped listening.

Once we must have dreamed
Of something better.
But even those who swapped

One partner for another
Have ended up
Just like the rest of us:

Behind doors, moving outside
Only to go to work
Or spend weekends with mother.

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It never fails to annoy me when local councillors never fail to blame the current (in the case of lib dem councillors) or the previous (in the case of labour councillors) party controlling the council about anything (potentially) negative and sometimes just when something's channging (context is that after three(?) years of being run by lib dem council went labour in May). It just feels so painfully childish and unproductive, and makes me want to promise I'll never ever give my vote to either. I can see how first-past-the-post feeds that kind of mindset, but is it really inevitable or necessary?

I've been thinking of writing something about TV viewing I've done this autumn, but not getting round to it. So here's the digest: I haven't really watched much drama (watched Doctor Who, have been watching Merlin but not really paying much attention to it, have been watching Downton Abbey but seem to have given up on it now because it started feeling like a chore). I caught up on The Killing, series one, when it was being repeated on BBC Four earlier this autumn, and have been meaning to find out when the second series is coming. Factual: I enjoyed the Hidden Paintings series on BBC Four, and the history of electricity one, and realised to my dismay that I found out about the history of cinema on More4 so late that I couldn't get the first couple of episodes on catch-up any more, so I'll be waiting for it to be repeated at some point in future. I somehow got hooked in Project Runway after watching the episode that Adam Lambert was guest judge in on Youtube and then finding a way to watch the rest of the series and catch up on the earlier episodes. I'm not sure where that came from, I'm not that into fashion (and certainly not high fashion), or reality TV for that matter. I think part of it was like watching a trainwreck, and I suppose at some level I'm interested in how clothes are put together, and have some experience in making clothes for myself.

I'm looking forward to a couple of days off work week after next—I booked those days off more or less at random since I had leave days to use up, but at the moment it looks like they're coming at a good point after slightly frantic couple of weeks (I'm doing the bulk of work on my team's behalf to fulfil our obligations in the quarterly risk and controls compliance exercise, and it takes a fair bit of time and effort, but I'm really enjoying it).

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On Being (Sometimes) Vertical and Verbal by Carol Rumens

What on earth is it that explains our gait?
Even in coupled poise we walk half-cock
And crabbed with verbs: regret, anticipate.

That leaves explain how cups originate,
And sunlight on a swirl of crags, the clock,
Is clear, but what on earth explain our gait?

Our soles plod on. Meanwhile, our palms vibrate
With cunning voices, digits, tones, caps lock.
The lexis of young verbs: text, network, date.

Did brains refine our paws, or hands add freight
To brains? Do our pained feet insist we talk,
Or is it language that explains our gait?

And still we genuflect, or fall prostrate
To gods we've carved ourselves, from logs or rock:
Why do we serve, who also say 'check mate'?

Hands are out learning outcomes, but too late.
Old hands make gardens grow. Little hands walk
At dawn. The want of earth explains our gait.
Our lonesome hands that plead explain, translate.

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Went to hear a talk by Alison Weir tonight, mainly about her new book about Mary Boleyn. I think she was saying that with The Other Boleyn Girl and The Tudors, it was becoming increasingly difficult to see the historical facts behind the romanticised and fictionalised accounts, so it had been interesting to go to the primary sources and see what actually emerged, and how it had been a bit like detective work with so few sources available (when compared to what's available about Anne, for example). It was a nice talk, and made me want to read the book; I've enjoyed her history/historical biography books that I've read, the fiction has been more hit and miss (I think I liked her afterword to her novel about Elizabeth more than I liked the book, although I believe the whole point of the book was one of the things I actually quite like about historical fiction, which is expoloring things that probably didn't happen.)

(Totally unrelated but I've just been reading a Doctor Who novel set in the 13th century Oxford with a really nice thoughtful author's afterword about history and fiction and where he's taken liberties with historical facts.)

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River by Carol Ann Duffy

At the turn of the river the language changes,
a different babble, even a different name
for the same river. Water crosses the border,
translates itself, but words stumble, fall back,
and there, nailed to a tree, is proof. A sign

in new language brash on a tree. A bird,
not seen before, singing on a branch. A woman
on the path by the river, repeating a strange sound
to clue the bird's song and ask for its name, after.
She kneels for a red flower, picks it, later
will press it carefully between the pages of a book.

What would it mean to you if you could be
with her there, dangling your own hands in the water
where blue and silver fish dart away over stone,
stoon, stein, like the meanings of things, vanish?
She feels she is somewhere else, intensely, simply because
of words; she sings loudly in nonsense, smiling, smiling.

If you were really there what would you write on a postcard,
or on the sand, near where the river runs into the sea?

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Earlier this week, Tyrannosaur, as a film group outing. I think it was aiming for gritty, but didn't pull it off—watching the film, it felt like the implied audience was looking down at these characters belonging to lower social classes like they were specimens at the zoo, and might just as well had huge signs saying "feral underclass". And just how much of a cliché it is to have a person being abused by their partner to start building rapport with someone who's been the abusive partner to someone else, and have them both becoming better people through all of it.

I went down to London yesterday to see four films at the London film festival. Maybe four films in one day was a bit of an overkill but I just couldn't make the screening schedules work for me in any other way (I considered taking a couple of days off work since I still have unused leave, but after spending quite a lot of time in trying to figure it out, I just couldn't find two consecutive days with a good mix of screenings at sensible times, so I gave up and just did the one day. LFF definitely makes me want to live in London just to have it all more accessible to me.)

50/50 was better than I expected, I think, and more focused on Adam who finds he has cancer than Kyle his best friend than the synopsis led me to expect: it was basically a film about how Adam and the people around him react to it. And I found Kyle very annoying, the casual sexism was just so off-putting it wasn't funny at all. I thought there was a risk that this film would be too soppy or corny, but I think mostly worked.

360 I liked a lot, definitely my kind of film, although I believe I've seen reviews saying it's just this empty piece propped up by some big names.

Pariah was wonderful, I loved it, and there was a nice Q&A with the writer/director afterwards.

Restless left me cold. I suppose it had some charming moments, but having already seen one film with a character battling a potentially terminal illness, seeing another on the same day was definitely overkill.

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Off the Shelf is the annual festival of reading and writing in these parts, and I've been to three events this week. The first was a talk by Mike Hulme at the Students' Union about his book from a couple of years ago, Why We Disagree about Climate Change which I haven't read (but I think I want now), but based on the talk appears to argue that taking action about changes brought about by climate change cannot happen if it's solely driven by a notion that scientific enquiries can give us certain and accurate prediction of what will happen in the future. Which was all rather interesting, and made me want to want know more.

Yesterday, I went to a guided tour at the Manor Lodge, which is basically ruins and one surviving building (the Turret house) of the Sheffield Manor. I'm not entirely sure why the tours were offered as part of Off the Shelf, but as I had never been there, I was curious and took the opportunity. It wasn't really the nicest of days for it—we had a lovely drizzle coming down all the time we were walking among the surviving bits.

I took a couple of photos: ( Photos )

Also yesterday, I dropped by at the book swap in the winter garden, but I couldn't see anything I fancied.

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I finished off August with a Doctor Who novel, and I started September in the same vein: Rags by Mick Lewis was a Third Doctor adventure in the late 1970s has a travelling punk band gathering a large crowd of followers and evidently inciting them to kill. Despite gruesome subject matter I found this a fun, easy read.

Non-fiction from the library: Strangers: Homosexuality in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb was well-written and lucidly argued and told me a few things I didn't already know. All and all, really enjoyable.

Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith was a quick read, and played with the story of Iphis and Ianthe from Ovid's metamorphoses— I liked it.

Katherine Swynford by Alison Weir was a biography about someone with only limited information is available from records that have survived, so there was a degree of conjecture, but what I think is nice about these kinds of biographies is that they have to go to more lengths to describe the world around the person in a more general way, which I enjoy reading.

Starting Over by Tony Parsons was the September book group book. The premise seemed interesting—a middle-aged man feels that getting a heart transplant gives him a second chance to get things right, but with flat characterisation and entirely predictable ways of dealing with it (wearing tighter jeans, dossing at his elderly parents' house and becoming the easy-going parent) didn't quite live up to the premise. At book group, someone pointed out that although 47 doesn't seem that old (certainly not "OMG my life's OVER" old), the protagonist is a police officer and retirement (forced or voluntary) after thirty years' of service may loom rather large on his horizon. What I just couldn't get my head around was how someone in his best years, clearly fed up with his job, didn't try to figure out how he could start pursuing something he enjoyed more, with nearly 20 years to go to the general retirement age and so plenty of time to do other stuff.

Cassandra, Princess of Troy by Hilary Bailey was a rubbish end to the month of reading as I didn't like it, but doggedly kept going to finish it. It's a retelling of the story of Cassandra, and of Trojan war, and I think I took a near immediate dislike to it when made Cassandra survive long after the war in order to be in a position to provide the starting-point to the story of writing her memoirs. And I didn't think you could create a boring story out of the Trojan war but this book managed it just fine.

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In a Better World/Hævnen—it's been about a month since I saw this and I can't really remember what I thought about it. Except thinking that I hadn't realised that Mikael Persbrandt is now old enough to play grey-haired middle-aged men, but we all get older every day. Also had a stupid moment wondering why I understood him a lot better than the other characters until my brain caught up with the fact that he was speaking Swedish, not Danish.

The Hedgehog/Le hérisson— I haven't read the book it's loosely based on, so I couldn't say how it compares, but I really liked it.

Yesterday, Tomboy, which I liked—it made me think. Despite the mother saying she wasn't putting Laure in a dress in one scene to humiliate Laure but it did feel like that; otherwise the parents seemed pretty good with everything, and the little sister was sweet. And I couldn't help but feeling that Laure hadn't really thought things through when starting to play with the other children as Michaël, that it would bound to come out in one way or another. At several points, I thought Lisa suspected, but maybe it was just her thinking Michaël was just different from the other boys.

And today, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy—I've read the book but couldn't remember who the mole was until mid-film or so. I loved the look but was slightly bored by the plot.

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The Lexicographer Finishes P by Polly Clark

There's going to be a party when they finish P,
he says. He's only a part-time lexicographer,
at heart he is a poet. I sip
and wonder how he can resist escape
from the palace which is really a prison
into the secret tunnel of O or the labyrinth of Q.
He's a palimpsest: in his hands are the shadows
of F and faint etchings of K, and one deep swirl of C.
With such ease he's abandoned one letter for another,
in love with the primitive after enjoying the modern,
a pantheist who no longer answers to God.
I want to tell him,
take me with you.
I'm passionate enough for P,
I get palpitations when I think of perfection;
I believe in paradise, I believe in the permanent,
(and in possibilities), today I'm a pasque-flower,
tomorrow a paramour. I can learn to keep my peace.
There is a pause.
He's pertubed, pouting, pushing away his cappuccino.
I've even changed my name, I say. Please.

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... at work my team has reached the point where we're trying to figure out if we'll have sufficient cover during the day for the three days between Christmas bank holidays and the weekend of NYE/NYD—so many people have already put in requests for leave that those who haven't will have to fight it out amongst themselves, and on-call cover arrangements are being talked about. Seeing I'd had my holiday request approved, I went and booked my flights to visit family over the period. It feels massively early to do it in mid-September :O

And I've seen an email mentioning work Christmas meals. And in fact I'm pretty sure a pub I walk past to get to/from the office from/to the railway station is advertising festive menus already.

And there's been a post in the Yuletide admin community about how fandom nominations will work this year, I haven't thought about them at all, and should probably make a start— that's actually something worth counting the days to :)

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The Lost by R S Thomas

We are the lost people.
Tracing us by our language
you will not arrive where we are
which is nowhere. The wind
blows through our castles; the chair
of poetry is without a tenant.
We are exiles within
our own country; we eat our bread
at a pre-empted table. 'Show us,"
we supplicate, 'the way home',
and they laughing hiss at us:
'But you are home. Come in
and endure it.' Will nobody
explain what it is like
to be born lost? We have our signposts
but they are in another tongue.
If we follow our conscience
it leads us nowhere but to gaol.
The ground moves under our feet;
our one attitude is vertigo.
'And a little child,' the Book tells us
'shall lead them.' But this one
has a linguistic club
in his hand with which, old as we are,
he trounces and bludgeons us senseless.

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Poetry by Saadi Youssef
(translated into English by Khaled Mattawa)

Who broke these mirrors
and tossed them
shard
by shard
among the branches?
And now...
shall we ask L'Akhdar to come and see?
Colours are all muddled up
and the image is entangled
with the thing
and the eyes burn.
L'Akhdar must gather these mirrors
on his palm
and match the pieces together
any way he likes
and preserve
the memory of the branch.

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I didn't have the greatest start to reading this month as the first two books I read this month didn't really do anything except annoy me.

Empire of Ashes by Nicholas Nicastro was a mess. It was basically two court-room monologues about the achievements (or lack of them) of Alexander the Great, and I think the structure contributed to me feeling utterly bored with it. The second, the negative take, was so rambling and overlong that I was on the verge of giving up. In his afterword the author was saying he isn't really interested at getting at Alexander himself, but this novel didn't do much to make anyone else around Alexander seem interesting or the gaps and inconsistencies in the historical record worth exploring. And I couldn't really get why the the whole thing had to be framed with the Athenian court case when it didn't really seem to add anything to the story, just provided a convenient (and very dull) way to let someone ramble on in the first person.

I knew when I picked up Panicology by Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams that it was written by journalists and unlikely to be that deep. But it was even shallower than I had thought, and although I probably am not quite as down-to-earth, non-panicky sort of person as I'd like to think, reading a book intended to stop you from panicking over silly stuff just seemed an enormous waste of time.

A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines was something of an improvement; I'd seen the film so I knew the outlines of the story, but struggled a bit with how dialects were transcribed, but it was OK, and thankfully short.

Purge by Sofi Oksanen was my pick for August book group—I got the original Finnish version as a Christmas present a couple of years ago and read it then, and while it's not a book you can say you enjoyed, it was well-written and held my interest better than I thought it would. Book group reaction was similar to mine. I was going to take a look at the original alongside Lola Rogers's English translation, but my copy appears to have got lost in post on its way here.

I enjoyed End of Term by Antonia Forest.

The Honourable Schoolboy by John Le Carre was yet another book that felt like massive waste of time. How on earth do you manage to make spy adventures across Hong Kong/China/Vietnam/Laos so utterly dull?

The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great by Andrew Chugg looked very pretty with the maps and other illustrations, and presented its theories persuasively.

And finally, I rushed through Venusian Lullaby by Paul Leonard, a Doctor Who novel, over a couple of days and didn't seem to find the patience for it in me. It wasn't helped by the names of the Venusians, which looked like unpronounceable random strings of letters. It could have been interesting, it's First Doctor, Barbara and Ian on a Venus that's not yet too hot for living creatures, but on the way of getting there.

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Ghost Writers to the Emperor by Pauline Stainer

They still inhabit language,
caught between the unsaid
and the unsayable,
hands dappled as apricots
in the latticed light

making their mark
like elephants at a salt-lick,
until only the text
and its inspired omissions
risk the silence.

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Season by Wole Soyinka

Rust is ripeness, rust,
And the wilted-corn plume;
Pollen is mating-time when swallows
Weave a dance
Of feathered arrows
Thread corn-stalks in winged
Streaks of light. And, we loved to hear
Spliced phrases of the wind, to hear
Rasps in the field, where corn-leaves
Pierce like bamboo slivers.

Now, garnerers we
Awaiting rust on tassels, draw
Long shadows from the dusk, wreathe
Dry thatch in wood-smoke. Laden stalks
Ride the germ's decay—we await
The promise of rust.

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I went to Liverpool yesterday because I wanted to see the Magritte exhibition at Tate Liverpool. The exhibition was good, I was slightly disappointed at the selection of postcards on offer though—there are so many cool Magritte works, but they only had about 10 different kinds, and I didn't like all of them.

After Tate, I went to Walker Art Gallery, but wasn't really in the mood to look around properly, so only did a brief tour, had tea and carrot cake, and headed out for shops, saving other museums (the likes of Museum of Liverpool, Merseyside Maritime Museum, International Museum of Slavery, any Beatles-related tourist traps) for another time.

So, some pics under the cut:
( pics )

I've now got birthday pressie for younger niece mostly in the bag, I still need to find something for my mum (but as her birthday is a week after younger niece's, there's more time). The weather was lovely and sunny in the morning, but it then turned grey and there was some rain in the afternoon, so just being out in the town exploring seemed less enticing. I had a look at cookery books at Waterstone's and bought a easy vegan one for myself. It was one I had had a look previously—sometimes I get frustrated with the number of veggie recipes that call for eggs, dairy, or fake meat. It's not like I'm about to cut all of them out of my diet right now, or that I can't modify recipes on the fly, but it's an area where I feel I need fresh ideas most, so I'm going to give it a go.

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I went to Lincoln a couple of weeks ago as I'd never been before and fancied a day trip somewhere. So I had a look around at the cathedral (guided tour was nice) and the castle (Magna Carta exhibition was a bit rubbish) and browsed in a couple of bookshops.

( Pics )

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Language teaching: naming by Jenny Joseph

Why are we frightened of the word for love?
We feast our eyes on eyes that light the soul.
The word is not more perilous than the dreams
We live on, poisoning the system.
We are not frightened of the acts of love.

I walked along an unfamiliar road
And all around, the birds twittered and danced
Through hedgerows blowing in a flatland wind.
I wished I knew their names and then instead
Of saying 'small, brown, with a spearing beak,
Taking a little run then going back,
Twittering a note that rose to a whistle than sank,
You know, those birds you see in hedgerows
Somewhere along the road from Hertfordshire'
I could say 'thirp' or whatever the bird was,
And you would know in an instant what they were
How looked, what doing. I'd have caught the birds
In that one word, its name, and all the knowledge
You might have had that I'm not master of
Would straight away be there to help me out.
Naming is power, but now
The birds twitter and dance, change and so escape me.

Why are we frightened of the sound called love?
We talked quite freely about what we need,
We risk enormous punishment when we must.
Is this the word made flesh, rising to grasp us?
You'd think the act made flesh would impinge more
Than a tiny breath made actual through the voice box.
Grammer is power, is witchcraft, is enchantment.
Droplets and air rise from our lungs like a genie
Twisting huge from a bottle to fill a room.
Say 'love' not 'like' (changing tight voiceless sounds
Only a little to get that deep voiced 'v')
The iron gate clangs behind you, and beyond
The bridge in flames, swamps and no road ahead.
We only stay alive on what the word means
So why are we frightened of the name of love?

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Since I've seen it around—NPR List of 100 Best SFF, which appears to have some very random choices on it. That said, it's probably the first best SFF list that I've ever seen doing rounds on which I've read more than one or two titles, otherwise I wouldn't even bother doing this. (Bold for read, underline for read part):

( Read more... )

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