28 Saturday Jul 2018
Posted in Scribbling, Things
Do you remember last Saturday’s post, and the prompt with the anthropomorphised cities?
Well, a couple of interesting things happened because of that post. The first is Davide Mana‘s take on the game – which, it seems, has produced not only four lovely sketches, but also the resurrection of an old and intriguing project of his.
And then, in the comments, Davide Tessitore wrote this… Continue reading
23 Saturday Jun 2018
Posted in Things
Tags
I’m not terribly surprised to learn that the brain will process music and language in similar ways… Intuitively, I’ve always had this notion that both work by structure, pattern, rhythm, repetition, juxtaposition, combination of sounds, expression and codification of meaning…
This very interesting article by George Tsoulas for Conversation, offers a clear explanation and an overview of the current studies on the subjects – together with a few good links.
So it would seem that, after all, music is a different language. Or perhaps every language is a different music?
09 Saturday Jun 2018
Posted in Things
Today would be the 128th birthday of Leslie Banks – Shakespearean actor, director, and screen villain – who managed to turn his potentially career-crippling war injuries into an element of versatility…
He played, among many other roles, the unpleasant Uncle Joss in Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn, and the Chorus in Laurence Olivier’s Henry V. He also played a memorable Captain Hook in New York, and the eponymous Clive of India.
Here you can see him as the Earl of Leicester in the 1937 film Fire Over England. 
02 Saturday Jun 2018
I’ve always loved to bits this line of Blanche’s from A Streetcar Named Desire:
I don’t want realism. I want magic. Yes, yes – magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don’t tell truth. I tell what ought to be truth.”
Truth, reality, misrepresentation, what ought to be truth… Are we all Blanche, in some way or other, when we tell stories? One of these days I’m going to have a pendant made with this line on it.
17 Thursday May 2018
Posted in Things
Tags
Attila, Characterization, Don Carlos, Il Trovatore, Opera, Samuel Ramey, tenors, Thomas Hampson, Turandot
I’ve
had for years No Tenors Allowed, this lovely CD of opera duets for bass and baritone, with Thomas Hampson and Samuel Ramey singing a variety of pieces, from comic to dramatic to downright tragic – and clearly having great fun with the whole thing.
I love it to bits – but then again, not only Hampson and Ramey are two of my favourite opera singers ever, but I have always had a soft spot for bass and baritone voices – and characters. Continue reading
05 Saturday May 2018
Posted in Things
Tags
annotated bibliography, christopher marlowe, Marlowe Bibliography Online, Marlowe Society of America, scholarship, University of Melbourne
Exactly what it says on the tin.
Described as
an initiative of the Marlowe Society of America and the University of Melbourne. Its purpose is to facilitate scholarship on the works of Christopher Marlowe by providing a searchable annotated bibliography of relevant scholarship…
12 Thursday Apr 2018
And if I thought that after “my” Oedipus I was done with Greek Tragedy for the moment, it seems that I was very much mistaken.
Yes, we are already working quite hard on other things a-plenty – but, for one thing, there’s talk of reviving the Oedipus next August, in a lovely place; and for another, there’s the school play. Continue reading
31 Saturday Mar 2018
01 Thursday Mar 2018
This is not the post I had in mind for today – but we’re having a true snowfall for the fist time in… oh, I don’t know: years, I rather believe.
It started last night, just as I drove home – which was, if you ask me, absolutely perfect, as far as sentimental fallacy goes – and it’s been snowing through the whole night, and still snowing cats and dogs. Past beautiful, that’s what it is. Continue reading
01 Thursday Feb 2018
Posted in Things
Tags
This has little to do with history, books or theatre – though it is, in its own way, a story. I might stretch it, and say it has to do with communication – but the fact is, it’s a story without and ending (yet) and it baffles me. Now, you see, my mother is in her early seventies, quite smart, and in full possession of all her marbles. Also, she used to love technology and innovation, and grew up in a household of enthusiastic engineers and tinkerers.
Hardly one to be overwhelmed by a new kind of cellphone, right? Continue reading
