And all that day, another day:
Thin husks I had known as men,
Dry casques of departed locusts
speaking a shell of speech…
Propped between chairs and table…
Words like the locust-shells, moved by no inner being,
A dryness calling for death.
The Muse fled down the road,
The narrow, steep, autumnal road,
And her dusky feet
Were sprinkled with drops of dew.
For a long time I pleaded with her
To wait for the winter with me,
But she said: “It’s like a tomb here,
How can you still manage to breathe?”
I wanted to give her a dove,
The whitest of all doves,
But the bird itself flew
After my slender guest.
Following her with my eyes, I fell silent,
I loved her alone,
And sunrise stood in the sky
Like a gateway to her land.
Anna Akhmatova 15 December 1915
What can we say? EXCELLENT. FANTASTIC. LOVED IT. Liked everything about it. Big fans of David Bradley and Ron Perlman down the years. Decades! Also liked the feature about how it was made. Watch it and enjoy. Not a Christmas film but a film for the Christmas season.
It is a stop-motion animated musical fantasy film directed by del Toro and Mark Gustafson with a screenplay by del Toro and Patrick McHale from a story by del Toro and Matthew Robbins. Based on Gris Grimly’s design from his 2002 edition of the 1883 Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, it reimagines the story in 1930s Fascist Italy as “a story of love and disobedience as Pinocchio struggles to live up to his father’s expectations, learning the true meaning of life.”
I have seen the light. I confess to friends and family. I was wrong. Please forgive me. I now do support our Government, NATO, and especially the warmongering unelected family that runs USA’s foreign policy.
Yes, I have sinned. I now bow to the wisdom of our latest PM Rishi Sunak, our loving European Mother, Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, the talented German politician who is president of the European Commission, and, finally, the leader of the free, caring and righteous democratic world, of which I am proud to be a member, Joseph Stalin … oops, Joseph Biden.
Joseph – what a coincidence, just like St Joseph of Christmas fame. Joseph Biden is also Our Father in a very real political way. We are truly blessed to have such a global father-figure to look-up-to this Christmas.
And, as a minority Welsh speaking native Brit, I especially admire Zelensky for standing up to the minority of Ukrainians who wanted to speak their own language, protect their own culture and take pride in their very different European heritage. I had my doubts, but Adam Price of Plaid Cymru put me right, because he also supports the brave President Zelensky. The Tory’s in Westminster, Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru can’t all be wrong, can they?
And, oh, I almost forgot! I was wrong about NATO. It really is a peace-keeping, humanitarian organisation, protecting our interests in this cruel world. Its General Secretary, the Norwegian Jesus, oops, Jens Stoltenberg, is doing a good job running the UK’s foreign policy. He’s my second Man of the YEAR for 2022.
But, back to the main man. Yes, the brave, righteous and peace-loving Zelensky, is also my hero of 2022. A much- needed saviour and dare I say it, Prince of Peace, this Christmas. After all, he is Jewish.
And I almost forgot. As well as being TIME magazine’s Man of the Year, Zelensky is also the UK’s FINANCIAL TIMES ‘Person of the Year’ 2022. Yes, the Ukrainian comic-actor, who is now worth millions and millions of pounds, has earned a place in human history for ‘his extraordinary display of leadership and fortitude.’ And the Financial Times does, after all, know a thing or two about money.
By the way, I assume you know that Zelensky also made it to the front cover of the Bible of Western fashion and lifestyle, MORGUE, sorry, another oops, VOGUE magazine. An OSCAR? Just wait and see in 2023.
What a man to tell our children about in years to come: the man who saved democracy in 2022, the man who saved the West from evil, the man who makes us really proud to be Americans … oops, Europeans! The man who speaks to us, personally, every day on TV, like the caring Big-Brother that he is.
I include the link to an article below as an example of pure anti- USA/UK/NATO/EU conspiracy theory at its very best.
All of it lies and damn lies at that.
You couldn’t make it up, could you.
Ap Advent III 2022
https://thealtworld.com/thierry_meyssan/volodymyr-zelensky-and-ethnopolitics
Good to see both lead actors again – Kevin and Diane, who started acting aged 14. Lesley Manville plays it well as the evil matriarch. ‘I liked Booboo Stewart’s hat – not a big part but played it well. It’s a US neo-western, Directed, written, and co-produced by Thomas Bezucha, and is based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Larry Watson. The film follows a retired sheriff and his wife who try to rescue their grandson from a dangerous family living off-the-grid. The two women certainly steal the show. As Moscow born Sasha Luss does in Shattered. She certainly does! The two films undoubtedly made me think of ‘fingers and thumbs’! Rotten Tomatoes 25% audience score: disagree. I’d give it 75% and liked its Hithcockian flavour.
After lonely tech millionaire Chris (Cameron Monaghan, “Shameless”) encounters charming, sexy Sky (Lilly Krug), passion grows between them — and when he’s injured, she quickly steps in as his nurse … I won’t say anymore … enjoy. A bit part by John Malkovich (aka the New Pope – loved him ion that role) always a pleasure.
In The Wonder, the latest film by Sebastián Lelio (director of the Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman), Florence Pugh plays Lib Wright, a 19th-century English nurse sent to the Irish Midlands by local authorities to observe Anna O’Donnell (Kíla Lord Cassidy), an 11-year-old girl who claims she hasn’t eaten in four months and subsists solely on “manna from heaven.” According to Anna — and the mythology that quickly grows around her — she doesn’t even take bread or water; her faith-bound parents agree not to intercede with any nourishment for their daughter beyond what they collectively claim God is providing.
One review sums it up well: In simple terms, this movie is magnificent, whichever perspective of it one takes into consideration: the finest acting of Daisy Edgar-Jones and David Strathairn, in particular; script; camera; music; nature; or all of them taken together. Brilliant. Ann ap had read the book and enjoyed the film version as well. Daisy Jessica Edgar-Jones is an English actress. She began her career with the television series Cold Feet – I thought I recognized her from somewhere! Must admit I gave up on ‘Normal People’ after about 10 minutes. Not my thing, as we say.
It was a free view from my AMAZON subscription.
FROM 7 NOVEMBER THIS YEAR ‘Like winning the lottery!’ – Kíla Lord Cassidy on starring in The Wonder, the stunning film she’s too young to see https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/07/kila-lord-cassidy-elaine-wonder-film-rural-ireland?CMP=share_btn_tw
Silence (Georg Trakl)
Over the forests the moon
Gleams pale, makes us dream,
The willow by the dark pond
Weeps soundlessly in the night.
A heart extinguishes – and placidly
The fogs flood and rise –
Silence, silence!
Closing Chord (Georg Trakl)
The last, pale light went from the day,
The early passions have rustled down,
The holy wine of my joys spilled
Now my heart weeps in the night and listens
After the echo of its young celebrations,
Which trails off so placidly in the dark,
So shadowy, like wilted leaves falling
On an abandoned grave in autumn night.
From the Still Days (Georg Trakl)
So ghostly are these late days
Just like the look of sick people, sent here
In the light. However, the night shades the muted lament
Of their eyes, toward which they already turn.
They probably smile and recall their celebrations,
How one is moved after songs, half forgotten,
And searches words for a sad gesture,
Which already grows pale in silence unmeasured.
So the sun still plays around ill flowers
And lets them shiver in the thin, clear airs
With a death-cool delight.
The red forests whisper and darken,
And more death-nightly the woodpeckers’ hammering echoes
Just like a reverberation from airless crypts.
The Fugitive Stag 