The storms of Winter 2020! Horrified by the destruction of communities in our own County Borough and in the nearby Rhondda Valley. And in a town where we lived as children in the Conwy Valley. Hoping that our UK gov. will release millions of pounds to renew homes and revive businesses. And these words from a Russian 26 December 1936 – the poet Osip Mandelstam.

“A full bucket of storms going down into dark waters on a chain, moving out of nobility’s natural resources, headed into the ocean’s kernel.

It rocked, swayed, cautious, threatening. look: the sky’s higher – a new home, a house, a roof – and out on the street, light, day!” …

Those people we saw on the TV news, wounded, yes, but defiant on their weeping streets and determined to be their own light, their own sky and their very own ‘next day’! And the next … and the next …

Peanuts Rock: Watch the Peanuts Gang Play Classic Rock Songs by Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Journey & More http://www.openculture.com/?p=1074343 via @openculture

SNOOPY ON DOUBLE BASS!

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fixing-our-boilers-will-dwarf-cost-of-hs2-2wksmtqlf

It won’t come cheap: the likely cost is up to £100 billion.

… IN THE STORY OF THE FUGITIVE STAG. Although I re-imagine their encounter, I never get tired of watching a mini version of the original story in this 2012 promo for a Titian exhibition.

Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 | The National Gallery, London https://youtu.be/QAzQ5IFSbeE via @YouTube

It should have won an award!

When new enchantment sprouts in the meadowlands,

And when the view grows lovelier once again

And over hills where trees are verdant

Breezes more bright and small clouds are passing.

O what a joy it is for humankind! Content

The lonely walk on river-banks, peace, delight

And bliss of healthy vigour bloom, and

Not far away is kind-hearted laughter

Holderlin …

That all sacred places of the earth  are gathered around one place, and the philosophical light around my window; they are now my delight; may I remember how I have come to this point.

‘The shiningly fertilized places of rest’ Themis, the order-loving, gave birth to the human sanctuaries, the quiet places of rest, which nothing alien can touch,

because in them the working  and life of nature was concentrated, and something around them divines, as though remembering, experience that which they experienced formerly.

What can I say? 10/10 on every level. Cast, production, acting, the story, scene setting, costumes etc. Based on the trilogy of novels by the Soviet writer Alexei Tolstoy (d. 1945) and directed by Konstantin Khudyakov. An English translation of his trilogy appeared in 1946.

My blog is primarily about screenplay writing and films and the creative process behind them … especially poetry and music. Annap et moi watched this series over a few nights. It was a real feast for the senses. Ardderchog.

the art of filmlacalmette 15 September 2018 Finally, a captivating, artistic series from Netflix. Adaptation of Tolstoy in Russia by Russians. Important to see the perspective of early 20th century art from Russia, where most often we see this explosion of artistic fervor depicted in Paris or other enlightened European cities. Here we see a Picasso in a home in St Petersburg, we watch the debates of the poets in university, we feel the electric change in the air. A nostalgia one feels for the epoch of the poet, the collective draw to the expressions of the artist. And we are given an honest look into the soul of Russia that so transcends political bruhaha. Thanks to whoever got this series to us in the epoch of Ant Man and Spider Man.

TREE BY EZRA POUND

I stood still and was a tree amid the wood,
Knowing the truth of things unseen before;
Of Daphne and the laurel bow
And that god-feasting couple old
that grew elm-oak amid the wold.
‘Twas not until the gods had been
Kindly entreated, and been brought within
Unto the hearth of their heart’s home
That they might do this wonder thing;
Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood
And many a new thing understood
That was rank folly to my head before.

The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast –
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.

Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child – so high – you are,
And all this is folly to the world. (Ezra Pound’s ‘A Girl’)

And from CANTO XLVII

The light has entered the cave. Io! Io!
The light has gone down into the cave,
Splendour on splendour!
By prong have I entered these hills:
That the grass grow from my body,
That I hear the roots speaking together,
The air is new on my leaf,
The forked boughs shake with the wind.
Is Zephyrus more light on the bough, Apeliota
more light on the almond branch?
By this door have I entered the hill.