A fascinating play whose subject matter bears painfully close to the current Weltanschauung
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Die Physiker
Author: penwithlit
Freelance writer and radio presenter
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Favourite Irish women writers
Cathy at 746 Books is hosting Reading Ireland Month, and since I’m the lucky one who won the giveaway for Nora by Nuala O’Connor, it seems only appropriate for me to whip up a post about my favourite Irish women writers. I haven’t yet read anything by Nuala O’Connor, but I feel confident that she will join my other favourites because her novel Nora is the fictionalised love story of of Nora Barnacle, wife and muse of my favourite male Irish writer, James Joyce…
However, these are the Irish women writers who are my favourites so far. Links are to my reviews:
Elizabeth Bowen
The Heat of the Day, and a Sensational Snippet: The Heat of the Day
Mary Costello
The China Factory, Guest Review by Karenlee Thompson
Evelyn Conlon
Not the Same Sky, and on the wishlist Skin of Dreams, Stars in the Daytime…
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The lines above come from Stephen Romer’s title poem in his 2008 collection Yellow Studio. This poetry book (Oxford Poetry Series ISBN978 1 90303985 4)I purchased having read some of his critical writings in the TLS (or was it the LRB?) Getting to understand a new poet inevitably takes time and I find that I have reached the point where actually I want to reassess my favourites; Auden, MacNeice, Yeats and Mahon). However, my interest in French Poetry remains strong and Romer is perhaps the leading translator. Incidentally, Romer keeps reminding me of the corresponding poetry and translations from German by Michael Hofmann. Here is a clip finding Romer reading at Worcester College, Oxford in 2019 about the warmth of the South,the approach of Spring, Air BnB and other matters.
Perusing the collection my eye was caught by the poems about returning to Paris.:-
Returning here
under the cold blue
the rue des Saules
is absurdly tender
with its pink house
on the corner
and the château des Brouillards
with its ruined vineyard
and secret trees
still a world on its own
(For more information on the misty castle opposite Renoir’s house see
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_des_Brouillards )
Rue des Saules
Another section of Yellow Studio deals with the poets relaxation and remembering a friend/lover recently lost ;an elegy conceived in the garden and about the house. It is called Pottering About.
any sign of neglect or decay
weighs on my conscience
when you were always the one
somewhere at work among the birdsong
and the appleboughs, the place marked
by a stupendous oath
as the Allen Scythe choked
or where the odd chainsaw
was hurled into the undergrowth
and I dreaming on
among my books
in the yellow attic room.
Here is Stephen Romer in more sombre mood reading at Trinity College, Cambridge in 2018
It was a bright and sunny morning as we pulled back the curtains in our hotel room and after tucking into some tasty bacon sandwiches we were back in the car for another day of sightseeing. Our starting point was to be Land’s End, the headland that sits at the most westerly point of England […]
Day 3. Land’s End, Porthcurno & St. Ives, Cornwall — Love Travelling Blog
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Des Winters Geist ist davon…
Foto: ©Wolfregen
Vorfrühlingstag
Der Himmel ist blau,
Die Erde noch grau,
Doch wach schon und emsig dabei,
Der Fluss liegt offen und frei;
Sein Wasser strömt kräftig dahin,
Es spiegelt sich Aufbruch darin.
Kein Zweig mehr bereift,
Ein Vogel hier pfeift
Mit wehmütig lieblichem Ton,
Des Winters Geist ist davon;
Die Sonne scheint golden und warm
Und doch ist der Boden noch arm.
Noch wenig bis nichts,
An Farbe gebricht‘s,
An Grün und lebendigem Rot,
Noch wirkt‘s gespenstisch und tot;
Ein Blümlein entdeckt ich im Wald,
Es folgen ihm viele schon bald.
©Wolfregen
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The Boston Arms – monoprint
Really cool, interesting and effective.
The Boston Arms is in Tufnell Park, London, 178 Junction Road N19. I love the way this building presides over the junction.
This is one of five prints I made with this plate made from a cardboard box of biscuits, experimenting with the “packaging print” technique.
The technique produces a twilight atmosphere, which I like very much, and seems suitable for a pub in winter. Here is a different print using the same plate.
The Boston Arms is a Grade II listed building. The listing says “Dated 1899 in a panel on the Junction Road front. Designed by Thorpe and Furniss”, and goes on to describe its “Corinthian pilasters to the flat frontages, engaged Corinthian columns to the bow, all…
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Schattenschein
Wirklich voll mit Sehnsucht- Danke.
Was ich weiß, liegt im Dunkel,
die Erinnerung verborgen unter Schatten.
Wie erinnern die anderen, die lauten,
die Hinausposauner und Alleswisser?
Ich weiß es nicht,
doch meide ich das strahlende Licht,
in dem sie sich sonnen.
Dann und wann tarne ich mich aber darin,
verstecke mich im hellsten leuchten,
und scheine als einer der Ihren.
Dabei lerne ich, das Scheine trügen
und Worte von ihren Hülsen getragen werden.
Oft sind sie hohl, dienen dem Moment
und der schnellen Befriedigung des Ich und der Triebe.
Zurück im Schatten erhole ich mich, poliere mein Ich
und flicke mein angekratztes Bild.
Durch die Kratzer sehe ich ein Stück Wahrheit,
doch ich verstehe sie nicht.
Auch die Schatten bergen Schein.
©2022 Lyrix
Picture: Black Ink
Orphic wind, you blow far and wide;
You will enter the realms of the sea;
As I cherished a world not yet made
I relinquished the useless “I”
From Poem 25 in Osip Mandelstam’s Stone
This shopping precinct seems full of empty shops. It feels as though the local economy has not recovered from Covid and this environment has taken on the strangeness of the new normal. This in turn raises questions about the whole construct of “normality” and how normal the old normal really was. The empty frame, one might ask oneself; is it really empty? The frame itself can become a tool to investigate the reality on which attention is focussed.
In social philosophy there is a particular frame theory which is referred to by Goffman. There is a useful discussion of this at http://philosophyreaders.blogspot.com/2018/09/frames-as-ways-of-seeing-world.html?m=1 In this there is a useful quotation from Lakoff-
“Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world. As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome of our actions. In politics, our frames shape our social policies and the institutions we form to carry out policies. To change our frames is to change all of this. Reframing is social change“
Furthermore from Fairhurst and Sarr-
“Just like a photographer, when we select a frame for a subject, we choose which aspect or portion of the subject we will focus on and which we will exclude. When we choose to highlight some aspect of our subject over others, we make it more noticeable, more meaningful, and more memorable to others. Our framing adds color or accentuates the subject in unique ways. For this reason, frames determine whether people notice problems, how they understand and remember problems, and how they evaluate and act upon them (Entman, 1993).
Frames exert their power not only through what they highlight, but also through what they leave out. In framing, when we create a bias towards one interpretation of our subject, we exclude other aspects, including those that may produce opposite or alternative interpretations.”
The frame might be the area of domestic politics which when focussed upon excessively means that political discourse becomes isolated. This has been the case in the U.K. where foreign affairs has suffered much neglect. Statesmen with detailed understanding of policy seem few. Consequently issues nearby are outside the frame. The events leading up to the invasion of 🇺🇦 Ukraine 🇺🇦 are now the return of the repressed.
The doleful and economically depressed scenario locally has a dreamlike quality at times somewhat reminiscent of paintings by de Chirico or Rene Magritte. Outside the frame there are grander landscapes.
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Mel Brooks
LORELAI: What do you mean, why? The 2000 Year Old Man, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie – you don’t think Mel has earned the right to have his face on my butt?
Mel Brooks (born Melvin Kaminsky in 1926), actor, comedian, and film-maker, with a career spanning over seven decades. He is known as the creator of broad farces and parodies, considered some of the greatest comedy films ever made, and was one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s. As well as winning an Emmy, a Grammy, and an Oscar, in 2001 he won a Tony Award for The Producers, previously discussed. He has been awarded a Kennedy Center Honor, a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, a British Film Institute Fellowship, a National Medal of Arts, and a BAFTA Fellowship.
The 2000 Year Old Man is a comedy sketch…
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Resilience: A Health Update
Great- a vigorous pleasing sketch!
While I was taking a walk a few days ago I saw this tree branch grow out of a tiny crack in a solid stone wall and I was impressed enough by its tenacity and resilience to draw it. By chance this drawing is on the opposite page of the one I made for my last health update, which seems appropriate.
I underwent a PET CT on the 9th of September, and thankfully the results were good. The treatment is working, kicking my cancer’s ass and not just making me feel bad. I went through another round of Chemo on the 12th, my fifth round so far, and the side effects are stronger and taking longer to fade away between sessions. This is to be expected, as the Chemo’s effects are cumulative, but I’ve decided to be like that tree: resilient. I’m making minor adjustments to get me through…
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penwithlit 