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Tag Archives: England
“Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.” — poet/engraver/visionary William Blake
“I mean, don’t you think it’s a little bit excessive?” “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. William Blake.” Pause. “William Blake?” “William Blake!” “William Blake???” “William Blake!!!” — Bull Durham William Blake was a poet virtually … Continue reading
“I find that I cannot exist without poetry—without eternal poetry—” –John Keats
I was just beautifying him, don’t you know. A thing of beauty, don’t you know. Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says. – James Joyce, Ulysses Born in 1795 on this day, John Keats was orphaned at fifteen. Because his … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Anne Spencer, Camille Paglia, Countee Cullen, Dorothy Parker, Elizabeth Bishop, England, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, John Keats, Katherine Mansfield, L.M. Montgomery, Lord Byron, Louis MacNeice, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Oscar Wilde, Percy Bysshe Shelley, poetry, Robert Burns, Robert Graves, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Seamus Heaney, Six Centuries of Great Poetry, T.S. Eliot, Ulysses, W.B. Yeats, William Carlos Williams, William Faulkner
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On This Day: October 25, 1415: “We Few, We Happy Few.”
Happy Anniversary of The Battle of Agincourt Today is the feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, cobblers by trade (and patron saints thereof, although Vatican II nixed them from the calendar), fierce warriors of their faith, martyred in 286. … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, On This Day, Theatre
Tagged England, Laurence Olivier, Shakespeare, war
9 Comments
“My thoughts bustle along like a Surinam toad, with little toads sprouting out of back, side, and belly, vegetating while it crawls.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
He looked at his own Soul with a telescope. What seemed all irregular, he saw and shewed to be beautiful Constellations: and he added to the Consciousness hidden worlds within worlds. –Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notebooks It’s his birthday today. I’ll … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Andrew Marvell, Anne Fadiman, Ben Jonson, Camille Paglia, Derek Mahon, Edmund Spenser, Elizabeth Bishop, England, Jane Langton, John Donne, John Dryden, John Keats, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Lord Byron, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Carlyle, William Hazlitt, William Wordsworth
29 Comments
“I rather like the idea of death.” — poet Stevie Smith
Born on this day in 1902, in Hull, Yorkshire England, Stevie Smith was christened Florence Margaret, but was called “Stevie” by her friends. (She was a very petite woman: “Stevie” was the name of a famous jockey of the time.) … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged England, Michael Schmidt, Norton Anthology of Poetry, poetry, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
3 Comments
“I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty… but I am too busy thinking about myself.” — poet Edith Sitwell
Born on this day. I don’t remember Sitwell being “read” in my poetry class in college, and I don’t remember her being covered in my English or Humanities classes in high school. She doesn’t seem to be one of the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Edith Sitwell, England, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Schmidt, poetry
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“The reason we’re successful, darling? My overall charisma, of course.” — Freddie Mercury
It’s his birthday today. It’s hard for me to talk about my feelings for Freddie Mercury. When Freddie Mercury moved, he cracked open the atmosphere. He’s almost frightening. When he walked across a stage, or threw his body into a … Continue reading
August 2023 Viewing Diary
Oppenheimer (2023; d. Christopher Nolan) In general, I am not a Nolan fan (the only one of his I liked was Dunkirk), and I went into this hesitantly because I read an interview with him where he said the whole … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies
Tagged animation, biopic, children's movies, coming of age, crime movies, drama, Elvis Presley, England, France, heist, horror, Kentucker Audley, King Creole, Michael Curtiz, Michael Mann, romantic drama, Sidney Lumet, South Korea, Western, women directors
30 Comments
Happy Birthday, drummer Honey Lantree
Even now, a “girl drummer” in an all-boy band is a rare thing. Back in the 1960s, it was unheard of. Which is why Honey Lantree, drummer for the Joe Meek-produced The Honeycombs, stands out. Still. When she joined the … Continue reading
Review: Scrapper (2023)
An amazing directorial debut. I loved it. A 21st century entry in the sadly-rare Tomboy Movie Pantheon! I reviewed Scrapper for Ebert.
![“There were so many things I wanted to say, stream-of-consciousness things, designs and patterns while listening to music. I felt I might be able to say [them] if I had an unending canvas.” — pioneering experimental animator Mary Ellen Bute #botd
I wrote about Bute - a fascinating woman whose experimental shorts were shown before features in the 1930s - meaning literally millions of people saw her work. I wrote about her feature film adaptation of FINNEGANS WAKE - and her career in general - for @filmcommentmagazine. As a fellow member of the James Joyce Society, albeit 80 years apart - I feel like I was born to write a piece like this. Just sorry Dad wasn’t here. It was in the print version of the mag (RIP) but it’s online too. Link in bio/stories.
#maryellenbute #finneganswake #animation #jamesjoyce #femalefilmmakers #femalefilmmaker](https://www.sheilaomalley.com/wp-content/uploads/sb-instagram-feed-images/404275042_3458325717738885_453663892225035689_nfull.jpg)
