Classical Music, Poetry and stuff

[Prospero]

Ingram Marshall I have heard but one piece by - a very interesting work called, Fog Tropes utilising found sound (ships sirens in the fog). A wonderfully atmospheric piece It was including in an album some years back that also awoke me to Quiet City by Copland - a piece unlike most of his output.

[Prospero]

This is fun

http://flavorwire.com/188138/the-30-...lts-in-history


11. Vladimir Nabokov on Ernest Hemingway (1972)

“As to Hemingway, I read him for the first time in the early ‘forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed it.”

[robertlouis]

The BBC made a heroic attempt at serialising Nostromo back in the 90s. A noble effort, undermined by the leading actor's lack of charisma. Just checked and it doesn't seem to be available on DVD.

[Stavros]

The problem with modernism in literature with its subtle changes of time, place, and mood is that to film the book the purely literary quality is thrown overboard and the narrative thread is taken out -it is precisely the shifts in time that make Nostomo so mesmerising, and yes, difficult, but rewarding. Thus, the expensive BBC film replaced complexity with a linear narrative, Nostromo was not tall enough did not have a moustache and couldn't act, in fact it was a catastrophe although the geography seemed the only accurate thing in it. Lord Jim too, which I have on dvd, dispenses with most of the first half of the book to become a redemptive adventure story. I always thought if one director was a natural for Conrad, it would be Nicolas Roeg, whose editing skills are phenomenal. David Lean planned Nostromo with a screenplay by Robert Bolt, but my guess is that the heart of the story would have been replaced by fabulous long shots of the coast and the mountains...

[Paige]

I wonder what people think about John Fowles these days-if you want some lovely, subtle writing, set mostly in the French country-side, read "Ebony Tower." He also did "The French Lieutenant's Woman," which is Meryl Streep's best movie, for me, anyway. Just for the record-if anybody thinks one of the requirements for being a sexy GGirl or TGirl is dumbness-I work in the Summer at a pretty well known Music camp. There are many, many staggeringly beautiful HS, college-age, post-college age ladies here-much more beautiful than the "pro" beauties- who play Bach, act in Shakespeare, and read Camus in French.

[Prospero]

Paige...Asheville NC - what a great city that is. I love it and know it somewhat. A great old fashioned soda fountain on the main street I recall and a great gallery nearby where i bought an art watch a few years ago. Some of my best friends live nearby in Tryon.

I for sure never thought dumbness was a qualification. Just the opposite. The brighter the better for me.
And on the subject of john Fowles The Magus (which he re-wrote later in life) is for me one of his interesting. Daniel Martin, on the other hand, is a work of phallocentric fantasy and self regard. Also his first published work The Collector is fine - with a remarkable film performance by Samantha Eggar.

[Stavros]

I don't like John Fowles, I find him arrogant in tone, and borderline misogynist (vide The Collector); similar to Salman Rushdie. The Magus is an example of clever storytelling, but is let down at the end by a latin epigraph which is meaningless if you don't know latin, but typical of Fowles superior view of himself -I didn't know he re-wrote it so I don't know if he changed the ending, it was also a poor film with Anthony Quinn some years ago. I loathed both the book and the film of The French Lieutenant's Woman, but the location, Lyme Regis in Dorset is worth visiting, but not in the height of summer when it gets too crowded.

Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady which comes out next January I think, Richard E Grant plays Michael Heseltine (with blonde hair?) Jim Broadbent Denis. Streep has made some great films, and some dire ones too (eg Mamma Mia), but is one of the best actresses to come out of American films in the last 40 years.

[trish]

I loved Fowles' The Magus, and then tried a bunch of other novels by him and never made it all the way through any of them.

[iamdrgonzo]

This is fun
http://flavorwire.com/188138/the-30-...lts-in-history

Very nice.


17. Martin Amis on Miguel Cervantes
“Reading Don Quixote can be compared to an indefinite visit from your most impossible senior relative, with all his pranks, dirty habits, unstoppable reminiscences, and terrible cronies. When the experience is over, and the old boy checks out at last (on page 846 — the prose wedged tight, with no breaks for dialogue), you will shed tears all right; not tears of relief or regret but tears of pride. You made it, despite all that ‘Don Quixote’ could do.”

[Jericho]

Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady which comes out next January I think, Richard E Grant plays Michael Heseltine (with blonde hair?) Jim Broadbent Denis.

I hope it shows him doing her rough, fucking her up the arse...
MARGARET...THIS...IS...WHAT..yOU'RE...DOING...TO.. .THE...COUNTRY!

Probably some revisionist bullshit, painting her as our saviour...CUNT!