Light On Dark Water

May 4, 2015

52 Authors: Week 18 – T.S. Eliot

(T.S. Eliot's first importance is as a poet, but he is also a major figure in criticism, and a significant, possibly under-rated, one in cultural and social commentary. I'm only going to consider the poetry here, and that excluding the plays, for the simple reason that I haven't read any of them except Murder in
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May 1, 2015

Glitches, Maybe

Tomorrow, Saturday the 2nd, I'm hoping to do something that's about five years overdue. I think it was 2010 when I moved this blog from Blogger to Typepad. I have a domain name, http://www.lightondarkwater.com, which still points to the old blog, though if you go there it redirects you here. I need to point that
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April 29, 2015

A Conversation Piece

I've been reading Robert McCrum's biography of P.G. Wodehouse (Wodehouse, 2004). In passing, discussing Wodehouse's decision to try writing for Hollywood in the late 1920s and early '30s, the author mentions this: According to George Cukor, the premiere [of The Jazz Singer, the first talking picture], on the night of 27 December 1928, had been 'the
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April 26, 2015

52 Authors: Week 17 – Christopher Derrick

I was never shot down into Occupied France. But in my distant R.A.F. days, I was carefully briefed about what I was to do in that event; and it struck me at the time that my situation then would be closely analogous to what 'being a Catholic' means … But it's a bad metaphor in
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April 25, 2015

A Young Girl in Red, 1913

There are several sets of photos similar to this one that I've seen here and there on the net, color photos taken at a time when color photography was almost unknown. I think they're fascinating, and very valuable, because early photography, in ironic contradiction of what was thought to be its startling realism, has given
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April 24, 2015

Wisteria

When I got this off the camera I thought it was more purple than it should be. Still pretty, though. I remember as a child with a coloring book and crayons coloring something dark green and dark purple, and someone telling me those colors didn't go together. Every now and then over the years I've
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April 23, 2015

Anybody planning to have a piece for the 52 Authors series this weekend?

I don't have anybody on the schedule but maybe I just forgot to update it. If no one else has anything, I think I'll go ahead and do Eliot. I had sort of intended to read some of his prose that I've either never read or only read once long ago, but I could do
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April 19, 2015

52 Authors: Week 16 – Madeleine L’Engle

[Editor's note: most people reading this blog have probably read A Wrinkle In Time, but in case you haven't, be aware that this contains spoilers.] I’m guessing Madeleine L’Engle was a loosey-goosey Episcopalian. This may be to misjudge her. It is a guess which is largely based on the way her novels border on depicting
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April 18, 2015

“Notoriously dismal”

James Dickey (poet, 1923-1997, and author of the novel Deliverance): "The history of poets pronouncing on public issues is notoriously dismal." Dickey is quoted by Neo-neocon in a post on the topic of poets, celebrities, and politics. I agree entirely with Dickey, and it's slightly painful to say so, because I've always been inclined to
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April 15, 2015

Giotto’s Virtues and Vices

Not his personal ones, but the ones he painted, a series of fourteen on the seven virtues and seven vices. Janet is doing a series of posts on them, and they're fascinating. I have much less interest in the visual arts than in literature and music, and I rarely pay truly close attention to paintings.
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