Born in 1954. Chequered career including Lecturer in English, Social Worker and Lecturer in Social Work. Had breaks related to mental health that also meant I worked in social care. Now retired.
Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved? I have avoided this prompt for a while, because it ties itself into too many knots. I can’t read it without an alternative mirror question ringing in my head: Can you share a negative example of where you’ve felt loved? The proposition underlying the … More Hard-felt thoughts on hard-felt feelings.
From September 2021 to September2022, the Frick Museum in New York decided to place each of 4 classic paintings from its collection one by one ‘in conversation’ with a newly commissioned artwork from painters who are currently working and who identify their work as from a queer orientation to the world. Reviewing the publication based … More “Pairing paintings might create a “dialogue”, but who decides what these strange bedfellows are saying to each other?” This blog reflects on Aimee Ng, Xavier F. Salomon & Stephen Truax (Eds.) [2023] ‘Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters’
If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be? We have lived with Daisy, our Staffie, since we bought her from a rescue centre about eight years ago. Yet, although she clearly loves being with us and can be deeply happy, rolling in the grass when she enjoys her walks, she … More To trust she is safe with us and will always be loved. To Daisy.
If you could un-invent something, what would it be? Un-invention is, like invention, a means of realising through thought and work some solution or respite, pragmatic, and perhaps temporary, though it may be, to ones currently unmet desires or the dread of anticipated fears. We un-invent in order to pretend something never existed: the ending … More “… / And Time a MANIAC scattering Dust”: Uninventing ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI)’: What it feels like to read true ‘science fiction’: Benjamín Labatut (2023) ‘The MANIAC’.
My photograph of page 12-13 Jean E. Mills (2024) ‘Gertrude Stein’ in Richard Scneider Jr. (ed.) ‘Outer Appearances: More Faces from the Annals of the G&LR’ (a retrospective on the art of Charles Hefling), Illustrated by Charles Hefling. Pages 32f., Like most people who do it, I communicate too much online. Some who do it pretend … More ‘There ain’t no answer. … That’s the answer’.
Book into Film: Alasdair Gray’s (1992) Poor Things: Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer Edited by Alasdair Gray and Poor Things, a film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos with screenplay by Tony McNamara (The Favourite). A series of reflections on seeing the film on 15th January 2024 at the … More Book into Film: Alasdair Gray’s (1992) ‘Poor Things’, a film & book. Reflections (3): Truth, lies and ‘Poor Things’.
Book into Film: Alasdair Gray’s (1992) Poor Things: Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer Edited by Alasdair Gray and Poor Things, a film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos with screenplay by Tony McNamara (The Favourite). A series of reflections on seeing the film on 15th January 2024 at the … More Book into Film: Alasdair Gray’s (1992) ‘Poor Things’ and ‘Poor Things’, a film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. No. 2 on ‘queering’ in each mode of art.
Book into Film: Alasdair Gray’s (1992) Poor Things: Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer Edited by Alasdair Gray and Poor Things, a film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos with screenplay by Tony McNamara (The Favourite). A series of reflections on seeing the film on 15th January 2024 at the … More Book into Film: Alasdair Gray’s (1992) ‘Poor Things’ and ‘Poor Things’, a film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. This is number 1 of a series and is on the SETTINGS (of novel and film).
I truly write for myself most of the time, I claim, and most often there there is no intentional untruth or even known self-delusion in that statement. Not reading, and now writing about my reading, has become a need – to evidence, as I have always put it that I am learning and growing in … More How often I must have said: ‘I just don’t feel heard’. But perhaps that is because I didn’t look out for responses. Mea culpa.
Have your even seen ‘old Durham Town’? Not till Ben Myers showed it to me again! The role of art in turning places into spaces in which the imagined can dwell. Geoff and I are just on our way to see Poor Things, an exceedingly well-received film in the newspapers based on one of my … More Have your even seen ‘old Durham Town’: Not till Ben Myers showed it to me again! The role of art in turning places into spaces in which the imagined can dwell.
Hailing the innovative curation of the British Museum’s Touring exhibition from its fascinating collection of modern drawings: Drawing attention: emerging artists in dialogue. Seen at York Art Gallery on Friday 12th January 2024. We went to York and have just returned. The main reasons for doing so were to attend the PBFA Book Fair at … More Hailing the innovative curation of the British Museum’s Touring exhibition from its fascinating collection of modern drawings: ‘Drawing attention’.
Geoff and I have been going to these touring fairs since the 1970s. During that time they became smaller, the clientele was always recognizable to us in a kind of déjà vu manner, and when it wasn’t, the attendees were clearly, ‘of a certain age‘ as people say kindly of those who appear so changed … More Overwhelmed: The passion for books and the old book market. The PBFA fair at the Knavesmire Suite, York Racecourse, on the 13th January 2023.
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