A reader falls into Joelle Taylor’s fabulous ‘The Night Alphabet’.

February 3, 2025

‘Everything moves. Everything passes.  Threads tangle so easily, so completely. It is their nature to knot. …/…/ The truth is you must be everyone in a story to understand the story. …’.[1]  A reader who comes to The Night Alphabet looking for a linear story and quickly understood connections between the novel’s sub-narratives  (or some … More A reader falls into Joelle Taylor’s fabulous ‘The Night Alphabet’.

Do houses dream of being home and not their posesion by evil?

February 2, 2025

They say that I am hauntedBut let’s see if that’s the truth.People think their dreams come downFrom their hard-tiled attic roof,Which is what they call their brainsNot up from the dark cellarsWhere hide the things they dare not See: that can’t be flushed down drains.Truth is, some men have bad dreams,Ride night-mares through woods at … More Do houses dream of being home and not their posesion by evil?

Check your inner monitor for ambivalence!

February 1, 2025

I get some news!The first thing IDo, without thoughtApparentlyIs carelesslyInterpret it. News that you receive oft takes a moment to interpret. Is it good? is it bad? Or is it somewhere in between. Perhaps the news contains a mixture of good, bad, or nuanced degrees between positive and negative interpretation as well as a mixture … More Check your inner monitor for ambivalence!

‘EAT YOUR OWN HOUSE, WITCH! I don’t even like candy, darling! (But Candy Darling is another matter entirely) : “Hey, sugar / Take a walk on the wild side”

January 31, 2025

Now here’s a blog prompt that I never ever thought I would answer. My usual recourse to etymology to find a nuance in the question has already reached a block. In the UK we use the term ‘candy’, only because we see and hear the word in USA cultural imports, The UK word for candy … More ‘EAT YOUR OWN HOUSE, WITCH! I don’t even like candy, darling! (But Candy Darling is another matter entirely) : “Hey, sugar / Take a walk on the wild side”

Let’s break from tradition but only so we and the status quo can keep on going on, and on, and on … as they are.

January 30, 2025

Let’s break from tradition, but only so we can go on, and on, and … and the status quo can keep on going on as it is.  The thing about words is that, as I keep endlessly and no doubt obseesively repeating in these blogs, they not only change their meaning but also preserve the … More Let’s break from tradition but only so we and the status quo can keep on going on, and on, and on … as they are.

Feeling the Baroque and Roll of the Classical Drama and Leigh Bowery over two days in London.

January 29, 2025

Now hubby Geoff is so unexpectedly well so soon, I am off comprehensive culture -seeking in London again on the 26th-27th February. It’s a return that promises to make me feel the Baroque and Roll of the Classical Drama and Leigh Bowery over two days. Hubby Geoff now so well he is finding fault with … More Feeling the Baroque and Roll of the Classical Drama and Leigh Bowery over two days in London.

I have always avoided this WordPress prompt question because the word ‘sport’ feels a source of great discomfort to me. Why might that be so?

January 27, 2025

I have always avoided this WordPress prompt question because the word ‘sport’ feels a source of great discomfort to me. Why might that be so? The occasion of ‘sport’, even a too frequent use of the word, does cause me discomfort and I have no explanation of this beyond that I felt as a young … More I have always avoided this WordPress prompt question because the word ‘sport’ feels a source of great discomfort to me. Why might that be so?

The limits of ‘Feeling the Fear and Doing It Anyway’ can be felt standing at a cliff-edge!

January 26, 2025

Susan Jeffers’s book, Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway: How to Turn Your Fear and Indecision into Confidence and Action, is by now a kind of holy text of popular psychology, used not only, as it was intended, at first at least, to address anxiety that locks people into extremely limited lives but to … More The limits of ‘Feeling the Fear and Doing It Anyway’ can be felt standing at a cliff-edge!

The art of cooking might after all be another defensive response to ‘raw’ truth.

January 24, 2025

G.K. Chesterton wrote What’s Wrong with the World’ in 1910 and I have, I have to admit, never read it but I did search out a context for the quotation that is a little wider and here it is: “Nobody says, “This washerwoman rips up the left leg of my pyjamas; now if there is … More The art of cooking might after all be another defensive response to ‘raw’ truth.

In the self-published memoir-cum-novel ‘poof: a curriculum vitae’, James, the narrator, generalises on the background human condition assumed in the work. He says, for instance: ‘Despair over our own existences certainly makes us bury obvious truths. Masochistic for meaning, we give ourselves over to existing powers so easily’.  At another point, James says: ‘Now I have become a master of fieldwork psychology’. Yet we cannot know the full context in which  that naming of a role has meaning. This blog tries to read this analytic novel’s study of the lives of masters and slaves, and a world where power seems all there is in relationships, in a way that makes sense to me.

January 23, 2025

In the self-published memoir-cum-novel poof: a curriculum vitae, James, the narrator, generalises on the background human condition assumed in the work. He says, for instance:  ‘Despair over our own existences certainly makes us bury obvious truths. Masochistic for meaning, we give ourselves over to existing powers so easily’.[1]  At one point, James says: ‘Now I … More In the self-published memoir-cum-novel ‘poof: a curriculum vitae’, James, the narrator, generalises on the background human condition assumed in the work. He says, for instance: ‘Despair over our own existences certainly makes us bury obvious truths. Masochistic for meaning, we give ourselves over to existing powers so easily’.  At another point, James says: ‘Now I have become a master of fieldwork psychology’. Yet we cannot know the full context in which  that naming of a role has meaning. This blog tries to read this analytic novel’s study of the lives of masters and slaves, and a world where power seems all there is in relationships, in a way that makes sense to me.