Sleeping Muse and Falling Rocket

  So, you're Robert Lupone. A stellar career by any measure. Julliard.  Tony nominated for A Chorus Line. Baby sis is also a performer, apparently.

  The friendship of Neil Gaiman and Tori Amos makes me think of that between angel Bruno Ganz and trapeze artist Solveig Dommartin in Wings of Desire.

  When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing fa When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of th

The world met Dr. Who for the very first time the day after JFK was assassinated.

  I think Wand Lore is the most fascinating thing that J.K. Rowling created.

  The current New Yorkerr contains a review by Anthony Lane of the film Mank and a review by Hilton Als of Season 4 of The Crown on Netflix. Mank casts Charles Dance as William Randolph Hearst and Tom Burke as Orson Welles. The Crown casts Charles Dance as Lord Mountbatten and Tom Burke as Dazzle Jennings,

Last night on The Great British Bake Off they made the pastry Savarin. No one mentioned the quote used on Iron Chef, from Brillat-Savarin. It's like they live in a bubble. Or a tent.

  I thought I understood The Hero's Journey. As Odysseus, I would fight my battles, face my monsters. I could even grow from a Stephen into my own Bloom. It just never occurred to me that before I returned to Ithica I would myself turn into Polyphemus, the Cyclops.  Thanks, Dr. Campbell!

It comes as no surprise, I'm sure, that I had never seen any of the Fast & Furious oeuvre. I had arrogantly assumed them to be cheap, shallow, muscle-bound vanity projects, on the level of demolition derby writ large. More fool I. Stumbling across one such late at night, the scales fell from my eyes. I had so deeply underestimated these works. The scope, the sweep, the gravitas. These films are not simply bad. They suck on a Homerian scale. Mere words are not enough. Marlowe's Mighty Line balks... Music must give flight to blunt criticism. A Van Gogh, a Rodin, a Wagner of vituperative song is needed to voice the bile these films draw forth. My gorge rises at it indeed. Art itself may fail. An algorithm of hate may be necessary. The math that does not describe the Universe, but in fact IS the universe. The Music of the Spheres. As the Cherubim limn the Archangel, as Gloucester ennobles Lear, as the hermitage suggests the cathedral, surely The Fast and the Furious were presag

My first week in grad school, wandering through the beautiful Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington, stumbled across this marvelous collection of the essays and reviews of Anthony Burgess. His passion for language, his wit, and his savagery! Thank you Steven Cogswell for pointing me back to him this evening!

  "it escapes, irretrievable time..."

I will see ANYTHING starring Olivia Colman. I will avoid ANYTHING with Gillian Anderson.

Forget Cho Chang. Forget Ginny Weasley. Forget what Rowling said about Hermione. THIS is who could and should have been the love of Harry's life.