All Purls. No Swine.
William the Conqeror WILLIAM THE FIRST was the first of our kings, Not counting Ethelreds, Egberts and things, And he had himself crowned and anointed and blest In Ten-Sixty-I-Needn’t Tell-You-The-Rest But being a Norman, King William the First By the Saxons he conquered was hated and cursed, And they planned and they plotted far into… Continue reading On the 958th Anniversary of the Battle of Hastings
What? Poetry from the fourteenth century, expressing the opinions of the fourteenth century, is now so disturbing and triggering to children of the 21st that they need some sort of intervention in order to handle it? Please. From several years ago, here. For God's sake, you morons. Grow up: Imagine yourself, if you will, as… Continue reading OK, Now You’ve Done It: The Canterbury Tales given trigger warning over ‘expressions of Christian faith’
...Pearls before swine." Wealthy socialite, well-known conservative, staunch anti-Communist, former U.S. Ambassador, playwright, politician and all-round doyenne (a word much underused these days) of all things mid-twentieth century and American, Clare Boothe Luce died thirty-seven years ago today, on October 9, 1987. She was eighty-four years old. Her extraordinary life, which began under the stigma… Continue reading Quote of the Day: “Age before beauty…
It's the first line of a pretty Christian hymn by Eleanor Farjeon, some of the rest of which goes: Morning has broken Like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken Like the first bird. Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning! Praise for them, springing Fresh from the world! ... Mine is the sunlight! Mine… Continue reading Quote of the Day: “Morning has Broken”
The lease said about me and my father’s trip from the Bureau of Manhattan to our new home the soonest mended. In some way either I or he got balled up on the grand concorpse and next thing you know we was thretning to swoop down on Pittsfield. Are you lost daddy I arsked tenderly.… Continue reading Quote of the Day: “‘Shut up, he explained”
It's the Latin word for "rumor," a concept vividly described, perhaps never better, in Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid (this translation by Theodore C. WIlliams): Swift through the Libyan cities Rumor sped. Rumor! What evil can surpass her speed? In movement she grows mighty, and achieves strength and dominion as she swifter flies. small first,… Continue reading Quote of the Day: On Fama
I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be--in a light better than any light that ever shone--in a land no one can define or remember, only desire--Edward Burne-Jones Another of my hometown heroes: We were both born in Birmingham, in the UK, just a bit more… Continue reading QOTD: Edward Burne-Jones, On the Beauty of Art
A slightly spruced-up post from past days: August 26, 2024, is the 149th anniversary of the birth of John Buchan. Born in Perth in 1875, the son of a Free Church of Scotland minister and his wife, Buchan attended the University of Glasgow as a scholarship student, then moving on to Oxford where--according to Wikipedia… Continue reading Celebrating John Buchan
So long ago. My last post has me reminiscing about a movie which purported to highlight the early life of one of my adored childhood authors, a person who was--later in my life--one of my heroines: Beatrix Potter, feminist icon. (No, that's a bit of a stretch. But boy, howdy what a girl!) Here's a… Continue reading Quote of the Day: “Once Upon A Time”
The year was 1995, and the late Mr. Right and I had just been to see one of the very few movies I've ever designated as "perfect." By that time, we'd been living on our small farm in the country for nine years, and the movie was Babe. (Not the 1992 movie about the baseball… Continue reading A Perfect Little Movie: “That’ll, do, Pig.” And its Wallace Statue Counterpoint in Stirling, Scotland