Tea-Time Reading -- and Rereading

 

A recent discovery and an old friend.

The Light Here

The light here

The light there

Captain, resting.


Lady, waiting patiently while I work:

Amateur Home Haircut

An amateur home haircut only really counts as such when something goes wrong, right? I grew up with short hair, and though every so often I attempt to grow it longer, my hair grows up and out, never long. 70s big, at best/worst.

In times of stress, I enjoy getting a haircut. Something about sitting in that chair and handing over responsibility for even a short time is freeing for me. (I found that thought -- but traveling on a plane with the pilot in control, I can't be blamed -- in a novel I first read over 40 years ago and recognized my barber chair version about 30 years ago. Peter Gent's North Dallas 40, a worthy read about football and integrity, though perhaps not in obvious ways.)

Now, in this time of stress, I am cutting my own hair. Not the same relief, not the same release. (Something, because I did want that hair cut, but not what I hoped.) So you can imagine that after trimming my hair successfully I might still chase that feeling of relief by cutting a bit more. And I have done so. Felt good too. Snipped a little more and a little more.

Perhaps, I should have stopped sooner, but I don't know. I don't mind short hair. I might agree about the uneven edges though.

Comfort for a Sore Throat

A hot toddy and a good book:
The Fall of the Kings
by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman.

I think this is my third reading.

Dumas' The Three Musketeers (novel and films)

My favorite version--after reading Alexandre Dumas' classic novel The Three Musketeers--to watch: Richard Lester's version (scripted by the author of the Flashman novels!)--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-LfUtHnEBY

But then you'll also need to watch Richard Lester's sequel (though part of the original French novel):
The Four Musketeers--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMhwGUGNuxI

Respite in York: Two Views

The ruined tower outside.

The comfort inside.

I'd caught that sore throat on the plane from Frankfurt, and so needed a respite from walking York's stone walls . . . .

My Girl Motley

Nineteen-and-a-half . . . .

Crossley-Holland: "Comfort"

COMFORT

Who said anything about comfort?
Those syllables do not rhyme
with zinc slakes or ice-bright sky.
The sea is grinding her spears.
Up creeks and gullies, over groynes
the black tide surges
and the hag wind rides her.
In the bleak forest on the staithe
rigging clacks and chitters.

Little but memory for company,
wild geese, swans whooping,
but no urbanity no
gossip prejudice bitterness sham.
In London I dream of these harsh folds,
the sea's slam, the light's eagle eye,
and here again I draw
this place -- hair-shirt, dear cloak --
around such infirmities.

--Kevin Crossley-Holland

Salmon Season

Postcard: A Desktop View

Office art, tools, toys, and memory bottles and jars.

You've heard of comfort food; here, I offer comfort clutter.

Can you spot the red devil-duck?

Oh, and that bit of string is left over from the English 1B final exam in which tying and properly labeling a knot from Proulx's "The Shipping News" earned extra credit. Closed book, of course.

Moya Cannon: "Isolde's Tower, Essex Quay"

ISOLDE'S TOWER, ESSEX QUAY

It is our fictions which make us real.
--Robert Kroetch

Is there no end
to what can be dug up
out of the mud of a riverbank,

no end
to what can be dug up
out of the floodplains of a language?

This is no more
than the sunken stump
of a watchtower on a city wall,
built long after any Isolde might have lived,
built over since a dozen times,
uncovered now in some new work--
a tower's old root in black water
behind a Dublin bus stop;

and the story is no more than a story.
Tristan drifted in here on the tide to be healed,
taken in because of his music,
and a long yarn spun on
of which they'd say--

Had not the lovers of whom this story tells
Endured sorrow for the sake of love
They would never have comforted so many.