Having read the novel 4-5 yrs back and put it in the back of my mind I finally decided to watch the film with one of my favourite actors Geoffrey Rush.
I would thoroughly recommend it even though my first thoughts was that it was going to dark and brooding. I have visited such german style villages in Austria so ‘felt’ at home there.
the film for me of course showed the futility of war but the determination of the human spirit to rise above it all.
It was superbly acted and made me cry in parts - always a good sign of a genuine life story. I would strongly recommend it despite it sombre looks!
Yes fine work lads.
Indeed where have the ladies gone, a Woman’s touch makes all the difference, “Such gentle hands upon a quill, composing verse at her will” And who says you couldn’t make it up? Isn’t that what everyone does, God I hate that expression.
I shall never forget those last words Mars Barr said to me on his deathbed, he looked up at me with moistened eyes, tried to raise his head, alas in vain then he sank back into the grimy pillow (It was in a dingy attic room in Paris, where all good poets die) I knew he was making a last desperate effort to assemble a verse, finally he gasped out “I suppose the only time a true poet is not composing is when he’s decomposing” What lovely words, even to the very last he was thinking of his fellow poets, rest his dear soul.
I am touched by the account of Mars Barrs demise. My dear pal Jock Strapp often talked about being moist. He was a much misunderstood classically trained patisserie professional. His Fondant Fancies were to die for. Oops, a little Freudian slip there in more ways than one.
Jem you’re quite right to say that some expressions grate . “Very moist” he’d say to blue rinsed old ladies when judging home made cakes at charity events.
I had a call from my cousin Florian today, he is the au pair to Robert Alagna, world famous operatic tenor now based in Milan. The great man is rehearsing La fille du régiment an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti, set to a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.
Opera fans will remember the famous aria “Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête!”, which requires of the tenor no fewer than nine high Cs.
Very clever says Florian, but the constant high notes grate & make the flat moist.
More about Jock Strapp later.
Well bugger me! you could have knocked me down with a feather when I read Gumbud Crying…Did I read that right?
And RE the poem, Mates…you’ve got mates on here Gumbud…
Also went to see ‘The Book Thief’ a couple of weeks ago, though it was very good.
Can’t tar all the Germans with the same brush can you.
I bet the book was better though Gumbud?
Brilliant RJ, and I’m not even a classical fan, I always thought Beethoven’s 5th was a girl.
I’m beginning to like this Jock Strapp chap, love to have a pint with him someday. I was going to ask you where he hangs out, but then he doesn’t does he, he hangs in.
Just on the subject of ‘Leisurely Scribbles’,
it’s a subject in which I dabbles and dibbles;
but when I try too hard I find my pen dribbles,
so I’ll stop right now,before I start any quibbles…
Thanks for that Jem, generously observed. I am remiss to have not mentioned Florian before as his father, my uncle Vivian has been a regular subject of incredulity …his exploits well documented here.
Jock Strapp, “Big Jock Strapp”, to his friends & admirers, will feature here in due course, no doubt. I have’nt heard from him of late, not since his outstanding karaoke rendition of
“Donald, where’s your Troosers” which brought the house down in The Royal Burgh of Auchtermuchty
well until the age of 5 it was recounted to me by me great aunt mabel that I was always ‘fed down’ and not ‘up’ after 5 I fed myself in a sort of pincer movement from left to right. I have never been ‘honed’ but have been bored at times and re-member these re-bored movements quiet clearly.
on one such occasion i was sitting with Mabel Winterbottom by the side of the Manchester Canal. she was reading her latest poetry - her voluptuous breasts kept heaving and heaving as she read more passionately and that’s all she did for hours - it exhausted me and the juice runneth over!
well not sure if I can compute with the words ‘better’; ‘best’ etc - the book was different and of course a film must always be a shortened version of a book with the longer bits removed! What I did enjoy were the comments by the “narrator” as the film progressed. they were I believe quite magical and unique - almost from heaven itself!
NARRATOR: Rudy, his soul
just rolled into my arms.
In my job, l am always finding
humans at their best…
and their worst.
I see their ugliness, and their beauty…
and I wonder
how the same thing can be both.
I have seen
a great many things.
I’ve attended
all the world’s worst disasters…
and worked for the greatest of villains.
And I’ve seen the greatest wonders.
But it’s still like I said it was.
No one lives forever.
When I finally came for Liesel…
I took selfish pleasure in the knowledge
that she had lived her 90 years so wisely.
By then, her stories
had touched many souls.
Some of whom I came to know in passing.
Max, whose friendship lasted
almost as long as Liesel.
Almost.
In her final thoughts…
she saw the long list of lives
that merged with hers.
Her three children.
Her grandchildren.
Her husband.
Among them, lit like lanterns…
were Hans and Rosa…
her brother…
and the boy whose hair
remained the color of lemons forever.
I wanted to tell the book thief
she was one of the few souls…
that made me wonder what it was to live.
But in the end, there were no words.
Only peace.
The only truth I truly know…
is that I am haunted by humans.
“Thank God Art is not compulsory and we can all have free choice in what we like” (Mars Barr 1990)
You do meet some odd balls in pubs. An abstract artist went through great pains to try to explain to me what his work was all about, he was wasting his time for I’m slow to cop on to this kind of thing, fact is I just don’t get it and I’m not interested and he could talk himself into a spin but I still wouldn’t be interested and only listened out of courtesy. I have only meself to blame as I had said hello to him when he walked into the bar, he was about 36 or so and I hadn’t seen him before and wanted him to see that we are a friendly lot as I know meself what it’s like walking into a strange bar to be greeted by suspicious looks. Any way he sat beside me and off he started, how was I to know he was one of those who loves to talk about his work.
The thing is (according to him) to take an object or event and try to see it from another point of view, he tried to illustrate this for me by taking a large sheet of cardboard from his portfolio, it had all the colours of the rainbow on it splattered all over the place, he spread it out on the bar, I hadn’t a clue what was supposed to be painted on it but I’m sure I could make out an eye and a human ear in the midst of the confusion, then I spotted a wheel and a red cross. He was watching me as I looked puzzle eyed at his work trying to find something else familiar. “Well?” he said after a few minutes. “Well what?” says I. “Can’t you see what it is yet?” “No to be honest I can’t, I give in” I answered. “It’s a car crash viewed from the inner self!" He beamed a broad smile of satisfaction. "The red cross represents the Ambulance and there are parts of the victims body in there too, plus parts of the smashed car, the pinkish red streaks are intestines and the dark red blobs are organs, quite a novel idea don’t you think?” I felt like asking him what did it crash into, a battleship? and who’s inner self was it, Charles Manson perhaps? but I didn’t.
You really would have to have the patience of Job with some people, I felt like telling him to go out and find some common type of work if only to save his own sanity, but I held meself back, I downed the sup left in me pint, smiled a plastic smile and bid him farewell. There but by the grace of God could have been me if I’d stayed more than a month in the art school.
when I can understand ‘straight’ art but even Picassio leaves me with a headache - but it is an alternative way of viewing the world and in a way I found them clever!
[CENTER]Kimberely Rambles contd
Turds in the Grass [/CENTER]
sitting at my desktop at midnight I heard some rumblings outside and sometimes we get kids sneaking about - so out with my trusty torch barefoot in the grass. The grass abounding the property within is artificial - too hot in these parts to cut real grass. The dog and cat use it occasionally for you know what!
Walked straight into a turd without a blink or recognition - the grass just felt cold! No nefarious characters about so back into the recently mopped floor - the entire house is tiled - great idea in a hot climate. However slowly it dawned on me as dawn was approaching - dark colored heel marks on a light fawn tiled floor, and recently mopped but my little helper a few hrs back
Oh dear into the shower to remove the evidence from my heels and then out with the mop again - this time what us men call ‘spot cleaning’ - all removed and the midnight air had removed the odor fortunately.
doesn’t life get complicated when ya having fun?
tip toe through the turds will be my next book launch!
Sorry to hear about your unfortunate incident with the excrement Gumbud, I sometimes jog through a well camouflaged turd and it takes me ages to get rid of the pungent smell…thank God I take me shoes off before I step on the carpet.
I’m hearin’ you bro-them’s wise words there,Jem.
But some things don’t make sense…like the way we spell phlegm.
Personally,I think it ain’t us-it’s all them.
Coz we know we ‘50+’-ers are the creme-de-la-creme!
