Pages

Saturday, February 05, 2022

The Dragon 🐉 Dancer

Kleptomaniac New Zealand parrot steals GoPro, films airborne escape Guardian


Inspector Ricciardi: Bingeing on Stan


Naples, 1931. It is Year Nine of Mussolini's Fascist rule. Men in black uniforms stride through the streets, embodying an ever-present threat of violence.

 Meanwhile, police inspector Commissario Luigi Ricciardi and his loyal partner Brigadier Raffaele Maione try to avoid politics and do their jobs. But solving crimes against the great and the downtrodden inevitably brings them into contact, and sometimes conflict, with the power of the national regime. A regime that is reaching deeper into ordinary citizens' daily lives: "Lucia wasn't interested in politics, as far as she cared one party was as good as another, but now things were starting to change. Every day she heard reports of a beating, an injury, an arrest. 

People said that spies were everywhere, that if you said a harsh word about a public official, or a government institution, there were people who would hurry to inform on you and someone would quickly come calling for an explanation of what you had said. Lucia was convinced that it was best to keep your mouth shut and mind your own business." (Viper, p. 207) 

The historical setting is one of the most unusual and compelling elements of Maurizio De Giovanni's Commissario Ricciardi novels. Each novel takes place during a particular time of year, and De Giovanni vividly renders the characteristic sights, sounds and smells of Naples (including its seasonal festivals, cuisine and other traditions). 

Commisario Ricciardi series a tribute to Italian cinema



The rules of creating an unruly garden


In gardens everywhere, plants are taking over. “Loosening up” has become the catchcry of our times. Flowers are spilling into lawns, succulents are spreading into gaps and ground covers are butting up against shrubs.

While gardening trends come and go, this enthusiasm for the unruly is proving something of stayer. Having been building over decades, it shows no sign of waning and is starting to feel like a full-blown shift in thinking.


A new book charts how we have got to this point and where the approach is taking us. In Wild: The Naturalistic Garden, Australian photographer Claire Takacs and British garden designer and writer Noel Kingsbury survey wilder, freer, more biodiverse gardens everywhere from the UK, Europe and the US to Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

They look at how these landscapes are appearing around houses, botanic gardens, city centres and industrial estates in all sorts of climate zones and with a wide range of soil types. More useful still, they get down to the nuts and bolts of how these gardens, many of which have sustainability at their core, work.


Kingsbury, who is living in Portugal, and Takacs, who is mostly based in England but is currently in Australia, began documenting gardens together more than 13 years ago, initially for the UK magazine Gardens Illustrated. His text and her photographs have always been closely enmeshed and one of the great things about this book is that it has a good balance of both.

While the 41 spaces profiled are the work of leading designers and horticulturalists, there is much here that can be adopted by home gardeners.

As always, paying close attention is the key to success. Plants grown in close quarters will inevitably compete for space, light and nutrients. This means you need to keep extra close tabs on the different growth patterns – and manage plants accordingly – to stop sturdy plants displacing weaker ones and thereby diluting the visual impact.

 But it is up to every gardener to experiment with what works for them and their site. As this book shows, people have been adopting wild gardening techniques for more than 100 years, and there is room for lots of twists and turns yet.


7 Signs Your Friendship Isn't Going To Last



       Olga Tokarczuk Q & A 

       Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk's The Books of Jacob is now also out in the US, and at the Yale Review Rhian Sasseen now has a Q & A with the author about the novel. 


Cass Sunstein on Beatlemania


Is this a recommended list of “reactionary” films?What about Straw Dogs?


Most anticipated museum openings of 2022


"forgive like a comet

is about to hit 

hug like the hourglass 
is about empty

sing like your voice
is about to go mute 

kiss like the candle 
is about to burn out 

howl like the moon
is about to be stolen 

dance like the ground
is about to break open

write like the ink is 
about to run dry 

treat others today like they
are about to be gone tomorrow

pray like the world
is about on its final spin

laugh like your tears 
are about to return 

give like Heaven
is about to audit you

watch a sunrise like 
you’re about going blind

hold someone like
you’re about to become a ghost 

~ it’s all about time 

be desperate to
live and to
love a little bit recklessly 

caution is a luxury 
for those who have 
endless days to be patient 

~ we don’t

everything is temporary

the calendar is flipping
so fast that it’s become 
a wind tunnel 

it’s all about time 

~ that’s what makes 
it such an adventure

fall into this sacred moment 
~ it’s really all we have

spend every second 
as if you are stargazing
from a hospice bed

fall into this sacred
moment with me 

no more unspoken words
no more unmentioned mercies 
no more unthawed hearts
no more unforgivable sins
no more unopened eyes
no more unfelt tendernesses
no more unlit candles
no more unkind comments 
no more unattended gardens
no more unfinished poems
no more unheard pardons
no more unremarkable kisses
no more unbelieved compliments
no more unaware ignorance 
no more unappreciated miracles 
no more unopened doors
no more unhealthy relationships 
no more unrecorded songs 
no more unclimbed mountains
no more understated sentiments 
no more unwritten love letters
no more unfollowed dreams 
no more unheralded angels 
no more unrealized opportunities 
no more untouched conversations 
no more unthought wishes
no more unuttered prayers 
no more untrue sermons 
no more unneeded desires 
no more unnecessary worry
no more unused dancing shoes
no more unlocked vaults 
no more unthoughtful insults
no more untied knots 
no more unhappy compromises 
no more unread psalms 
no more unsealed tombs 
no more untaken journeys 
no more unseen wonderment 

~ no more 

these seconds 
are racing by 

let’s not waste 
any more of them 

sit with me now
and wrap your 
legs between mine

and let’s laugh 
together wildly 
under this beautiful 
falling sky

fall into this sacred
moment with me 

it’s really all we have

it’s all about time"

~ john roedel (johnroedel.com


It's long, but it is great advice as we start a new week:

"forgive like a comet
is about to hit 

hug like the hourglass 
is about empty

sing like your voice
is about to go mute 

kiss like the candle 
is about to burn out 

howl like the moon
is about to be stolen 

dance like the ground
is about to break open

write like the ink is 
about to run dry 

treat others today like they
are about to be gone tomorrow

pray like the world
is about on its final spin

laugh like your tears 
are about to return 

give like Heaven
is about to audit you

watch a sunrise like 
you’re about going blind

hold someone like
you’re about to become a ghost 

~ it’s all about time 

be desperate to
live and to
love a little bit recklessly 

caution is a luxury 
for those who have 
endless days to be patient 

~ we don’t

everything is temporary

the calendar is flipping
so fast that it’s become 
a wind tunnel 

it’s all about time 

~ that’s what makes 
it such an adventure

fall into this sacred moment 
~ it’s really all we have

spend every second 
as if you are stargazing
from a hospice bed

fall into this sacred
moment with me 

no more unspoken words
no more unmentioned mercies 
no more unthawed hearts
no more unforgivable sins
no more unopened eyes
no more unfelt tendernesses
no more unlit candles
no more unkind comments 
no more unattended gardens
no more unfinished poems
no more unheard pardons
no more unremarkable kisses
no more unbelieved compliments
no more unaware ignorance 
no more unappreciated miracles 
no more unopened doors
no more unhealthy relationships 
no more unrecorded songs 
no more unclimbed mountains
no more understated sentiments 
no more unwritten love letters
no more unfollowed dreams 
no more unheralded angels 
no more unrealized opportunities 
no more untouched conversations 
no more unthought wishes
no more unuttered prayers 
no more untrue sermons 
no more unneeded desires 
no more unnecessary worry
no more unused dancing shoes
no more unlocked vaults 
no more unthoughtful insults
no more untied knots 
no more unhappy compromises 
no more unread psalms 
no more unsealed tombs 
no more untaken journeys 
no more unseen wonderment 

~ no more 

these seconds 
are racing by 

let’s not waste 
any more of them 

sit with me now
and wrap your 
legs between mine

and let’s laugh 
together wildly 
under this beautiful 
falling sky

fall into this sacred
moment with me 

it’s really all we have

it’s all about time"

~ john roedel (johnroedel.com)