Five Fine Things....
*in which I inflict my taste on you, dear reader
Photo: Polignano a Mare cliffside, September 2024.
Dear reader,
Hello, here I am keeping it breezy as we return to school (I teach English, see more about this here). My back to school energy it seems is seventies and restful. Last week seemed to be uncomfortable and edgy, see here! For those that are new to the newsletter this is a semi-regular list of Five Things that are currently intriguing, inspiring or entertaining me. Sometimes I feature a guest artist, musician or other so do get in touch if you’d like to join in.
For something that’s not a list you may enjoy these Fish out of Water tales or these novel extracts. As always thank you very much for reading and sharing After the Fact!
Love,
Emma
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p.s. My biography of my grandparents and CiWF founders, Anna and Peter Roberts, Roaming Wild, the Founding of Compassion in World Farming, can be purchased here.
Listening! to this Carlos Santana interview with musician Narada, (from the mid-eighties by the look of the aesthetics). These two are full on children of the Aquarian age and I love their combined energy, what would sound New Age and annoying from less articulate and talented mouths is profound and enlightening from these two.
Croning! to Volare by Domenico Modugno, having just been to Poligano a Mare in Puglia (Southern Italy) where Mudugno is from this one is now firmly planted in my head. Modugno's classic Italian croning is charming but I actually prefer the more up-tempo Gypsy Kings version as below. I love the little girls dancing in this video too!
Selecting! these Rest Desk cards created by the founder of The Nap Ministry to remind myself on a daily basis of Tricia Hersey's, AKA The Nap Bishop’s, wisdom. More on this philosophy here.
Re-watching! Youth (2015) by Paola Sorrentino; there is clearly an Italian theme at play this week! As a film-maker Sorrentino manages to tackle the big stuff - death, love, loss, desire - without venturing into the genre which my husband (David Horgan Art) refers to as ‘Challenging Bleak’. ‘Challenging Bleak’ is Manchester by the Sea or Oslo, 31 Aug by Joachim Trier. These are beautiful films and I'm frequently drawn to this genre but there's not a huge amount of redemption or humour here. Sorrentino on the other hand skilfully manages to balances levity and pain with playfulness and (seeming) frivolity. Five stars to Youth 🌟, bravo!
Reading! Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) by Robert M. Pirsig. A struggle, a joy, a dose of American- style Zen. This is a somehow both a cult book and a bestseller and it’s not really like anything I’ve read before, philosophy from both the East and West woven into an American father-son motorcycle road trip and mountain climb. I have about a 75 pages left. It’s the kind of book where you want to talk to someone else whose read it because it’s hard to explain but so worthy of discussion! So please let me know below if you’ve read it and your thoughts on it….🙏🙏🙏
I can recommend to you and your readers the novel, 'Poor Things,' by Alasdair Gray. FAR superior to the merely--at times--salacious movie by that name. It is an incredibly witty and self-aware updating of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein,' and the parts written by 'the creature' blend insight and childlike wonder.
Emma's mind and reading & viewing habits remind me of what someone once wrote about T S Eliot's poetry: "a cultural echo chamber." The reverberations stimulate further thought and give one hope that all is not lost so long as we keep reading-- and writing! To read is to break bread with the dead. I think that's also Eliot.