A day of complete indulgence!
I don’t really know if it is a commendation or a condemnation of my essential character that this ‘indulgence’ has entailed a compulsive reading of the book I managed to wrest from the clutches of the post office yesterday, ‘Have You Seen . . . ?’ a Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films by David Thomson.
The problem (or pleasure) in reading about films is that the whole experience of watching them comes back to the reader, especially if the critic doing the writing is capable of encapsulating an evocative element of the work in his description or offering a revelatory fact to develop the perception of the film. And David Thomson is always capable of that!
This book is best read in conjunction with Thomson’s New Biographical Dictionary of Film – which is just as stimulatingly personal and provocative as ‘Have You Seen . . . ?’ I cannot recommend both too highly. Buy them! Read them!
I have read about films that I haven’t thought about in years and been stimulated to make fresh protestations that I really will attempt to find a copy of others that I have been trying to watch for years!
I have managed to drag myself away from the book to make my Christmas tree a little less tasteful.
The Christmas and Yuletide story is hardly a study in restraint what with stars, kings, heavenly choruses and half the working population of the area turning up – and that’s before you think about the pagan associations! I therefore think that a Christmas tree decked out with restraint and a harmonious eye to design is somehow contrary to the spirit of the season!
There is also the problem that I do not think that I could actually produce a tree which could stand in a shop window without comment. Go with what you do best: stylistic chaos!
The decoration of our little resort is spectacularly unimpressive with only two or three municipal messages shining above a few chosen streets. Some of the hotels and blocks of flats have attempted their own lighting by using the cheap and cheerful alternative of light ropes.
These ropes of flashing lights used to be the preserve of the rich but now they are the cheap alternative to design thought. Their use is unimaginative and the light lines look like childish scrawl in the darkness, but there isn’t much else so it will have to do.
Perhaps the streets will sprout more satisfactory illumination in the next week, though I think that El Crisis is being used as an easy excuse for a lack of municipal extravagance.
Hard times ahead!
I don’t really know if it is a commendation or a condemnation of my essential character that this ‘indulgence’ has entailed a compulsive reading of the book I managed to wrest from the clutches of the post office yesterday, ‘Have You Seen . . . ?’ a Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films by David Thomson.
The problem (or pleasure) in reading about films is that the whole experience of watching them comes back to the reader, especially if the critic doing the writing is capable of encapsulating an evocative element of the work in his description or offering a revelatory fact to develop the perception of the film. And David Thomson is always capable of that!
This book is best read in conjunction with Thomson’s New Biographical Dictionary of Film – which is just as stimulatingly personal and provocative as ‘Have You Seen . . . ?’ I cannot recommend both too highly. Buy them! Read them!
I have read about films that I haven’t thought about in years and been stimulated to make fresh protestations that I really will attempt to find a copy of others that I have been trying to watch for years!
I have managed to drag myself away from the book to make my Christmas tree a little less tasteful.
The Christmas and Yuletide story is hardly a study in restraint what with stars, kings, heavenly choruses and half the working population of the area turning up – and that’s before you think about the pagan associations! I therefore think that a Christmas tree decked out with restraint and a harmonious eye to design is somehow contrary to the spirit of the season!
There is also the problem that I do not think that I could actually produce a tree which could stand in a shop window without comment. Go with what you do best: stylistic chaos!
The decoration of our little resort is spectacularly unimpressive with only two or three municipal messages shining above a few chosen streets. Some of the hotels and blocks of flats have attempted their own lighting by using the cheap and cheerful alternative of light ropes.
These ropes of flashing lights used to be the preserve of the rich but now they are the cheap alternative to design thought. Their use is unimaginative and the light lines look like childish scrawl in the darkness, but there isn’t much else so it will have to do.
Perhaps the streets will sprout more satisfactory illumination in the next week, though I think that El Crisis is being used as an easy excuse for a lack of municipal extravagance.
Hard times ahead!
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