The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may beI go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of …
In “Escape from the Asylum,” Victorian detectives Katie and Loveday practice self-defence skills using umbrellas. Women used hatpins to defend themselves, until the hatpins became so deadly the longer ones were banned. So it was brolleys to the rescue! Here’s a video demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYUxTHoOfok
I write all my plays by walking. I take notes in my NOTES app, or I may use the voice recorder to capture dialogue. It’s a healthy way to write – much easier on the body than sitting. Turns out there is science behind walking and creativity. Creative thinking improves while a person is walking and shortly thereafter, according to …
It has always struck me as odd that Oedipus’ traumatic wounding and attempted murder by his parents is practically ignored in the Oedipus myth. By which I mean it is reported on, but the child’s original trauma at the hands of pathological parents/attempted murderers Laius and Jocasta is not explored. I found an article that explores the significance of this …
Via London Review of Books, Leslie Wilson considers the figure of the Witch as the Bad Mother: “The crudest form of this belief is still held by present-day Tories: she is a single parent and breeds monsters. Originally, all the bad stepmothers were mothers, and [Wilson’s] own 1907 Gothic-script version of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ forgets to call her the stepmother …
Short Talk on Pink I was fond of the angels. Sky-blue light blew around them wherever they were. The one gave no trouble, lounging quiet in his corner of the fresco, I nodded to him when I went up the stairs. The other had temperament. Stalking the salons, trailing folds of cloud or bloody sunset, making a show. It vexed …
“When a cat falls out of a tree, it lets go of itself. The cat becomes completely relaxed, and lands lightly on the ground. But if a cat were about to fall out of a tree and suddenly make up its mind that it didn’t want to fall, it would become tense and rigid, and would be just a bag …
By Naomi Shihab Nye Letters swallow themselves in seconds. Notes friends tied to the doorknob, transparent scarlet paper,sizzle like moth wings,marry the air. So much of any year is flammable, lists of vegetables, partial poems. Orange swirling flame of days, so little is a stone. Where there was something and suddenly isn’t, an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space. I begin again with the smallest numbers. Quick …
i am running into a new yearand the old years blow backlike a windthat i catch in my hairlike strong fingers likeall my old promises andit will be hard to let goof what i said to myselfabout myselfwhen i was sixteen andtwentysix and thirtysixeven thirtysix buti am running into a new yearand i beg what i love andi leave to …
I regularly listen to the Happier podcast with Gretchen Rubin. She offers a fun alternative to “New Year’s resolutions,” a concept I hate because it tries to force change faster than I can manage. The idea is to choose a word for the year: more of a theme or touchstone. My theme for 2022 is “Spring.” I chose Spring because …