Living in the Material World
I watched Martin Scorsese’s Living in the Material World the other week, Scorsese’s take on George Harrison. I was inclined to dismiss it at first as an undisciplined mish-mash of … Continue reading
The Tao of Babel
The peoples who lived in the lands between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates from 6,000 years ago were many, Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians; Assyrians, Hittites, and Hurrians from the north; Amorites, … Continue reading
Three Simenon Omnibuses
The Fourteenth Simenon Omnibus Maigret and the Spinster was first published in 1942 as Cécile est morte, and was translated into English by Eileen Ellenbogen. This is a similar plot … Continue reading
Three comedies of Howard Hawks
There’s a little preface to this essay on some old films. Most people experience a film at first through advertising media. It may be a rumour that “it’s supposed to … Continue reading
The Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Simenon Omnibuses
The Eleventh Omnibus The Venice Train was first published in 1961 as Le Train de Venise, and was translated into English by Alastair Hamilton. It begins as intriguingly as an … Continue reading
Hollywood: a place, a myth, an industry
Hollywood is a 13 episode documentary (676 m) made in the late 1970s by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill for Thames Television in Britain, with music by Carl Davis and … Continue reading
The journey of Odysseus
There are several ways the journey of Odysseus, told by Homer in the Odyssey, can be looked at. Does the poem preserve any details about the period it depicts that … Continue reading
