I am currently watching an entertaining and well made Young Adult TV series – Dwight in Shining Armor. In one episode a random character, a history teacher, declares, “History is the story we tell about the events we have chosen to remember”. A nicely succinct formulation. No doubt a script writer who was dying to …
This is not strictly speaking a music video, but a scene from a film set to Bob Dylan’s song ‘Ballad of Thin Man’. It appears in Todd Hayne’s highly creative 2007 biopic I’m not there about Bob Dylan. Six different actors play six different characters, representing Dylan at different stages of his life and career. …
An interesting reflection by Rob Kitchen on the relationship between academic and fiction writing and storytelling on the Transforming Society blog. He says: The usual approach to writing an academic article or book is to produce a factual, discursive narrative that weaves together theories, observations and findings, contextualising the contentions made with respect to the …
These remarks are prompted by a recent short interview in The Guardian with Sam Taylor, a novelist and translator of 30 books from French into English. He comments ‘Ultimately, it’s a question of taste. My personal ideal for a translation is one that makes the reader forget they are reading a translation at all, but …
The Least Important Things: Dr Who At Fifty, An Essay By Taylor Parkes on The Quietus in November 21st, 2013 A really excellent article about Doctor Who and its history which I thoroughly agree with. I have cited a few of Taylor’s observations that I find particularly salient and added my own rants in to …
Sculpting in Time by Andrei Tarkovsky Andrey Tarkovsky (1989) Sculpting in Time. Reflections on the Cinema. Translated from the Russian by Kitty Hunter-Blair, University of Texas Press. My rating: ***** Publisher’s page. Includes table of contents and extract. I want to underline my own belief that art must carry man’s craving for the ideal, must …
In Praise Of Love by Alain Badiou My rating: *** Badiou, Alain with Truong, Nicolas (2012) In Praise Of Love. Trans. Peter Bush, London: Serpent’s Tail I approached this short essay interview about the notion of love (as it is enacted between lovers) with caution. I was not expecting a 75 year old male philosopher …
This is another piece from my defunct film website. Written way back in 1998, before science fiction fandom became ‘mainstream’ I first came across Sapphire and Steel, an obscure British science fiction series made in the early 1980s, while I was browsing through a mail order catalogue in the late 90s. I read the description: …
Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion by Alain de Botton My rating: 4 of 5 stars [Secular society] expects that we will spontaneously find our way to the ideas that matter to us and give us weekends off for consumption and recreation. Like science, it privileges discovery. It associates repetition …
In 2002 I created a review website around the actor Christopher Walken, which was also home to some of my writings on science fiction television. I have decided to let this site lapse as it has been languishing for years without updates. I will be reposting some of its content on this blog. I originally …
Refracted Input 