by Richard Subber | Jan 20, 2021 | Joys of reading, Language, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
think about the galumphing that you’ve known…
I guess Lewis Carroll was thinking about voting when he wrote this…
Jabberwocky
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (1832-1898)
“Jabberwocky” was published in 1871 in Carroll’s book, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
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Poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2021 All rights reserved.
Brown is the New White, another take on democracy
Steve Phillips is talking about demographics
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jan 19, 2021 | Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
a first-class bad guy…
Movie review:
The Wind and the Lion (1975)
Candice Bergen as Mrs. Eden Pedecaris.
Sean Connery as Mulay Achmed Mohammed el-Raisuli, Lord of the Rif and Sultan to the Berbers.
In real life he was Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni (Raisuli) (1871-1925), a Sherif and Lord of the Rif in Morocco, a tribal leader and brigand, “the last of the Barbary pirates.”
The Wind and the Lion is a dramatic interpretation of a real incident in Morocco in 1904. The real Raisuli kidnapped an American, Ion “Jon” Hanford Perdicaris (1840-1925) and his stepson, and held the two for ransom. President Teddy Roosevelt sent U. S. marines to rescue the men. Ultimately, the government of Morocco paid the ransom and the men were released.
The movie is wonderfully dashing, and the brutal details are romantically minimized. The captive American, Candice Bergen, doesn’t quite fall in love with Sean Connery, but it seems to be a close call.
Connery, with all of his moustaches and flowing robes, is a first class bad-guy hero, and he has a good heart. He’s happy to get his money, but he’s sorry to say goodbye to Mrs. Pedecaris.
In the final scene, the Raisuli and his lieutenant, the Sherif of Wazan, are silhouetted on a high beach against the setting sun, and the Sherif plaintively declares “Great Raisuli, we have lost everything. All is drifting on the wind as you said. We have lost everything.”
Raisuli revives the heart throbs: “Sherif, is there not one thing in your life that is worth losing everything for?”
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2021 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Proud Tower
…a lot more than a history book…
by Barbara Tuchman
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jan 4, 2021 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
…a little more time in childhood…
Book review:
Girl With A Pearl Earring
by Tracy Chevalier
New York: PLUME, The Penguin Group, 1999
Girl with a Pearl Earring is a slim offering of compelling historical fiction about Johannes Vermeer’s enigmatic portrait of an unknown young girl, circa 1665.
It’s a breathtaking, tantalizing love story…tantalizing because Vermeer and the maid, Griet, almost embrace their passion, each stepping over the line without transgression, but not without hurt.
Vermeer, the worldly one, the master in a house filled with the baleful women of his family, tempted to the edge of the precipice…
Griet, the child innocent, heedless of her woman’s heat, trespassing unaware and ever nearer to the mystery that she barely understands in the beginning…
She becomes the girl with a pearl earring. She feels the lush weight of the earring, his fingertip sears her skin, she inclines toward his touch, trembles with a disembodied, virginal start of pain…
She sits for him.
He trembles—a long moment—with the rush of desire, masters it, and steps back to his easel, granting her a little more time in the childhood she is leaving behind, giving her a peace that will become a bereavement, a keening memory…
They look at each other, mute, apart, yet bound, in flagrante delicto, withering, without joy…
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(Freebie: the 2003 film, Girl with a Pearl Earring, is a slam dunk clone of Tracy Chevalier’s book. Colin Firth (Vermeer) and Scarlett Johansson (Griet) stepped off the pages of the book, onto the movie set. They make you wish the ending could be different.)
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2018 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bridges of Madison County
If you’re looking for
highly stoked eroticism
and high-rolling lives
that throw off sparks when they touch,
look elsewhere.
by Robert Waller
click here
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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