The ill-defined but promising period between the late teenage years and nascent adulthood comes with both a heady hope for the fulfillment of long-held dreams but also a terror that they might never be expressed at all. In most cases, optimistic expectation wins out, a crash-or-crash-through positivity that sees many Continue Reading
Book review: Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
We all know that for all its occasional beauty and moments of fleeting inspiration, that we live in a broken, bestial and horrific world. That’s not being downbeat, simply realistic. The horrors of inequality, cruelty, abuse and murderous intent are all laid grimly bare in Deepa Anaparra‘s luminously revelatory book Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The Orchestra and a world filled with beautiful music
SNAPSHOTImagine a world where a band of tiny musicians follow you and play a soundtrack for your life – communicating your emotions, fears and hopes. In this world lives elderly Vernon; a lonely man whose crippling shyness causes his orchestral musicians to perform terribly out of tune. When Vernon and Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2020: Week 6 – Moldova, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland
This is normally how I begin these review posts … What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: Books come beautifully alive with thematically-perfect paper sculptures
I have been reading books ever since my teachers taught me to understand how magically transportive stringing all kinds of letters could be and so, the idea that books are alive always felt very much the case every time I opened a new written adventure. Artist Bethany Bickley has given Continue Reading
Movie review: The Willoughbys
You may not think that a story of horrifically neglectful parents, starving children (emotionally and physically) and gothic hilarity told through vividly manic animation where the colours and sheer force of imagination are in perfect sync would be a good idea or come even remotely close to working, but it Continue Reading
Embrace portentous mystery: Head into The Vast of Night
SNAPSHOT“In the twilight of the 1950s, on one fateful night in New Mexico, a young, winsome switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) and charismatic radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) discover a strange audio frequency that could change their small town and the future forever. Dropped phone calls, AM radio signals, secret Continue Reading
Book review: The Library of Lost Things by Laura Taylor Namey
Books are an escape for many people. Whether you’re a kid trying to pretend the bullies aren’t trying to bash down your existential door or that your family isn’t a chaotic mess of dysfunction, or an adult for whom reality is one searingly painful event too many, books offer a Continue Reading
Not Bermuda or Jamaica: Netflix wants to take you out of orbit to Space Force
“[Space Force] on a four-star general who has been tapped to run Space Force, the new branch of the U.S. military, which is similar to the ambitious dream that President Donald Trump announced in 2018. Carell stars as Gen. Mark R. Naird, who has relocated to a secret Colorado base Continue Reading
The painful and liberating rebuilding of who you are: Thoughts on Unorthodox
People, for the most part, love rituals. They provide certainty and comfort, an added sense of richness to day-to-day life and a feeling that you are part of something much bigger than yourself. That is, of course, when they function as intended, which is as outward expressions or affirmations of Continue Reading