Comments on: She walks in beauty, like the night

By: Larry Mitchell

Larry Mitchell — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 20:15:51 +0000

Glad to see T. F. Powys has some appreciative readers–even fans. I like that felicitous description of Kim’s –”a pagan Anglican hermit.” Perhaps some of your readers would be interested in my recent “T. F. Powys: Aspects of a Life” (Brynmill Press, 2005)?

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 16:08:34 +0000

Tony, it might be a clue that in Gogol’s most famous novel, the protagonist tries to buy up as many lost souls as he can…

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 10:45:17 +0000

Well, I thought that, too, Mark, but Fyodor/Gogol has me wonderin’…

I met an old bloke who had worked as a very junior member of MacArthur’s staff in Brisbane, and he thought Greg Peck was a far better MacArthur than Doug himself. And that was a crap movie - I mean, imagine if you’d been played in a movie by Ingrid Bergman or Robert De Niro or someone - how intimidating would that be when someone asked you to play yourself?

By: harry

harry — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 02:12:01 +0000

“Anyway, in the story a group of people are putting on a play about Joan of Arc and they get one of her “strongest” incarnations to play her… and she utterly sucks playing herself.”

Err, rings a bell, but I was being told about it rather than reading it myself. (Possibly it is a neat literary extension of the idea that on average we have one water molecule in our bodies that was a water molecule in [insert famous person here. i heard it as Henry the Eighth]’s body. The idea being that you could, by chance, have (say) twenty water molecules that were joan of arc and thus you would be the person on earth who is the most Joan of Arc.)

Double errr, haven’t I read this comment before??

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 02:02:34 +0000

Has anyone else read that sci-fi story about how lots of people can be incarnations of previous dead people? So we could all be incarnations of famous dead people. In the story, people have ‘degrees’ of incarnation — some have very strong memories, some very weak.

Anyway, in the story a group of people are putting on a play about Joan of Arc and they get one of her “strongest” incarnations to play her… and she utterly sucks playing herself.

Which reminds me about another story, in which Jesus comes back as a 12 year old black girl living in the Bronx.

Moving right along…

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 01:51:57 +0000

Or could this be the new way of flirting with Kimberella?

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 01:51:17 +0000

Given that something like 99.9% of humans who have ever lived have been peasants scraping a living from the ground, the probability that any of us are the reincarnations of interesting people like Gogol, Shelley or Cleopatra is very low indeed.

By: Fyodor

Fyodor — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 23:04:40 +0000

I am absolutely convinced I was N.V. Gogol in a previous life. Has anyone out there seen my coat?

By: Anai Bendai

Anai Bendai — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 22:57:55 +0000

The reason I ask is that over the last 10 years - I have become aware of at least one set of specific past life memories - memories which my mom tells me I had as a child but forgot about the age of 7 and they didn’t resurface (with remarkable clarity) until I was about 25 or so. Your post that you were the reincarnation of Mary Shelley sort of freaked me out as I am someone who knew and loved her dearly once. - Anai

By: Kim

Kim — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 10:02:37 +0000

In jest, Anai.

By: Anai Bendai

Anai Bendai — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 03:56:05 +0000

Kim - do you really feel you are the reincarnation of Mary Shelley or do you say that in jest?

- Anai

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:54:53 +0000

Yeah I thought Schrader’s “Cat People” was a pretty underrated film too. It had some ludicrous moments like the mythic bloodstory flashbacks, that dopey Bowie song and McDowell eating the scenery from time to time. But Nasty and N’awlins itself were perfectly cast for the way that particular tale was retold.

If you ever feel like tying someone up after dark for a little heuristic, hermetic and holistic fooling around, that flick’s always a good scene-setting accessory (…so I’ve been told).

This comment would be much funnier if we had the gravatars back.

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:04:47 +0000

She irradiated the warm Louisiana night with her deathless beauty in Cat People the remake, though.

(Apologies for the sideways de-railing rhetorical tricksy thing, Kim.)

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 08:51:17 +0000

Nasty K. hasn’t walked in beauty like the night since Tess. Whassup girl? You still have many gentleman (and lady) admirers who’d rilly appreciate your return to a stylish silver screen instead of a cacky V-movie.

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 08:10:35 +0000

“She walks in beauty, like the night.”

More shades of Nastassja…..?

I first read T.F.’s Mr Weston’s Good Wine as an antidote to J.C.’s Glastonbury Romance, and it certainly did the trick.

By: Fyodor

Fyodor — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 07:10:24 +0000

Yes, and he knew Dick at a very sad time in his life: marriage breakup, drug rehab and homelessness - the whole tortured & unappreciated genius shebang.

Tim Powers is the best fantasy novelist you’ve never heard of, and every feckin’ clown has read Dan Brown. TANJ.

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 06:49:10 +0000

Stop me if you��ve heard this before M. Fyodor, but Powers was one of a group of proteges/acolytes/mentorees of a certain Philip K. Dick - along with James Blaylock and K. W. Jeter.

I hope this info nugget should also encourage others here to check out Tim Powers.

By: Fyodor

Fyodor — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 06:07:05 +0000

Feckin’ “A”, Volya. “The Anubis Gates” would make a fantastic movie, in all the senses of the word.

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 05:39:54 +0000

Oh yeah, M. Fyodor, I’m hip to Power’s oeuvre. Shame Russell wasn’t when he made “Gothic”. And when is someone gonna turn “The Anubis Gates” into a movie? I can imagine Terry Guilliam going to town on the final sequence where a drugfucked Coleridge travels through the mutated deep underworld of London’s underworld towards the Anubis Gates themselves.

Another book worth checking out is Mario Praz’s “The Romantic Agony” which sets out to explore to the strange and emotionally-seething night-framed giddiness of the English gothic revival and its visionaries, poets and writers, all erupting in parallel with the Industrial Revolution and peaking with Blake.

Anyhoo, now popped “Mr Weston’s Good Wine” onto my books to buy list.

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 02:32:18 +0000

Mustn’t comment when pissed!