The theme [Marina Zoueva] had created for us with the Moonlight Sonata was that of man celebrating woman as the mother of all mankind. She said that Sergei should get on his knees before me, because only the woman can give birth, only the woman can give him his children. … The beginning of the program was very soft, and we opened our arms to show the audience and judges that we were opening ourselves up to them. We were... Read more

“WITHOUT HESITATION THEY BEGAN TO DANCE.” The 2008 movie Exam is basically a cheapened version of William Sleator’s terrific novel House of Stairs. As the comparison suggests, Exam‘s first half-hour or so highlights the way that contemporary job applications and economic pressures infantilize adults (much as the surrounding pop culture infantilizes people who, in a better world, would already be raising children of their own). The adults in this movie can be treated like the teens in Sleator’s novel because... Read more

WAS YOUR LENTEN FISH DINNER CAUGHT BY SLAVES? (Perhaps esp useful for linking to the larger CNN series on contemporary slavery. Via Mark Shea.) Read more

HOLY SNAKES. The phenomenon of the Holy Snakes of the Virgin Mary has been occurring for centuries during the festivities to the Theotokos between August 5 and August 15 in the village of Markopoulo on the island of Kefalonia, Greece. The small black snakes appear at the church of Panagia of Langouvarda on the site of a monastery, established as a nunnery and dedicated to Our Lady of Langouvarda. The myth about these snakes is attached to the year the... Read more

TOP SHELF: So I hate the title of my novel (New Wineskins). It’s thematically appropriate but I realized that even I wouldn’t pull it off the shelf to have a look, and I wrote it. Help me out here, people! If you’ve read the thing and have suggestions for how I can get to a better title, email me. I’ve kicked around all kinds of variations on the book’s themes and I’ve got exactly two ideas, neither of which I... Read more

You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.You should praise the mutilated world.Remember the moments when we were togetherin a white room and the curtain fluttered.–from the middle of this poem by Adam Zagajewski, tr. Clare Cavanagh Read more

DARK, DARK MY LIGHT: Lake Mungo turns out to be a Blair Witch-ified version of Pet Sematary–King’s best novel, if you ask me and I know you didn’t–a cruel and sad meditation on grief. We are so convinced that there must be reasons; and I loved Lake Mungo for its insistence that no reason could ever be as big as the loss. Lake Mungo is also about proof. It’s about the difference between knowing something happened and knowing what happened.... Read more

MY SOUL IS BEING DRAGGED TO UTTAR PRADESH! …TO UTTER DESTRUCTION I MEAN. Diana Wynne Jones, RIP. She is one of my most beloved children’s authors. Everybody has a unique list of favorite DWJ novels. I’ll talk a little bit about mine, here, and also try to indicate what made her writing so fantastic overall. Fire and Hemlock. What’s odd is that I’ve never managed to keep the plot of this retelling of the Tam Lin/Thomas the Rhymer legends straight,... Read more

PASOLINI IS ME: What’s the difference between a stereotype and an archetype? Read more

HUNGOVER OWLS. I have no words. Via TKB I think. Read more