Witterings about lots of things.
Christmas is here, season of goodwill and morning drunkenness. It’s my favourite time of the year. Everyone wears wool. We all eat pastry a lot more than usual, and take a moment now and then (lackadaisically dusting pie crumbs from our jumpers) to think of those less fortunate than ourselves. So let’s do that. Join... Continue Reading →
I’ve been thinking about the word feminist for a long time. I’ve been thinking about it, but for most of my life, I haven’t been saying it. There were big reasons and small reasons. For the most part, it was to do with my feelings about privacy and the right to be a weird little... Continue Reading →
Whenever I talk about Doris Lessing, I tend to become a little incoherent with infatuated love, and talk about her I do, a lot, to anyone who is reluctantly cornered and can't get away. I first encountered Doris Lessing when I read The Golden Notebook at twenty-one. I was an immature twenty-one. I flailed around... Continue Reading →
"Imagine your shadow burning off the page / As the dear world and the dead word disengage" - Don Paterson, 'The White Lie'. In the midst of autumn the many lovely libraries of Glasgow are even more tempting than usual... and there's something especially secret and special about the libraries that have maintained that dim,... Continue Reading →
Lorna Sage's daughter, in this wonderful article, describes an early memory of 'clomping alongside' her mother on a walk across a park, in ugly Clark's shoes, while Lorna was 'barefoot and wearing a slinky catsuit zipped down to her naval'. Lorna Sage wrote about Plato, John Milton, Doris Lessing and Angela Carter as Professor of English... Continue Reading →
While searching through the bookcases in search of tutoring materials, I pulled out a beautiful 1969 print of Edward Lear's The Owl and The Pusscat. It's so utterly beautiful and of-its-time that I want to frame every single page. Except that I can't bear to rip the book up to do so. Weren't the sixties great? Dreamy, trippy - even the fish in the sea are absolutely gorgeous. I was on a roll by then, and found some other delights, most of them from the 70s. The World of Uncle Peter deserves a place in my heart for featuring a protagonist (Uncle Peter, naturally) who is an ex-art school dude who frequently has daydreams that looks suspiciously plant-based... (this was 1979). There is also a definite Royal Tenenbaums feel to the list of characters. I love that mix of old staid portraits and sleepy cartoon animals. Another gem was 'The Witch's Hat', which was one of my favourite books when I was a little critter. The bat-print on the inside cover is exactly what I'd like in a t-shirt these days... And the illustrations (from 1980) have a certain Pink Floydd appeal to them! Lastly, 'Magic' and 'I thought I saw' used to haunt my dreams as a little one. There was something about bright colours with sparseness of illustration that really got to me - I have no idea why. Now I think they are an inspired bit of art. Part of me really wants all this stuff on my walls - some of it is so perfect. But I don't think I'll ever be able to dismantle the books. They're all little works of genius.
Amy Jardine 