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Brother Gregor never spoke and often spooked the neophytes with his appearance, but he was a gentle soul and a phenomenal cook and knew more ways to prepare a fish than the abbot knew hymns

#i too would die for brother gregor

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If you ever feel like you’ve made bad decisions just remember that somewhere out there is a theatre director at an all-white high school about to choose the spring musical

#The Wiz #sigh. #we did try to tell her

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[…] you please me, and you master me—you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I am twining the soft silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up my arm to my heart. I am influenced—conquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win. 

Charlotte Brontë, from ‘Jane Eyre’

#christ…the Brontës man #need to reread Jane Eyre this year #and finally read Wuthering Heights (I know!!)

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@pscentral​ event 26: minimalism

The Holdovers (2023)

#I do genuinely understand people’s criticisms/why they didn’t vibe w/ it BUT #I enjoyed it and found it a mostly charming throwback

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The Changing of the Seasons By Saint Hildegard

#hell yeah #of swords and saints

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Dive dark dream slow, Alisa Velieva

#the long way home

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I returned to London for the first time since I fled the bottling factory in rags. This time I was a gentleman, with money in his pocket. I was a proctor…I don’t suppose you know what a proctor is? THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD (2019)

#to watch!!!

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1925 Bronze by Otto Poertzel. From Art Deco, Art Nouveau and 20th Century Decoratif Arts Group, FB.

#she is my friend #of swords and saints

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Spectre d'ombre, spectre de lumière

#ref #whatever walked there walked alone #novel tag

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“What kind of person was Lancelot? I know about half the kind of person he was, because Malory contented himself with sharing the obvious half. He was more interested in the plot than the characters, and, as soon as he had laid down the broad lines of the latter, he left it at that. Malory’s Lancelot is: 1. Intensely sensitive to moral issues. 2. Ambitious of true - not current - distinction. 3. Probably sadistic or he would not have taken such frightful care to be gentle. 4. Superstitious or totemistic or whatever the word is. He connects his martial luck with virginity, like the schoolboy who thinks he will only bowl well in the march tomorrow if he does not abuse himself today. 5. Fastidious, monogamous, serious. 6. Ferociously punitive to his own body. He denies it and slave-drives it. 7. Devoted to ‘honour,’ which he regards as keeping promises and ‘having a Word.’ He tries to be consistent. 8. Curiously tolerant of other people who do not follow his own standards. He was nor shocked by the lady who was naked as a needle. 9. Not without a sense of humour. It was a good joke dressing up as Kay. And he often says amusing things. 10. Fond of being alone. 11. Humble about his athleticism: not false modesty. 12. Self-critical. Aware of some big lack in himself. What was it? 13. Subject to pity, cf. no. 3. 14. Emotional. He is the only person Mallory mentions as crying from relief. 15. Highly strung: subject to nervous breakdowns. 16. Yet practical. He ends by dealing with the Guenever situation pretty well. He is a good man to have with you in a tight corner. 17. Homosexual? Can a person be ambi-sexual - bisexual or whatever? His treatment of young boys like Gareth and Cote Male Tale is very tender and his feeling for Arthur profound. Yet I do so want not to have to write a ‘modern’ novel about him. I could only bring myself to mention this trait, if it is a trait, in the most oblique way. 18. Human. He firmly believes that for him it is a choice between God and Guenever, and he takes Guenever. He says: This is wrong and against my will, but I can’t help it. It seems to me that no 17 is the operative number in this list. What was the lack? On first inspection one would be inclined to link it up with no 17, but I don’t understand about bisexuality, so can’t write about it. There was definitely something ‘wrong’ with Lancelot, in the common sense, and this was what turned him into a genius. It is very troublesome. People he was like: 1. Lawrence of Arabia, 2. A nice captain of the cricket, 3. Parnell, 4. Sir W Raleigh, 5. Hamlet, 6. me, 7. Prince Rufant, 8. Montros, 9. Tony Ireland or Von Simm […] or whatever, 10. Any mad man, 11. Adam.”

— T.H. White’s notes on the character of Lancelot.

#oh my god. #much to unpack here. #“me” listed alongside ”Lawrence of Arabia #“any madman” #and fucking “Adam” #arthuriana #of swords and saints

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Shot by Hugh Mulhern for Simone Rocha

#ref

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Tired of the rat race? Try the cursed amulet! They can’t drag you into work if you’re busy becoming an abomination. 

#i wish #felt briefly competent but now I’m back to feeling cursed again

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genuinely cannot stop thinking about how good Aspects was. sword duels. parliamentary plotting. toffish sorcerers. painstakingly described frock coats. yearning via well appointed train car. both a doomed love story and a meditation on the nature of power and progress and faith. complicated, thorny magic that can work through math or poetry or song or steel or wood depending on one’s talents, magic that can drown a village if used badly and leave its user wracked and broken even when used well. and alongside it, just as thorny and complicated, love, in its many forms, the way it traps and frees us and damns and redeems us, and what happens when it’s not enough. when the love cannot reach them, or they cannot accept it, or you cannot afford to give in—does it still matter? with Aspects, Ford answers yes again and again, somehow bringing to life an entire world in one unfinished novel

#reading list #john m. ford #aspects #the dragon waiting #I have such a book hangover but luckily I still have the winged histories to finish #I need something else tho to balance it out—something lighter #not necessarily lighter as in cheerier but like. a comfort read nonetheless #lighter as in I can switch to it when I’m reading in bed and want to soak my brain in a vat of sprite

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Stained glass by Constantine Woolnough, 1858 Church of St Mary, Dennington, Suffolk Photography by Simon Knott

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the classic trope of "what if you went to a town and it was weird" never fails

#truly #or a forest or a house or a lake or

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#the world is always ending

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who up experiencing divine madness