A bit obsessively

Second Lieutenant Harold Hemming on selecting NCOs from the recruits of the 12th West Yorkshire Regiment:

A sequel:

This is - legitimately - my favourite delivery of Shakespeare I have EVER seen (and I have seen some good-ass productions yo, in the Globe Theatre itself even). Like seriously, even though the words are unchanged, he’s stripped away ALL of the archaic pretense and assumed grandeur of ~presenting the bard~ that makes even the most wildly talented of actors and innovative of productions inherently inaccessible to a modern audience. Like, they’re still great, they can still communicate the message and (some) of the nuance, but they’re still always a step removed from being identifiable to any viewer’s lived experience. They’re still always reciting 15th century poetry. But this guy? This guy is like, screw iambic pentameter, to hell with being precious about the material, HOW WOULD AN ACTUAL PERSON SAY THIS SHIT?

A post about this went round recently, and I’m delighted to announce she’s since come out as trans and goes by Jasmine 🏳️‍⚧️

"Brilliant sunshine turns the sky to the clearest and loveliest light blue behind us, and the hillsides – greeny brown when one is near – are melted in the golden haze into a wonderful pale pink – golden pink – mysterious and almost shadowless, and frail like a soft cloud upon the water. Further away the great giant castle of Samothrace stands up clad in every misty shade of blue, as though already half melted into the sky and sea between which it is suspended. And this afternoon when I come back it will all be quite different. Our island will be all blue – rich, many tinted and delicate, with deep violet shadows throwing each hill into relief, shaming the cruder colouring of the sea and sky. And Samothrace will be a clear, cold, steely mountain on the horizon – beauty aloof, unapproachable, soulless! But best of all perhaps is the evening, when the island becomes deep dark green and violet and purple, and the sea in the bay brightens to burnished steel, and after the flaming crimson streamers of the sunset have died away, the dark masses of the hills stand outlined against the marvellous pale green sky of the dying day – a colour so clear that you seem to be looking through to the outer limits of space, to where a star shines golden like a fragment of the vanished sun. What an unutterably beautiful world God has made, and what sad sordid ugliness man puts into it!" LtCol Guy Dawnay to his wife Cecil, 23/6/1915.

i am kissing you on the mouth right now

Not as much as you'd like BUT I found "Cutting for stone" (in swedish) in my library today while looking for something else, and said AHA! very loud and then had to explain to my colleague why I seemed to recognize a book that I in fact knew nothing about ...