Wednesday, December 31, 2008

christmas music, books+films


My collection of books, DVDs and CDs has been greatly enhanced by an influx of some excellent new stuff over the Christmas period. I’ve watched “Persepolis” and “This is England” over the past couple of days – both excellent. Music has included contributions from Ray LaMontagne, Miles Davis, Tom Waits, Emiliana Torrini and Cara Dillon (as soon as the CD is released at the end of January - I know Matt Rees speaks very highly of her!). I’ve also been reading Peter Barton’s brilliant book: “The Somme” which contains vivid photographs underlining the utter devastation that took place there, together with harrowing personal accounts from diaries and notebooks. For example: “Dear Mother: I am writing these few lines severely wounded. We have done well. Our Battalion advanced about three-quarters of a mile. I am laid in a shell hole with two wounds in my hip and through my back. I cannot move or crawl. I have been here for 24 hours and never seen a living soul. I hope you will receive these few lines as I don’t expect anyone will come to take me away…”.
These poignant final words perhaps work well alongside my favourite song from my new music – Emiliana Torrini’s wonderful “Bleeder” – which she apparently wrote for a friend who had just lost someone very close to them. She said she wrote the song because she didn’t know what to do or what to say to her friend (“I wrote it to give them a hug”).

1 comment:

bigdaddystevieB said...

forgot to mention "A Year of Mornings" - the book taken from the wonderful 3191 blog (http://3191.visualblogging.com)!