tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11271785406739639322024-02-06T21:19:57.810-08:00Ectoplasmic ManifestationsSuz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-82922031548280328772015-08-14T02:34:00.000-07:002015-08-14T02:34:09.702-07:00<div align="center" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center;">
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<u><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">New Poem</span></span></u></h2>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>I</u> haven't updated the blog recently, because I've been writing more or less solidly for the past three weeks - but here is the new poem that I performed at Worcester SpeakEasy last night . . . .</span></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rules</span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rules
– more rules and regulations,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">hierarchical
domain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They
make the rules to chain the mind –<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">how
to sit and what to say,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">what
not to do, the shoes to wear,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">as
though it were the only way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They
say, “Accept these blinkers, never look<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">to
right or left, aside from what’s in front,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">or
see the full horizon and the sky,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">just
move on artificial rails, defined<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">like
carriages pulled after the express,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">who
cannot speak their minds or show dissent,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">just
following the engine and the laid-down track.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I
say – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Come
back to life and break the rules!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Break
every rule they give you, then some more!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">De-couple
from the engine, jump the rails,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">find
a different course, ignore<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">the
things that you are told you should obey!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Have
no belief in status – just because<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">a
person wears a suit, a badge, a hat,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 20.25pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">that
doesn’t make them your superior,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">it
only means that they can’t disbelieve<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">in
rules that they themselves were one time taught;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">they
kept their blinkers on, and didn’t see<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">your
vision, the horizon, or the sky.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-65513171268590933502015-07-20T06:50:00.002-07:002015-07-20T06:50:57.750-07:00<h2>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u>Sewing Project Update</u></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Last week I posted my step-by-step guide to a sewing-project, turning a £1 shirt into a one-off top. Well, I wore it to the music festival in Ombersley yesterday, and here it is -</span></div>
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Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-18929762828019382262015-07-15T07:46:00.000-07:002015-07-15T07:46:38.140-07:00<h2>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Sewing Project 1 - Customising a Shirt</u></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I've been promising for some time to post step-by-step guides to my sewing projects, and here is my first challenge. I bought a shirt from the £1 rail of a charity shop, in order to create a Visual Kei style top, at minimal cost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">First of all, I need to say that I'm not really very good at sewing. I have no idea how to follow a pattern, my stitching isn't very neat, and I have yet to have an encounter with a sewing machine that hasn't ended in disaster. I have never had a sewing lesson - I taught myself out of necessity when I realised that the sort of clothes I wanted to wear simply couldn't be found in the shops, even if I'd had the money to buy them, so I would have to make them myself. Somehow or other, it seems to work . . . .</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkCunSFu6-LazmbZ5nrwc4gTblC21s4zUmgpEknelAtQQukBsTvLZ_klQcYqIXXZUJdXb_yhKMQO3HZ1ssxwEEarapevzd2a4jBvX1L07FwraQLFjHlytVuWRCPqrE5TLAtY8PZXNYhGU/s1600/IMG_20150703_112729.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkCunSFu6-LazmbZ5nrwc4gTblC21s4zUmgpEknelAtQQukBsTvLZ_klQcYqIXXZUJdXb_yhKMQO3HZ1ssxwEEarapevzd2a4jBvX1L07FwraQLFjHlytVuWRCPqrE5TLAtY8PZXNYhGU/s320/IMG_20150703_112729.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So here is the shirt as it was when I got it home. Well worth the £1 investment! The things I liked about it were its length - it came down almost to mid-thigh when I tried it on - and its colour. Black! You can't go wrong with black! What I disliked about it was virtually everything else - mundane design and details, and some folksy beige-brown buttons that I particularly detested.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ideas and inspirations - I spend a lot of time perusing my precious collection of Japanese fashion magazines, and my even more precious collection of Japanese music magazines. I get a lot of ideas for costumes from these. I don't copy anything directly, but I do find plenty of inspiration . . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The first step was to cut and shape the lower half into separate panels. It was originally very tight on the hips. The panels make it more comfortable, more interesting to look at, and means that it can be worn over a full skirt.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhht38jZJkmXymrn8yOvmO0hyphenhyphen26Ir383-lVttKClz3JbMJRYobVo3vgP_FNHC0qP4H0zhe3IUJ-BGZunwmOtrwontvH6Wm7yaFgT5U9UaifaZ1GLjmEF-SfR-tcvKjVilcY4eD4TShGCbHv/s1600/IMG_20150713_112751.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhht38jZJkmXymrn8yOvmO0hyphenhyphen26Ir383-lVttKClz3JbMJRYobVo3vgP_FNHC0qP4H0zhe3IUJ-BGZunwmOtrwontvH6Wm7yaFgT5U9UaifaZ1GLjmEF-SfR-tcvKjVilcY4eD4TShGCbHv/s320/IMG_20150713_112751.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The next step was to bind the edges with contrasting bias binding. Most of my costumes are black with red, which means that any top can be combined with any skirt, to create a different look. The bias binding was the only thing I had to buy for this project - 30p a metre from the local haberdashery shop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Then I shaped and bound the sleeves in the same way. Stitching the bias binding was a time-consuming job, and not particularly interesting. If you look carefully, you can see just how bad some of the stitching is . . . I think I listened to every note Syndrome ever recorded while doing this part . . . But it was worth the effort.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Things start to get more interesting now. I sewed D-rings on tape into position on the back so that I could lace it. The lacing makes for an interesting visual detail, but most importantly, it improves the fit.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhETXuXSHzEchFLwqH9Syzhshyphenhypheno2jQZ98H3QU0OS9gII4D_C4Z35Sl-DWzcAc75pym3ao5NDM2FlDBDyaqTziN2SjY6Uomh32DR8st1sg-ihTcgEX8JUcChlAWlh9WpdxO19xF6KJIld-uy/s1600/IMG_20150714_174830.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhETXuXSHzEchFLwqH9Syzhshyphenhypheno2jQZ98H3QU0OS9gII4D_C4Z35Sl-DWzcAc75pym3ao5NDM2FlDBDyaqTziN2SjY6Uomh32DR8st1sg-ihTcgEX8JUcChlAWlh9WpdxO19xF6KJIld-uy/s320/IMG_20150714_174830.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And I finally got rid of those vile buttons! In their place, I have put old brass regimental buttons. I found a big stash of these in a charity shop a couple of years ago, and I've been using them ever since. I'm always looking out for things that might be useful in costume-making, even if I've got no idea what to use them for at the time.</span><br />
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This is the reason why what I euphemistically refer to as my 'Sewing Box' is actually two cupboards, the space under the desk, the space at the top of the wardrobe, several boxes, four or five tines, and a big heap of stuff in the corner of the room . . . .<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5jKfWSHCQQs6D2r6pgEcxCGJLajiHFV4aBT5AcR28W_BsMilo8joyLmoE5o0aK9ZwGnABtdyrC1fZVbn-wmIbR3QQ30s2MRFScDKnzzKOKuziCSzzZVnyMS5x0CVTvvzj8aNsokPfvOqo/s1600/IMG_20150714_174846.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5jKfWSHCQQs6D2r6pgEcxCGJLajiHFV4aBT5AcR28W_BsMilo8joyLmoE5o0aK9ZwGnABtdyrC1fZVbn-wmIbR3QQ30s2MRFScDKnzzKOKuziCSzzZVnyMS5x0CVTvvzj8aNsokPfvOqo/s320/IMG_20150714_174846.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Shiny buttons! You can never have too many shiny buttons! I've added them onto the panels and the sleeves, as well . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I didn't care for the breast-pockets, but to remove them would have damaged the fabric. I found a cross in the 'Sewing Box' to go on one, and on the other I've pinned this mysterious insignia. I haven't been able to identify it - I asked my friends on Facebook, and the general feeling was that it's probably an Eastern Bloc Soviet Era Airforce badge. I like the design - a bit Art Deco and a bit Steampunk . . . </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And finally, here is the finished version, front and back views. The cost of the shirt and the bias binding together came to about £3.50. It looks very good when worn - weather permitting, I think I'll wear it to a music festival in Ombersley at the weekend . . . .</span></div>
Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-78637767164046017332015-07-08T01:47:00.003-07:002015-07-08T01:47:55.756-07:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u>Next Performance !</u></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'll be performing tomorrow night at Worcester SpeakEasy at the Old Rectifying House. Here's the link - hope to see some of you there!</span></div>
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https://www.facebook.com/events/486795318149096/Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-13311902051366207512015-07-03T09:56:00.000-07:002015-07-03T09:56:31.399-07:00<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><u>Another Lost Gem</u></span></h2>
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Saturday 27th June was a sad day for Worcester, when another of the city's iconic shops closed down. County Furnishings had been in the city for over 40 years - originally in the wonderful crypt-like depths of a Victorian Vinegar Cellar, until developer forced it out and it re-located to a 1950s car showroom in Castle Street. it was one of my favourite shops; I've been going there regularly ever since I came to Worcester. It sold furnishing fabric in greater abundance and variety than I've ever seen in any other shop. It also sold cheap fabric remnants - which I've relied on over the years for my sewing-projects - I've made cushions, seat-covers, curtains, patchwork throws and handbags out of this scrap-fabric. Whenever I had any craft-projects that required fabric, County Furnishings was my first port-of-call. It did haberdashery, too, racks of braid for trimming bags and costumes - cut-price remnants and oddments of braid too. it sold thread and sewing-accessories, huge ornate tassels,and curtain-ties - everything you'd need for curtain-making and upholstery . . . . It was a treasure-trove! I even found affordable corset-lacing there - I never worked out why, maybe it has some unrelated purpose in the realm of home-furnishings.</div>
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The shop sold carpets as well, including beautiful Persian rugs which I knew I could never afford to buy, but I went in there simply to admire them anyway (and usually then came out with a bag full of fabric and braid.)</div>
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And now it's all gone; another unique independent shop has gone, and it will not be replaced. </div>
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Over the past few years, Worcester has lost so many of its best shops. There was Good News, with the best selection of magazines in the city, foreign language newspapers and display-cases of exotic-looking pipe tobaccos. There was Concorde Stationery with its racks of craft papers and bargain envelopes. There was Russell and Dorrell, the department store. And of course, there was Pratleys, the crockery emporium, piled high with stacks of dinner plates and tea-services, that looked as though they were about to collapse at any moment, and with a section at the back selling a random assortment of furniture, rugs and taxidermy - the shop opened in Victorian times, and pretty much the only thing that changed since then was the style of the china. Now we've lost County Furnishings as well. </div>
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Yes, there are new shops opening, but they mostly seem to be branches and franchises of well-known stores - bland and corporately-branded. They don't sell anything I want to buy, and they are nowhere near as enjoyable to visit as the shops that we've lost.</div>
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Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-22509824353117772122015-06-29T03:15:00.001-07:002015-06-29T03:15:43.664-07:00<h2>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>Review - 'Black Butler' 2015 live-action film version</u></span></h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU1vPpfeA8BxdPlo7BWqE1NUF44QYF5wZMl-Je978QCjSH0IVw1h3BN-KxP_brGpJSyimLEdjakFlsMj_KtklmKaBEKTcqllIJtUaI9ALeRyK8_gdtBbrV0aFt9Tg_gZ3smZlGQzYqB_bI/s1600/Black+Butler+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU1vPpfeA8BxdPlo7BWqE1NUF44QYF5wZMl-Je978QCjSH0IVw1h3BN-KxP_brGpJSyimLEdjakFlsMj_KtklmKaBEKTcqllIJtUaI9ALeRyK8_gdtBbrV0aFt9Tg_gZ3smZlGQzYqB_bI/s320/Black+Butler+4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>NOTE - SPOILER ALERT!!!</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'll say it from the outset - 'Black Butler' (Kuroshitsuji) is my favourite amine series. Based on the manga by Yana Toboso, it tells the story of an aristocratic boy, Ciel Phantomhive, whose parents are murdered and who makes a contract with a demon, to trace and take revenge upon the killers in exchange for his soul - and (because this is Victorian England) the demon assumes the physical form and identity of Sebastian Michaelis, a devilishly perfect butler . . . This is a over-the-top version of 19th century London, full of bizarre extravagant supernatural characters, equally bizarre human ones, grotesque crimes, and the whole story is overlaid by the constant theme of Sebastian yearning to devour his master's soul whilst playing the role of the impeccable servant. And yes, it's stuffed full of outrageous impossibilities and anachronisms, but it's cleverly-written with plenty of unexpected plot-twists, and within its own world it all makes perfect sense . . . </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">'Black Butler' has a large and devoted following (in Japan there are stage versions, and even a planned musical) so of course it was only a matter of time before someone thought to do a live action film . . . And here it is . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The first and most obvious issue is that the setting has been changed - from Victorian England to a sort of present day location in an un-named country that is almost-but-not-quite Japan. I suppose there are practical reasons for this - a lack of English actors with both the linguistic and acting skills to hold down major roles, and probably the cost of re-creating the amazing and complex world of the anime - but it still felt awkward, the two worlds didn't really fit comfortably together and a lot of explanation was required to tell how the Phantomhive family re-located and changed its name. Then the teenage boy Ciel has been replaced by a girl, who thanks to a complicated plot-device still has to dress as a boy (in a Victorian aristocratic style, of course) and she is a few years older than Ciel was. Again, I can see that there were practical reasons for this - a male demon lusting after the soul of a young boy was fairly near the edge of acceptability in the anime, in live-action it might have been a bit too much. But still, if two of the fundamental parts of the story have to be changed at the outset, there's the question of whether it was worth making the film at all . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Well, it could have worked. It looked good, and some favourite characters turned up in new and interesting ways - I loved the Undertaker's steampunk/visual kei makeover . . . .</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZi-R4oNKW-5Z8HG1Z0CIPlVsBcfBxHUiLwNOQCs33o9MNUXVZasp5u00TV_RLeHfUq6MbIcot-EMYQngM1gOMP7Mp5WG58qe4pQubFlYZjXeqWdcfvyCMCCtYQtUU6xSbapstSkxzz6rQ/s1600/Black+Butler+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZi-R4oNKW-5Z8HG1Z0CIPlVsBcfBxHUiLwNOQCs33o9MNUXVZasp5u00TV_RLeHfUq6MbIcot-EMYQngM1gOMP7Mp5WG58qe4pQubFlYZjXeqWdcfvyCMCCtYQtUU6xSbapstSkxzz6rQ/s320/Black+Butler+3.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">. . . . although to anyone who doesn't know the anime or the manga, that scene would have seemed totally bewildering. Other characters were absent (I was longing throughout the film for Grell to put in an appearance, but he stayed away!) and others are barely recognisable, although I enjoyed spotting the various references to the original.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And then there was the plot, and the scriptwriting . . . This was the main problem with the film. As I mentioned, the original version was cleverly-written and tightly-plotted - this version could have done with a couple more drafts to sort out the problems with the script. Why was Sebastian always being sent away to do other things when our hero was about to embark on something potentially perilous? Presumably so the demon could then dash back to carry out a dramatic last-minute rescue! Then there was a fatal drug that took effect at random but convenient times depending on how much dialogue and action was required beforehand, and until the very last minute, nobody seemed particularly bothered by the fact that a Very Large Bomb was about to go off . . . And then there was the whole issue of a mysterious event described in the subtitles as the 'exorcism' (I couldn't catch the Japanese term that was used). Exactly what it was, or what was being exorcised, was never explained - it was described as a Big International Event, with all sorts of World Leaders and important people attending for reasons that were never made clear, and it was shown as what appeared to be a Roman Catholic church service with a multi-racial, multi-age congregation - essentially, it was just one big clunky plot-device designed to provide something for the aforementioned Very Large Bomb to threaten . . . </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So to conclude - a much-loved manga & anime, shoe-horned into an unconvincing new setting, with a few enjoyable parts, and</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> plot-holes big enough to sink the Cutty Sark . . . If you've never encountered 'Black Butler' before, the film might not make much sense. If you're already a fan, you'll want to see this as a novelty, and then go straight back to the original!</span></div>
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Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-74449072160167200672015-06-28T02:00:00.000-07:002015-06-28T02:00:02.374-07:00<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u>Revival !</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I've had this Blog for a while, but I haven't touched it for a couple of years. I just stopped posting things on it . . . Well the time has come and I've decided now to revive it!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'll try to do it properly this time, and update it regularly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I think the main reason I let it slip was because I couldn't really work out what the Blog was for, and I'm still not entirely certain what sort of things to post, or what anyone wants from it. (Or if anybody wants anything at all!) There will be poetry, of course, and stories . . . Maybe there will be posts about costume-making, or just random ramblings about Gothic things, or writerly things . . . I'm still trying to decide . . . .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>(Photo by Adrian Butt)</i></span>Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-62859056975356939522013-06-06T14:36:00.003-07:002013-06-06T14:36:36.941-07:00The People who fed FoxesSpring is here, 'Springwatch' is on TV, so here is a story for you all . . .<br />
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<u><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The People who fed Foxes</span></u><br />
<u><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"></span></u><br />
This is a story I heard from a friend of a friend.<br />
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There was once a man who had worked hard in the city all his life, looking forward to the day when he could retire. He hated the city, the noise and the crowds and the traffic. He dreamed of tranquility and green spaces and wild nature. But for years he worked and saved, and at the end of it all, when his pension came through, he and his wife at last had the chance to do the one thing they had always wanted - to buy themselves a cottage in the country.<br />
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They set about house-hunting, and eventually they found exactly what they had dreamed of, an exquisite little thatched cottage, sixteenth century but tastefully modernised, with a lovely flower-garden, its front windows looking out onto the most picturesque of greens in the prettiest village they had ever seen, surounded by green fields and dark woodland. It was perfect; it was everything they had ever wanted and seemed remarkably reasonably-priced, considering its quality. They couldn't believe their good luck!<br />
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One evening, a week or so after they moved in, the wife was drawing the curtains in the living-room when she looked out into the garden and saw a fox on the lawn. She called to her husband, they watched the fox sniffing around the garden, and they were absolutely delighted. From their old city flat they had never even seen urban foxes, so to see a wild country fox was a wonderful novelty. They loved the idea of wildlife coming into their garden; it was all part of their dream of country living after those city-bound years! So the next evening, they left some food out for the fox, hoping that it would come back. And it did. It came back the following night as well, and every evening from then on. They put out more food, and within a fortnight there were two or three foxes visiting their garden every night. Then some more came, then another half a dozen. The couple were putting out more and more food, and then a vixen brought her cubs, and before long the garden was full of foxes every single evening. They had no fear of humans, and if the couple were late putting out the food, they would scratch and whine at the back door, or would stand in a row beneath the window on the back path, gazing right into the living room with their clever yellow eyes. <br />
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The couple soon developed an evening ritual, lining up the plates of dog-food on the lawn at sunset, then sitting indoors to watch the foxes. Admittedly, it was beginning to cost them quite a lot of money, feeding all these very hungry foxes, and the animals soon wrecked the flowerbeds, overturned the dustbins, and left deposits on the path. It sometimes got a bit smelly out there as well. Nevertheless, the couple were delighted. They simply loved being visited by all these wild creatures! It was as though the foxes were honouring them. They invited their friends and relatives to come round and spend an evening fox-watching. They even managed to get on the local television news, as the novelty feature at the end of the teatime broadcast, and had a brief clip of video shown on 'Springwatch'. Nobody had ever seen so many foxes together at one time before.<br />
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Everything in that retired couple's life was idyllic, with one single hideous exception. In a run-down old house on the very edge of the village lived a disruptive family of notorious delinquents. The family had always been there, since about the time of the Black Death, so local rumour had it. They had an unbroken six hundred year tradition of mayhem which the present generation upheld with glee. They were atrocious! Their house was a wreck, with patched-up broken windows and missing roof-tiles. The garden was full of brambles, rusty cars, and a tangle of stolen supermarket-trolleys. None of the adults had ever knowingly done an honest day's work in their lives. In fact they rarely showed themselves in daytime unless it was to carry on their ancestral foul-mouthed feud with an upright elderly church-lady who had always disapproved of them. The children didn't bother to go to school but hung around the village green all day, smoking, drinking, vandalising the bus-shelter, letting off firworks, throwing eggs and taunting passers-by. They would even urinate behind the memorial bench, and the teenagers were known to take drugs in the churchyard when they weren't trying their hardest to get pregnant. They seemed to be doing everything they could to make the lives of the respectable residents miserable. And there was nothing much the law could do to help. These people looked on ASBOs as a badge of honour; they had already collected a drawerful of them. Although the entire clan were living on Social Security, they obviously had extra sources of less legal income, as cars regularly arrived at their house in the small hours, and clan member would bring out an assortment of computers, laptops and flat-screen TVs. No-one dared ask where all these things came from, but the insurance-premiums in the area were unusually high. Still, however many times the police visited them, they were never actually found to be in possession of any illicit electricals. They obviously had a talent for hiding things.<br />
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In short, this family was the respectable elderly couple's worst nightmare made flesh. They were everything the couple feared the most. Not that any of the clan caused any serious trouble to them. In fact, by their own standards, they were unusually polite. The children hadn't once vandalised their garden fence or let their tyres down, and they didn't yell obscenities at them as they walked past. There weren't many people who were afforded such respect. One of the men of the family had even approached the husband in the village shop and let him know that if he were ever in need of a nice nearly-new home cinema-system, he only had to say the word and he was sure they could come to a mutually-beneficial arrangement. But of course, the couple were used to living in nice safe middle-class communities in the city, and were so terrified they didn't notice that they were being given special treatment. They were constantly worrying about the presence of this family, and their worried fed on themselves and grew. As time passed, they became too scared to go out on their own, because the children on the village green looked so threateningly feral. It seemed too risky. But they were also afraid that if they left to cottage <u>together</u>, the children would notice and their property would immediately be burgled. So they took to staying at home all day. They shut themselves indoors and had all their shopping delivered. Pallets loaded with tins of dog-food for the foxes came in a wholesaler's van, and the supermarket brought them everything else. But their hopes of country walks, bird-watching trips and tranquil Sundays in the garden were dead. Their longed-for paradise of retirement dwindled to a life behind curtains, looking forward only to that magical time every evening when they could sit at their living-room window and watch the fox-cubs playing so delightfully on the lawn.. They celebrated when one of the vixens brought a new litter of cubs to the garden for the first time, and they worried when one of the older foxes came in limping, with a big cut on its shoulder. At times it seemed that these nightly outdoors dramas were the only things keeping them sane.<br />
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Then came an arson-attack on a church-warden's potting-shed, at which point the whole village grew sick of the behaviour of the delinquent family. The situation was no longer endurable. There were court proceedings and a multitude of injunctions and restraining-orders, all of which were happily ignored by the clan. Social workers and truant-officers went to their house, but were sworn-at, pelted with eggs, and chased away. The clan's Social Security payments were suspended, which resulted only in more night-time deliveries of expensive consumer durables. Nothing had any effect, and the police were afraid to tackle them.<br />
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Eventually the couple decided that they could stand things no longer. They decided it was time to do something about the delinquents. So they set up a petition to have the clan forcibly removed from the village. There was a lot of publicity about it in the local paper, and then one of the national tabloids picked up the story and started a campaign about it. Virtually every village resident signed the petition, and in front of the cameras of local and national television broadcasters, the elderly couple delivered it in person to the offices of the district council.<br />
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The next morning, there came a loud knock on the front door of the cottage, and when they opened it they saw one of the men from the delinquent family, the one who had offered the husband the home cinema-system, holding a copy of the tabloid newspaper that had supported them. On its front page was a big picture of the couple delivering the petition, a blurry security-camera photograph of children throwing stones, and a huge headline that said 'Time to Kick out the Neighbours from Hell'.<br />
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The couple shrank back, expecting physical violence, or al least some obscene language.<br />
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"What are you trying to do?" the man demanded. The couple thought he sounded more surprised than angry. "We thought you <u>liked</u> us! We thought you were our friends! After all, you've invited us round for a good dinner every single evening since you moved in! We've had great times in your garden! What have we done to upset you? You always looked like you <u>enjoyed</u> having us round!"<br />
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And he smiled at them, and suddenly his face looked longer than they'd realised, his long tongue curled and his teeth seemed too sharp . . . they hadn't noticed until then that his eyes were such an unusual colour, but they suddenly remembered where they'd seen that clever yellow gleam before . . .<br />
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The last I heard, the elderly couple had moved back to the safety of the big city, to a high-rise flat where they know they will never encounter trees or grass or wildlife ever again. They can no longer think of the countryside without shuddering. Meanwhile, back in the village, the clan of werefoxes have evaded all attempts to remove them, and are still merrily spreading mayhem. And no doubt they will continue to do so for a very long time yet.<br />
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Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-70590106583583441062013-05-27T09:53:00.001-07:002013-05-27T09:53:24.424-07:00The River Holds her Memories<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">This is the poem that I performed at yesterday's Worcestershire Literary Festival's riverside walk . . .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times;"></span><br />
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<u><span style="font-family: Times;">The River Holds her Memories</span></u><br />
<u><span style="font-family: Times;"></span></u><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">The river holds her memories</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">each one ephemeral as water, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">but their chain is as enduring</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">as the river herself,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">and she forgets nothing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">So in the river's memory</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">the centuries mingle, overlap,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">every phase existing equally.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">Memory does that if it lasts for long enough.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">And in the river's dreaming,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">the farmers watch their cows, hold festivals</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">to celebrate the summer sun and harvest</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">on the same cool meadows where the soldiers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">forever fight their Civil War,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">every day repeated in the memory of water.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">And on the ornamental walk</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">the teatime lady's lacy ghost,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">the sad drab couple with their ration books,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">and the rattling thrills and leaps of skateboard kids</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">are equal phantoms</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">jostling through one another on the pathway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">As the river remembers, they are all still there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">The drought years and the flood years</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">are evened out</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">and bridges add and subtract themselves</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">all present at the same time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">thronging with the forms of every person</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">who has ever crossed over them</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">with ox-carts, pack-beasts, carriages and cars</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">superimposed on the shapes of demolished tollhouses.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">Swans cloud together with memory-swans,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">sun shines through memories of rain</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">and daylight through darkness</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">the moon in all her phases</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">and the seasons all at once.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">The cathedral shares its footings</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">with its Saxon counterpart</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">and the earlier enclosure where the first farmers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">raised a solemn mound in the land</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">to mark the sacred centre of their lives.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">Monastery and chapel-spires still rise</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">where monks and pagans merge with one another</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">as tourists snap cameras, children run</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">and an old man whiles away an afternoon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">in a summertime drowse of cheap cider.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">Dogs bark, thousands all at once,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">to add to the cacophony</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">of boats and watermen,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">trows and steamers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">forever loading cargo on their spectral quays,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">that endless cargo from the city,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">the teacups and the fine kid gloves</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">for the hands of London ladies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">Everything is held at once</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">perpetual past and present</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">all things seen and being seen</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">preserved in her perfect memory;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">allthe things the river knows</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">retained</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">in place</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;">and never lost.</span><br />
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Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-69530654922877765142012-12-04T12:20:00.001-08:002012-12-04T12:20:05.438-08:00<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Another Flash . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">And here is the other Flash Fiction story that I performed last Wednesday . . . I think this one's really creepy . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span> </div>
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<u><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Our Memories Falling Away</span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">The shadows moved. I'm sure they moved. The shadow of the glass vase trembled and the shadows of the flowers don't look like flowers any more. They look like hands with long thin fingers, clawing at the air. There aren't many people left in this hospital now. Most have been moved to the new one down the road. Only a few patients are still here, plus a few members of staff to keep on treating us. And of course, the ghosts. All hospitals have ghosts, don't they?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">The electricity went off yesterday. Nobody knows why. From my bed I could hear the nurses talking in anxious voices, but they won't tell us what's going on . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">I fell asleep for a bit just now, and when I woke up, there was this lightbulb shining. Just one. Maybe there's an emergency generator. But something is odd about this light, and the shadows it casts have started moving . . .</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times;">The machines have stopped. That's odd. In a hospital, there should always be machines. Life-support, heart monitors - why aren't they working?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">I think I must have been asleep again, because now there's an old woman in a white hospital gown that's too big for her, shuffling past my bed. The gown trails behind her on the floor. I can see the marks it leaves in the dust. A hospital floor shouldn't be dusty. And the light doesn't cast a shadow any more. The flowers are dead, and the blue glass vase is crusted with dirt.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times;">The hospital closed down years ago . . . I remember it now . . . It was after I died. There's nobody left . . . Only us - the ghosts . . . our memories falling away . . .</span></div>
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Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-66270813087862028342012-12-04T11:59:00.001-08:002012-12-04T12:00:50.361-08:00<h2>
<u><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">A Flash . . .</span></u></h2>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Last Wednesday at Drummonds in Worcester, 42 staged '42 Flashes', an evening of Flash Fiction - stories of 300 words or fewer . . . I performed two stories - it's a nice challenge, trying to tell a gothic horror story in such a restricted form. I promised that I would put my two stories up on my blog, so here is the first . . .</span><br />
<br />
<h2 align="center">
The Darkness Upstairs</h2>
<div align="left">
And now that the night has fallen, the darkness crawls down the stairs from the places where it sleeps the day out. It waits up there in the daytime. It's safe to go up then, but every time you do, you know that it's watching you from the corners of the empty bedroom, the room you try not to enter. It's there in the heavy wardrobe and the unopened cupboards, where it waits among mothball-scented clothes that are no longer worn. All those velvet dresses! Those silk stockings! It waits in the top drawer of the dressing table, where smeared tissues still carry the crimson imprint of lips that no longer need adornment. Lips that have gone forever. The loving darkness waits inside the mildewed shoes that are still lined-up underneath the bed. It waits behind the dusty perfume bottles on the shelf. It is waiting for nightfall. It remembers the person who ought to be there. It remembers the person who should be wearing those clothes, those shoes, those perfumes. It remembers me.</div>
<div align="left">
</div>
<div align="left">
And at night, it stirs itself from the places where it waits; at twilight it unfurls, and crawls downstairs like a slow black liquid mist, filling up the places where the electric light cannot reach or dispel it. You cannot stay in the house any longer than that. You have to go out. You spend hours walking around the streets of the city, or waiting in a cold cafe until daybreak, because you know the darkness that loves me has come downstairs, just as it does every single night. And every single night, the darkness and I take back our home from you, and once again we make it our own private, secret domain, where you will never be welcome.</div>
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<h2 align="center">
</h2>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
</h2>
Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-22569370963494735262012-09-23T06:39:00.000-07:002012-09-23T06:39:12.857-07:00The horse's point of view . . .<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">A couple of weeks ago, I was watching one of those '1930s on Film' documentaries on TV, and saw the sinister footage of a Fascist propaganda parade with Mussolini on horseback. And it occurred to me that nobody had ever asked the horse about his role in all that . . .</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times;"></span><br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Mussolini's Horse</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
Listen to me please!<br />
None of this was my fault.<br />
None of it!<br />
I knew what he was<br />
but I am innocent.<br />
A horse cannot choose his rider.<br />
I was beautiful and well-schooled,<br />
my coat a shining chestnut,<br />
the other horses envied me.<br />
And I always did as I was told.<br />
I knew how to behave<br />
and how to please the humans.<br />
I never kicked or shied or bit,<br />
I was docile even with the hardest rider.<br />
So I was chosen as his slave.<br />
What else could I have done but carry him?<br />
How could I complain?<br />
Disobedience would have earned a whipping.<br />
He supplied my food and straw,<br />
a warm stable and a rug for cold nights.<br />
However much I hated him<br />
I could not fight back.<br />
I had to stand there quietly and let him mount.<br />
What could I have done?<br />
You think I should have thrown him off?<br />
Unseated him?<br />
Left him on the ground with a dung-smeared face?<br />
Easy for you to say!<br />
For me, it would have meant the glue-works<br />
or the dog-meat factory.<br />
I'm not his accomplice.<br />
I hated him, despised him just like you,<br />
but what could I have done<br />
other than stand still patiently<br />
and let the fat man straddle me?<br />
<br />
Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-21982088252109794382012-09-18T08:16:00.001-07:002012-09-18T08:16:47.428-07:00<h2>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><u>I'm Back!</u></span></h2>
<br />
It seems like ages since I last did a blog entry. I've been terribly lax about it, and I have absolutely no excuses! Maybe it's something to do with the weather, or maybe I've just been lazy . . .<br />
<br />
And here's a poem to commemorate our soggy summer of 2012. . .<br />
<br />
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<h3>
August</h3>
Rain can have its beauties, yes, I know;<br />
refreshing rain in spring to rouse the seeds<br />
and rain after drought reviving thirsty flowers,<br />
lyric rain in metaphor of endless tears,<br />
and city rain at night<br />
drawing the glow from streetlights<br />
in liquid orange droplets,<br />
'policeman's weather' as an old man I once knew<br />
would call it, remembering his own time on the beat<br />
when Dixon-era villains stayed at home on rainy nights.<br />
And thunderstorms I love, all bluster, noise and drama,<br />
the flash and scent of lightning in the air<br />
with all the thrilling chance of mortal hazard.<br />
Yes, rain can have its beauties . . .<br />
But not today.<br />
Not yesterday either, or the day before,<br />
not in week repeating week of rain,<br />
rain every day and night<br />
as though the clouds will never be empty<br />
wasting our precious summer in grey skies,<br />
our days enclosed in walls and raincoats,<br />
when glutted storm-drains cannot hold<br />
all that water any more<br />
as it quarries away<br />
down gutters and gullies<br />
carrying rubbish and cigarette-ends.<br />
And children at the curtained windows watch<br />
the rain as it washes<br />
each minute of their holiday away.<br />
<br />
<br />
Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-62994452202677266182012-04-22T16:19:00.001-07:002012-04-22T16:20:16.759-07:00<u>England as it ought to be</u><br />
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<br />
There isn't any new poetry in this entry (sorry!) . . . Rather, I've been thinking about the wonderful way in which England is portrayed in the Japanese Manga and Anime which I love . . . <em>Kuroshitsuji</em> aka <em>Black Butler</em> (picture above), <em>Hellsing, God Child, Death Note </em>(where else would L get his extraordinary education?) . . . In all these, England is a weird, bizarre and romantic place - eccentric aristocrats in gothic mansions, London as a strange dark Victorian city, a country full of extreme and outrageous characters, scholars and scientists, a ghostly place where fairytale and folklore are always alive . . .It's gorgeous and beautiful - oh, how I wish I lived there !. . . This certainly isn't the dismal austerity England we see all around us and hear about on the news. This isn't the world in which "Just cal me Dave" says "We're all in it together" . . . No queues at the Poundshop, no summer riots, no over4flowing rubbish bins, none of the everyday dreariness . . .This is how romantic England is perceived - as a glorious eccentric paradise full of wild strange history and idiosyncratic people! It isn't really like that . . . And then I remember - here I am, living in a medieval city, in a disused church; I'm a gothic poet with a day-job in a Victorian museum . . . Maybe that wonderful image of England isn't so unreal after all . . .Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-89367756059322974082012-03-10T15:53:00.000-08:002012-03-10T15:53:51.896-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<u>A Year Ago Today . . .</u><br />
<br />
11th March 2011 . . . Such a hideous day! . . . I woke up, switched on the radio and heard the news . . . the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I thought at once of all my friends there. So many beautiful people I loved and cared about! . . . for the next few days, when I wasn't at my day-job, I was in front of the computer doing whatever I could from the other side of the planet with so few facilities, trying to contact and find people, passing on messages, doing whatever I could to support my friends . . . Such a strange and intense few days . . .<br />
<br />
On Tuesday the 15th, I'd booked a day off from work to go to the Birmingham Rag Market to get things for costume-making. I wasn't sure whether I should go or not, but at that stage everybody that I knew was OK, and there didn't seem much else that I could do that would be of use to anyone. So I went to Birmingham.<br />
<br />
When I was there in the Rag Market, surrounded by all those gorgeous fabrics, braids, lace and jewellery, I suddenly remembered that one of my Facebook friends, the beautiful cross-dressing singer with a goth band, had been intending to spend that week making a new costume . . . And suddenly it felt so horrible and wrong that I could enjoy myself like this when so many of my friends were in that hideous situation . . . I started to get emotional, left the market, sat down in a cafe and wrote a poem for my friend, and for all my Japanese friends, and for Japan . . .<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>The Needle Spell</u><br />
<br />
In black lace you should be dressed now<br />
in gauzy veils of oil-dark blue<br />
with pearls drawn from the sullen depths<br />
of the indifferent ocean entwined in your dark hair.<br />
These are the best adornments for a cruel season,<br />
suiting the moment's melancholy and your dark beauty.<br />
<br />
Until I hear your voice again, my needle will sew an incantation<br />
to bind the damaged hopes of broken springtime.<br />
I cast a spell in silk, in quick sharp stitches,<br />
thinking of you as I sew and pouring my thoughts into a new design.<br />
All of my unheard words are uttered in silence<br />
as the needle draws its thread to mend, renew and make.<br />
<br />
This is my woven spell as strong as cobweb.<br />
<br />
In my mind I see you dressed as you should be,<br />
in black lace, gauze, and pearls from the loveless sea.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-2461829920517381482012-01-30T04:21:00.000-08:002012-01-30T04:21:20.810-08:00<u>An Interesting day in Belgium</u><br />
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<br />
I've been intending to post my Ostend poems in full . . . When performing, I often begin my set with 'A Seduction is Attempted' - it's a good opening piece because audiences tend to listen once I've told them that it's probably the only poem in the English language about chatting up a transvestite in an Ostend nightclub . . but it's really just one part of a longer sequence which I wrote in that very strange Belgian town.<br />
<br />
I've had a few trips to Ostend, always in the winter, to enjoy the nightlife - being a port, it can get quite exotic at times . . . And whenever I visited, there always seemed to be large numbers of elderly ladies spending their days sitting together in the cafes around the main square, all with elaborate hair-dos and strong make-up, wearing big fur coats, accompanied by little fluffy white dogs on leads. It gave the the impression that the town was a favourite retirement-place for superannuated Ladies of Pleasure . . . Of course, I may just have been mis-reading Belgian dress-codes . . .<br />
<br />
Ostend was also the home-town of the fabulously bizarre symbolist painter James Ensor (1860-1946). His family kept a shop selling carnival masks, puppets, novelties and random weirdness, which is now a museum. My favourite exhibit was in the shop window (I don't know if it's still there) - a case of stuffed mermaids! These weren't the glamorous beings of fairytale - they were small, shrivelled, vicious-looking creatures created by an enterprising nineteenth-century taxidermist. They do turn up in the poems, though . . .<br />
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<em>James Ensor - Self Portrait with Masks</em><br />
<br />
<br />
So now, it's time to spend twenty-four hours in Ostend . . .<br />
<br />
<u>OSTEND</u><br />
<br />
<u>1. Early Morning</u><br />
<br />
The birds were singing dawn as we walked home<br />
past the friendly bars and shuttered shops<br />
back to the dank hotel.<br />
Ostend out of season -<br />
the aquarium is closed<br />
and breakfasts are served late<br />
in the warm cafes.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>2. Passing Trade</u><br />
<br />
Shifting port-life<br />
passing trade -<br />
the few tourists left in the dead hotels<br />
pretend to remember chandeliers and carnivals,<br />
imagining the Art Nouveau glamour<br />
of old railway posters.<br />
A crucified dogfish<br />
hangs in the window<br />
of a closed shop<br />
and retired ladies of pleasure<br />
with big fur coats and tiny dogs on leads<br />
wait for nothing all day,<br />
sitting and chatting and watching the world<br />
through the steamy cafe windows.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>3. Maxine</u><br />
<br />
Sitting at her favourite table by the window<br />
her white dog under the table<br />
breathing warmly on her smooth nylon ankles,<br />
Maxine watches the old men<br />
as they stroll across the square<br />
to take their morning exercise.<br />
Memory strips away their civic wrinkles,<br />
years go like clothes<br />
as she reconstructs their faces<br />
from so many years ago.<br />
Her discreet memories<br />
are not of untidy rooms and excuses,<br />
but of counting up the days and the banknotes<br />
until she achieved her first fur coat.<br />
She has forgotten the names of most of the men<br />
but still remembers that wonderful coat<br />
and the personalities of all her little lapdogs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>4. By the Sea</u><br />
<br />
When the clouds are heavy<br />
and drizzle stitches the sea and sky together<br />
it is hard to remember<br />
what went on in the summer<br />
on the long pale beaches<br />
or what shrivelled the shop-window mermaids<br />
on the promenade where herring gulls flap and scream<br />
darting forward to peck at the hairy tail of a timid poodle.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>5. Daytime</u><br />
<br />
Daytime diversions -<br />
sitting, looking, eating,<br />
walking past the harbour,<br />
a winter plantation of cold masts,<br />
past the closed museum with its guidebook out of date.<br />
We look in shops<br />
at cow-coloured curtains<br />
contemplating fashions<br />
in socks and coats,<br />
in sex and seafood<br />
until evening opens the Calypso Bar.<br />
We begin with beer and champagne<br />
and then another night<br />
calls out the hours to us<br />
from a narrow street.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>6. The Tourist in the Sex Shop</u><br />
<br />
Young English male, first time on holiday with his mates,<br />
schoolboy-excited, and embarrassed (which he would never admit)<br />
to see displayed on public shelves<br />
the things that home-life laws forbid,<br />
the things he'd seen on internet site.<br />
But here his fantasies were real<br />
and stacked up in front of him.<br />
He giggled at the leather and the lingerie<br />
and the strap-on rubber stimulators<br />
and things with a purpose he couldn't determine.<br />
He went back just to look<br />
again and again.<br />
Every night he stroked<br />
the magazine covers' intertwined bodies<br />
with his groping eyes<br />
but he never dared to take one off the shelf<br />
until his very last evening<br />
when a week's beery desperation<br />
overcame his nervousness.<br />
He didn't think of it as theft, just impulse.<br />
He grabbed, and ran as far as he could<br />
before his risen courage fell<br />
at the thought of Dover customs<br />
(or far worse, his mother)<br />
opening his bag and asking questions<br />
that could only have one answer.<br />
<br />
He left the magazine in a shadowed doorway<br />
and crept back early to his cold narrow bed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>7. Midnight</u><br />
<br />
The noise from the street makes the little dog whine -<br />
late night people crossing from bar to bar<br />
from club to club, shouting out to one another as they pass.<br />
Someone laughs as the welcoming pavement<br />
comes up to meet his face.<br />
He tastes damp cobblestones and writhes like a starfish.<br />
Someone else complains of a failure to capture<br />
that night's desired creature<br />
the elusive image of human perfection.<br />
The drink and poppers together<br />
tear hot cheese-wires through the brain<br />
making new connections, new discoveries.<br />
Or so it seems.<br />
<br />
Maxine in her high apartment<br />
looks down on the street.<br />
She knows it all too well,<br />
the same ritual repeated every night.<br />
She listens for a while, and smiles,<br />
whispers reassurance to the dog<br />
then calls a friend,<br />
arranges to meet tomorrow in the cafe<br />
for lobster salad and reminiscence.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>8. Dancing</u><br />
<br />
There are straight men in the gay club<br />
dancing with deliberate ineptitude<br />
to prove their sexuality<br />
(as if we needed proof).<br />
We watch them for a while<br />
from our side of the dance-floor<br />
and they don't notice the smirks<br />
but they know they are out of place.<br />
<br />
It smells of sweat and cigarettes in here.<br />
We keep dancing,<br />
the atmosphere is hot and cloying.<br />
But don't open the window -<br />
midnight has gone and the morning might get in.<br />
I need to breathe smoke.<br />
I need night-time lungs<br />
to chain the music<br />
(life after love, again)<br />
to the heavy floor.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>9. Strobe Lights</u><br />
<br />
I saw a face that was almost a house<br />
thrown into shadows on the wall<br />
transformation<br />
light flash flickering<br />
strobes on the broken mirror.<br />
How did it break, I wonder,<br />
in drifting dance-floor thoughts.<br />
Caught in a magic lantern -<br />
stop-screen motions<br />
of twitching animations<br />
brief freezing of face and form<br />
parading through the music<br />
with an entourage of puppets<br />
multiplied fragmented shapes<br />
in all the mirror's shattered faces.<br />
<br />
What do you see?<br />
- Masks.<br />
They all look the same by strobe light.<br />
Speak to me with the voice of a gull.<br />
Speak to me with the voice of a small dog.<br />
Speak to me again in leather<br />
or spread a red fan<br />
shabby with old feathers<br />
to show me where you might have been.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>10. A Seduction is Attempted</u><br />
<br />
Come back with me now,<br />
you with your weirdly thrilling face and your bright blue eyes.<br />
I will sneak you back to my sad hotel.<br />
We will avoid the hidden camera by the door<br />
and that sullen old woman,<br />
the reception desk's dour monument,<br />
and we'll ignore those ill-translated warnings about visitors in rooms.<br />
<br />
Come back with me now . . .<br />
<br />
I want to see your bright blue eyes<br />
shining through deep-sea lenses<br />
to make my shabby room an underwater cavern<br />
where seahorses swim with the small wild mermaids<br />
and scarlet fish with golden fins hide in the coral.<br />
I have dreamed of you so often of late!<br />
Sometimes in tight red latex<br />
(you look so thin you almost seem religious!)<br />
Or in sleek silver satin like dusk on a calm ocean<br />
with fresh sea-pearls entwined in your hair,<br />
or with shiny black boots laced up tight<br />
to the tops of your long, long legs.<br />
Sometimes I dream of you in leather<br />
smiling strangely,<br />
enjoying the image you see in my dreams.<br />
<br />
Come back with me now to my sad hotel . . .<br />
<br />
My wine is finished and it will soon be daylight -<br />
I want to gaze at your weird and thrilling face<br />
knowing that my shape and myself<br />
are held in reflection<br />
in your bright blue eyes.<br />
<br />
Why won't you answer me?<br />
Why are you walking away?<br />
I've drunk too much and I'm feeling stupid<br />
but wait for a moment more . . .<br />
Wait . . .<br />
Please . . .<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>11 Another Early Morning</u><br />
<br />
Mistakes and misidentities<br />
catching quick imaginary leopards in the street<br />
that dissolve into litterbins and parking-signs<br />
as we walk back to the hotel.<br />
Music pipes from singing kiosks,<br />
the soundtrack is following us.<br />
We are in a cheap film<br />
acting our parts in front of cardboard buildings.<br />
<br />
I said I am not a flying horse<br />
which made sense at the time<br />
but now I can't remember what I meant.<br />
I wonder if it was significant<br />
or if it was just the drink muttering.<br />
<br />
The birds are singing dawn again.<br />
Sometimes<br />
going home<br />
seems simply too much bother.<br />
My legs are heavy<br />
and the pavement looks clean.<br />
I think I might sit down here for a while<br />
and wait for the daylight<br />
when it all begins again.Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-34100412197452780382012-01-29T01:53:00.000-08:002012-01-29T01:53:52.597-08:00<u>The Different Bar</u><br />
<br />
This is a poem that I wrote a while ago, on holiday in Cyprus. It was gone midnight, and I was at a place called the Different Bar (where I spent quite a lot of time!) The inspiration came, and I didn't have a pen and paper to write it down - and I'd had so much to drink that I probably couldn't have done so anyway. So I had to memorise it and write it down the next morning - which is why it has a much stronger scansion and rhyme-scheme than most of my poems . . .<br />
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<br />
Tonight becomes tomorrow in the Different Bar<br />
and Panos mixes pink and yellow drinks.<br />
Lizard tongues are singing in the fire,<br />
and the dancing moment gradually sinks<br />
to thoughts of what you're doing, where you are,<br />
and how e know what one another thinks<br />
though I am drinking here and you're so far<br />
from me, but distance cannot break our links,<br />
as Panos slows the music in the Different Bar.<br />Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-63720612698568069882012-01-24T05:30:00.000-08:002012-01-24T05:30:39.414-08:00I wrote this poem some time ago, on a warm Saturday morning in summer, when I was doing a shift in the Art Gallery.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>The Wanderer and the Tower</u><br />
<br />
To an old stone tower<br />
in a town by the sea<br />
came a wandering mystic<br />
barefoot visionary,<br />
his mind shaking with writhing thoughts,<br />
ideas that frightened him as much as they inspired.<br />
<br />
The tower was ancient,<br />
an arched empty window,<br />
a view across the harbour<br />
where moored boats creaked<br />
on the currentless water,<br />
a sea-wall cobwebbed with heavy tar-brown nets.<br />
<br />
The Wanderer stood for hours unspeaking<br />
at the tower's high window<br />
watching blue banners<br />
tremble in the torpid air<br />
keeping his mind empty.<br />
He could remember the name of every field he'd walked through.<br />
<br />
He had heard the voice<br />
of every river he had crossed.<br />
He had learned the earth-knowledge<br />
that the trees had to teach<br />
and knew the ways of small animals<br />
and of those pensive formless beings that had always followed him.<br />
<br />
He knew how they had watched him<br />
carefully, with solemn love.<br />
Once they had told him stories<br />
but now they kept silent<br />
waiting at the corners of his thoughts<br />
where sometimes he believed that he could almost see them.<br />
<br />
Even now they watched,<br />
crouched behind him in the tower room<br />
attentive though no longer speaking<br />
as he waited through the motionless day<br />
for the quiet warm evening<br />
and the glimpse of the first and brightest star, reflected in deep water.Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-89859188709418419982012-01-23T05:14:00.000-08:002012-01-23T05:14:40.057-08:00<u>Unveiling Ectoplasmic Manifestations!</u><br />
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<br />
The Chinese New Year is supposed to be a good time to begin a new venture. There have been suggestions (in verse, even!) that I write a blog. So, taking inspiration from the Year of the Dragon, I have made a beginning . . . Expect poetry, strange stories, Japanese music, fashion and popular culture, and assorted random coments. . . . And other things . . . probably . . .<br />
<br />Suz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1127178540673963932.post-40370803942841429332012-01-23T04:42:00.000-08:002012-01-23T04:42:08.711-08:00First Post<br />
<br />
This is a test pieceSuz Winspearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03705446248314002073noreply@blogger.com0