Author: Christian

Author for Pigtails in Paint since September 2014; associate editor since November 2015. Administrator of the late Agapeta on WordPress (2015/01/09 - 2019/03/01), and now of Poets and Lovers.

Little Bird, by Infant Sorrow

Russell Brand as Aldous Snow, lead singer of Infant Sorrow
Russell Brand as Aldous Snow, lead singer of Infant Sorrow

In Nicholas Stoller’s two comedy films Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) and Get Him to the Greek (2010), the English actor Russell Brand plays the role of Aldous Snow, an English rock star, lead singer of a group called Infant Sorrow. According to Genius, Russell Brand did all the vocals and most of the vocal arrangements for the various songs found in the movies, and the soundtrack for both movies also credits Brand as a writer. The role of the other musicians of the band seems to have been played professional musicians, but not those performing in the soundtracks. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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Les Illusions, par Fernand Gregh

John George Brown - A cosy corner
John George Brown – A cosy corner (c.1885-87) – Milwaukee Art Museum

Deux enfants amoureux, les doigts enlacés, ont rêvé de leur avenir, bâtissant un décor somptueux flottant dans un mirage… mais l’âge adulte apporte bien des déceptions. Comme les trois précédents du même auteur, ce beau poème provient de la première section du recueil La Maison de l’enfance. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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The Garden of Love, by William Blake

Caspar David Friedrich - Monastery graveyard in the snow
Caspar David Friedrich – Monastery graveyard in the snow

I have presented the poem “A Little Girl Lost” by the visionary poet and painter William Blake (1757–1827), published in Songs of Experience (1794). In it, he envisages a future where children and adolescents will freely enjoy nudity and love, then the religious condemnation and parental repression of these pleasures will cause indignation. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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I’m a lady now, by Hotzmic

Still from the video of "I'm a lady now"
Still from the video of “I’m a lady now” performed by Hotzmic

Rhythm Heaven Megamix, known in Europe and Australia as Rhythm Paradise Megamix, in Japan as Rhythm Tengoku: The Best Plus and in Korea as Rhythm World: The Best Plus, is a rhythm game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. It was released in Japan in June 2015, and between June and December 2016 in the rest of the world. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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Moonlight magick: love and war

Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley (c1912) – from The Equinox, volume 1, issue 10 (1913)

In a previous post, I described a surrealistic walk that I made in 2015, starting with Ernest Dowson’s passion for absinthe, then meeting other poets, MoonCCat, Bertolt Brecht and Jim Morrison, and finally ending at Dowson’s great passion, little girls. Throughout this path I encountered the moon, which presides over the impermanence of all things.

Now I will relate my mysterious journey in the shadow of a fearful and scandalous magician: Aleister Crowley, whom the British journal John Bull called “the wickedest man in the world” and “a man we’d like to hang.” It is a secret world, which must be evoked in metaphorical language. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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Gertrude Chataway, Lewis Carroll’s forgotten child-friend

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson - Gertrude Chataway, lying on sofa
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson – Gertrude Chataway, lying on sofa (c.1876) – Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Everyone knows about Lewis Carroll’s friendship with Alice Pleasance Liddell, who inspired the main character in his famous books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass; indeed, after a rowing boat travelling during which Carroll regaled Alice and her two sisters with a fantastic story of a girl named Alice who had fallen into a rabbit-hole, she asked him to write it down, and so came Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the initial version of the first book. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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La Petite Cousine, par Clovis Hugues

Photographie post mortem
Photographie post mortem – provient de VK

Le poème suivant, écrit à l’âge de 20 ans, évoque un amour d’enfance, une cousine rencontrée pendant les vacances, dont le souvenir se réveille à la mort de celle-ci. Il rappelle les deux sonnets de Nicolas Boileau sur la mort d’une parente. Il parut dans le recueil Les Soirs de Bataille publié en 1883 par Alphonse Lemerre, puis dans d’autres collections. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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Pedophilia, by The Slackers

Cover of the album Better Late Than Never by The Slackers
Cover of the album Better Late Than Never by The Slackers – from Discogs

The Slackers are an American ska band, formed in Manhattan in 1991. After making demo cassettes in 1992 and 1993, they released their first studio album Better Late Than Never in 1996; it was then remastered and re-released with three additional tracks in 2002. The album’s third track “Pedophilia” is a humorous piece making fun of the usual clichés: an old man peeps at a little girl, and her mother tells her to go outside. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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