My second choice in Love Songs of Childhood is a funny poem about a little boy in love with a little girl who does not reciprocate; he hopes to seduce her thanks to his beautiful sled upon which all little girls dream of riding. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
The American writer Eugene Field (1850–1895) is best known for his children’s poetry and his humorous essays. He gained fame (to his disgust) as the ‘poet of childhood’.
At college he was not a serious student and spent much of his time at school playing practical jokes, so he did not get any degree. He embarked on a career as journalist. He became known for his light, humorous articles written in a gossipy style, and his humorous column “Funny Fancies” gained popularity among readers. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Poets and Lovers was created on March 17, 2019 and went online on the 20th. Since then it has continued to exist with a few interruptions due to changes of web hosts. In my editorial of March 22, 2024, I explained that I had nearly exhausted the sources of my contents and got no input from other contributors, so the site would henceforth be hibernating, new articles would appear on an irregular basis. Indeed, for more than one year, I published on average about one article per month. But recently, the posting frequency has surged. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Let us enjoy some outsider and alternative music. The singer, musician and artist Daniel Dale Johnston (1961–2019) started his career by recording cassettes alone in his home. In the early 1990s, he became famous when Kurt Cobain (of the band Nirvana) was frequently seen wearing a T-shirt with the cover art for Johnston’s 1983 cassette album Hi, How Are You, with the now iconic “Jeremiah the Innocent” frog. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
The 1965 American musical comedy film Harum Scarum, released in the United Kingdom as Harem Holiday, starred Elvis Presley. Full of orientalist clichés, it looks like a spoof of the Arabic adventure genre. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Poets and Lovers exists since five years and a half. It is now the sole survivor of a group of four related sites. Those devoted to the artist Graham Ovenden and his Garage Press have definitively disappeared: Graham died on 9 December 2022, then nobody was responsible for maintaining these two sites, and after the person in charge of the technical management of the four sites disappeared, their domain names were not renewed. The domain name of Pigtails in Paint was also not renewed: according to a press release dated 9 March on its Facebook page, when the person in charge had gone, the Editor-In-Chief could not get complete access to the domain name, so the latter expired. He decided then to let the project sleep until he could get help from other people. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861), one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era, became widely popular in England and the United States during her lifetime, both for her poetry and her stands against slavery in the United States, injustice toward Italian citizens by foreign rulers, and child labour. From age 15 until her death, she had to battle with a lifelong illness.
Her first known poem, “On the Cruelty of Forcement to Man,” was written at the age of six or eight. She published her first collection of poems, An Essay on Mind, with Other Poems, in 1826. Her 1844 volume Poems made her one of the most popular writers in Britain at the time. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, the poet Robert Browning, shortly after her death. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
The American rock band ZZ Top was formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas, by Billy Gibbons (guitar and vocals). By the end of that year, he was joined by Frank Beard (drums), and in 1970 by Dusty Hill (bass and vocals); the band’s membership remained then the same until Hill’s death in July 2021. Per Hill’s wishes, ZZ Top continued with Elwood Francis, the band’s long-time guitar tech, and they are still active now. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
After 5 years and 5 days, this blog still lives, having recently overcome new obstacle. Earlier this year, the person in charge of the technical management of the four sites Pigtails in Paint, Poets and Lovers, Graham Ovenden and Garage Press faced a personal emergency and had thus to give up that work. The four sites fell into different hands. At the beginning of this month, the company hosting Poets and Lovers moved it to another server, but due to error in the update of DNS records, the site was unreachable. After correcting it, the security certificate was faulty and had to be replaced. Finally, the contents uploaded to the new server was from an earlier backup, so the latest posts and images were missing, I had to restore them; this was done 4 days ago. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
In February 2001, the ska band The Slackers released their album Wasted Days in two different forms: a CD with 16 tracks and a vinyl LP with 9 tracks. The album cover is a photograph showing Miki Stroman reading a comic titled Wasted Days. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
