#AdventCalendar – Day 7: The Song of Shadows

December 7, 2022

Sweep thy faint strings, Musician,
With thy long lean hand;
Downward the starry tapers burn,
Sinks soft the waning sand;
The old hound whimpers couched in sleep,
The embers smoulder low;
Across the walls the shadows
Come, and go.
Sweep softly thy strings, Musician,
The minutes mount to hours;
Frost on the windless casement weaves
A labyrinth of flowers;
Ghosts linger in the darkening air,
Hearken at the open door;
Music hath called them, dreaming,
Home once more.

Walter John de la Mare – The Song of Shadows

movies and tv

The End of Oak Street

By the life of me, I don’t understand how’s possible that this movie was ever cleared for production. The concept is simple, and shamefully Stephen King-esque: a portion of a small suburban town gets teleported into a not particularly well-defined “age of dinosaurs,” and the

September 14, 2026 9:00 am

books and literature

Susanna Clarke’s The Ladies of Grace Adieau

I had forgotten how much I was bored by Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but I trust I’ll like other stuff by the same author and, before tackling Piranesi, I decided to finally approach this one. Not remembering these are spin-off stories from Jonathan

September 13, 2026 9:00 am

books and literature

The Singing Hills Cycle

The Single Hills cycle is a group of short novels by Nghi Vo, a queer Vietnamese-American author, and they centre around the character of Chih, a non-binary monk whose job is to record stories with the aid of their familiar spirit with a perfect memory.

September 12, 2026 9:00 am