"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

#Spooktober 2 – The Surprising

I know this opinion might be unpopular with music connoisseurs, but I liked what Deep Purple did with their 2017 studio album Infinite.

My favourite track has to be “The Surprising”, and it’s a perfect feature for this Spooky Season with its haunting atmosphere, its mythical and biblical echoes. With the narrative voice intruding into the music, I often connect it with another track of the same album, “On Top of the World”.

It wasn’t quite the curse of Tutankhamen
Or the kiss of death from Judas in the night
And it felt so far beyond the blue horizon
Tempting me with transports of delight
And then the devil took my hand and said
Come along with me
There I was, wide awake and dreaming
Reaching out for something in the sky
But I could not control that trembling feeling
Everything I want is slipping by
And then the devil took my hand and said
Something you should see
I never knew what happened to my nightmare
Everything went dark that August day
And the eclipse was on the other side of somewhere
But I was on the upside of afraid
And then an angel took my hand and said
Come along with me

 

Kathleen Jamie on Attention and Corridors

Kathleen Jamie is a Scottish poet and essayist, born in 1962, known for her prose and poetry about landscape, place, and everyday life. Findings is her essay collection of personal reflections, first published in 2005, and it moves through nature and cities, archaeology, hospitals, family

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August 10, 2026 6:00 am
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Leo Ortolani, Tapum

A un certo punto ci sarà una battuta, in questo fumetto, e riderete. Sappiate che è l’unica. Com’è giusto che sia. Se devo paragonare quest’opera a qualcosa, il confronto più azzeccato è probabilmente lo spettacolo che Marco Paolini trasse dal Sergente nella neve di Rigoni

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Omeros in the Caribbeans

Derek Walcott was a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, and painter, and one of the major voices of Caribbean literature. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992, and his work often explores Caribbean history, identity, colonial inheritance, and the meeting of European and African

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