#Spooktober 2 – The Surprising

October 2, 2023

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

books and literature

Ioanna Papadopoulou’s The Castaway and the Witch

I had a genuine “oh shit” moment when I read the author’s preface saying this was darker than “Winter Harvest” because – and I absolutely ADORED “Winter Harvest” – that was pitch-black dark. I thought “we’re all going to die”. This maybe has something to

August 8, 2026 9:00 am

Summertime

The Path You Have to Sing

Alexis Wright‘s Carpentaria, an epic work set in a fictional town called Desperance, opens before there are any people in it at all: an ancestral serpent, “a creature larger than storm clouds,” descends from the stars and drags itself across the wet clay of the

August 8, 2026 6:00 am

movies and tv

But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge

I’m sure you’ve read enough analysis of Nolan’s Odyssey to last a lifetime, and you don’t need another European ranting that he changed stuff, so I’m not going to. Instead, I’d like to talk about the movie in itself, as an independent work, granting the

August 7, 2026 1:48 pm