The Stranger

The Stranger is a 1946 film directed by Orson Welles and starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Orson Welles, Billy House, and Richard Long. Robinson plays a government agent who has tracked a Nazi war criminal to a small American town. This is interesting -a well-done story, with a great cast and enough tension to be effective without being overwrought. It takes place in the Autumn, with dry leaves in the woods and the first snowfall of the year.

via Youtube:

Senses of Cinema calls it "a tightly-plotted and well-acted thriller that bears Welles’ unique stamp". DVD Talk says it's "an efficient and impressive production handsomely directed by Welles for maximum suspense. He's also quite good as the lead villain".

Wikipedia says, "The Stranger was the only film made by Welles to have been a bona fide box office success upon its release." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 96%.

The Lonely Silver Rain

The Lonely Silver Rain is a Travis McGee novel, the 21st and final of the series by John D. MacDonald. It was written a year before the author's death at 70 years of age in 1986. He suffered complications from an earlier heart bypass operation.

The Travis McGee character isn't a traditional detective but lives on a houseboat in Florida and works as a freelance "salvage consultant", locating lost property for a fee of 50% of the value of the item. He pays his own expenses.

from the back of the book:

Smart, honest, tough, but very tender, John D. MacDonald's famous fictional hero Travis McGee is a fearless adventurer, an intrepid investigator, a champion of underdogs, a rescuer of ladies in distress, and a contemporary philosopher extraordinaire.

Keeping himself alive is something McGee has always taken for granted -until his search for a wealthy friend's missing yacht places him square in the center of the international cocaine trade. As he follows a scorching white line from Miami's penthouse suites to a tiny village in Mexico's Yukatan Peninsula, Travis finds himself the target of some of the most ruthless villains he's ever met.

Pressed into contemplating for the first time his own mortality and jolted into taking stock of his life, Travis McGee discovers amid all the danger the astonishing surprise behind the cat-shaped pipe cleaners someone is leaving at his door. This is vintage McGee in a novel that confirms John D. MacDonald's reputation as one of the greatest storytellers of all time.

I've also read the first in the series The Deep Blue Good-bye. It came out in 1964 and is dated in how it represents women. He grew in his depiction of women in the intervening years, and I look forward to checking into some of the other books in this series.

Go Vote!

I'm a politics addict, especially during presidential election years. This time, I was a strong member of camp #FeelTheBern throughout the primaries and followed Sanders into the Clinton campaign so that now #ImWithHer. I watched all the debates and watch every live appearance of a candidate I can find. I listen to pundits from both sides, and I fact-check everything I come across. I have friends and relatives from both sides, and most of them are sick of it all and ready to see the end of it. I can't turn away. I'll continue to pay attention to political coverage and discuss it with whoever's willing. Discussion doesn't need to be putting forth arguments to convince but can be honest efforts to understand. I truly believe that. If you've managed to read through that paragraph, maybe you like discussing politics as much as I do.

On the other hand, maybe you're just being polite.

In either case, I offer you Peter Capaldi speaking on coffee as a non-political treat:

Small pleasures, that's the spirit! Now, if you haven't already, GO VOTE! And then join in the festivities at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday gathering.

Balance

I'm talking here about physical balance, although I'll grant you mental balance is also important. Falls are a common precursor to loss of independence in the elderly. One key to avoiding falls is to improve balance. There are a lot of ways that can be achieved. I have a strong preference for videos that demonstrate exercises, but often I can do the exercises without using the video each time.

The Ask Doctor Jo Youtube channel has some simple exercises and explains how to progress through them as your balance improves:

She also has a short video on ankle strengthening exercises and stretches. Ankle strength is important to maintaining balance.

This physical therapist suggests specific exercises:

This 8-minute Tai Chi routine is for improving balance:

This 20-minute video of standing yoga poses cultivates balance:

Yoga Journal offers this 14-minute practice on maintaining balance:

Melissa West has this helpful class with adjustments given for ability level:

More yoga for balance (28 minutes):

I subscribe to the Fitness Blender Youtube channel, even though most of their routines are either inappropriate for me or too difficult. I've found gold there. This is their Beginner Balance workout:

I do some kind of balance activity every day.

City Girl

City Girl is a 1930 F.W. Murnau film about a young waitress who falls in love with the farmer who is in the big city at the direction of his father to sell his family's wheat crop. This is a touching tale of different lives that intersect. The film takes place during the harvest season.

via youtube:

Senses of Cinema concludes with this:

The strengths of Murnau’s films often lie in the details, the representation and conveyance of emotion, the expressive and minimalist use of intertitles, the discrete complication of structural polarities, and the extraordinary play of light and dark across expressive interior and exterior landscapes. City Girl, both an archaic and visionary work of the late silent cinema, is a reiteration and reinvigoration of these qualities.

Rotten Tomatoes has an 80% critics rating.

Seven Swords

Seven Swords is a 2005 wuxia film, an homage to the Kurosawa Seven Samurai film. I found it slow and even annoying in places, but I loved the choreography and the clothes. The Younger Son thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it worthy of a connection with Kurosawa.

trailer:

It did well in Asia, but it got mostly negative reviews here. A planned sequel appears to be in development hell.

Empire Online closes with this: "What could and should have been great is reduced to the tragically dull. A wasted opportunity of immense proportions." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 25%.

The Trouble with Harry

The Trouble with Harry is a 1955 dark comedy Hitchcock movie. This is absolutely delightful! It has quite the cast, starring Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Mildred Natwick, Mildred Dunnock, Jerry Mathers, and Royal Dano. The trouble with Harry is that he's dead and what are we to do with him now? The story takes place in the Autumn of the year. Hunting season, you know.

via Youtube:

The New York Times calls it "whimsical". The Guardian calls it "a surrealist masterpiece". Senses of Cinema has an interesting article.

Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 90%.

Tooth and Nail

Tooth and Nail is the 3rd book in the Inspector John Rebus series by Ian Rankin. I like the main character in this series. The writing is fine but nothing spectacular, and the plots are interesting but again not spectacular. I do like the main character. He has an intriguing back-story the effects of which continue to develop through each book. I'll keep picking these up as I come across them.

from the back of the book:

Sent to London to help catch a vicious serial killer, Inspector John Rebus teams up with a beautiful psychologist to piece together a portrait of a depraved psychopath bent on paiting the town red -with blood...

I've read the following books in this series:

#1 Knots and Crosses
#13 Resurrection Men

Outrage

Outrage is a 1950 film directed by Ida Lupino. It's the 2nd film made to deal with rape. It was Mala Powers' first starring role. Hard to watch even today. So much hasn't changed since then.

via Youtube:

The New Yorker says,

“Outrage” is a special artistic achievement. Lupino approaches the subject of rape with a wide view of the societal tributaries that it involves. She integrates an inward, deeply compassionate depiction of a woman who is the victim of rape with an incisive view of the many societal failures that contribute to the crime, including legal failure to face the prevalence of rape, and the over-all prudishness and sexual censoriousness that make the crime unspeakable in the literal sense and end up shaming the victim. Above all, she reveals a profound understanding of the widespread and unquestioned male aggression that women face in ordinary and ostensibly non-violent and consensual courtship. Her movie is about the experiences of one young woman and, yes, about the experience of all women.

Rotten Tomatoes has an audience score of 83%.

Fictitious Feasts

Fictitious Feasts is an article about the photographer Charles Roux' recreations of meals from books. For example, the photo at the top of the post is his vision of the dining room table from We Have Always Lived in The Castle by Shirley Jackson. I read the Jackson book a couple of years ago, and it has stuck with me. I think it makes a good read for October.

I'm not much a fan of feasts the way most people define the term, so this was my "feast" one night:

There was black coffee in that cup and a horror movie ready for me to watch while I sup. I'm easy to please. Now that October is over I'll be watching far fewer horror movies. I'm ready for a change.

Please join the T Tuesday gathering hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth.

Heart-Shaped Box

Heart-Shaped Box, the award-winning debut novel of Joe Hill, is a 2007 ghost story/revenge tale. I don't read much horror at all but always include something from that genre in my reading for October. This was perfect for me. I'll probably look for others by this author.

from the back of the book:

Aging death-metal rock legend Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals... a used hangman's noose... a snuff film. But nothing he possesses is as unique or as dreadful as his latest purchase off the Internet: a one-of-a-kind curiosity that arrives at his door in a black heart-shaped box... a musty dead man's suit still inhabited by the spirit of it's late owner. And now everywhere Judas Coyne goes, the old man is there -watching, waiting, dangling a razor blade on a chain from his bony hand.

The New York Times calls it "a wild, mesmerizing, perversely witty tale of horror" and says,

In a book much too smart to sound like the work of a neophyte, he builds character invitingly and plants an otherworldly surprise around every corner. It would be much easier to compare Mr. Hill’s work to Stephen King’s if Stephen King were not his actual father. (His full name is Joseph Hillstrom King.)

Time Magazine says it's "a top-notch piece of horror fiction". Strange Horizons calls it "a good novel and worth reading" but "conventional". Kirkus Reviews concludes, "He’s got horror down pat, and his debut is hair-raising fun."

The title comes from the Nirvana song:

Ganja & Hess

Ganja & Hess is a 1973 horror film, an experimental effort directed by Bill Gunn (who was a playwright, novelist, and actor in addition to being a film director). This film was chosen as one of ten best American films of that decade at the Cannes Film Festival. This is an interesting movie. The ideas have held up well, and Spike Lee remade it in 2014. (This film does include nudity, just in case that bothers you.)

The New Yorker concludes with this:

“Ganja & Hess,” like the movies of Gunn’s great independent-outsider contemporaries, suggests what has been missing from modern studio filmmaking—and what’s missing from Hollywood to this day.

Slant Magazine says,

Ganja & Hess, which has been retroactively, circumstantially cast as a berserk dash toward career suicide on Gunn’s part, is so singular, so opaque, that it doesn’t even have the draw of commerce-friendly exoticism. If Shaft is Barry White and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is the Sex Pistols, then Ganja & Hess is John Cage.

DVD Talk opens a positive review with this:

Not just an important horror film but one of the true "lost films" of the 1970s and a significant piece in African-American cinema, Ganja & Hess (1973) so transcended genre and overall aesthetic expectations that it all but doomed itself to a fate of almost total obscurity for several decades.

Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 83%.

The Night Stalker

The Night Stalker is the 1972 made-for-TV horror/detective film starring Darren McGavin. McGavin is best known for his role as the father in The Christmas Story but was Mike Hammer in the 1950s tv series and also the founder of the X-Files in that franchise among many other roles in stage/film/tv.

via Youtube:

Moria says it "was one of the sharpest and most amusingly well written of these in its attempts to come to terms with the idea of a vampire in the modern-day." DVD Talk says, "at the time that it aired in 1972, The Night Stalker was the highest rated TV movie ever broadcast by a wide margin," calls it "entertaining" and "one of the best TV movies ever broadcast," and praises the acting. Rotten Tomatoes has a critics rating of 86%.

The Devils of Loudon

The Devils of Loudon is a 1952 non-fiction book by Aldous Huxley. It's the story of a man accused of demonic possession in France in 1634. A priest is accused of seducing an entire convent of Ursuline nuns to serve the cause of the devil. Fun times in the French countryside. The priest who inspired this book (pictured above) was convicted and executed. Even under torture he never confessed. The Huxley book explores the possible causes of this phenomenon.

It's possible the entire affair was a politically motivated plot.

The book begins:

It was in 1605 that Joseph Hall, the satirist and future bishop, made his first visit to Flanders. “Along our way how many churches saw we demolished, nothing left but rude heaps to tell the passenger, there hath been both devotion and hostility. Oh, the miserable footsteps of war! ... But (which I wondered at) churches fall, and Jesuits’ colleges rise everywhere. There is no city where these are not rearing or built. Whence cometh this? Is it for that devotion is not so necessary as policy? These men (as we say of the fox) fare best when they are most cursed. None so much spited of their own; none so hated of all; none so opposed of by ours; and yet these ill weeds grow.”

They grew for a very simple and sufficient reason: the public wanted them. For the Jesuits themselves, “policy,” as Hall and his whole generation knew very well, was the first consideration. The schools had been called into existence for the purpose of strengthening the Roman Church against its enemies, the “libertines” and the Protestants. The good fathers hoped, by their teaching, to create a class of educated laymen totally devoted to the interests of the Church. In the words of Cerutti —words which drove the indignant Michelet almost to frenzy— “as we swathe the limbs of an infant in the cradle to give them a right proportion, so it is necessary from his earliest youth to swathe, so to speak, his will, that it may preserve through his life a happy and salutary suppleness.”

The spirit of domination was willing enough, but the flesh of propagandist method was weak. In spite of the swaddling of their wills, some of the Jesuits’ best pupils left school to become free thinkers or even, like Jean Labadie, Protestants. So far as “policy” was concerned, the system was never as efficient as its creators had hoped. But the public was not interested in policy; the public was interested in good schools, where their boys could learn all that a gentleman ought to know. Better than most other purveyors of education, the Jesuits supplied the demand.

“What did I observe during the seven years I passed under the Jesuits’ roof? A life full of moderation, diligence and order. They devoted every hour of the day to our education, or to the strict fulfillment of their vows. As evidence of this, I appeal to the testimony of the thousands who, like myself, were educated by them.” So wrote Voltaire. His words bear witness to the excellence of the Jesuits’ teaching methods. At the same time, and yet more emphatically, his entire career bears witness to the failure of that “policy,” which the teaching methods were intended to serve.

Depending on the copyright laws where you live -I swear copyright law is so byzantine I can't figure it out and trust I'm not violating it when I find things online- you can read the book online at this link.

The Plague of Zombies

The Plague of Zombies is a 1966 Hammer Films horror film. Influential in the genre, it's worth seeing for that reason alone; but it's also interesting in and of itself. It takes place in the Cornish countryside, where the local squire doesn't want any of the spate of recent deaths looked into. It seems he has plans bwahaha.

Plague of the Zombies (1966) by MargaliMorwentari

Moria praises the effects and points at the political subtext. 1000 Misspent Hours says, "...zombie movies didn’t come a whole lot better than this before George Romero arrived on the scene".

Classic-Horror.com gives it a positive review and says, "Don't miss this one." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics rating of 78%.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a 1890 novel by Oscar Wilde (pictured above). It's the story of a man who sells his soul so that he will never age while his portrait takes on all the ravages of his evil life. It is in the public domain and can be read online at Project Gutenberg, the University of Virginia, FullBooks.com, Adelaide.edu, LiteraturePage.com, and endless other sites.

It's a fascinating story. It's been adapted for film and television, including in

• 1910 (Danish silent),
• 1913 (American silent directed by Phillips Smalley),
• 1915 (American silent directed by Eugene Moore),
• 1916 (British silent directed by Fred W. Durrant),
• 1945 (award-winning American film starring George Sanders, Donna Reed, Angela Lansbury, and Peter Lawford, with Cedric Hardwicke narrating),
• 1961 (Armchair Theater made-for-tv production starring Jeremy Brett as Dorian Gray),
• 1976 (Made-for-tv movie starring Peter Firth, Jeremy Brett, and John Gielgud),
• 1983 (made-for-tv, with a female Dorian Gray, also with Anthony Perkins),

and numerous adaptations since. The most recent I know of is the Penny Dreadful tv series in which Gray is played by Reeve Carney.

The book begins with a preface defending the artist's right to create. This is the entirety of chapter 1:

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.

As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done," said Lord Henry languidly. "You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor is really the only place."

"I don't think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his head back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. "No, I won't send it anywhere."

Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. "Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion."

"I know you will laugh at me," he replied, "but I really can't exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it."

Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.

"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same."

"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you were so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you—well, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don't flatter yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him."

"You don't understand me, Harry," answered the artist. "Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks—we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly."

"Dorian Gray? Is that his name?" asked Lord Henry, walking across the studio towards Basil Hallward.

"Yes, that is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you."

"But why not?"

"Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?"

"Not at all," answered Lord Henry, "not at all, my dear Basil. You seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we meet—we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go down to the Duke's—we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it—much better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would; but she merely laughs at me."

"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry," said Basil Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. "I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose."

"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know," cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over the polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.

After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. "I am afraid I must be going, Basil," he murmured, "and before I go, I insist on your answering a question I put to you some time ago."

"What is that?" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

"You know quite well."

"I do not, Harry."

"Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why you won't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture. I want the real reason."

"I told you the real reason."

"No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of yourself in it. Now, that is childish."

"Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, "every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."

Lord Henry laughed. "And what is that?" he asked.

"I will tell you," said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came over his face.

"I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, glancing at him.

"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the painter; "and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will hardly believe it."

Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from the grass and examined it. "I am quite sure I shall understand it," he replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk, "and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible."

The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart beating, and wondered what was coming.

"The story is simply this," said the painter after some time. "Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then—but I don't know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape."

"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."

"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive—and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud—I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon. 'You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?"

"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers.

"I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were destined to know each other."

"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?" asked his companion. "I know she goes in for giving a rapid precis of all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to everybody in the room, the most astounding details. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants to know."

"Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry!" said Hallward listlessly.

"My dear fellow, she tried to found a salon, and only succeeded in opening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, what did she say about Mr. Dorian Gray?"

"Oh, something like, 'Charming boy—poor dear mother and I absolutely inseparable. Quite forget what he does—afraid he—doesn't do anything—oh, yes, plays the piano—or is it the violin, dear Mr. Gray?' Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at once."

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one," said the young lord, plucking another daisy.

Hallward shook his head. "You don't understand what friendship is, Harry," he murmured—"or what enmity is, for that matter. You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one."

"How horribly unjust of you!" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the summer sky. "Yes; horribly unjust of you. I make a great difference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that very vain of me? I think it is rather vain."

"I should think it was, Harry. But according to your category I must be merely an acquaintance."

"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance."

"And much less than a friend. A sort of brother, I suppose?"

"Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else."

"Harry!" exclaimed Hallward, frowning.

"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I can't help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves. I quite sympathize with the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices of the upper orders. The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and immorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of us makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves. When poor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite magnificent. And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the proletariat live correctly."

"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is more, Harry, I feel sure you don't either."

Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his patent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane. "How English you are Basil! That is the second time you have made that observation. If one puts forward an idea to a true Englishman—always a rash thing to do—he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. The only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes it oneself. Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices. However, I don't propose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you. I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world. Tell me more about Mr. Dorian Gray. How often do you see him?"

"Every day. I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day. He is absolutely necessary to me."

"How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything but your art."

"He is all my art to me now," said the painter gravely. "I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from him, sketch from him. Of course, I have done all that. But he is much more to me than a model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such that art cannot express it. There is nothing that art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious way—I wonder will you understand me?—his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form in days of thought'—who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this lad—for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty—his merely visible presence—ah! I wonder can you realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body—how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me! You remember that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price but which I would not part with? It is one of the best things I have ever done. And why is it so? Because, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat beside me. Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and for the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I had always looked for and always missed."

"Basil, this is extraordinary! I must see Dorian Gray."

Hallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden. After some time he came back. "Harry," he said, "Dorian Gray is to me simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours. That is all."

"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?" asked Lord Henry.

"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never cared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it. He shall never know anything about it. But the world might guess it, and I will not bare my soul to their shallow prying eyes. My heart shall never be put under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing, Harry—too much of myself!"

"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions."

"I hate them for it," cried Hallward. "An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray."

"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, is Dorian Gray very fond of you?"

The painter considered for a few moments. "He likes me," he answered after a pause; "I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day."

"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger," murmured Lord Henry. "Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well-informed man—that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. Some day you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something. You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think that he has behaved very badly to you. The next time he calls, you will be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a great pity, for it will alter you. What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic."

"Harry, don't talk like that. As long as I live, the personality of Dorian Gray will dominate me. You can't feel what I feel. You change too often."

"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies." And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty silver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. There was a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy, and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like swallows. How pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful other people's emotions were!—much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him. One's own soul, and the passions of one's friends—those were the fascinating things in life. He pictured to himself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he gone to his aunt's, he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole conversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the necessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the importance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity in their own lives. The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour. It was charming to have escaped all that! As he thought of his aunt, an idea seemed to strike him. He turned to Hallward and said, "My dear fellow, I have just remembered."

"Remembered what, Harry?"

"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray."

"Where was it?" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.

"Don't look so angry, Basil. It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's. She told me she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going to help her in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. I am bound to state that she never told me he was good-looking. Women have no appreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not. She said that he was very earnest and had a beautiful nature. I at once pictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, horribly freckled, and tramping about on huge feet. I wish I had known it was your friend."

"I am very glad you didn't, Harry."

"Why?"

"I don't want you to meet him."

"You don't want me to meet him?"

"No."

"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir," said the butler, coming into the garden.

"You must introduce me now," cried Lord Henry, laughing.

The painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight. "Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker: I shall be in in a few moments." The man bowed and went up the walk.

Then he looked at Lord Henry. "Dorian Gray is my dearest friend," he said. "He has a simple and a beautiful nature. Your aunt was quite right in what she said of him. Don't spoil him. Don't try to influence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many marvellous people in it. Don't take away from me the one person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses: my life as an artist depends on him. Mind, Harry, I trust you." He spoke very slowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will.

"What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward by the arm, he almost led him into the house.

Still Life with Compotier

Still Life with Compotier:

by Paul Cezanne, who died on October 22, 1906 of pneumonia at the age of 67.

I feel an attraction to this offering, with its simple fruit with a glass of water. It's often my own choice.

Here's a 5-minute biography of Cezanne showcasing some of his paintings:

For a more in-depth look, try this hour-long exploration of his life and work:

Please join the T Tuesday blog link-up and share a drink with us. Bleubeard and Elizabeth host at the Altered Book Lover blog.

The Ghost (1963)

The Ghost is a 1963 Italian horror film starring Barbara Steele. This is more gothic thriller than horror, and I thought it was a fine murder/revenge mystery story. You can't go wrong with Barbara Steele.

via Youtube:

1000 Misspent Hours says, "anyone who enjoys Mario Bava’s moody, languorous gothics from the same era will find much to like about The Ghost." Weird Wild Realm says it's worth watching for Barbara Steele alone.

Orgy of the Dead

Orgy of the Dead is a 1965 horror film. This has a frame story but only enough of one to provide space between the all-but-nude women "dancers" who then receive their just punishment. This may well be the worst movie I've ever seen, and I've seen some bad movies. I could embed it here, but I'd hate to subject you to the pointless drivel. Poorly done soft-core porn/S&M. Surely this trailer will be enough.

Topless female nudity alert in case that offends you:

"A pussy cat is born to be whooped."

Please spare yourself. I didn't finish it.

DVD Talk calls it "ridiculous" and says, "This isn't really a horror film but a cheap girlie show as primitive as the one-reelers of strippers seen in the omnibus collection Best of Burlesque" and "This is basically 90 minutes of repetitious and numbing strip acts, with poor cutaways to the presiding ghouls who bicker about how much time they have before dawn or who gets to stab who."

Moria gives it 1/2 star and says, "There is really little more to the film than this parade of strippers doing their thing." Million Monkey Theater describes it as a "weird exploitation/horror/smut movie". Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 0%. Yes, you read that right -zero%.

The Face at the Window

The Face at the Window is a 1939 horror film directed by George King and starring Tod Slaughter, who played the title role in the 1936 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. "They dared call me mad." Bwahaha.

via Daily Motion:

The Face at the Window (1939) by MargaliMorwentari

Time Out calls Slaughter's performance "oddly chilling". Cult Reviews concludes:

it’s a great joy to watch the talent of two artists at their best moment, and one can only wonder what would had happened with their careers if they had been hired by Universal or Columbia. Just like Boris Karloff is American cinema’s icon for the horror genre, I see no problem with considering Slaughter as his equal in British cinema. Classy, grim, sinister and even fun, “The Face at the Window” is definitely the proof that George King was a true artist of the genre, and Tod Slaughter the British master of Victorian shock and horror.