Author Archive: Lesley Jakobsen
Hot Air
(Directed by Frank Coraci) (2019) Steve Coogan revels in his image as a hard-edged playboy. But he also want us to think that there’s a soulful, sentimental man in there somewhere. The footloose, cynical womanising Steve Coogan character in the ‘tour’ movies with Rob Brydon is leavened with wistful moments of loneliness. Alan Partridge is a wishy washy, desperate side of the same man. Unfortunately, when Coogan steps out of one of his alter egos, his desire to make us love him turns into an absolute puddle of gel. Witness the ghastly soppiness of his Martin Sixsmith in Stephen Frear’s…
Continue Reading →The Witching Hour (Anne Rice)
In 1818 Mary Shelley created Frankenstein’s monster, a bag of bones held together with dead flesh and animated by gothic electricity. In 1990 Anne Rice created The Witching Hour, a 1,207 page bag of bones held together with dead prose and flaccidly animated by pseudo-gothic raving. The Mayfairs are a family of witches who limp, from Europe, to a southern United States plantation, to the Garden District of New Orleans (Louisiana’s Gothic Central). Their bones are clothed in lush foliage, incest, madness, torture and incantations. Pursuant to some vague female version of the entail, one woman in each generation inherits…
Continue Reading →Learning Ancient Greek – in Belfast and Adelaide
In pre-Covid days I idly browsed the magnificent sites for ancient language holiday courses at ivy-dressed, stone-built universities intending – one day – to enrol in a fortnight of glamorous intellectual slavery at Cornell or Oxford. I would work as hard as Dicaeopolis, slaving over my participles into the night, my Liddell and Scott illuminated by candles for some reason. I’d return to my usual term-time classes at the WEA in February, all shiny and brilliant from my overseas deep dive. One day…one day…And then of course, someone ate a bat. So overseas or even interstate intensives (there are some…
Continue Reading →Parody # 2 “From Blank to Blank (For He Who Forgets Who Is In Charge of Hotel Quarantine)”
(with apologies to Emily Dickinson, “From Blank to Blank” From Blank to Blank – A Threadless Way I push mechanic words – To stop – or smother – or confuse – The skeptics and the turds – If votes I gain If jail avoid Indefinite disclosed – I shut my eyes – with fingers crossed That all but I – am Blind –
Continue Reading →Thorngrove Manor
(January, 2021) Sometimes in this crazy epoch, you feel like heading for the hills. Fortunately, if you live in or come to Adelaide, the hills are 10 minutes away. And you don’t have to sequester yourself in some hut like Ted Kaczynski’s cabin: instead, take the M1 Freeway from town to Thorngrove, between Stirling/Aldgate and Mt. Lofty and the townlet of Crafers. The Manor is a Gothic Revival dream – a kind of Strawberry Hill – but with its own bespoke design features that make guests feel they are King and Queen of the castle. The angels are in the…
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