Quotation of the day

"It must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature."
- Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p.158.

Yes yes, I know, I should be reading Barthes. I just came online to check the library opening hours, I'm going to borrow the video of Billy Budd and watch it at G's this evening, do a bit more pondering on Britten opera. Really it should be The Turn of the Screw, that's the one I'm working on, but I can't face watching it only two days after the first time, especially since I watched The Innocents the same evening (and really must make notes on both). I need a break from watching possessed children and peculiar ghosts who come with their own personal dry ice machine and irritating housekeepers and ludicrously phallic towers.

Hopefully the homoeroticism in BB will be subtle enough not to alarm his parents if they wander in. The other week I wanted to watch Maurice for my Forster essay, but as that presumably contains scenes with James Wilby in bed with Rupert Graves, and the television with the video is in the kitchen, G said he didn't want to risk it, his parents would have a canary fit. So then I ring up asking if I can bring round an opera about paedophilia...BB is probably (marginally) safer. It's ragingly gay but the whole point is that it's repressed, if Claggart was shagging Billy then he wouldn't be wandering around singing about the strange attraction/repulsion he feels, he'd be, well, shagging Billy; probably having a pretty twisted relationship to boot, and no doubt they'd still end up killing each other. The singer playing Billy doesn't look at cute as the one in my recording, but at least it has Philip Langridge as Captain Vere. Whom I value for his voice, I hasten to add, he's truly ideal for Britten. Two bars of his Quint could get me into bed any time; he looks like a Grimes in the pictures I've seen, which ain't a compliment.

Quotation of the day

"It must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature."
- Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p.158.

Yes yes, I know, I should be reading Barthes. I just came online to check the library opening hours, I'm going to borrow the video of Billy Budd and watch it at G's this evening, do a bit more pondering on Britten opera. Really it should be The Turn of the Screw, that's the one I'm working on, but I can't face watching it only two days after the first time, especially since I watched The Innocents the same evening (and really must make notes on both). I need a break from watching possessed children and peculiar ghosts who come with their own personal dry ice machine and irritating housekeepers and ludicrously phallic towers.

Hopefully the homoeroticism in BB will be subtle enough not to alarm his parents if they wander in. The other week I wanted to watch Maurice for my Forster essay, but as that presumably contains scenes with James Wilby in bed with Rupert Graves, and the television with the video is in the kitchen, G said he didn't want to risk it, his parents would have a canary fit. So then I ring up asking if I can bring round an opera about paedophilia...BB is probably (marginally) safer. It's ragingly gay but the whole point is that it's repressed, if Claggart was shagging Billy then he wouldn't be wandering around singing about the strange attraction/repulsion he feels, he'd be, well, shagging Billy; probably having a pretty twisted relationship to boot, and no doubt they'd still end up killing each other. The singer playing Billy doesn't look at cute as the one in my recording, but at least it has Philip Langridge as Captain Vere. Whom I value for his voice, I hasten to add, he's truly ideal for Britten. Two bars of his Quint could get me into bed any time; he looks like a Grimes in the pictures I've seen, which ain't a compliment.