Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
The Green Ray (Rohmer)
I was born on Groundhog Day 1961. I’m from Wales – just click on the blue!- the magical land of Merlin. I’m a fan of Mizoguchi, Fred Astaire, Jean Renoir, Andrei Tarkovsky, Eric Rohmer, Satyajit Ray. Music: Amalia Rodrigues, Elton John, Sibelius, Anouar Brahem. Art: Vermeer, Hiroshige, Turner, Titian, Gwen John, Kyffin Williams. I am proud of my Welsh Art Gallery list here. I love North Portugal, where i have felt both at home and in a wonderful adventure told by the beautiful Scheherazade. Portugal, Land of my Dreams. I like walking with my 2 beloved dogs Bryn and Kiki (Bryn’s a great singer) and running with them on beaches. Woof woof. Rivers, green meadows, wildlife, sun-dappled glades, canal boat holidays,Sports, hot air balloons
I have had an addiction, in only partial remission, to making lists here, e.g Kenji’s Japanese Canon, The Kenji Awards, The Auteurs World Cup Films, The Welsh Connection, My 101 Favourite Films, 19th Century Britain, Hidden Treasures, The Labyrinth, A Library of Film Books, Essential French Films, Favourite Indian Films, Essential Films by Women, Tumbleweed and Tomahawks, A Rosefinch Sang:The Czechoslovakian New Wave, Let there be Light:The Birth of Films, The Caucasus, Kenji’s Canon, Canada: A Collection of Contraband Curiosities, Spain:Mystery, Passion, Life, Mubi Short Films poll, Under the Spell of Shahrzad in the Realms of Silk and Spice, Shadowy Whispers:The Wonderful World of the Brothers Quay, 365 Directors, Pastel Films, The Nicest Man in Britain
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Puttin on the Ritz (Blue Skies)
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I love your daring hang glides over meadows and ravines,
I love your scrummy puddings and the way you stir the beans.
I love the Cleopatran contours of your eyebrows when you frown,
I love the smile that lights your face outside the shops in town.
I love the way you snuggle furry bunnies to your chest,
I love your flair for reading maps that turns the East to West.
I love the riffling breezes that flow up your summer dress,
I love your feisty frissons when the room’s left in a mess.
I love your dainty frolics on a wet and cobbled street,
I love it when your nipples and the autumn moonlight meet.
I love your warm compassion and Scheherazadean eyes,
But most of all i love to run my fingers up your thighs.
(Kenji)
—
Leonor Silveira in Abraham Valley (Oliveira)
My favourite films: Sansho the Bailiff, The Green Ray, Mirror, Alice in the Cities, Andrei Rublev, Abraham Valley, Maborosi, North by Northwest, Buud Yam, Sunrise, Rules of the Game, Celine and Julie go Boating, The Band Wagon, Paris Texas, Pather Panchali, Some Like it Hot, Vertigo, Seven Samurai, Spirit of the Beehive, Mulholland Dr, Hiroshima mon Amour, Casablanca, Tale of Tales, Eternity and a Day, L’Avventura, Casque d’Or, Hugo, Pierrot le Fou, Late Spring, The Colour of Pomegranates, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Singin in the Rain, A Day in the Country, L’Atalante, Night of the Hunter, Tales of the Taira Clan, My Childhood (Douglas), Berta’s Motives, The Life of Oharu, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 8 1/2, Children of Paradise, Claire’s Knee, Story of the Late Chrysanthemums, Sewer, Top Hat, Comrades, Gamperaliya, The Name of a River, Street of Crocodiles, Priest of Darkness..
My favourite books: The Wind in the Willows (Grahame), Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez), The Little Prince (St Exupéry), The Wind up Bird Chronicle (Murakami), Tom Jones (Fielding), House of the Spirits (Allende), My Uncle Napoleon (Iraj Pezeshkzad), Nature Diary (Opal Whiteley), Zen Mind, Begiiner’s Mind (Suzuki), Pillow Book (Sei Shonagon), Jacques le Fataliste (Diderot), I am a Cat (Soseki), Manon Lescaut (Prévost), Snow Country (Kawabata), Madame Bovary (Flaubert), Macbeth (Shakespeare), Street of Crocodiles (Schulz), The Garden of Forking Paths- short (Borges), Evening Clouds (Shono), Cutting it Short (Hrabal), The Rings of Saturn (Sebald), Life of Pi (Martel), Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), Master and Margarita (Bulgakov), Jude the Obscure (Hardy), The Hungry Tide (Ghosh), Tristram Shandy (Sterne), Tales (Miyazawa), 1984 (Orwell), Treasure Island (Stevenson), Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky), Flickers (Adair), Alice in Wonderland (Carroll), Slaughterhouse 5 (Vonnegut), Phedre (Racine)
Welsh Puffins
Poems: somewhere i have never travelled (e e cummings), The Lady of Shalott (Tennyson), The Destruction of Sennacherib (Byron), Fern Hill (Dylan Thomas), At Anchor in the Evening by the Maple Bridge (Chang Chi), Home Thoughts from Abroad (Browning), Nicholas Nye (De la Mare), The Unfaithful Wife (Lorca), Poem in October (Dylan Thomas), The Frost at Midnight (Coleridge), This is the Creature (Rilke), Ode to a Nightingale (Keats), Being on Duty all Night (Po Chu-i), In Memoriam (Tennyson), Strange Meeting (Owen), The Lemon Trees (Montale), Ballad of the Civil Guard (Lorca), The Old Ships (Flecker), Old Pond (Basho), The Seagull (Dafydd ap Gwilym), Dream (Polydouri), I Speak of the City (Paz),The Garden of Five Trees (Espriu), The Woodland Mass (Dafydd ap Gwilym), I do not know if the sun.. (Mekas), A Marriage (R S Thomas), Le Dormeur du Val (Rimbaud), The Mill Pond (Edward Thomas), Railway Children (Heaney), I’m Explaining a Few Things (Neruda), The Visitant (Roethke)
Old pond
Frog jumps in
Sound of water
Kenji’s Poetry Anthology- Part 1, Kenji’s Poetry Anthology- Part 2, Kenji’s Poetry Anthology- Part 3, Kenji’s Poetry Anthology- Part 4, Kenji’s Poetry Anthology- Part 5, Kenji’s Poetry Anthology- Part 6, Kenji’s Poetry Anthology- Part 7, Kenji’s Poetry Anthology- Part 8, Kenji’s Poetry Anthology- Part 9
Hiroshige: Mokubo Temple and Vegetable Fields by the Uchi River, from 100 Famous Views of Edo
Paintings: Rest on the Flight into Egypt (David),100 Famous Views of Edo (Hiroshige), Hunters in the Snow (Brueghel), Ginevra de Benci (Leonardo da Vinci), Whistlejacket (Stubbs), Girl with a Pearl Earring (Vermeer), The Fighting Temeraire (Turner), Las Meninas (Velasquez), Solitary Temple amid Clearing Peaks (Li Cheng), Ranuccio Farnese (Titian), Venus of Urbino (Titian), Descent from the Cross (Van der Weyden), Norham Castle, Sunrise (Turner), The Jewish Bride (Rembrandt), New Year Sunrise (Choki), The Birth of Venus (Botticelli), Woman with a Balance (Vermeer), The Dream of St Ursula (Carpaccio), Nude (Walters), The Swing (Fragonard), Bacchus and Ariadne (Titian), A Wall in Naples (Thomas Jones), The Precious Book (Gwen John), Tiger in a Storm (Rousseau), Farmer at Pont Llyfni (Kyffin Williams), Early Spring (Guo Xi), Adoration of the Child (Barocci), Landscape Inspired by the Landscape of the Locality (Ernest Zobole), Staffa, Fingal’s Cave (Turner), Cherry Blossoms in the Moon (Hagashiyama), Villa of Livia Frescoes (anon), Starry Night (Van Gogh), Ville d’Avray (Corot), Early Summer (Higashiyama). Procession of the Magi (Gozzoli), Adoration of the Shepherds (Giorgione), Madonna of the Meadow (Bellini), Fall of Phaeton (Rubens), Bougival, 1876 (Sisley), 36 Views of Fuji (Hokusai), Krishna Lifts Mount Govardhan (Ustad Sahibdin), Carmencita Playing (Lopez Garcia), The Temptation of St Antony (Bosch), The Gust of Wind (Renoir), Wat Phra Kaew murals (various), Mont St Victoire, 1886 (Cézanne), The Death of Sardanapalus (Delacroix), Nympheas- Orangerie (Monet), Jacob Blessing the Children of Joseph (Rembrandt), Supper at Emmaus (Caravaggio), Glass of Water and Coffee Pot (Chardin), The Great Gate of Kiev (Kandinsky), Lovers (Utamaro), Virgin and Unicorn (Domenchino), The Family (Rego), Arenig (Innes) …many on the list Kenji’s Gallery of Great Paintings, Kenji’s Japanese Art Gallery, Kenji’s Welsh Art Gallery, Paintings by Women, Kenji’s Gallery of British Paintings, Kenji’s Gallery of Indian Paintings, Paintings of Spain and Portugal, Latin American Paintings in the Lists section
Music: The Art of Amalia (Amalia Rodrigues), Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Elton John), Violin Concerto (Sibelius), Le Pas du Chat Noir (Anouar Brahem), Holy Bible (Manic Street Preachers), Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen), 2nd Symphony (Sibelius), Aman Iman (Tinariwen), Vltava (Smetana), 6th Symphony (Beethoven), 3rd Piano Concerto (Rachmaninov), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John), Savane (Ali Farka Toure), Tumbleweed Connection (Elton John), My Way: The Best of..(Frank Sinatra), OK Computer (Radiohead), 7th Symphony (Beethoven), La Boheme (Puccini), The Astounding Eyes of Rita (Anouar Brahem), Time Out (Dave Brubeck Quartet), Fleet Foxes (Fleet Foxes), Elephant (White Stripes), The Protecting Veil (John Tavener), Com que Voz (Amalia Rodrigues), The Union (Elton John & Leon Russell), The Queen is Dead (The Smiths), Chavela Vargas (Chavela Vargas), Verdi and Tchaikovsky arias (Dmitri Hvorostovsky), Honky Chateau (Elton John), Clarinet Concerto (Mozart), Songs for Swinging Lovers (Frank Sinatra), Infected (The The), The Healer (John Lee Hooker), La Traviata (Verdi), Concerto for Orchestra (Bartok), Charles Mingus (Mingus Ah Um), Journal for Plague Lovers (Manic Street Preachers), Piano Concerto (Ravel)
TV: Around the World in 80 Days, Life on Earth/The Living Planet, Black Adder 3, The World at War, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Pride and Prejudice, Columbo, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Cheers, Time Team, Have I Got News for You, Antiques Roadshow, Morecambe and Wise, Q.I, Porridge, The Power of Nightmares, Monty Don’s Italian Gardens, Boys from the Blackstuff
Photography: Eugene Atget, Ara Guler, Pentti Sammallahti, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Moriyama Daido, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Sergei Prokudin-Gorky, Ragnar Axelsson, Garry Winogrand, Edward Steichen, John Bulmer, Don McCullin, Robert Doisneau, Martin Chambi, Seydou Keita, Philip Jones-Griffiths, Samer Mohdad, Raghu Rai, Tom Wood, Larry Louie:
