I found myself standing in a graveyard in South Carolina. It was an old burial ground by North American standards, and when these people were interred they were among the very few ethnic Europeans on Hilton Head Island. I imagine you’re thinking of Hilton Head, if you’ve heard of it at all, as a golfer’s … Continue reading Tale of Two Islands
Inspiration
Small Bird, Big Sky
I just watched a scene from one of my favorite movies. Again. I must have run this movie a dozen times over the last few months. I’m not going to tell you what the movie was because it’s not an objectively great film, and you probably wouldn’t know it anyway. We all have films that … Continue reading Small Bird, Big Sky
Pepper’s Ghost
Around 1862, John Henry Pepper devised a new theatre lighting technique involving a large angled sheet of glass and figures moving around below stage level. The trick made it appear that actors on the stage were translucent phantasms who could walk through walls and furniture with ease. The technique made possible plays with impressively transparent ghosts. … Continue reading Pepper’s Ghost
Route 66 Revisited
I drew a cartoon once: There’s a lovely maiden sitting under a tree and a young swain is kneeling beside her with his hand on his heart. The girl says, “So you can write poetry. You’re still a Goddamed shepherd.” I’d been reading pastoral poems with their delicate idylls of love and simplicity, but I … Continue reading Route 66 Revisited
Of Lakes and Seas
I could use your help here. I’ve lost a poem. I know what it’s about: a man determined never to return to the sea, who nevertheless can’t forget the love he feels for the vast reaches of the salt ocean. I’ve tried searching the net for the only line I remember from the poem, and … Continue reading Of Lakes and Seas
“Richard! Richard!” (Jane Seymour in Somewhere in Time)
Influencer—that’s a word that shows up a lot now. Images that drift by us on movie screens or crowd out at us on social media. People we look up to or envy. The truth is we make up our lives as we go along; we didn’t come with an instruction book or a style guide. … Continue reading “Richard! Richard!” (Jane Seymour in Somewhere in Time)
Douglas Cockell 