January 22


Amber pages



Las Malvinas (also known as the Falkland Islands), ceded to Britain, by Spain, today in 1771. "Ceded" is an interesting word. Was Gibraltar "ceded" in similar manner, or differently? Was Florida "ceded" to the Americans (and should that read: was the land of the Seminole ceded to the Spanish)?


George, later Lord Byron, born, today in 1788 - my biography of him, "A Small Drop of Ink",  written in a mixture of heroic couplets and ottava rima, is due for publication very soon. Byron is ubiquitous in this blog: 
see Feb23 for my Keats piece from "Drop of Ink"; August 13 for Trelawny; April 19 for his death; May 3 for him swimming the Hellespont; Feb 1 for Mary Shelley; Dec 20 for his maiden speech; June 5 for daughter Ada Lovelace...


August Strindberg, father of Swedish theatre, born today in 1849 - what really interests me is the 10-year-long war between himself and that other great Scandinavian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, which is why I am leaving this paragraph in soft Amber: I will return to it, I promise.


John Hurt, actor and gay rights role-model, born today in 1940. I want to comment on Hurt because twice I twice watched a movie that he was starring in, and both gave me an understanding of the human world far deeper than any I had had before. The first was his portrayal of Quentin Crisp, the second of Joseph Carey Merrick ("the Elephant Man") - the gay world and the world of physical disability, rendered in a form of which Stanislavski would undoubtedly have approved.

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