Presents Galore Christmas Fair-2024 (En: photos and a video)

 And a few misc pictures and a video from the event featured in the previous post:

Presents Galore Christmas Fair-2024 (En)

And here we go again—visiting Presents Galore Christmas Fair at one of the Racecourse venues in neighbouring Newmarket (I still find it oddly fascinating that Newmarket is already in Suffolk, although the actual time getting there by train is basically the same as going to Ely).

Unlike last year with its chilly and crisp sunny weather (a rarity: we live without the Golden Orb most of the year), this time our walk went through Jamesian landscapes—empty fields (the horses had a day off, as we figured out), misty horizon and the greyish silhouettes of a few trees.

On the contrary, the Fair was as joyous and lush as it was the last time: frankly, we were lost among ceramic gingerbread houses, Nutcrackers, quilted goods for Agas, Barbour gloves and scarves, incredibly beautiful equestrian leather accessories (tell me you are in a prosperous middle class place without telling me etc) and so on, and so forth.

The aroma of freshly made mulled wine and potpourris made from oranges, cloves, cinnamon sticks and you name it was everywhere: at the end of the day we ourselves brought home the scent of the upcoming festivities, which is nice.

This is one of the darkest days in modern British history.

Assisted dying bill was approved by the UK Parliament: all hail Canada. All doors for coercion have been widely open (see Canadian MAID). All kind of sacrifices are not enough for “our precious NHS.” And that laughter in the Chamber afterwards: they simply couldn’t help themselves.

В др Блока не хочется писать вообще ничего поверхностно-«культурного» (в мессенджере фейсбучная френдесса прислала ссылку-напоминание о дате, а то я бы, наверное, так и пропустила) —покойник к концу жизни от пафоса устало отмахивался. Вспомнился темный остроугольный Петербург, моя первая научная командировка и наши с Саней настоящие блоковские хожения по Невскому. Лучшего оммажа поэту и представить себе нельзя.

Из хорошего: много читала сегодня. Подписалась на сабстак Хелен Плакроуз (той самой, которая приняла участие в нашумевших пародийных Grievance  Studies с Богосяном и Линдси) — умное, отстраненное, немного шизоидное и герметичное спокойное чтение о культурных войнах (остроактуальное для меня в силу многих причин). Продолжу завтра.

Лингвистическое-неожиданное

Как выяснилось, в английском есть своя версия борьбы бордюра с поребриком — kerb (British En) vs curb (American En). Упреждая вопросы: да, не знала, да, даже после 12 лет в стране. Век живи.

Nothings and triviality vs losses and findings

And just like that, I lost one of my favourite earrings. I was out and about, so there’s no way I would be able to find it. So bloody stupid and sad.

On a brighter note, I was going home and there was that one young gay man (somewhat flamboyant, I dare say) who was running and talking on his phone, and I gave him some space on the narrow Cambridge street, and he quickly responded, “Aw, thank you, Queenie,” and, basically I will be her until the end of this day, I guess.

“Gothic Crossroads” (Манчестер, 25-27 июля 2025 г.)

Я немного застряла, и пора встряхиваться. В Манчестере следующим летом ( в июне) будет конференция по готике с хорошим названием Gothic Crossroads (спасибо твиттеру: там больше научной инфы), и я думаю податься. И тем много, и выбрать есть из чего.

“How a Scientific Dispute Spiralled Into a Defamation Lawsuit” (The New Yorker, September Issue)

Yeah, sure: “I was framed. Also, my colleagues’ dog ate my homework and all my research papers altogether.” She seems insufferable. (A shame I overlooked this article two months ago).

Her most robust explanation for the malfeasance is that she may have been set up by a conspiracy of former research assistants, resentful co-authors, and Data Colada. Eight pages of the report are devoted to this “malicious actor” theory. Any such party would have required access to both her Qualtrics account and her hard drive [Are you fucking kidding me—E.T.]. The same party, or perhaps an additional one, would also have needed access to either the personal computer of a former research assistant or to the research assistant herself, who long ago left academia. In the latter case, the report continues, “they would have needed the ability to convince [the research assistant] to collude with them in falsifying data, and the ability to either instruct her in how to falsify the data or obtain the data from her, falsify it, and then return it to her before she forwarded it to us in May 2022 (accomplishing all of this in the relatively short timeframe—one week—between our request for [the research assistant’s] records from this study and her submission of those records).” It further notes that this would have required not just “great expertise” but the kind of perfect timing found only in “Ocean’s Eleven.” Gino’s insistence that she was framed, the report concludes with some bitterness, “leads us to doubt the credibility of her written and oral statements to this Committee more generally.” ©

*Watching the trailer to a new reality show, Meet The Rees Moggs, on Discovery +*

He’s that type of person who will be very polite with you, simultaneously mistaking you for a freshly painted wall, because you don’t exist as a human in his universe and his courtesy is just a body reflex developed as a response to compulsory contacts with servants and occasional hoi polloi. The kids are cute though.

“Ripley” (Netflix, 2024)

Наткнулась тут на рецензию, озаглавленную «Почему “Рипли” не стал шедевром»: старомодная заносчивость заголовка (кинокритик на платформе, к которой «припадают» и проч.: дела давно минувших дней) заставила вспомнить цитату из почти что забытого, а когда-то сверхактуального Бурдье — «нет такого вопроса, который не был бы переистолкован в зависимости от интересов тех, кому он задается».

Интерес, в общем, и у критика вполне понятный — скрупулезно перечислить все цитаты, явные и скрытые (подростки и молодящаяся публика называют их теперь пасхалками), все сценические приемы, все режиссерские идеи, чтобы закольцевать рецензию, сдержанно похвалив «многоуровневость», которая, увы, не избежала некоторых «но» и «однако»: критик всегда знает (или предполагает, что знает), как лучше.

Из главной на сегодня триады адаптаций самого известного романа Хайсмит эта показалась мне самой лучшей: она ощущается ближе к тексту, чем две предыдущие — да, полные солнца и обворожительной красоты главных героев (Делон, Роне, Лафоре, а потом Деймон, Лоу и Пэлтроу — слишком безупречные, как будто сошедшие с обложек «Нью-Йоркера» или всех доинтернетных каталогов тяжелого неброского люкса вместе взятых), но схематичные, но слишком предсказуемые и обусловленные эстетикой и психотехникой нуара.

Ну а празднование дня философии хотелось бы завершить цитатой, которая, в общем, пропедевтически-идеально описывает и целеустремленность, и целеполагание:

- Берите подушку. Еще что? Да... Постойте, бывают с вами, Шатов, минуты вечной гармонии?

- Знаете, Кириллов, вам нельзя больше не спать по ночам. (с)

Так пусть следствием нашей бессоницы станет монадология, логико-философский трактат, разговор на проселочной дороге, пир и проч.; остальное детали. Главное — не впадать в продолжительное уныние и двигаться — все равно куда, но брести, желательно не слишком часто прерываясь на остановки.

Pale, beyond porch and portal,

Crowned with calm leaves, she stands

Who gathers all things mortal

With cold immortal hands ©

A new book from the BL Weird subscription, and look at it! A mystery novel by the one and only Marjorie Bowen, a female writer about the Supernatural from the Edwardian era, with an intro written by the legendary Michael Dirda!

Just to remind you: the best ever publisher Hippocampus Press released two books by Marjorie Bowen, “The Grey Chamber,” a collection of stories and essays from a female classic of Supernatural, and a horror novel, “The Devil Snar’d: Novels, Appreciations, and Appendices.” You can buy them on the HP website!

Also, the great Bitesized narration of Bowen’s classical ghost story, The Crown Derby Plate: enjoy!

In connection with this, I was reminded of an old Soviet anecdote.

An old Russian aristocrat, who is a granddaughter of a Decembrist*, is hearing a big fuss outside and sends her maid to find out what’s going on. The maid comes back and exclaims with excitement:

“The revolution has begun, Madam!”

“The revolution!” joyously replies the lady, “how absolutely delightful! My sweet Grandpa was also a revolutionary! What do they want exactly?”

“They want no rich, Madam,” the maid says.

“Oh,” the lady responds hesitantly, “How very weird... My Grandpa wanted no poor...”

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* The Decembrist Revolt was a failed coup d’état led by liberal military and political dissidents against the Russian Empire in 1825 (Wiki)

I adore VBP* for being both intentionally and unintentionally funny, but jokes aside, the festive season in Cambridge almost always looks mildly atrocious.

Yes, the tree will be lit up in the evening, and you will spot the same dull decor on Rose Crescent and around the centre, yet it never manages to reach the point where the city feels joyful.

After a few mighty American corporations arrived to Cambs, the city (but, apparently, not the City Council, lol) got a bit of money to splurge on, hence a bit of sparkle around the Railway Station, but other than that, it’s not great (see Norwich by comparison and you’ll understand what I mean). Oh, and don’t listen to those who tell you that “Cambridge has always been minimalistic.” Nah, it ain’t that: just a usual lazy mess. AND the city is VERY dark in the evening.

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* The VBP guy posted a pic with a miserably looking Christmas Tree on Market Square

“The best spooky tales to read this season” by Michael Dirda (WP)

Believe it or not, but I saved the link shared by the best ever publisher Hippocampus Press a while ago (before Hallowe’en, I believe!), got distracted by something fairly mundane and completely forgot to post it in time! But better later than never, so here we go: a brilliant (as usual) analysis of a bunch of horror editions, old and new, by Michael Dirda, including the most recent releases by fantastic Hippocampus Press, “The Voice in the Night: Best Weird Stories of William Hope Hodgson” and “Where the Silent Ones Watch”:

Though best known for its authoritative editions of Lovecraft, Hippocampus Press also issues work by other grandmasters of supernatural literature, most recently “The Voice in the Night: Best Weird Stories of William Hope Hodgson,” edited by S.T. Joshi. No one who has read this collection’s title story — I first encountered it in a high school English textbook — ever forgets “The Voice in the Night.” On a starless night in the Pacific, a becalmed sailing ship is unexpectedly hailed by a voice from the darkness. The unseen man in a small boat begs for some food but refuses to approach too closely. Eventually, the voice recounts how he and his fiancée were shipwrecked and saved from death only when their raft drifted to a nearby island, much of it covered by a “gray, lichenous fungus.” It would be unfair to say more, except that this is a tale of equal parts horror and pathos.

LP 6: call for papers is open!

Cfp - done; the respective timeline for publications - done; the first feedback from the authors - check. That was a great but a loooong day!

The season is officially open: first mulled wine and mince pies (Marks & Engels have outdone themselves this year: their mince pies with caramelised brown sugar are incredible!)

С.А. Светличная (1940 - 2024)

Умерла Светлана Светличная.

Кто-то сразу вспомнит советскую фам фаталь «под Ким Новак» Анну Сергеевну с гэгами из «Бриллиантовой руки», а позже ее появление в бесчисленных ток-шоу на гиньоль-тв — полубезумное, неуместное и несчастливое (шум и блестки не прощают старости и болезней), — но лучше все же не забывать, кем она по-настоящему была — актрисой из того, старого поколения, ушедшего теперь уже безвозвратно.

Ее лучшая роль для меня — молчаливой девушки из одновременно неореалистического и годаровского ноктюрна Михаила Калика «Любить»: киноволшебство, в котором отчуждение и тоска сняты так, что слова в их изображении были и правда излишни.

Светлая ей память и Царствие Небесное.

"Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" by Nunkie Theatre: soon in Cambridge!

As this December marks the 120th anniversary of the publication of M R James’s “Ghost Stories of an Antiquary,” brilliant Robert Lloyd Parry aka Nunkie Theatre will perform all eight stories from the collection over two nights in Cambridge, Friday 20 and Saturday 21! 

I was lucky enough to grab two tickets, and, as a result, L. an I are going on December 20, and I simply cannot wait!

“In the fray: How to teach contemporary literature” by Tim Parks (TLS)

In other words, history will decide on its own accord, which has nothing to do with your best effort to give a full picture of the current literary process (mainstream and not):

Certainly, there are endless books being written. Worldwide, more than 100,000 novels are published in English each year. Even the prize-winners run into scores. So the first challenge is which authors to teach – the celebrities, those who sold most? – and the second what to say about them. “Here, if we could recognize it”, wrote Virginia Woolf. contemplating new titles in a bookshop, “lies some poem, or novel, or history which will stand up and speak with other ages about our age when we lie prone and silent…”. But it was “oddly difficult”, she continued, to say “which are the real books and what it is that they are telling us, and which are the stuffed books which will come to pieces when they have lain about for a year or two”.

So, if we teach contemporary literature, we must do so with the sobering awareness that we may well be teaching also-rans. Any number of authors as celebrated in their day as Salman Rushdie or Zadie Smith are today have long been forgotten. Who was reputed “the most published man of the nineteenth century” and “the most popular writer of his time”? Not Dickens, but G. M. W. Reynolds. Hardly a household name. ©

New Susanne Clarke’s book is here: it’s a short story set in the same universe as Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

Who said that November had to be grey all along?

A bit more King’s Lynn (photos)

King’s Lynn’s tutti quanti: gargoyles, tilted Tudor houses, Gothic churches in dusk etc.

Лента Твиттера внезапно перенастроилась и предлагает мне выбрать депутатов в румынский Парламент. Я не то, чтобы против (всецело за), но пока в кандидатах не будет Влада Цепеша и ребят Dragostea Din Tei*, я свой бюллетень приберегу.

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* Они то ли молдаване, то ли румыны, но в контексте я бы проголосовала все равно

“Emma” (2020)

Надысь решила посмотреть снятую в 2020 году экранизацию Эммы с Аней Тейлор-Джой (аккурат шла по ВВС2). Помнится, я планировала поглядеть ее еще во время оно то ли на Амазоне Прайм, то ли на Нетфликсе, но все откладывала, пока ее (экранизацию) оттуда не убрали и правильно сделали.

Ну и вот. Значит, пролог, Эмма-Аня, тонкая-звонкая с лебединой шеей в муслиновом платьице ампир остановилась такая у каминной полки в гостиной*, — короче, стоит она, а потом внезапно поднимает воздушную юбку и лениво чешет жопу.

На этом мы с экранизацией распрощались, я закрыла вкладку с ВВС2 и пошла в твиттер лайкать мемы: всяко душеполезнее.

Тэги: метамодерн, который мы заслужили, ямщик, разверни лошадей, Захар, подай еще клюквенного морса

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*обставленной почти по всем канонам эпохи Регентства, исключая, пожалуй, лишь некоторую сумбурную яркость (художники по костюмам давились, поедая свои сконы с кремом и джемом)

While giving a talk in Ely two days ago, Edward Parnell mentioned a staggering number of the folk horror stories that have been heavily popularised by cinema in the recent years (Starve Acre and such), and I couldn’t agree more: whether it’s an acute interest in Paganism of re-evaluation and customisation of the traditional plots connected to folk myths and legends, it is quite obvious that the rural Unheimlich is a hot topic right now.

In Starve Acre, his third novel, published in 2019, Juliette and Richard live in a moorland farmhouse and are grieving over the death of their young son. Juliette seeks comfort with a group of occultists because what harm ever came from that? A film version, starring Morfydd Clark and Matt Smith, was released in cinemas in July in the US and September in the UK. Its director, Daniel Kokotajlo, used a variety of techniques to make the film look as though it had actually been made in the 1970s like the Kneale plays that both he and Hurley admire. "We spent a long time working on how to capture that feeling," he tells the BBC. "We watched a lot of old horror films and weird British TV. Part of it was down to the lighting and I also found some amazing old 1970s lenses that created a little bit of distortion on the image that looked fantastic." He sees Hurley as the contemporary heir to authors such as famed Victorian ghost story writer MR James. ©

“Eerie East Anglia” with E. Parnell & D. Johnson (En)

I was incredibly lucky yesterday to attend the talk “Eerie East Anglia” with Edward Parnell (many of you know him as the author of a great book-travelogue, “Ghostland,” which I highly recommend to everyone who’s interested in East Anglian history and Gothic folklore) and Daisy Johnson, a novelist who was the youngest nominee in the Booker Prize’s history* : Daisy writes about Fenland extensively**. The event was organised at St. Peter’s Church, which, surprisingly, I’ve never visited before despite going to Ely quite regularly.

The talk—or rather a dialogue between two writers whose love for Fenland and its murkiness, reflected in the works of so many authors, from M.R. James to Robert Aickman***, couldn’t be underestimated—was a true gift for all the Ghostlore, Gothic, Jamesian aficionados, as it was sincerely passionate and full of everlasting admiration and light-hearted humour. It was followed by Q&As, and I felt a bit sad when it was over (the most wonderful things always have the tendency to end way too soon).

“And because they are sick and tired of the luxury apocalypticism of a bored bourgeoisie that obsesses over ‘the end of the world’ while they worry about ‘the end of the week’.” ©

 Ахуеть! 

My impression from socials right now: an overcrowded railway station where all the trains are delayed or cancelled and there’re no announcements, hence the folks are frustrated and agitated. And mind you, shit hasn’t hit the fan yet.

Nothings and triviality

Друзья: постят фотки первого снега

Я: брожу босиком по саду безо всякой надежды на зиму

Сколько лет прошло, а все равно каждый раз тоска по холоду как будто впервые.

A few days ago I was told that my English is barely comprehensible with all the wrong stresses etc. As much as I appreciate reasonable criticism (lol, no, no I don’t), one thing is quite intriguing: despite my apparently broken English I suddenly developed an incomprehensible love for cream teas with—you guess it—tea! And that’s me, a profound coffee drinker since the age of 12. So, as you see, some things can happen at the same time.

King’s Lynn: after a long break (En)

Suddenly found ourselves in the ancient Hanseatic port in West Norfolk after more than a 10-year break. 

I’ve been eager to find this book for quite a while, and finally got lucky fetching it on eBay for a very reasonable price (even with shipping costs included). It’s the very first Arkham House edition in my collection, and because my knowledge of Frank Belknap Long is still quite limited, I’m very interested in his HPL bio.

Not yesterday I learned to know

The love of bare November days

Before the coming of the snow,

But it were vain to tell he so,

And they are better for her praise. ©