words, sentences, and films
There are some words that spring out at you when you’re reading, listening to the radio, or watching TV.
The other day I heard the adjective, mendacious, being using in the promotion of a play running in Dublin at the moment. What a meaty word. It comes from the noun mendacity, which is: 1 the tendency to be untruthful, or 2 a falsehood.
I think it’s a healthy sign of a culture that uses a word like mendacious in its radio adverts.
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I bought the horror anthology, Gathering the Bones, the other day. Partly because it has a story in it by Kim Newman–no surprise since I’ve maintained his web site since 1996–and also because I enjoy reading short stories by masters of the craft.
Kim’s story, “Intervention”, is decidedly creepy. What scares the reader is the reality of his subject matter. There are no otherworldly monsters in “Intervention”, because Kim knows that our everyday world offers many situations that are far more frightening than a hand snaking out from under the bed.
Reading “Intervention” I had another moment when a sentence stood out, as if highlighted in red:
It was like trying to pick up a paperclip with mittened fingers.
I’ve no idea why that image struck me as being so evocative, but in that moment I could imagine my fingers, in mittens, trying to pick up a paperclip, and I understand precisely what Kim was trying to convey.
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As you can see I’ve added a list of blogs and links that cover the subject of film and its industry. Most of them are interesting, amusing, or informative.
On the film front I’ve bought tickets for next week’s Galway Film Fleadh. I’m looking forward to feasting on movies from around the world. I enjoy going to festivals because you see movies that are difficult to find in the cinema–especially in Galway. The city is not exactly a hot-bed of indy films, though that should change if the proposed arthouse cinema goes through.
I heard today that my weekend pass to the FrightFest Film Festival has been secured, and I’m excited, as always, about spending a weekend in London glutting on horror flicks. This will be my third FrightFest, and I expect I will enjoy it as always. It will also be my last holiday before I settle into the MA programme–it starts six days after I return from London.
So, plenty to anticipate in the coming months.
