Today is the feast of St John the Baptist, one of only three days in the Catholic calendar given over to celebrating the birth of someone. It also marks the occasion of the national day in Quebec. St John the Baptist, the last prophet, bridged the Old and New Testaments with his preaching of the coming of Christ, and the full immersion in the river Jordan. I last night saw Prometheus, a well-made, often terrifying, and sometimes thoughtful, prequel to Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, with enough theology and myth in its subtext to raise Joseph Campbell from the dead. I note the grim humour in the naming of the infertile Christian heroine, Elizabeth, who is subject to an unwanted and horrific precursor pregnancy. Of course, the Baptist's mother's name was Elizabeth and she too was barren, until God made her pregnant. In the inverted, fallen world of the film, where men and robots play god to the destruction of many, the tentacular ur- creature that emerges from Elizabeth's union with the alien seed prefigures the final monstrous birth that arises at the end. There are intriguing unanswered questions about creation and replication - and what it means to be a maker and a God, as well as a destroyer and a human, in Prometheus - and it is interesting to see them shadowing allegorically the Bible stories, as well as Greek myth, in the writing of this complex picture.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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I don't think that we're supposed to take the Bible too literally. I don't believe in the immaculate conception of either John or Jesus but that doesn't diminish my admiration for both men.
Best wishes from Simon