E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

I t has been 2 weeks and 2 days since my mother died. Such is the nature of mourning. Every day counts. Each days brings us farther from the incalculable mystery of when they were still alive, and able to communicate with us. There are few key messages to give to a parent, when there are few minutes left. I love you, or I am sorry - or maybe, I forgive you - but always, finally, I love you, and thank you. I want to write more about my mother, but she was very private. I will say, now, as Halloween nears - she was the kind of mother who would sew elaborate costumes for my brother and me. I once went as Kanga with Roo in my pocket (in fact of course my Roo was a Kanga doll). My mother was born in the Eastern Townships , Quebec, Canada, in a rural setting, though her parents were teachers. She had 3 sisters and one brother, and was the eldest sibling, which early on established her take charge approach. She spent some summers on the Gaspe peninsula, in Port Daniel, where her uncle and aun...

 My mother, Mary Margaret, has died. Three days ago. I'd like to write more now, but she was very private, and did not want public obituaries or death notices. In time, when her memorial is on the horizon, or sooner but not now, I want to write something about her, in prose. For now, I am simply devastated.

  Yeats was sometimes wrong. As maybe were The Old Masters. Not sure about them today. But Yeats, yes - sometimes a terrible ugliness is born. The last few months have seen ambassadorial resignations, assassination, slaughter of innocents, wars, aerial bombardments, mass arrests - while the West slips closer to authoritarianism, and the idea of democracy withers. Meanwhile, global heating is inexorably killing life as we know it, on our planet. This we know, yet we go to ballgames, TV awards, movies, clubs, restaurants, bars, and play away our cares, because, as Eliot another poet said, approximately, that too much reality is unbearable. If this blog has not commented on every event, poems have been written, tears shed, hands wrung, and despair felt, rest assured. Now Trump , our strange bedfellow, is here in the UK. The Age of Social Media is giving way to the Age of AI. Vast fortunes are about to be made, and millions made jobless. War and medicine, art and science, sex and reli...

A  poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.

This blog confesses to finding this a very challenging time in world history - a time of threatened democracies, threatened peoples and enclaves and nations, threatened ways of being human, threatened ecosystems and indeed the planet... it is perhaps the Age of Threats, best exemplified by the excesses of billionaire capitalism, big tech, and drone warfare. It is a tough time. So, when Liam Neeson releases a new movie, we watch it. Simply for escapism. For the idea that someone can solve some of these problems, with their skill set. Now, critical standards are important, when one is a critic, but less so when one is a consumer of an escapeway to another world. Liam Neeson's "violent dad" movies are not for everyone. His Taken films are admittedly the gold standard of the Neeson genre. But we love his always the same but different characters, wherever they appear, in warm or blizzard conditions, especially when they start somewhat isolated or sad, and suddenly have a job...

20 years ago, when blogging was a new past-time, and this blog had just recently begun, a major terrorist attack took place in London. This is what I posted that day, here, exactly 20 years ago: "The thing we feared most has happened: Madrid-style, multiple terrorist attacks on the London Underground and bus routes in the heart of London, timed with surgical cruelty after London's Olympic win and the start of the G8 summit. It is an unsettling time, and there have been many casualties. So far, over 33 fatalities have been reported. It is - weatherwise and ironically (as in New York in 2001) - a warm, sunny day now, with lovely blue skies. Tens of thousands of would-be commuters are slowly walking home early. With no underground system, some mainline services closed, and few buses in Zone 1, some will be walking for hours. The streets are eerily calm, punctuated by sirens. The people of London, accustomed to such things, are brave and will endure, but this is a sad day for all ...

As the saying goes, a week in politics is a long time, and, as they also say, there are some weeks where it seems like years happen, and so it is, six weeks on from the last post, we now have an American (sort of) Pope, a new major war in the Middle East, and a US president behaving increasingly like Nixon in the late 1960s. Indeed, the current moment seems peculiarly like 1968: a criminal president, conflict in the Middle East, a major superpower war inflicted on a smaller country (then Vietnam, now Ukraine), and political assassinations, the national guard out in the streets of America, and nationwide protests. Probably the main difference is, there are fewer Maoists now, and we've lost John Lennon and Brian Wilson ; but, broadly speaking, this is a hinge year and a hinge moment, and when it isn't feeling like '68, it is feeling like '39. Let us hold our breath and hope that peace comes to Iran and Israel, and Gaza, sooner, rather than later. A lot is going to depen...

  The past few days have revealed that Donald Trump is possibly even more insane and out of control than previously imagined - or - worse - insane and perfectly in control. His potentially-blasphemous, and certainly poor-taste mockery of the recently deceased Pope Francis , in which he let his likeness be AI-modified (as above) and released by the official White House X account, with him dressed as the Pope, was simply weird, especially since Catholics make up a large voting block within MAGA-world (or did). Trump is also not a theological expert, or even a Catholic, and hardly the ideal candidate to wear the shoes of the fisherman. Now for 4th May, he appeared as a Sith Lord (see the red light), incorrectly we assume. More seriously, if that word applies, in a recent interview for a major TV channel, he claimed he would consider military force against Greenland (a NATO ally) to annex the land; ruled out invading Canada (thank you O mighty one!) - and yesterday also - decided to r...

This blog, whose main editor and writer voted in the Canadian federal election, thinks the Liberals, led by Mr Carney , would form the best government to stand up to Mr Trump ; but does not think any strong government that opposes Trumpism would be especially unfortunate. The main thing is to stand strong against Trump. Trump, whose unbalanced (and recent, again) trolling online about Canada as the 51st State is, at the least, incredibly, absurdly rude, DESTABILISING, WEIRD, and undiplomatic; coming from a US president with nuclear weapons, and the army to conquer Canada, it is also provocative, and frightening, whether said in jest, half-jest or all earnestness. Probably Mr Trump doesn't know for sure himself. The USA could dominate Canada more than it already does, militarily, economically, and politically. Canadians, by a landslide majority, do not want to become Americans. And the entire history of the founding of Canada, as a settler colony made up of French and British compet...

We stopped writing about Easter When our tree ran out of gas; The eggs warmed; the crosses burned. Buns sued Maine. The bunny made ominous Threats towards Greenland. The parade   Turned itself into a hatchet, and dug itself out Of the grave. The land gave up its dead, And not in a good way. Friday went backwards, And the living died like they were in dubious prison For the criminally bald. The mild weather Spoke ill of old Europe, and the wind sang About the merry days of ruination in the markets. The cherry blossoms stopped at every border, To pay for themselves with their own vanishing; Fear went freelance like a befurred farrier, The dangling promises hung themselves out to dry, And no one woke to find anything sweet hidden In plain sight, it was all very unclear where any Of us were; and then Romans handed us nails, Some non-Canadian wood, ordered us To vote with our blows, which brought in a landslide Of blood and flesh, pouring out ...

The currency I traded in Is bearish now, at fifty-nine My volatility index has squandered Its lows and highs, is in decline – The lyric force is muted by the times, Which lie like bricklayers build brick To brick – as that song went, another   And another – that was the image, If I recall, from dark gyms, at fourteen Or so, terrified to dance slow, or quick, With those around me on the walls; Music, that brings us back to ourselves, Takes us out to sea as well, Like a drug that can murder or revive;   What language can I use to defend a form, A rhetoric, even, that has been designed To crush whole peoples, sign by sign? Tanks roll on, drones scour the air like hawks, To hurt the ones below, but only poetry kills By sound or fine-bonded lines. To me, What’s serene or boundless in a poem thrills,   But it advances in English, crushes like a love That will not slow dance to urgency in grade nine. The world was bad in sixty-six, has always been, One supposes, ruled by the man...

The modern idea of America - perhaps the post-modern idea is a better way of putting it - was born in 1945. Or, as historians have been reminding us, 80 years ago. This America had won the biggest war in history, from their perspective (the rest of the Allied powers know better) and now, could set the rules of the international systems that would rebuild world order from the chaos. The Germans were crushed, the British empire was gone or going, and in debt, and only Russia could arguably pose a growing threat (with China eventually kept in check by Nixon 's triangulation). So the Cold War began. During that time - 80 years - the West was basically America, plus its allies. And as such, the world system, built to suit America, allowed the USA to prosper as never before.  Yesterday, Liberation Day for Donald Trump , the seemingly unstable, worst president in US history - the convicted felon no less, with mysterious empathy for the Kremlin - announced the end of the global system, bui...

It's been 12 days since I posted about the growing menace of the Trump government. It is worse, sadly, since then. Threats to bomb Iran. Flights to Greenland, and ongoing threats to seize it any which way. Ludicrously lax security and lying vilification of journalists; amateur hour at the Pentagon from the telegenic crusader with the menacing messages inked to his white skin. Tariffs to crush Canada, and other nations. Threats to law firms. Threats to museums. Detentions and forced expatriation of PhD students on proper visas. Crushing of dissent, of opposing views of history, and, shockingly, the near-constant crumpling of opposition, as media, universities, law firms, and politicians bow down under threat. Measles and Avian fu spreading. Denial of the globe warming. No alliances. No secure promises. Litigation and bullying.  The general actions of authoritarian take-over - more destruction of the "Cathedral" - more work to make the CEO-king the unquestioned ruler. Dark ...

 The Grand Minima (7 x 6) for William Empson   Totting it up a plethora of minuscule debris fields, eon by inch, the daily granular fractures, chipped bits and bobs, dust bunnies that don’t ever quit, the towering trivial pizza box style of personal architecture –   love lies, business crops wilt, soar, the whole a broken abacus possessed by a stammering Ouija board whose misspelt detritus inspires poetry in the super-rich or bored, the rising tide lifts all quotes, all toffs step off yachts to sleep between sheets   when the port appears like a murdered ghost – we host what we love most, we live in a blackhole inside a blackhole, like mice are denizens of a tinier Manhattan project, the nuclearism is unclear, but here it goes, small into smaller, like faller into fall or inside the deep dive is the pool looping   around its Ouroboros dream of self – we’re colliding with the sun that grows us, as dancers sw...

  Much that is menacing is left hidden (a reference to this film still for film fans) but the current strategy from the Trump revolution is to do so much, so often, and have so many outrageously controversial balls in the air at the same time, it is nearly impossible to comment on, let alone oppose, them. It was bad March 1st, but two and a half weeks later, it seems worse, not least because the crisis whereby the Executive branch defies the Judiciary seems to be starting, with rulings defied and judges threatened (signalling the attempted end of American democracy as a system of checks and balances, on, in other words, a coup); war is breaking out again in the Middle East, and threats against Iran, attacks on Yemen and Gaza, are commencing; the new peace negotiations regarding Ukraine seem designed to support the aggressor; and threats to the sovereignty of Canada, and Greenland, continue. Biden 's pardons are questioned; visiting professors refused entry; students threatened; tr...

  The sickening fact is, like frat boys unafraid to phone-film some vile pile-on, the bully-gang of Vance and Trump did what they did in front of the entire world, via media they had invited in to the Oval Office. In a sort of pre-Easter enactment of ritual sacrifice, they delivered up  President Zelensky of Ukraine - a supposedly-invited guest, and then "tore him a new one" in the parlance of their type of dude. Many newspaper editorials, from the FT , to the New York Times , and media, from CNN to the BBC, have described the event that ensued as "bullying", an "ambush", and one of the worst moments in American diplomacy, ever. It has also been called, by some world leaders, and other major commentators, the end of the current world order, as the US president seemed to clearly signal his total disdain for an ally, and utterly defended, to the point of rage, a long-time enemy of the West. There were so many ironies in the fire, it is hard to know where t...

  Poem for the appeaser   It’s okay to let the bad guy win if the guy has a thing you want to trade - this is how the West was won - ignorance of newly dead - sign the paper, wave it high - this is how the losers get to die - an agreement is safe and lawful if the liars never lie; for on good TV the act of being king is king, not the thing in itself, or being as being - there’s only what we see now, not even that when blinded by defiance of decency; Munich used to be the name for giving in to the enemy side – replaced in our time by televised Gethsemane showing how power picks insane channels in which to defenestrate the weak, the dutiful, fighting true, even when other states are truly sick.   London, March 1, 2025

James Bond was, up until a day ago, always produced by the Broccoli family - all of the many canonical films since the early 1960s... for better and worse. Their control was legendary, and often, usually, yielded good or superior results. Their choices for Bond have been a few times inspired, and their attempts to select villains who had won Oscars was notable. They also tended to be loyal to British writers, directors, and actors, and kept the franchise stable, ongoing, and reliable. The worst James Bond is still worth a telly rewatch on a lazy Sunday afternoon; the greatest are some of the best action movies ever made. Now, it is in the hands of Amazon MGM - an American company not known for its quality control... it has hits and misses, but plenty of cash. Fans are anxious; I am, as a fan, very concerned. I am unsure the new films will remain firmly-rooted in the canon, or be as British - with all the eccentricities and potential flaws that entails. Lee Child has gone on record as...

  The other day I thought it could not get worse, when this blog commented on Trump's almost-first-month in office for 2.0. Then, he apparently sided with Russia, claimed Ukraine had started the war (it hadn't), that its leader was a dictator (he isn't), and later that evening, called himself THE KING on social media. Since then, he has continued to berate the Ukrainians, discuss the idea of getting rid of income tax entirely, and numerous other unsettling things. The main concern for the world, now, is that we have a totally ignorant madman at the helm, who feels comfortable lying about the most momentous historical facts, insulting allies, and allying himself with dangerous enemies. It is, to say the least, bleak. At least Canada won the hockey game against the USA, eh?

Everyone can google IMDB and Metacritic, in about a second, or Variety or Den of Geek or Sight and Sound , and find other lists of the best movies of 2024. The films  listed below were on many end of year lists. At least four have a good chance of winning the Oscar for Best Picture - an asterix indicates the three I currently believe have the best shot. A COMPLETE UNKNOWN - charming, well-acted tale of a young genius growing up *ANORA - heartachingly sad, side-splittingly funny, sometimes scary, often sexy, it's uniquely potent A REAL PAIN - some will find it slight, but this Holocaust tour/buddy film has heart and soul and wit BLITZ - a beautifully filmed revisionist take on the Blitz Spirit by Steve McQueen CHALLENGERS - a witty, erotic highly stylised play on the tennis as love theme CIVIL WAR - Jesse Plemons steals the show as a MAGA-like madman *CONCLAVE - Ralph Fiennes never better in a clever Christie-adjacent thriller with big twist ending DUNE 2 - I still prefer L...