Author: jo

John Steinbeck’s Three-way Split

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I split myself into three people. I know what they look like. One speculates and one criticizes and the third tries to correlate. It usually turns out to be a fight but out of it comes the whole week’s work. And it is carried on in my mind in dialogue. It’s an odd experience. Under such circumstances it might be one of those schizophrenic symptoms but as a working technique, I do not think it is bad at all. – John Steinbeck John Steinbeck’s clean, spare prose is pared right down. Every writer needs an inner editor and the nerve […]

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Angela Merkel: The She-Chancellor

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Angela Merkel, Germany’s Kanzlerin or she-chancelllor, is indisputably the most powerful woman in the world. And yet she seems so wildly unlike most politicians – where are the flashy smile, the clotheshorse spouse, the sharp suit, the soundbite? Yes, where are Silvio Berlusconi, Nicolas Sarkozy, Jose Luis Zapatero, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown…? Sacked by the electorate. Every other European leader has been replaced since the banking crisis started in 2007; only Angela Merkel, the “grey mouse” from East Germany, has not just survived but thrived in these tough times. Clearly, her appeal to (at least half of) the German electorate is profound. And […]

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Get Serious About Saturn in Scorpio

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Saturn in Scorpio September 13, 1924 – December 2, 1926  October 22, 1953 – January 12, 1956 May 13, 1956 – October 10, 1956  November 29, 1982 – May 6, 1983 August 24, 1983 – November 16, 1985  October 5, 2012 – December 23, 2014 June 14, 2015 – September 17, 2015 Solar eclipse at 0°25 Scorpio — October 23 2014  Saturn has been in Scorpio for two years, and is now on his final tour through the last third of the sign. The old man is hobbling along rapidly too, and he’ll be out of Scorpio just before Christmas. So […]

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Brian Eno’s Creative Drive: Randomness and Order

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  Since his first work as a feather-clad glam-rocker in the art-school band Roxy Music in the early 1970s to his latest incarnation as producer of extraordinary “generative” music apps, Eno has been a dynamo of ideas, energy and experiment. He is incredibly prolific. If you look at his discography, it seems as if he must have been working continuously since 1970, as producer, composer and performer (although seldom outside the studio). A pioneer of electronic music, he proved that you didn’t have to be a “musician” to make music. Years ago, Eno tried to get the job title “non-musician” put […]

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Lights, Camera, Roar

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It’s silly to guess a profession by Sun sign. But this is the silly season – and there are an awful lot of film directors born under the sign of the Lion. Creative, passionate, theatrical, charismatic – and with a big vision — it figures. So this week’s birthdays include Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Cecil B DeMille, Ben Affleck, Wim Wenders and two great actors turned directors Robert Redford and Gene Kelly. Sun in Leo Gus Van Sant Nanni Morretti Peter Bogdanovich Gabriele Salvatore John Huston Wes Craven (Venus-Pluto conjunction in Leo) Moon in Leo Peter Jackson Forrest Whitaker Clint Eastwood Ken […]

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