bookshelf

last read books & movies i liked
(will add as it goes)

(that « quote » about how little remains from reading or watching films does resonate with me – consciously, anyway – so, starting to record the books i read on Goodreads and writing down the movies i enjoy came as a tactic to get around this).

let it be known, one of my all-time favourites: Grande Sertão: Veredas by João Guimarães Rosa

then, what i most enjoyed watching lately:
• La jetée (1962)
• Boy (2010)
• All of Us Strangers (2023)
• Perfect Days (2023) (how could i not?)
• The Holdovers (2023)
• Honeyland (2019)
• Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (2000)
• Bicycle Thieves (1948)
• Nostalghia (1983)
• Farewell Amor (2020)
• So Long, My Son (2019)
• Limbo (2020)
• Lucky (2017)
• Aftersun (2022)
• Close (2022)
• C’mon C’mon (2021)
• Ich bin dein Mensch (2021)
• Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Gûzen to sôzô) (2021)


and i’m not one for poems, but these two left me amazed (actually, leave me each time i read them). my « poemshelf » if you indulge me:

We grow accustomed to the Dark
Emily Dickinson

We grow accustomed to the Dark—
When Light is put away—
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye—

A Moment—We uncertain step
For newness of the night—
Then—fit our Vision to the Dark—
And meet the Road—erect—

And so of larger—Darknesses—
Those Evenings of the Brain—
When not a Moon disclose a sign—
Or Star—come out—within—

The Bravest—grope a little—
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead—
But as they learn to see—

Either the Darkness alters—
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight—
And Life steps almost straight.


Crossroads
Louise Glück

My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer
I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar,
like what I remember of love when I was young —

love that was so often foolish in its objectives
but never in its choices, its intensities
Too much demanded in advance, too much that could not be promised —

My soul has been so fearful, so violent;
forgive its brutality.
As though it were that soul, my hand moves over you cautiously,

not wishing to give offense
but eager, finally, to achieve expression as substance:

it is not the earth I will miss,
it is you I will miss.