—“Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”
—“That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.”
May 16 is Biographers Day – marking the 1st meeting of James Boswell & Samuel Johnson in 1763
Guest speaker: Scottish actor & playwright Matthew Zajac, who will be also performing his critically acclaimed play THE TAILOR OF INVERNESS – the first performance of this play in France
Broad in the beam? More broad in sympathy.
Stiff in the joints? More flexible in mind.
Deaf on the right? New voices from the Left
In politics and art more clearly sound…
I never felt so much
Since I have felt at all
The tingling smell and touch
Of dogrose and sweet briar,
Nettles against the wall,
All sours and sweets that grow
Together or apart
In hedge or marsh or ditch…
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck…
“Edwin Muir (1887–1959) is a mysteriously neglected, gorgeous, and emotionally penetrating poet. Of all the many pieces of writing spurred by the Cold War and the threat of nuclear apocalypse, and of the other kinds of 20th century apocalyptic writing, his poem ‘The Horses’ may be the most effective, perhaps because it is the most calm and gentle.”
—Robert Pinsky
Old gods and goddesses who have lived so long
Through time and never found eternity,
Fettered by wasting wood and hollowing hill,
You should have fled our ever-dying song…
One foot in Eden still, I stand
And look across the other land.
The world’s great day is growing late,
Yet strange these fields that we have planted
So long with crops of love and hate…
“Muir’s contact with Europe is significant, however, not only in a personal and literary sense, but also in a wider political context which resonates with our own early twenty-first century times. His travels in the 1920s immediately after the end of World War One, and again at the end of World War Two, tell a story of Europe itself at critical points in its history.”
It's aimed at anyone who fits the aforementioned bill and is interesting in exploring the mathematical potential of their stories, objects and exhibitions, with participation in Maths Week Scotland in mind.
The Scottish Novel in 1824
1 July, University of Edinburgh – free
This one-day in-person symposium marks the bicentenary of 1824, an ‘annus mirabilis’ in the history of Scottish fiction that saw the publication of two experimental masterpieces: James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs & Confessions of a Justified Sinner, & Walter Scott’s Redgauntlet.
#Celtic#FolkloreSunday: In the #Scottish highlands holly and gorse were sacred trees of the #Cailleach Bheur, a blue hag, who was associated with #winter and the protection of animals during the season. She was reborn every All Hallows Eve and brought back the winter weather with her magical staff, which froze the ground with every tap. On Beltane Eve she returned to the Earth, throwing her staff beneath a gorse bush before turning to stone.
Source: https://druidry.org/resources/furze
‘Transgressing into poetry’: Nationality, Gender & Sexuality in SONNETS FROM SCOTLAND by Edwin Morgan & THE PRICE OF STONE by Richard Murphy
by Prof Tara Stubbs
Both #Scottish poet Edwin Morgan & (Anglo-) #Irish poet Richard Murphy transgressed poetic norms: contradicting ‘nationalist’ poets of their respective traditions, making playful use of language, & treating #gender & #sexuality in daring ways
8 May 1613: Christopher Hampton is consecrated Archbishop of #Armagh#otd in St Patrick's #Dublin His pretty speedy consecration was due to an imminent #parliament He had earlier defended episcopacy at the #Scottish General Assembly in Glasgow on James VI & I's request. (NLI)