Gordon Lightfoot R.I.P.
One of my favourite singers 🎤 🎶 🎵 of all time Gordon Lightfoot has died at the age of 84.
Robert Mitchum: I’d do anything for love.
Jane Greer: But you won’t do that.
Robert Mitchum: Actually I was thinking more of the Gordon Lightfoot song than Meat Loaf’s.
Jane Greer: Speaking of meatloaf, there seems to be a huge fire 🔥 and lots of smoke coming from the oven.
Robert Mitchum: It appears the meatloaf will be very well done.
Jane Greer: As was Gordon Lightfoot’s song.
Gordon Lightfoot (1938-2023) has died at the age of 84.
He was one of my favourite singers of all time.
And many of his songs would be in my top 100 list of all my favourite songs.
There’s somewhat of a personal connection between Gordon Lightfoot and me although I never met or saw the man in person.
For you see Gordon Lightfoot’s uncle had a farm about 40 miles north of Calgary, Alberta Canada.
And my paternal grandparents’ farm was about 6 miles away from the farm belonging to Gordon Lightfoot’s uncle.
Gordon as a small boy would occasionally come from Ontario and visit his uncle’s farm in Alberta.
On days when his uncle was busy working in the fields, Gordon’s uncle would hire my dad and my paternal uncle to babysit little Gordon.
I remember as a kid when I started dancing to Gordon Lightfoot songs as they came on the radio, my mother would tell me of how my dad and my Uncle Tom used to babysit Gordon as a boy when he came to his uncle’s farm.
“Do you suppose Gordon would remember my dad?” I asked her.
“Chris,” she’d say to me, “Anybody who’s ever met your father even once would never forget him.”
Which I suppose was true.
My mother would tell me stories of how when they were dating, my dad and her had attended a mutual friend’s wedding and my dad made himself memorable at the reception by pouring gravy over his slice of wedding cake.
Or how when they were first married, my mother had bought my dad a footstool for his chair and how when he came home from work and he tripped over it and said “Ooh!” (Like he usually did when he fell or tripped) but never said anything.
And then 20 minutes later he said, “Helena, there seems to be a footstool in front of my chair.”
Or how at the opening of an art show, my mother pointed out the artist (who was a mutual friend) to my dad and said, “There she is!” and my dad answered, “Oh, I didn’t recognize her with all her clothes on.”
What my dad meant was since there was a fierce Alberta snowstorm going on at the time and the artist Jean Richards came into the gallery heavily bundled up with winter parka, scarf 🧣, toque and high winter boots, my dad didn’t recognize her in all those winter clothes.
But that’s not what he said.
So my mother, being the practical joker she was, walked up and told Jean Richards that my dad didn’t recognize her with all her clothes on.
“What?” Jean Richards feigned anger, “He actually said that? Where’s George?” .
So artist Jean Richards walked up to my dad and said in a loud voice that the whole gallery could hear, “I hear you didn’t recognize me with all my clothes on.”
And of course my dad taught in the Alberta Public School System for over 30 years.
His specialty was teaching Science, Math and History although he did teach all subjects at one time or another since he taught all grades from 1 to 12.
And many of his former students who I’ve met over the years say that my dad was their favourite teacher of all their school years.
One student told me that he loved my dad’s Science classes.
“Your dad would say in Chemistry class, now if you stick your finger in this solution here, it will turn green before it falls off and if you stick your finger in this solution over here, it will turn purple before it falls off,” the student recalled.
One of his former teaching colleagues recalled the first time she walked into my dad’s Science room where apparently his replica model volcano 🌋 had successfully exploded and all the students in the class were coughing and choking from the smoke but that my dad was continuing to calmly lecture about the effects of volcanic explosions on the Earth’s climate change in times past.
My dad would also occasionally use Bunsen burners in Science class to make himself coffee.
I remember a friend of mine Daniel (who once worked as a scientist for DARPA) was extremely amused by this story.
My dad as a boy also made himself an actual airplane – a monoplane or biplane of the World War I variety and was going to fly to Germany to bump off Hitler as my dad and Winston Churchill were probably the only two people in the British Empire of the time who realized that Hitler was a threat to the world.
Of course while my dad may have been an engineering genius for such a young age he hadn’t considered other factors which naturally any 8-year-old wouldn’t.
My Uncle Tom was wisely placed by my dad as the pilot in the front seat of the plane.
And my dad sat at the way back seat of the plane as a navigator.
This proved to be quite handy as when the plane launched from the top of the hill overlooking the valley of my grandparents’ farm, it became rapidly apparent to my dad with his panoramic view at the back of the plane that the closest this plane was going to get to the Third Reich was the middle of the creek that flowed through my grandparents’ farm.
My dad wisely jumped off the back seat as my Uncle Tom could be heard screaming as the plane headed straight towards the creek.
There was a loud splash.
My dad ran to see if his brother was all right.
When my Uncle Tom emerged from the creek with an exceedingly angry look on his face, as my dad told the story afterwards, he (my dad) broke the 4 Minute Mile record years before Roger Bannister did in an effort to get back to the house and my grandmother’s kitchen before my uncle could beat the 💩 out of him.
Thus bearing that in mind, as I got older, it was indeed highly likely that Gordon Lightfoot would have remembered my dad from those summer babysitting days.
Of course I never got the chance to ask Gordon in person.
But…
From the years 2007 to 2011, I used to make myself photo montage music videos at a now defunct on-line filmmaking site called OneTrueMedia.
I would then post the finished videos at YouTube.
I used that site to teach myself filmmaking and film editing skills.
Two of my favourite videos I made during that time were photo montage music videos of my two favourite Gordon Lightfoot songs: Anything For Love. If You Could Read My Mind.
Both I made in the year 2008.
Then in 2010 or 2011, I got a notification from YouTube that those two videos were taken down for song copyright violations.
I was shocked.
If I was trying to make a profit from those videos, yes.
But I was just using those songs as background for my own personal enjoyment.
I was at the Xanga blogging site at the time.
So I wrote a blog post mentioning about my two videos (with Gordon Lightfoot songs) being taken down by YouTube.
I also mentioned in that blog post that my dad had once babysat Gordon Lightfoot when Gordon visited his uncle’s farm.
That blog post got a lot of views and a lot of likes I remember.
About 3 or 4 days later after that blog post, I got a notification from YouTube that those two videos had been restored and put back on line.
I remember thinking, Great.
The very next day after I got that notification, I was doing some research and my research led me to check that day’s online edition of The Toronto Sun or Toronto Star.
I forget which.
Anyhow while I was at that Toronto newspaper site online, I stumbled across a story about Gordon Lightfoot.
Gordon Lightfoot had apparently released a statement the day before that he didn’t mind his songs and his music being used for strictly non-profit entertainment purposes.
Only if someone were trying to profit from them would he be a stickler about royalties.
And I thought…
Coincidence?
… or?
If he did remember my dad, what did my dad do that was so memorable in his mind?
As Gordon himself might put it, “What a tale my thoughts could tell…”
-A personal reflection
written by Christopher
Tuesday May 2nd
2023.
Jane Austen Meets Dracul Van Helsing
Writer Jane Austen on a warm spring day
It was a warm spring day and Jane Austen was doing some sketching before applying watercolours.
Within a few seconds Jane noticed a man appearing out of nowhere on the stone walkabout around the lake.
The man was Dracul Van Helsing time traveller from the future.
Van Helsing had recently been watching Sanditon (a British television series based on Jane Austen’s unfinished novel) on PBS via satellite.
He was also a big fan of Austen’s novels Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion and Emma.
After having watched Tom Jones the new British drama on PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre (based on Henry Fielding’s classic 1749 novel) last night, Van Helsing reflected on the state of the world in the dystopian 2020s.
He had a further discussion with the ghost of Orson Welles on the subject this morning and decided to take the Tesla-Houdini-Pantages-Welles-Lamarr Prototype Film 🎞️ Projector (an instrument of time travel) to England 🏴 in the year 1804 when Jane Austen would have been 28.
Van Helsing pushed a button on the Tesla-Houdini-Pantages-Welles-Lamarr Prototype Film Projector and vanished into the mists of time.
Welles’ ghost was immediately worried that the charming sex addict Van Helsing might thoroughly charm Jane Austen and Jane Austen succumbing to his charms would end up being deflowered.
For Van Helsing had had his way with many beautiful goddesses and vampiresses although of course you couldn’t accuse Van Helsing of deflowering any of them like Hera, Aphrodite and Isis for instance although he had deflowered the virgin goddesses Athena and Artemis (which ticked their father Zeus off to no end).
The ghost of Orson Welles quickly hurried to Set Enterprises’ Laboratories where Set Enterprises’ Chief Scientist Dr. Cadbury Rocher was working.
Rocher had made a small replica of the Tesla-Houdini-Pantages-Welles-Lamarr Prototype Film Projector 🎞️.
Welles borrowed the replica from Rocher, pushed a button on it and went back in time to the exact date and place where Dracul Van Helsing was hoping to encounter Jane Austen.
. . .
King Charles III, who was busy preparing for his coronation this coming Saturday, was also reading a report on what had transpired in Vienna yesterday.
British MP Renfield R. Renfield, who was holidaying in Vienna after co-chairing a secret conference of peace talks between Russia 🇷🇺 and Ukraine 🇺🇦, had been involved in a shoot out with American Deep State operatives yesterday.
Renfield of course had been involved in shoot outs with numerous American Deep State operatives while the conference was going on.
The directors of the American Deep State were horrified that someone had actually taken out many of their operatives.
Just like the directors of the American Deep State were horrified that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had announced that he was running for the U.S. Democratic Party nomination against their puppet Joe Biden.
They heard from a little bird (a canary that was a cocaine addict and owned by Hunter Biden) that Renfield would be leaving Vienna for London yesterday.
So the American Deep State resolved to ambush Renfield on the streets of Vienna as he took a taxi from his hotel to the airport.
666 American Deep State operatives were dispatched for the operation.
And the end result was that 666 American Deep State operatives now lay dead on the streets of Vienna.
“Vienna is like a shooting gallery,” Dr. Henry Kissinger remarked as he watched the operation on YouTube livestream.
As for the 666 dead American Deep State operatives, as a result of Joe Biden’s gender inclusion and diversity policies, they were all men wearing dresses, make up and high heels.
. . .
“Our nation’s public libraries are now deprived of an enormous amount of storybook readers for children,” Joe Biden had tears in his eyes as he looked at the photos of the dead American Deep State operatives on the streets of Vienna.
. . .
British MP Renfield R. Renfield was back home in London and was currently being interviewed on Livestream by truly traditional Catholic media podcaster Taylor Marshall from the U.S.
Renfield was wearing a t-shirt that said I’D RATHER BE A KEYBOARD WARRIOR THAN A KEYBOARD PANSY.
The quote was in answer to an idiotic statement made by satanic AntiPope Jorge Mario Bergoglio (aka Pope Francis) a few weeks ago.
Of course Bergoglio has a habit of making nothing but idiotic statements (which is why he is acclaimed as a genius by globalist elitists and the brainless mainstream media) so researchers had some difficulty tracking down the original idiotic quote.
On his plane ride back from Hungary 🇭🇺 to Rome yesterday, Bergoglio was trying to take credit for the recent Vienna secret conference of Russian-Ukrainian peace talks.
Even though Samhain Cardinal Salaman (who happened to be the sole heterosexual administrator in Pope Francis’ Vatican) had started the talks without Francis’ consent.
. . .
The ghost of Orson Welles found Dracul Van Helsing with his head on the lap of Jane Austen.
No longer did Jane Austen have a sketch pad on her lap.
As in the above picture.
Instead it was Dracul Van Helsing who was having his forehead stroked by Miss Austen.
Welles’ ghost had a large rolling pin in hand ready to hit Van Helsing over the head should he make an attempt to deflower Miss Austen.
But he did not.
Instead they had a long and witty conversation.
With deep penetrating insight into art, literature and philosophy.
Finally Jane Austen said, “I must return home. My father, sister and brothers are expecting me for dinner.”
Van Helsing helped her gather up her sketch pad, watercolours and paint brushes.
Jane Austen walked off into the forest.
Welles’ ghost went forward in time before Van Helsing had a chance to see him.
When Welles’ ghost returned, Amadeus Emanon asked him, “So who is Dracul Van Helsing like in relation to Jane Austen? Alexander Colbourne? Or Sir Edward Denham?”.
Welles’ ghost lit a cigar, poured himself a glass of wine 🍷 and took a long pause before answering the question.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Monday May 1st
2023.
Zelda In Vienna
A woman sitting on a piano in Vienna
British MP Renfield R. Renfield was on a sightseeing holiday in Vienna after being involved in a secret conference to try to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine.
He was sitting in the elegant lobby of his hotel smoking a cigar and drinking a glass of bourbon.
“I congratulate you on your excellent choice of drink, sir,” said the white bearded man sitting across from him.
Renfield looked up and recognized the gentleman sitting across from him from seeing his image in old LIFE Magazine photos.
“Aren’t you Ernest Hemingway?” Renfield asked.
“I am the ghost of Ernest Hemingway,” the spectre announced, “condemned for a certain term to walk the night and watch other people smoke cigars and drink bourbon in hotel lobbies across the world, and for the day confined to fast in fires until the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away.”
“And what do you find worst?” Renfield blew smoke rings with his cigar and sipped his glass of bourbon.
“That’s not a fair question,” Hemingway looked enviously at the cigar in Renfield’s right hand and his glass of bourbon in his left.
“On this occasion fair is indeed foul,” Renfield commented as a waiter put a plate of barbecued chicken on the table next to him.
Renfield and Hemingway discussed literature as the MP ate his barbecue chicken.
When Renfield had finished and the waiter took the plate away, the bell 🔔 on the old clock in the lobby tolled.
“Ask not for whom the bell tolls,” Hemingway noted, “It tolls for thee.”
“Yes, but can you say that in Latin?” Quipped the ghost of John Donne as he walked by.
Hemingway looked downcast.
“No need to worry, Hemingway old boy,” Renfield smiled, “The current occupant of the throne of Peter can’t say it in Latin either.”
Hemingway smiled, “Did you see my friends F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda?”.
“Are their ghosts here?” Renfield finished his cigar and bourbon.
“I think it’s their mortal selves,” Hemingway answered, “The ghost of a ghost white salamander told me that the mortal selves of Scott and Zelda travelled here in some sort of time travel experiment after they met Nikola Tesla on some occasion back in the 1920s.”
“Where are F. Scott and Zelda?” Renfield asked.
“In the hotel’s piano room over there,” Hemingway pointed.
Renfield walked over to the piano room.
He stepped over Billy Joel who was lying on the floor singing, “Sing me a song, I’m the piano man…”
And there sitting on a piano covered with drinks (that were drank by Billy Joel as a mortal F. Scott Fitzgerald looked on enviously) was Zelda Fitzgerald.
“Great Gatsby!” Renfield shouted, “It’s Zelda Fitzgerald.”
Former Irish ☘️ Rover Will Millar walked by singing, “I’ll give you a daisy a day, dear…”
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Wednesday April 26th
2023.
Haiku About Harry Belafonte RIP
King of Calypso
Island 🏝️ in the sun ☀️ then leaves
World and Kingston town
Time to remember
The kind of September
Farewell to December
What The Artist Sees
“Most people see the world through their own views and prejudices. Mr. Lockhart sees the world with a rare clarity. Perhaps that’s what it means to be an artist.”
-Character of Arthur Parker to the character of Georgiana Lambe in the BBC TV series Sanditon based on the unfinished novel by Jane Austen
Renfield’s Monday Night Podcast and Michelangelo’s Vision of Renfield At Future Oscars
Violinist Tina Guo is performing with the Hans Zimmer Live Tour over in Europe
Hans Zimmer won Best Musical Score for the movie Dune at last night’s Oscars
British MP Renfield R. Renfield was doing a Monday night podcast.
Said Renfield, “A few days ago senile old fool Joe Biden was in Poland shooting his mouth off about “freedom” and “liberty”.
What does a vaccinazi despot like Joe Biden know about “freedom” and “liberty” when he wanted to impose a national vaccine mandate on all of America?
The senile old fool Joe Biden also called for “Putin to be removed from power”. There’s nothing like tellng the leader of a rival nuclear power that you want him removed from power.
Of course Joe Biden’s handlers want nuclear war with Russia.
That way they can reduce the world’s population without waiting for those vaccine booster shots to kick in.
Although they are doing an excellent job in my own country of England.
British government data shows that 92.2% of all Covid deaths are among the triple vaccinated.
And last week Eastern European members of the European Parliament gave visiting Canadian Neo-Stalinist tyrant Justin Trudeau the raspberry that he so richly deserved.
Romanian and Croatian MEPs mentioned how he sent police horses to trample peaceful protestors and then passed an Emergencies Act so that he could seize the bank accounts of people whose political views he disagreed with.
This is the stuff of dictatorship the Romanian and Croatian MEPs pointed out (who were all too familiar with Communist dictators in their own countries).
Even the Presidents of both El Salvador and Honduras have called Justin Trudeau a despot and a dictator for sending police horses to trample protestors and for seizing bank accounts.
Personally I think Justin Trudeau should be publicly hanged by the neck until dead and his Nazi/Communist hybrid hag henchwoman Chrystia Freeland should be burnt at the stake as a witch.
Failing that, both of them should be charged with high treason against the Charter of Rights in the Canadian Constitution (that Justin’s stepdad Pierre had put in) and then thrown in jail.
If Justin Castro Trudeau was to have his lily white ass sodomized numerous times while he was in prison,that would be the best thing that could ever happen to him.”
. . .
Michelangelo the Psychic Lobster had a vision of a future Oscars ceremony some years down the road.
Renfield had been nominated for the role of Best Actor for playing the role of Prince Hal in a Kenneth Branagh directed production of William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1.
Michelangelo was surprised to see Renfield was married in the vision as he sat at a front table close to the stage with his wife.
A foul mouthed comedian Justin Trudeau was to present the next award for Best Porn Film (a new Oscar category) in Michelangelo’s vision.
Foul mouthed comedian Justin Trudeau was a former Canadian Prime Minister who had been jailed for treason for a number of years.
Despite Justin Trudeau having been such a huge asshole, believe it or not his anus was a lot bigger after it had left prison than it was before coming in.
The foul mouthed alleged comic Justin Trudeau made an obscene insulting remark about Renfield’s wife.
Renfield got up on to the stage and approached the foul mouthed comic.
“Oh, oh,” one of the Academy Awards commentators could be heard saying, “I wonder if Renfield is going to punch Justin Trudeau like Will Smith did to Chris Rock a few years back.”
Renfield reached into his pocket, pulled out a gun and blew Justin Trudeau’s head off.
Justin Trudeau lay dead on the stage in a pool of blood- his perfectly coiffured hair now a tangled mess.
“Oh, oh,” one of the other commentators said, “I wonder what can be done about this situation as Renfield was granted a 007 License To Kill by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II a few years back. Maybe if he wins the Best Actor Award for his portrayal of Prince Hal in Henry IV Part 1, they’ll take the Oscar away from him.”
“Not if they want to live until the next morning, they won’t,” his commentating partner suggested.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Monday March 28th
2022.
Theatre At The Comedie-Francaise
She watched the play being performed
Dom Juan ou le Festin de Pierre
(Don Juan or The Feast of the Stone {Statue})
A five-act 1665 comedy by Moliere
As she watched with increased intensity
She herself longed for a taste of Dom Juan’s own sword
She licked her lips
And reached for a handkerchief
To dab a spot
On the stage Dom Juan told a jealous husband,
“Young Leibniz says this is the best of all possible worlds”
To which the jealous husband replied,
“Thou black hearted swine,thou hast made a cuckold of me
Like Zeus did of Philip II of Macedon with Queen Olympias
And you have the nerve to say,
“This is the best of all possible worlds”.
“Last night,” Dom Juan bit into an apple, “Your wife
experienced the best of all possible worlds.”
The husband went into a rage, lifted his sword
and spoke, “I shall make a pork pie of thee
And feed thy black heart to my chickens.”
She watched the sword play on the stage
And redness came to her cheeks
“Oh let his heart be mine
and not that of the chickens.”
Her breasts rose up and down
like a stormy night on
the English Channel.
“Oh, I am slain,” said the husband.
“Young Leibniz is right,” Dom Juan smiled and raised his sword in triumph,
“This is the best of all possible worlds.”
The woman fainted in her seat.
Later in the final act and the final scene
As the stone statue of a man
Whom Don Juan had murdered
Carries Dom Juan down to Hell,
Dom Juan shouts,
“Young Leibniz is wrong,
This is NOT the best of all possible worlds.”
The woman up in the theatre balcony box
Fanned herself with a handkerchief
And said,
“Oh Leibniz, there are more things in Hell
Than are dreamt of in thy philosophy.”
Michelangelo the Psychic Lobster
Awakened from his dream
And wondered if Moliere’s 1665
production of Dom Juan
was actually like that.
-A poem and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Thursday February 3rd
2022.
Morgan Le Fay
Picture of Morgan Le Fay
“So you’re trying to track down the original painting that appears at this website?” British MP Renfield R. Renfield asked Dashwood Forrest the owner and curator of the Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery in London.
“I am,” Forrest nodded, “I’ve come across sketches of this portrait in various books and they say it’s a portrait of Morgan Le Fay.”
“The Arthurian era enchantress?” Renfield sipped a martini, “But the woman in this portrait looks like a woman of the 1930s judging by her hairstyle and style of dress. I thought Morgan Le Fay died back in the Arthurian era.”
“There were rumours that back in 1930 an archaeologist found her grave on the Isle of Avalon not far from Glastonbury and a spiritist medium friend of the archaeologist used her incredible occultic powers to bring Morgan Le Fay back from the dead,” Forrest explained.
“And someone in the decade of the 1930s painted her picture?” Renfield finished his martini.
“Yes,” Forrest nodded.
“I wonder who?” Renfield looked at the website photograph of the painting as Forrest shrugged.
. . .
The ghost of Winston Churchill and the ghost of Orson Welles were sitting in comfortable armchairs in the living room of the billionaire ancient Egyptian vampire Set’s colossal West London estate.
Both were smoking spectral cigars.
Churchill was sipping a spectral brandy.
And Welles was sipping a spectral glass of spectral red wine.
“Anyways,” Churchill continued with his story to Welles, “In my painting career, I painted in various different painting styles. I once painted what looked to be in style a black and white photo of Morgan Le Fay but it was actually a painting. One I must say I was exceptionally proud of. Sadly, Clementine didn’t like it and gave it away to someone. She wouldn’t say who. She didn’t want me to get it back. I think Clementine was jealous of Morgan Le Fay’s exceptional beauty.”
“Do you mean Morgan Le Fay the Arthurian era enchantress?” Welles almost spilled his spectral glass of spectral red wine all over his ghostly suit, “But I thought she died back in Arthurian times.”
“She was apparently brought back from the dead in 1930,” Churchill explained.
“Is she still alive today?” Welles asked.
. . .
“Is this seat taken?” The beautiful and attractive young woman asked Dracul Van Helsing in the Saint George’s Pub.
“No, it most definitely is not,” Van Helsing answered.
The woman sat down in the pub booth directly across from Dracul Van Helsing.
Her dress, her fur covering, her necklace, her gloves, her hairstyle and appearance seem to have been accurately and prophetically depicted by one Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill many decades ago.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Friday May 21st
2021.
Memories of Selena
Selena Quintanilla
Heathcliff Dionysus Campbell was the CEO of Aulos Music and Recording Ltd. in London.
He had become the CEO of the company after buying it (through a loan given to him by the London-based billionaire ancient Egyptian vampire Set) in 2018.
Previously he had been an Executive Vice-President of the Company.
This past year of the pandemic there had not been much recording going on at his studios on Abbey Road- the Wuthering Heights and Glencoe Hospitality Recording Studios.
As most musicians and singers did their performances via podcast and livestream.
So Heathcliff Dionysus Campbell had used the past year to write his memoirs.
He had run for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination in the U.S. and had come in an extremely extremely extremely distant third behind Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
He moved to London England in 2010 to become Executive Vice-President of Aulos Music and Recording Ltd. to fulfill a lifelong dream he had of one day becoming a music producer.
Prior to his Presidential run, he had been an Executive Vice-President of Vidal Sassoon Hair Products.
Today he was busy recalling the year 1994.
He was remembering the day that year a friend of his had invited him to a small recording studio that the friend owned in San Antonio, Texas.
He recalled walking through the door of the recording studio and there sitting on a chair was a woman with one of the loveliest smiles he had ever seen in his life.
Selena Quintanilla
Campbell was disappointed in himself for at that time he had never heard of this young and promising young star bound to become a superstar.
She however sang and recorded a song in his friend’s studio that day.
It was a song in Spanish.
It was so beautiful that Heathcliff Dionysus Campbell resolved someday to learn the language.
Sadly he had never done that either up until this point in his life.
He recalled a year later in 1995 the day that he had heard Selena had been shot and killed by the President of her own fan club.
March 31st 1995.
In less than a week, it would be the 26th anniversary of her tragic death.
A young talent taken from the world too soon.
A lovely smile taken from the world too soon.
-written by Christopher
Thursday March 25th
2021.
Dracul Van Helsing 
Sanditon
April 27, 2023 at 10:15 pm (Art, Arts, Commentary, Culture, Entertainment, Film, History, Literature, love, Movies, Personal essays, Romance, Television) (Alexander Colbourne, British drama, Charlotte Heywood, Rose Williams, Sanditon, Television, television shows)
Sanditon is my favourite TV series of the past 3 years.
And if I had to give it some extra thought, I would probably come to the conclusion that it’s my favourite TV series of all time.
I’ve always had a thing for British Regency romance novels.
And for Jane Austen in particular.
Jane Austen being one of my top 5 favourite authors (the other 4 being William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
I first stumbled upon Sanditon a couple of years ago when someone posted the 6 episodes of Season 1 in English with German subtitles on YouTube (they’ve long since been removed).
From the pictures, they looked to be Regency dress and costumes.
So I clicked on Season 1 Episode 1 and started watching.
With the credits in German and no subtitles for the credits, I didn’t pay much attention.
But as I watched the show, the dialogue struck me and I thought this dialogue could easily have been written by Jane Austen.
For even though I was a big Jane Austen fan, I had never heard of her unfinished novel Sanditon.
And my father (who was a Public School History and Science teacher for over 30 years) and was a big Jane Austen fan had never mentioned Sanditon in his many discussions on her.
It was also from my dad that I inherited my love of Dickens and Shakespeare.
I developed my love for Dostoevsky after having received a book of Dostoevsky short stories from my Grade 12 Creative Writing teacher for getting the top marks in her Creative Writing class.
She had written an inscription in the book that my short stories that I had written reminded her of Dostoevsky’s short stories so that’s why she was buying me this book.
I had heard of many of Dostoevsky’s novels but I had never read any of his short stories at the time I was presented with that book.
I had read Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov in its entirety when I was just 14 years old (after having seen on late night television a movie version of it from the 1950s that starred Yul Brynner as Dmitri Karamazov).
And I inherited my love for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when I read a children’s book edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles when I was just 8 years old and have been a big Sherlock Holmes fan ever since.
It was sometime after watching that YouTube series with English dialogue and German subtitles that I read that the series Sanditon was based on an unfinished novel by Jane Austen.
Well that explains how the dialogue in the series reminded me so much of Jane Austen I thought.
Last year I found myself in the middle of a move.
When the trailer I was renting a room in was sold by the landlord.
After about a month (during which time I stayed with a friend), I finally found a new place.
The landlady was a sympathetic woman who took sympathy in my plight as a struggling author and bought me a television set and hooked me up to the house’s cable.
Sadly she separated from the landlord last summer.
The landlord is a bit of a dipstick or a lot of a dipstick as he stepped on my android tablet last October thoroughly ruining the keyboard on it and never offered to replace it.
A friend of mine bought me a new iPad 15 Pro this past February so now I can once again do a lot more writing.
I got my new TV from my then landlady in mid-March of 2022.
One night after discovering I got both PBS Detroit and PBS Spokane on it, I tuned in one Sunday night and discovered Season 2 of Sanditon.
It was about halfway through the season when I started watching.
Half way through the episode I made the brilliant Sherlockian deduction that Sidney Parker must have died.
Which turned out to be correct.
However I found the figure of Alexander Colbourne a lot more intriguing than Sidney Parker.
Alexander Colbourne reminded me of a far better looking version of Orson Welles’ portrayal of Edward Rochester in the 1943 film Jane Eyre (based on the Charlotte Brontë novel).
Ben Lloyd-Hughes’ portrayal of Alexander Colbourne has all the existential angst of Welles’ portrayal of Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre but is far better looking than Welles (as is to be expected from a Jane Austen hero).
This is not to take anything away from Orson Welles who is one of my film idols.
He had an outstanding intellect and was a great director and screenplay writer.
I also have the ghost of Orson Welles appearing as a character in my vampire novel (having been dispensationally released from Purgatory by Hades the Greek god of the Underworld).
Of course not having the sexual orientation of Truman Capote or Gore Vidal, I didn’t start becoming a big fan of Sanditon because of Ben Lloyd-Hughes’ portrayal of Alexander Colbourne.
It was Rose Williams’ portrayal of Charlotte Heywood and Crystal Clarke’s portrayal of Georgiana Lambe that drew me in.
I’m not going to reveal any spoilers in my review here.
I will mention some of the very humorous dialogue:
Charlotte Heywood: Your niece Augusta thinks that you regard her as an intolerable burden to you.
Alexander Colbourne: Those were her exact words?
Charlotte Heywood: Well they were in French but yes.
And in the scene where the clergyman is giving a wedding rehearsal for Lady Denham and Rowleigh Price (an elderly couple getting married), the vicar says, “And in my sermon when I talk on conjugal relations, I shall point out that the world conjugal comes from the Latin word meaning ‘to yoke’…” to which Lady Denham responds, “You most certainly will not.”
The TV series Sanditon had excellent cinematography.
I would watch each episode 3 or 4 times on a Sunday night.
The two times it was shown on PBS Detroit and then the two times it was shown on PBS Spokane.
One of the stations had it on a third time early Monday morning but which I watched with the volume on Mute so as not to disturb my roommates in the house.
It was with the sound off (but knowing what the dialogue was having watched it twice before) that I truly appreciated the cinematography.
Episode 5 of Season 3 was a cinematic masterpiece.
Each scene one of the characters was in light and the other character was in semi-darkness within the same scene.
Save towards the final scenes when both characters were in the light.
A true cinematic masterpiece.
And the entire production of Sanditon was a masterpiece.
I’m usually leery of someone trying to finish a great author’s unfinished work because it invariably isn’t up to par with the author’s excellence of style.
But the makers and the cast of Sanditon succeeded.
They created a masterpiece.
Jane Austen was a great woman and a great author.
She deserves nothing less.
-A personal commentary
and review
Written by Christopher
Thursday April 27th
2023.
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