The January Archive

What is it about the January feeling - past everything else, low-glowing hunger that propels me around. (Eileen Myles)

Ella

Jan 31, 2025

to read —

Corrag or Witch Light written by Susan Fletcher (2010)

(you can read my review here)

I've heard fate talked of. Is not a word I use. I think we make our own choices. I think how we live our lives is our own doing, and we cannot fully hope on dreams and stars. But dreams and stars can guide us, perhaps. And the heart's voice is a strong one. Always is. Listen to it, is my advice. If I give no more of it, take this as all I have to say on life, and how to live it (for is my life not nearly done?). Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you. That's just my way of thinking. Not many think this way.

1692. Corrag, a wild young girl from the mountains of Scotland, has been imprisoned as a witch. Terrified, in a cold, filthy cell, she awaits her fate of death by burning – until she is visited by Charles Leslie, a young Irishman, hungry to question her. For Corrag knows more than it seems: she was witness to the bloody and brutal Massacre of Glencoe. But to reveal what she knows, Corrag demands a chance to tell her true story. It is a tale of passion and courage, magic and betrayal, and the difference that a single heart can make to the great events of history..

(articles corner)

The Sublimely Inaccurate Portrait of the Brontë Sisters written by Peter Ackroyd. (1995)

Signature moves: are we losing the ability to write by hand? written by Christine Rosen (2025)

to use —

to watch —

A Real Pain directed by Jesse Eisenberg. (2024)

I love him, and I hate him, and I want to be him.

Mismatched cousins David and Benji reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Awful things happen in every apartment house.

A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.

The Straight Story directed by David Lynch (1999)

There's no one knows your life better than a brother that's near your age. He knows who you are and what you are better than anyone on earth. My brother and I said some unforgivable things the last time we met, but, I'm trying to put that behind me... and this trip is a hard swallow of my pride. I just hope I'm not too late... a brother's a brother.

A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver’s license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.

Nosferatu directed by Robert Eggers (2024)

Do you ever feel at times as if you're not a person? What I wish to say is that you're not truly present, nor alive, as if you're at the whim of another, like a dog. Someone or something had the power to breath life into you, to move you.