Copyright: George Holmes 5/10/09
FLOWERY

When I read her prose, lavish with lists, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions bristling everywhere, subordinate clauses running amok, I think it overdone. After all, less is more. But she thinks more is more. Flowery I say to someone rather sententiously; ornate, overdone. And yet somehow I am seduced by it. She loves rich colors, has done her research; she likes fashion, fanciful clothes, beautiful people. She loves dreams. She makes others dream, forget their slogging jobs, their drab lives, their shoes down at heel, their shabby coats. She likes luxury hotels, fluffy white towels, massages. Her haute couture sparkles with pearls and diamonds; her feet comfortable and very stylish in handmade Manolo Blahniks.
I want those things too. If only I could have her discipline. Ah, the life or non-life residing in those two little words: if only. She is at her desk by 7 every morning writing till noon. After a brief lunch a secretary types up the neatly written pages. She re-reads the pages again, changing little and then emails the agreed amount to her publisher. She is a clock. She produces. Her neat writing becomes neat typing. Her editor scarcely ever amends her product. Like Mozart, the words tumble perfectly formed out from her pen. But unlike Mozart, she is sent a large check for her efforts. She earns her living by writing, by giving people what they yearn for. She is a writer. She is flowery. I am envious.

HATS

Hats.
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Don’t you love the symmetry of the whole creation? The way the felt wraps itself round the head, the organdy wings, the chiffon roses on one side? And to cap it all, no pun intended, the asymmetry of the bow and feathers in muted diamante. I thought Aretha looked absolutely fabulous at the Inauguration. She really put a feather in the milliner’s cap to use an appropriate turn of phrase.
Millinery is a dying art. There are only a few accomplished hat makers in the whole of the USA. One big market is among black ladies attending church who vie with each other every Sunday. The congregation always swells on Easter Sunday and not just because Christ has risen. You have never seen such magnificence of color, foliage, and extravaganza. These creations glow in brilliant colors atop wonderful clothes.
I am sure God is pleased with the display. I’m positive He’s into hats. After all He created flowers, didn’t He? I think instinctively He knew about fashion. Well, look at angel wings, swirling draperies, haloes. The Pearly Gates are nothing but entrances to runways in a fashion show. I bet He loved those wimples of the Middle Ages and I would bet again that His favorite person is not the Beloved Disciple John anymore but Alexander McQueen followed closely by Vivienne Westwood. I'd stake my Hermes cloche that in God’s private art gallery pride of place is given to those Cranach nudes wearing nothing but wispy transparent silk and all wearing dazzling triumphs of millinery.
A hat crowns it all; it complements the original creation. The one mistake God made was not to give Eve a hat. If she’d had one, she would have ignored that serpent and we would not be in the pickle we’re in today. THE END

Writings2/

THE DEVIL

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THE DEVIL

My eyes agleam, I faced poor gullible Maureen. “Of course I don’t believe in the devil.” I said. “Who does nowadays except half wits who play the lottery and go to church?”
I pursed my lips. I had seen her in the lotto line that very afternoon.
Maureen quavered: “Well you never know, do you? I mean he (I chimed in with “or she”), well yes, he or she could exist”.
“Look Maureen” I said firmly, “have you ever seen the devil?”
“She wavered. “Well, no, but I did have a dream where I was chased by one with a long tail. I remember his large hands” She shivered.
“Oh Maureen” I said, “That was a dream about sex. Everyone has those sort of fantasies.” I smiled at her indulgently.
She looked relieved but then suddenly screamed out in terror. I knew why. I had swung my tail right in front of her. Poor Maureen.
THE END
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CLOVER

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CLOVER


“She’s been in clover ever since Valentino’s birthday bash in Rome. That’s where she met Massimo and it turns out he’s a prince. Of course princes are a dime a dozen in Italy but nonetheless she was impressed. She told me, ‘we are in luv’. Well, the way she said it! I thought one word: disaster. He is handsome, I admit. Well-,” she paused “-formed”. Her look told all.
“ He has that sort of hair that Italians have: dark, wavy, framing his even face, always groomed. Why we English can’t manage that I don’t know. Our Anglo Saxon genes probably make our hair grow in tufts and clumps, all coiffed by Mrs. Squeers. Anyway as I said, Daphne is in clover about it and has been for months.” Miriam paused. I looked at her. ‘Well,” I said. What happened?”
She looked smug, “You may well ask. My dear, and this is between thee and me, he has been married three times and two of the wives disappeared in suspicious circumstances.”
“You’re making this up.” I said.
“Yes” she grinned, “I am but it could be true, couldn’t it?”
She smirked at me. We don’t need words, Miriam and I.
I rushed to post a blog: ‘Heard on the grapevine’. Oh, I do like meddling. No one ever knows it’s me. My blog name “Enter Rumor full of Tongues” is very popular. Such a hoot when someone tells me confidentially something I wrote.
Well, what else have I to do? It passes the time. Anyway I hate Daphne.
THE END

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. word count 242
Copyright.George Holmes

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE



“Have you seen that new movie, Slumdog Millionaire?” said Harold.
“I have” said Berenice grimly.
“Oh,” said Harold, “you didn’t like it then?”
“ I did not” replied Berenice, smoothing down her Jaegar skirt rather vigorously. “The government of Bombay-now they call it Mumbai-. I mean have you ever heard of Mumbai gin? Anyway, the government of Bombay should be ashamed of those slums. Blinding children to make them beggars.” She looked disgusted.

Harold said, “ Oh I heard about that before. It’s been going on for centuries. You remember those cripples in Cairo, those mothers with naked babies in Hong Kong. If we hadn’t given them cash we’d have been in the harbor. Do you remember that Tai Pak restaurant when we shared a table with that Chinese family? Oh, that fish was superb and cost us nothing.”

“Don’t digress, Harold, you wander off. And the film ended with a song and dance as if all in the garden were lovely. Well, it wasn’t lovely in my estimation,” she huffed.
Harold replied, “On don’t worry about it. It’s only a movie. Anyway they don’t blind the children completely, just one eye. Otherwise how would they see to get to the begging place?”
Berenice looked at him coldly.”Sometimes Harold, you appall me. How cynical can you get? I don’t want talk about it anymore. Fix me a large Campari and soda.”

Harold complied smiling to himself. A round to me he thought.

THE HOMECOMING by Harold Pinter

I saw THE HOMECOMING of Harold Pinter. Having attended the opening night at the London Aldwych theatre on June 3 1965, I was curious to see if the play had lost its power. It has not. The excellent cast in NY City enhances the tenseness, the menace and the dark of the text.
Everyone is venal says Pinter. Everyone is rotten, even those with degrees ( doctors of philosophy), with children and who live in smart Connecticut. But, says Pinter, let's have a laugh about it anyway. It is all a big joke and we may as well shrug and laugh. Better perhaps eh to make people laugh than cry? Certainly better to make them think for themselves rather than accept some rubbish from a religion or a political tract.

My mother--Beautiful arms and hands...

This photograph dating from 1920 or so is of my mother. She survived three wars, the Boer 1899-1902, the Great War as it was then dubbed, 1914-1918 & WW2 1939-45, two marriages.
She had two sons. It was a life sometimes easy and often hard,especially the latter part. Trained as a tailoress, she could make any clothes; do expert embroidery and had enormous patience. She dressed well belying our poor circumstances, a wretched second husband who locked us out of the house when I was
4.He sued her twice for custody of the child which anyway he did not want and fortunately lost both cases. He disappeared and we were never able to contact him except through a bank. He paid two pounds a week for maintenance with half a crown a week "for the child". He died in the fifties having lived with a woman who changed her name by deed poll to be respectable.
My parents were legally separated and never divorced. The court case was in 1939/40, the beginning of the war. Considered a single woman although having a young child, she was called up to make munitions working nights in the war effort. I was boarded out at night. When the Wellington bomber dropped incendiaries on Berlin as the Allies fought back, she used to say with pride: :"That's my work.". She was a welder.
Prior to 1939 she worked as a volunteer for the Conservative party. After the war she became a socialist. We took the Daily Worker, the Communist newspaper.

It was a different life to the one she had expected, the one where she had beautiful arms and hands and was a subject of photography.
She was a pretty woman. What a shame I can't see her again & only have these memories. Ah well.....