P.S. to 20,000 Days on Earth  

A friend of Alice's has just joined LETTERBOXD: a really great site if you're a lover of film, like us, which gives you all manner of ways to list and / or review films, and see what other film-lovers have to say as well.

And that got us to thinking about our favourite films, and that got us to looking again at our most recent review on this blog here of one of Alice's favourites - viz: 20,000 Days on Earth. Which she's never been quite satisfied with. Details of the review, that is, not the film!

Wait a minute, what's all this "viz" stuff?  I didn't say that. Alice stuck it in without thinking. Turns out she doesn't really know what it means, and had to look it up. Apparently it's short for the Latin videlicet, which means "namely", "that is to say" or "to wit". And To Woo to you too.
Get to the point!

Well, the good news is she managed to find a much better video of the final minutes of the film, and that enabled her to create a better image of the last scene, too. While she was at it, she also added another paragraph of the poetic lines by Nick Cave about the creative process. In fact she's even gone so far as to create a poster for herself with the words on, and this brooding picture of the man, to see if it inspires her to get writing something herself. I told her the picture isn't brooding, he is. But she says it's a transferred epithet, and I've asked for far too many underlinings today. Oh dear.

So: you can go back to the newly updated version of our post Further thoughts on 20,000 Days on Earth and check out everything there, or just follow this new link to said video. And since you may be both curious and lazy, we're adding the complete quotation below.

The song is heroic, because the song confronts death. The song is immortal and bravely stares down our own extinction. The song emerges from the spirit world with a true message. One day, I will tell you how to slay the dragon.

All of our days are numbered: we cannot afford to be idle. To act on a bad idea is better than to not act at all, because the worth of the idea never becomes apparent til you do it. Sometimes this idea can be the smallest thing in the world, a little flame that you hunch over and cup with your hand and pray will not be extinguished by all the storm that howls about. If you can hold onto that flame, great things can be constructed around it: they are massive, and powerful, and world-changing - all held up by the tiniest of ideas....

In the end, I am not interested in that which I fully understand. The words I’ve written over the years are just a veneer. There are truths that lie beneath the surface of the words. Truths that rise up without warning like the humps of a sea monster – and then disappear. What performance and song is to me is finding a way to tempt that monster to the surface. To create a space where the creature can break through what is real and what is known to us. This shimmering space, where imagination and reality intercept. This is where all love and tears and joy exist. This is the place. This is where we live.

Aaaah. Yes.

Je suis Charlie  

I know I wasn't actually in Paris with those thousands of people who gathered in the Place de la Concorde, then marched for freedom of speech. But we watched it on televison and online, and I wanted to show my solidarity as best I could: this blog and these images are the least we can do.

If you're not up to date with the news about the brutal terrorist attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (which means Weekly Charlie) you can catch up on the BBC website. There is an inspiring gallery of photos of the march on the Mirror's website.

Despite the tragedy of the deaths inflicted by the extremists, it has been heartening to see the enormous outpouring of support by those of many faiths or none; by the citizens of Paris and all over the world, and by political or religious leaders as well. See both The Guardian and The Independent.

The phrase Je suis Charlie ("I am Charlie") has been taken up to represent the feeling that the attack on the staff of an outspoken magazine, whether you agreed with their opinions or not, whether you thought their satirical cartoons were offensive or not, was an attack on everyone who believes that nevertheless they had a right to express those opinions - that we all have the right to freedom of speech for which France's Voltaire campaigned in the 18th century.

How poignant that the massacre took place in France, the Republic whose slogan is Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité (Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood).

Cartoonists have been in the forefront of the response as well. There are several collections of these online: by the BBC, by Creative Review, by Buzzfeed,  and by CNN among others. Do have a look. Above is just one example from the Telegraph. The artist's pencil has also become an iconic symbol of free expression, and appears in many of the cartoons.

But why "Charlie"? If you checked the link at the start of this post, to Wikipedia on the magazine, you'll have learned already that it was a new name for an older journal which had been banned, an in-joke about Charles de Gaulle, and a reference to Charlie Mensual (Monthly Charlie) which published the Peanuts cartoon strip, featuring Charlie Brown. Despite Sarah Palin's howler, the original character had nothing whatsoever to do with the extremists' attack this month.

The Peanuts cartoons, drawn by Charles M. Schulz, include several other characters. Our favourite is Snoopy, a beagle who was often portrayed on top of his kennel over a typewriter, seeking inspiration. He started many a novel, all with the classic sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night." Yes, I know that's a digression... But it wouldn't be a proper Monkey's blog without one at all.

This cartoon is by Australian David Pope of the Canberra Times. Clever - and chilling.

Below is an original Schultz cartoon, plus caption by Magnus Shaw: Charlie has the last word.