A Midsummer Night´s Dream

Greetings to you all, dears. 

I hope you are having the most wonderful of the summers. In my case, this period is being a very relaxing one after a good quantity of crazy months. At the beginning of the summer I began working in a new teaching assistant position, but now I got my vacational break and can really enjoy of some (well-deserved) spare time.

And what does free time mean to me? 

Oh, that´s a good question: First of all, means unlimited time for reading and writing; yes, just for the mere pleasure of doing it. I´ve told you too many times I am a bookworm and yes, I am even proud of it. So I am spending great and mad quantities of time with Lovecraft, Lumley, Prize etc. Of course, some of those reading will be handy in the future for my bibliography but right now I am just enjoying. 

I also found time enough to liberate some of my creative power beyond literature and study. I´ve been making some ornaments myself, such as necklances, brooches and ribbons. You can see a couple of examples above. The pendant was made using one of my spinal bone earrings, which were far too big and heavy for me. The ribbon is just a little piece of velvet, a cameo and one hair pin. Easy, isn´t it? I always enjoy by recycling old useless materials that I have at home.

I am spending some quality time with friends and The Gentle One.

In the last few weeks we went out for outdoors walk frequently. It´s nice to feel the fresh air on your skin, even if you are not a big fan of summer baking temperatures. I tend to develop a huge allergy because of the pollen but in the last times I just discovered many natural remedies against it, as the tea flowers in the picture. I have to thank my friend Morgan for that, she was the one to teach me how to use herbal remedies as a medicine instead of dozens of pills.

Oh, and of course we finally went to watch Prometheus together.

I have a couple of things to say about it: 

The visual level (photography and artistic conception) is great. Giger does its job masterfully. However, the film falls apart towards the second half. There are times of little or no credibility, and a total lack of connection and coherence. The first half is quite acceptable, with moments of genuine and classic science fiction, but the desenlace quite goes forced and "commercial" with moments taken from any action movie. As for the actors, the interpretation of "David" is wonderful and does not detract some of his predecessors in the original series. "Shaw" is admissible the most of the time, but falls frequently over-acting and compunction. Overall I give it a six and a half.

Anyway, darlings, I hope you do have a great summer break full of  special moments.

Last Summer Days in the House of Despair

There are few things to do these days.

Summer is almost over and evenings are becoming shorter, chilly and windy. Human beings (poor little things) must leave their delightful walks under the sunshine and going back indoors. One can easily presage the winter coming.
When September arrives I do not feel Spanish anymore, the rest of the country will have one more month of shinning existence but in this small northern corner the warm season is gone. My homeland is a vission composed by wild landscapes, merciless wind, stone cities and deadly coasts dreamt by a Pre-raphaelite painter or some ancient storyteller, and we - the inhabitants - behave as sleepers.

Mornings are not usually different.
Three days ago I woke up just for finding an insidious grey daylight slipping through the curtains. Then, a sudden thunder sounded somewhere and rain began falling. With so little options and the majority of my books miles away on my apartment (I am spending the last holidays at my parent´s) I decided to sanctify this unexpected captivity to good films.
The winner was The Call of Cthulhu, a 2005´s production.

For being honest I did not expect too much from it. Normally, Lovecraft´s adaptations are poorly based on texts and too much focused on special effects. However, this one was the opposite. The project, distributed by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society, recreates the misterious universe in a terrific movie. The Call of Cthulhu was recorded by using many of the most popular techniques from the 20´s. As a consequence, the final product it´s a exquisite silent film with a strong artistic design. It is the best adaptation I´ve watched the last month by far.
So if you find yourself imprisoned by a storm at home as I did, don´t waver to give it a chance.