tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37609231127829728972024-03-13T00:33:01.542+00:00the sound of the noiseWriting as a discipline to develop my own voice as I repond to the incredible, often inspiring cacophony of culture around us: books, comics, film, art projects, poems, the voices of faith. Drop in your thoughts or let me know of your own cultural projects and I will stop by at your webpage to say hi.Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.comBlogger175125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-77816390961118511682013-07-03T23:23:00.005+01:002013-07-05T17:46:01.542+01:00Summer 2013 photos - mostly Cambridge. Enjoy!
Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-91997535606348154052013-06-21T23:19:00.001+01:002014-06-24T22:34:28.075+01:00Review of BBC Radio Play series of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the GalaxyWorking through the radio play series of Douglas Adams' Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has been a blast. Unsure how to best share the love, I have plumped for a line graph. It looks a bit basic and could do with a few funky robots or spaceships here and there, but still - here goes:
&Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-88537735133406313002013-06-12T11:50:00.000+01:002013-06-12T11:50:00.186+01:00A New Poem: Why everything is not connectedTry telling the man
decapitated in the arena
by Maximus Decimus Meridius
in the film Gladiator
that the whole world is connected,
every blade of grass
and small pink flower
and emperor's thumb
is at one with every canyon,
bloody sea creature, swan and snail.
Try explaining as his vision slides around
that one day he'll be in fields
with his family
for serving the now-long-extinct empire
that Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-50844456345181703392013-06-11T21:54:00.000+01:002013-06-11T21:59:46.180+01:00Douglas Adams & the role of the novel VS science
I am currently reading the biography of Douglas Adams "Wish you were here". The style, sillyness and creative reach of his writing inspires me to write, and encourages me to see that the world is really full of amazing things and that anything is game for writing about. Right now though I want focus on a quote I just discovered in the biography, where Douglas Adams is describing how he was Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-34291985924381933222013-06-08T12:34:00.002+01:002013-06-08T12:36:01.154+01:00The moment when we remember Wolverine is actually a bad guy
From Uncanny X-force, issue 9 (by Remender & Tan)
Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-36133926474576291132013-06-04T10:30:00.000+01:002013-06-27T15:01:47.452+01:00The man Thomas Cromwell in the novel Wolf Hall by Hilary MantelWolf Hall seems to me a many-headed book, imagining a changing
England, as it comes about though the influence of the King's favourite, master
manipulator Thomas Cromwall. The court is probably in need of a revolution when
he takes centre stage at the right hand of the king. It's a world where earls
slimily ingratiate themsleves through spying and favours to get close to power.
The intricate web Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-44575377746191697862012-08-21T20:22:00.002+01:002012-08-21T20:22:27.052+01:00Sketches for SummerSome new sketches I managed to get done in between the other things this summer. I'm sharing these as I want to encourage and inspire any budding artists out there!
Thanks to Tom Clarke who took the photo which I worked from!
I was really pleased to get this finished in time for a wedding...
And here's one I started before I broke my arm, and then abandoned, but I Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-54109415188919595822012-08-21T20:16:00.000+01:002012-08-21T20:16:05.552+01:00Movie of the summer?So today heralds my return to blogging after the Olympics and everything. Hoping to relaunch it and give it a new look too, when I can, if summer slows down enough.
For now I'll just point you to something I wrote on The Dark Kinght Rises and I'm up for hearing your comments on the movie too, and the themes in it.
If you go to the link below you'll find my thoughts in detail on the movie:
http:Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-71704889387111173882011-10-19T23:32:00.000+01:002011-10-19T23:32:11.813+01:00Mini book reviews: Snowdrops and Seeing StarsSnowdrops (Atlantic Books), a novel by A D Miller, is an intriguing tale about the modern Moscow, with all the wonder of young love and high-class establishments and the snow and the sense of making it through - plus the corruption and the excess and the smut and property crime. I quite liked it as a tale of a naive man becoming corrupted, and in an odd way seeing that he does not care what a Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-44729587825696998462011-10-19T23:02:00.000+01:002011-10-19T23:04:55.040+01:00On watching House and living life
One thing I realy like about House is that the man himself (and the script-writers) realise we rarely just do something. There's more to us than that, we either want something out of it or we want to achieve things and succeed or we do it out of a desire for purpose - or with an ounce of care and compassion. But only an ounce. Sadly Dr Gregory House is often too right about the human heart. As Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-62802472332219520632011-09-28T21:39:00.001+01:002011-09-28T21:42:27.762+01:00Batman: The Long Halloween - the best and most unsettling whodunit in comics?What makes a good whodunit? At the least, strong characters, clues and a clever twist. But also: interesting psychology, defective personalities or madness and multiple points of view, an ominous danger at large, and something that challenges justice itself, provoking us to speculate on wider societal issues or ills or the very human heart itself.
On my recent holiday I finally got to read Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-58588146868691666072011-09-25T17:13:00.004+01:002011-09-25T17:24:55.593+01:00Metronomy - the beat of the wierdIf I've given you a lift in my car lately, chances are you might have heard some of the new Metronomy album I've been playing a lot: The English Riveria.
Typically known for their remixes of other work (eg Goldfrapp's Happiness) this seems to be a kind of breakthrough album for the odd outfit, who use mostly electronic instruments and percussion but also use voice and other stuff (nice bit of Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-2960415154313295232011-09-25T16:40:00.001+01:002011-09-25T16:43:16.210+01:00The Sunflower
A poem I wrote a few months ago:
The Sunflower
We hold up and gaze at
The head as big as our own,
It scours the earth below,
Magnificent;
We cradle it in child’s arms.
Let’s prise out seeds
Over the earth to watch
And listen to their flat sides bed down
In secret;
A molten dew-shower.
Here lies our treasure,
X marks the spot,
Let the place not be forgot.
Dreamily it Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-45494263417085106782011-08-27T23:38:00.000+01:002011-08-27T23:38:45.083+01:00Sparrows, living and reading Small GodsIn the thirteenth and very funny Discworld novel Small Gods, Om says the difference between being a small god and human is that humans are uncertain about what lies beyond death, but gods really know that when they come to the end of their lives/reigns there is nothing more for them, that is the end of their real existence - all that's left is longing for what was. At the end of their magic and Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-41383051423635052582011-08-22T00:12:00.000+01:002011-08-22T00:12:37.862+01:00Summer 2011 sketches and photosThere's been so much to enjoy this summer! Highlights have been: a holiday in Deal, seeing some action movies with friends, eating out (tapas) with some international students and attempting to teach them English phrases, catching up with my older brother and school-friends, and going to some great weddings, which have felt like big happy celebrations.
With all this going on, it's no wonder thisRichard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-47628307535716559792011-06-03T22:29:00.002+01:002011-06-03T22:32:25.915+01:00Thor & debts to one another in a kingdomPersonally I found X-men: First Class a slightly more polished and enjoyable film, and an absolute blast, with good new characters and 1960s spy-film influenced plot, and action beating X2 – but I think Thor was more ambitious, and despite being a tad too silly and “summer blockbuster” in the bits set on Earth, it had more interesting themes. May his return in the Avengers film next year Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-44100758930936752052011-05-07T23:27:00.003+01:002011-05-07T23:43:51.345+01:00The Dark Knight Rises - will it include a Lazarus pit?If you haven't heard already, The Dark Knight Rises (the next Batman flick) is filming and all over the internet you can see a leaked photo of some green liquid on one of the sets. This isn't pointless slime - it's bright green so it can be picked up from footage easily and altered or animated somehow. So what?
It suggests a Lazarus pit* could be involved. If you don't know the comics the Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-89606075723384383532011-04-01T20:57:00.001+01:002011-04-01T20:59:43.922+01:00Hooray for trusting in the crossFriends, hear these brilliant words, which my soul also needs to hear.
In the run-up to this passage John Stott has been talking about wrong ways to approach hard times and God, by self-accusing, self-pitying or self-asserting. But then he starts talking about the best way of all – to see Him afresh spiritually, and trust in Him:
If it was reasonable for Job to trust in the God whose wisdom and Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-27868910620193649822011-03-24T10:30:00.005+00:002011-03-24T10:30:00.456+00:00New Word Alive is nearly here.....On a completely different subject, how shall I blog about New Word Alive this year? I don't think I will be blogging there (although I could tweet there), but I will update this site when I get back.
I've previously tried video interviews - shall I do more of these, and see if I can catch one of the speakers/some of the punters? Shall I try something creative and new? What do you want to hear Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-68953151544652775612011-03-22T23:22:00.003+00:002011-03-22T23:29:29.494+00:00Graphic novel review: Persepolis IA couple of months ago I had the chance to read part one of “Persepolis” an autobiographical tale of Marjane Satrapi growing up in Iran as a girl and a young teenager. It's worth a read, as we consider the price of freedom for the Libyans and others in the Middle East. Marjane's unique upbringing was a strange learning experience for a young girl and she clearly has many lively memories of her Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-82027000926000471252011-03-12T18:46:00.003+00:002011-03-12T18:53:17.639+00:00Graphic novel review: Usagi Hojimbo ("rabbit samurai") vol 1It’s rare to find a series of stories which manages to capture your imagination, stories that seem fresh even while working within a genre that has definite traditions, stories whose range of characters show a breadth and colour that seems to cover several levels of society. I’m happy to say that this first collection of stories about the lone wandering samurai called Miyamoto Usagi pulls off Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-47989675251429434122011-02-25T18:45:00.000+00:002011-02-25T18:45:22.851+00:00Excellent poems from Simon ArmitageIf you like poetry, here's treat - Simon Armitage at his most awfully sad and moving and then following this - in a more inventive and funny mode, touching on huge subjects of 20th/21st century life (I prefer the latter one).
Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-1588279885294531762011-02-22T22:57:00.002+00:002011-08-27T23:40:05.593+01:00Book Review: Real Lives in North Korea - nothing to envySince interning at Granta Books last year I’ve been enjoying articles and books that bring across the story of how people are living in tough places. One such book is Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea – which won the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2010 and which I highly recommend.
Based on accounts of those who managed to escape North Korea, the book gives a sense of what it Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-57359584798513414792011-02-22T21:49:00.001+00:002011-02-22T21:59:13.701+00:00Painting - finished So this post is waaaay overdue as I finished this painting without much trouble in December. But anyway, finally here it is - so what do you think? It's ok I think, considering I haven't painted for a while. Keep tuned for more creative stuff later this year, once I've settled into my new job a bit.Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3760923112782972897.post-86643525453061569642011-01-26T20:05:00.002+00:002011-01-26T20:06:07.590+00:00Ode to a strangerThe story behind the following poem is that it is based on a wierd picture that I don't know the back-story to. Up until my recent move I'd been going to a writer's group in Gosport, and group organisers Jo and Marie brought some pictures to inspire us in the month ahead. The one I picked is below, photographed on my phone. I just don't know what to make of it. The poem came out of this idea of Richard Townrowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15079471857178165599noreply@blogger.com0