Attwood Sisters’ Masque Of The Red Death…And..


BBC World had Margaret Attwood and her sister on today, with their contemporarily relevant (?) version of The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allan Poe’s horror tale…

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Margaret Atwood's Masque of the Red Death involved household objects repurposed

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….and I must admit, though I am not well-disposed towards the Canadian authoress, because it’s her fault all those bonkers bints march around American streets dressed like some peculiar sort of Santa’s degendered helpers…

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…MA’s voice was perfect as narrator.

Watching it made me think of another piece of old literature, lines from Robert Browning, which make me long for the days of just two months ago…

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“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
“Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:
“What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop? 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43777/a-toccata-of-galuppis

…when I could go out on the town, Jakarta by night, having beers with buddies and chatting to pretty local ladies.

How can you kiss some gal’s cheek, if you’re a ‘social distance’ apart?

I shudder at all those TV talking heads, gabbling about how we need to come to terms with the ‘New Normal!’

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Or, as it seems to me, their Brave New World!