Anyway, I don't know that we'll be putting bubble-wrap up on the windows at this point, though it may come to that in due course. This morning I've left the curtains shut in two of the living areas to try and keep some heat in.
When we were in Idaho at the beginning of the year, in what was their winter (it turned out to be more like our winter, which is often relatively mild), the house had a ceiling fan that spread the heat around the main (large) living area. I guess that would help here too - it might stop the heat sitting up at ceiling level and keeping our feet cold. Casablanca ceiling fans are one kind of model [see example to the right] but I'm sure there are others.
Amongst my clippings is a poem The Hinge Seasons, by Therese Lloyd. It was highly commended in this year's Caselberg Awards. Here's a 'ceiling' quote from the last few lines:
alive to the simple generosity
of that saucer of rainwater
sending up light to the ceiling.
of that saucer of rainwater
sending up light to the ceiling.
Here's a line from the prospectus for the old cinema that became
the London Opera Centre, where I did a year's course back in the sixties: Auditorium with rich Art Deco
plaster work to walls, ceiling and proscenium; side walls include large
panels of delicate ornamental grillwork and original lights. Large,
enriched 3-tier ceiling fitting providing illumination and air
conditioning outlets.
The cinema was built in the days when cinemas were next to palaces in design, though by the time I got there it had had additional rooms built in and walls shifted and all manner of odd redesigning done to it.
Here's Seth Godin talking about the pricing of
ebooks: Certainly less than $20 (a ‘moral’ ceiling related to the price of a
paper copy) and probably more than $10 (which is the floor set by Amazon as the
price of a bestseller on the Kindle). He's not talking
about 'ordinary' ebooks, but books with a 'provenance.' Sometimes Godin
strikes me as a bit of a snob, especially when it comes to the marketing of his
own materials. Anyway a 'moral ceiling' is a nice concept.
Back in November 2011, there was an article in The Guardian (yes,
I know I quote them a lot) about an overzealous cleaner unintentionally
destroying an artwork called When It Starts Dripping From The Ceiling.[See
right] She mistook it for an eyesore that was badly in need
of a clean. Enough said, I think.
In the light of what directors can
do to a play, check out this extract from an article on
modern theatre productions: Before I went I’d been warned by my agent,
by at least two other writers and by one literary manager that I would hate it.
They’ll wrap all the actors in cling film and swing them from the ceiling on
meat hooks, take out all your text and add in new text by Michel Houellebecq
they suggested to me. They were wrong.
Sebastian’s
production blew my mind.
Simon Stephens goes on to say what they did do with the play - and he approved of it - but I'm not sure that every playwright has had such an enlightening experience with their work.
And finally, an extract from a blog post by Jason Goroncy, in which the ideas of
ceiling are introduced in relation to theology: When we enter a cathedral and
we look up at the majestically-high ceiling, we are reminded that God is big,
that God is far away, and that we are small. But in our modern multi-purpose
entertainment centres, the ceiling feels almost within reach, and God is not so
big, and we are not so small. This reflects a change in theology – both in our
thinking about God and about ourselves. God used to be bigger and we used to
smaller. But now God is not so big, and we are not so small! Or so modernity’s
narrative goes.
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