Here In Catalonia

 I am currently reading George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" and am shocked how I have drifted into it , ensnared by Orwell's excellent writing. It's about the Spanish Civil War and everything about this book says a big no to me. Boring ,  1930s War commentary about something that I have no interest in at all.

Then I opened the book.

The text was huge almost unparagraphed slabs , only 250 pages but I wasn't going to get through this. 90 pages later and it is a truly excellent read . It brings out the total boredom of war and just as you are getting as numb as Orwell was the bombs drop , the bullets fly , the lack of resources , the dirt and filth , you are in it.

And it is very readable , I am just surprised how good it is , maybe it is just me.

So to go with it I've included Greenslade's "Catalan" from "Time and Tide".

One of the good things about posting on my own blog is there are no limitations or quality control (as you may have noticed , but you can check out my Vocal writing here , which is subject to quality control.

The Steppenwolf Coincidence

This has nothing to do with "Steppenwolf" as such (I am half way through "taraNtula" by Bob Dylan) , but I had recorded "Batman vs Superman" and "Justice League"  (although I and many still say "taped") and started "Batman vs Superman" and then thought is was not very good (I have a TIVO). I deleted it after ten minutes then realised that "Justice League" was the follow up, so recovered and started watching it.

Batman and Superman are not exactly paragons of virtue but Jeremy Irons as Alfred is worth the price of admission (many of his statements based on "Oh you screwed up again , so I will sort it out") , it turned out that it was more that watchable and I enjoyed it.

So don to the point of the post , in "Justice League" the main baddie is the Golden Steppenwolf , though he didn't look very wolf like and is just a standard devil figure intent on bringing the world to heel and into darkness based on some cod religious mythological configuration , and this reminds me of the text of "The Pentateuch of The Cosmogony" by Patrick Woodroffe  (art and text) and Dave Greenslade (music) . 

I enjoyed "Justice League" even more than "Batman vs Superman" and it comes out that Batman is really past it and the Justice League ends up consisting of Batman , Wonder Woman, The Flash , Cyborg , Aquaman and eventually Superman. Next up is "Aquaman" for me because it is available on Amazon Prime.

One of my favourite lines (and there are lots of those) is when Aquaman asks Batman "What's Your Super Power?", Batman answers "I'm Rich".

Growing up I loved Greek, Norse and Irish mythology as well as moving further afield and these have provided fertile fields for a lot of the DC and Marvel Universes, the most obvious being Thor and Wonder Woman's origins.

I wasn't sure what music to share , but given the Justice League scenario we will go for "End of the World" by Andy Mackay from his debut solo album "In Search of Eddie Riff".