I don't want to be one of those people who don't believe in any kind of magic, you know.

If I could only make one thing in my whole life - if I could only create one work of art - it would be Before Sunset. Words fail me!

"I feel like if somebody were to touch me, you know, I would... dissolve into molecules."

Incredibly written, shot, and acted. Eighty minutes of sheer gorgeousness - and a pitch perfect ending that left me speechless and stunned! I knew I was in love by the opening shot of the very first scene - a book reading in Shakespeare and Company, the camerado and I's amazing discovery on the Left Bank!

Spot the camerado, browsing in her purple Roman shawl and pink Florentine bag!

I actually screamed! Ahem. In other news, today my delightfully crazy old Irish grandma was regaling me with stories of her childhood in rural Ireland, growing up on a farm in Killarney with fifteen brothers and sisters. She told me of the Seanchaí - bearers of 'old lore,' storytellers who wandered the country, and would weave wonderful tales of 'adventure and magic' in exchange for dinner and a place to sleep for the night.

I am the Teller of Tales,
Gaze into the fire with me,
For I know of the Badger Lords,
And their mountain, by the sea...
So here is my story, may it bring
Some smiles, and a tear or so,
It happened, once upon a time,
Far away, and long ago.
Outside the night wind keens and wails,
Come listen to me, the Teller of Tales!
-Brian Jacques

Who are we but strolling players,
Wand'ring through the long ago,
Joys and sadness, hopes and longings,
Keep us traveling onward though
The laughter and applause of others,
Who view the passing cavalcade,
Leave echoes hovering some far summer,
Floating round a woodland glade,
'Twas but a tale for your amusement,
Like my unworthy rhyme,
Gone, alas, into those realms,
The land of once upon a time.
-Brian Jacques

Another poem my grandma can still recite from memory, at 88! It is about "an old woman of the roads":-

"O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all !
The heaped up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!
To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!
I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!
I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delph!
Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there's never a house nor bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!"

"In a darkening world, child, do not fear;
Believe in laughter, believe in life, and true love will appear."