Unforgettable characters....
Camilo, D. Camillo and Camilo
( A bit far-fetched, I agree with the Honourable Reader. To be able to distinguish in the hypertrophied pixels above the features of three distinct Camilos. The severe spectacled face of Camilo Jose Cela... Fernandel with a priest's bonnet immortalizing Giovanni Guareschi's Don Camillo.. and the typical features of a nineteencentury gentleman-writer, Camilo Castello Branco.. They are related, the three of them, to that quintessential English double-edged expression "Joe Bloggs? ... Ah! Joe Blogg is a character". Meaning that the grey colour is an honourable pursuit in life and flamboyance or any kind of fuss, although a source of dinner-party enjoyment, should be best avoided. The two writers , "characters" in that sense themselves, were of course responsible for giving life to a gallery of characters who were "characters" in their own right. And Don Camillo... what a "character" ! )
Why am I in Camilo mood, the Honourable Reader might ask? Something, no doubt, to do with yesterday's dinner-party, where the ghost of Nobel Prize winner Cela could easily be invoked. A charming hostess, with a blessed mix of Galician and Andalusian blood, something like a strong-headed Aries mellowed by a Pisces ascendant... Old Spain manners all around... a white-suited Georgetown-educated Bogota beauty... a nice white-dressed Lady aware of the existence of Tula (Russia) for moving reasons... a distinguished couple of inhabitants, until recently, of Belgrave Square's diplomatic Arcadia... a smiling Manager-Engineer nostalgic of the Colombian verb "rumbear"... The by-the-pool pavilion a perfect set for the almost square-shape dining-table where goat cheese morsels, curried langostinos and mint and chocolat postre slices followed one another with perfect rhythm.
Camilo, D. Camillo and Camilo
( A bit far-fetched, I agree with the Honourable Reader. To be able to distinguish in the hypertrophied pixels above the features of three distinct Camilos. The severe spectacled face of Camilo Jose Cela... Fernandel with a priest's bonnet immortalizing Giovanni Guareschi's Don Camillo.. and the typical features of a nineteencentury gentleman-writer, Camilo Castello Branco.. They are related, the three of them, to that quintessential English double-edged expression "Joe Bloggs? ... Ah! Joe Blogg is a character". Meaning that the grey colour is an honourable pursuit in life and flamboyance or any kind of fuss, although a source of dinner-party enjoyment, should be best avoided. The two writers , "characters" in that sense themselves, were of course responsible for giving life to a gallery of characters who were "characters" in their own right. And Don Camillo... what a "character" ! )
Why am I in Camilo mood, the Honourable Reader might ask? Something, no doubt, to do with yesterday's dinner-party, where the ghost of Nobel Prize winner Cela could easily be invoked. A charming hostess, with a blessed mix of Galician and Andalusian blood, something like a strong-headed Aries mellowed by a Pisces ascendant... Old Spain manners all around... a white-suited Georgetown-educated Bogota beauty... a nice white-dressed Lady aware of the existence of Tula (Russia) for moving reasons... a distinguished couple of inhabitants, until recently, of Belgrave Square's diplomatic Arcadia... a smiling Manager-Engineer nostalgic of the Colombian verb "rumbear"... The by-the-pool pavilion a perfect set for the almost square-shape dining-table where goat cheese morsels, curried langostinos and mint and chocolat postre slices followed one another with perfect rhythm.
Each dinner-guest can/could be turned into a "character" if the literary need arises... Camilo Jose would have understood that... Camilo too...
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