Three important take-aways from this video that I have confirmed in my study this week: [Read more…]
Celtic Cross Tarot Spread Video: A How-To-Do-It YouTube Film Post-Placeholder
March 22, 2023 by Leave a Comment
I promised yesterday that I’d be posting a look at the cards in Talbot’s Celtic Cross tarot spread, the one in his True Book, the embedded text of Troubled Blood. I am learning just how much I don’t know about the tarot courtesy of my reference texts (see above). This is going to take me quite a bit longer than I thought.
So, today’s post is a placeholder video on how to lay out a Celtic Cross card spread and what each card means (see below). I’ll be studying the history of the cards and various ways to interpret Talbot’s spreads, the Celtic Cross and the three card readings hidden on his illustrated pages. Thank you for your patience!
Troubled Blood: The True Book’s Celtic Cross Tarot Card Spread, Part 1
March 21, 2023 by Leave a Comment
The run-up to the publication of Ink Black Heart last year coincided with the viva voce examinations for my PhD. The day of those exams, in fact, was the same day as the publication of Strike6. I passed the exams, glory to God, but the months and weeks before and after that event are something of a blurred memory; I eventually disappeared from this site post viva to complete the necessary thesis corrections which I was given six months to make. When I came out of my cave of semi-isolation at the beginning of this month, I tried to pick up where I’d left off in Rip Van Winkle fashion with a list of posts germinating in my head. Readers here obliged me by voting for their preferences.
The consensus pick was discussion of the Running Grave Elephant in the Chat Room, namely, the question of whether Strike7 is the seventh book of a seven book ring, the seventh book in a series of at least ten novels, or both somehow. I wrote up my thoughts on that last week.
The other topic to receive significant reader interest was the use of Tarot card spreads in Troubled Blood, specifically the Celtic Cross spread on page 248 and the embedded three card spreads in the True Book illustrations on 537, 632, and 774. I recalled I had written something about the Celtic Cross spread during my first reading of Troubled Blood and I had a vague memory of taking some notes about the True Book before my oral exams and both recollections turned out to be true.
Join me after the jump for a review of my hypothesis and premises with respect to reading the True Book and the Tarot card spreads in it as well as my introductory notes for interpretation of the Celtic Cross spread in Strike5. [Read more…]
Is There New Hope for Fantastic Beasts? Ezra Miller Proves Me Wrong, Again
March 20, 2023 by Leave a Comment
I’ve predicted that Ezra Miller was down for the count (and with him, The Flash film franchise) in almost every report in the last several years of his arrests, confinements, apologies, and theatrics. You can search the site for those statements of surety that this troubled young man could not possibly climb out of the hole he had dug for himself this time.
The Flash premieres in theaters nationwide on 16 June. Except for my weather predictions for the opening of Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince, I think this means that my batting average for pre-event speculations is an almost perfect .000. My hat is tipped to the Warner Brothers wizards, their lawyers, media masseurs, and psychologists, for pulling off what I thought was impossible: the redemption of Ezra.
Does this mean that the Fantastic Beasts franchise might be saved — and Aurelius Dumbledore survive to see Beasts5 and the battle between Albus and Gellert? I’d tell you what I think is going to happen, but then you’d know what was really in the cards by playing the percentages.
Dylan Thomas and Cormoran Strike: Three Thoughts on the Congruence
March 19, 2023 by 6 Comments
Like you, I hope, I watched the 2014 video ‘Dylan Thomas: A Poet’s Guide’ yesterday, one I posted with Chris Calderon’s thoughts. I was struck by three things during its run in light of the idea that Strike7 will be somehow the finale of the series’ first set of novels, all in correspondence with their analog numbers in the Harry Potter series. If Rowling, per this hypothesis, has written the series to climax in some fashion at the seventh instalment, why would she choose the poetry of Dylan Thomas as her epigraph source?
Join me after the jump for three thoughts inspired by the introductory critical-biography-video, thoughts about the congruence of pube-haired Thomas’ life and the themes of his poetry with Rowling’s life and work. [Read more…]
Recent Conversation