Welcome to Monday’s News on the March – The week that was in my digital world.

Best of Meetings | The Office

There are three principal performances that I’ll outline below by Ricky Gervais that raised my appreciation of him, but first – off I want to allude to his courage by just telling the truth in the face of the ‘virtue signaling and moral exhibitionist’ movement so pervasive in modern culture. Now onto his performances:

• The original The Office series (British version!). This video will give you a good idea about it if you haven’t already seen it. The Gervias character leads into this wanting to play a practical joke on his receptionist to impress his new employee..After that, the discussion of small people… ‘So, what’s an elf‘?
• The Golden Globes Speeches. Of course, these are now considered legendary, but let’s take a look back for ol’ time sake of just some of the highlights. Each Golden Globes performance by him is worth viewing in their entirety.
• Gervais on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s episode called The Hero in Season 8. The irony is Gervais plays a pretentious pr%ck but he is loved by all and sundry except Larry. Here is when Ricky met Larry in the show. ‘Three and a half hours‘ Haha.

Quentin Tarantino. How to get Pitt and DiCaprio to be friends? (Documentary Volume 3)

Any love for Quentin Tarantino’s latest film ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood‘? Well if so, then this is the place to be. This documentary hooked me after about 10 minutes and I found myself absorbed throughout. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is not nearly one of my favourite films by him, but I enjoyed watching the connections of Quentin’s ensemble and events and performances in movie history.

Old Hungarian Women

Theodora Goss (born September 30, 1968) is a Hungarian-American fiction writer and poet. Her writing has been nominated for major awards, including the Nebula, Locus, Mythopoeic, World Fantasy, and Seiun Awards. I don’t know what most of that means, but my blogger friend Sharon and I sure indeed love reading her poetry! Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Year’s Best volumes.

Old Hungarian Women
by Theodora Goss

I see them sometimes, walking
along the street, pulling
wheeled shopping baskets behind them,
or standing in the doorways
of apartment houses, talking
to one another. They wear scarves
on their heads, or hats they have knitted
themselves. They wear sensible shoes.

I see them, the old women,
and I am convinced
that they are witches, every one of them.
That they know (maybe they are
the only ones who know)
what’s going on — with the weather,
the war, the political situation.
They don’t interfere — they just watch,
knowing, having seen it all before,
having lived through a war already,
through assorted revolutions,
through socialism, capitalism, all the other
isms you can think of. They have striped cats
that lie blinking on their windowsills
behind lace curtains, and flower boxes
filled with red geraniums. They make jam
from plums and syrup from elderberries.
They have magic in the tips of their fingers,
which they embroider into pillows,
doilies. They make strudel
with dough folded out of thin, flaky air,
bread rolls like clouds, paprikás
for which angels sin and fall from heaven.
They can turn into crows, gray and black,
parading around the city parks,
holding conventions.

I myself am a little scared
of the old women. I am convinced
they can see into my soul. I am not at all
sure that I have been good or clever
or polite enough to avoid their curses —
or disapproving glances, which,
to be honest, might be even worse.

Maybe someday they will let me
join them — but I would have to become
a great deal wiser, practice
how to make jam, transform myself
into a crow, the magical art
of endurance.