All posts tagged: Heaven

The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck

The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck

Published by Jenni Sidey

The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck opens with a Spanish corporal chasing runaway Indians over a ridge, sees the valley below, takes off his steel helmet and calls it the green pastures of heaven. He intends to return and live there peacefully. Instead he contracts smallpox, and when his face begins to come away his friends lock him in a barn until he dies. That is the first page of The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck, and the joke it sets up runs for two hundred more. The valley really is beautiful. Nobody in it ever gets the quiet life they came for. How The Pastures of Heaven Works The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck runs to twelve chapters, each centred on one family, connected by place rather than plot. The form is the short story cycle, and this is an unusually disciplined example of it. The connective device is the Munroe family. Bert Munroe buys the derelict Battle farm, which the valley considers cursed, and moves in with his wife and …

Welcome to the Mar-a-Lago in Heaven

Welcome to the Mar-a-Lago in Heaven

Published by Daniella Wilson

Lindsey, Mr. President, I would argue in my mind, probably has a heavenly version of Mar-a-Lago. It may even be a little bigger. He may have a little more gold in the Oval Office in his mansion in heaven, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he added one big, beautiful ballroom and an arch somewhere on the property because he would want to obviously duplicate his dearest friend in life, you, Mr. President. — Sean Hannity, at Senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral The Mar-a-Lago in heaven is even bigger than it looks. But it’s less crowded than it might be, considering that it’s the Mar-a-Lago in heaven. Look at the chip-and-putt golf course! Admire the vista stretching from the sea to the lake. There is croquet. There is European-style terrace dining. And six tennis courts! Or pull back from Mar-a-Lago and observe the Reflecting Pool (perfectly American-flag blue), the arch, the Oval Office. This is it—the perfect way to spend eternity! It isn’t an insult to consign a soul to Mar-a-Lago for all time. This premier …

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast Is somehow too much and not enough

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast Is somehow too much and not enough

Published by Daniella Wilson

Add How to Get to Heaven from Belfast to your watchlist It’s hard work following up a seminal series like Derry Girls, and while many may try to draw comparisons between the Channel 4 comedy and Lisa McGee’s glossy new series, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, there are minimal parallels to be drawn. That’s because, rightfully so, this new show is a completely different beast. Not that it was ever in any doubt, but McGee crafts an entirely encompassing and vibrant world in her new series – it’s just that it’s quite befuddling and really rather stressful. The series doesn’t fit neatly into any category box and while How to Get to Heaven from Belfast has been seen to be a comedy, it has elements of a thriller, a mystery drama and also, more surprisingly, a ghost story. It deals in the surreal, while also being grounded in the joyous mundanity of friendship groups and their shifting dynamics as we age. It gives us messy women, complicated lives and avoidant personalities – all …

3 things Will Douglas Heaven is into right now

3 things Will Douglas Heaven is into right now

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Finding signs of life in the uncanny valley Watching Sora ­videos of Michael Jackson stealing a box of chicken nuggets or Sam Altman biting into the pink meat of a flame-grilled Pikachu has given me flashbacks to an Ed Atkins exhibition at Tate Britain I saw a few months ago. Atkins is one of the most influential and unsettling British artists of his generation. He is best known for hyper-detailed CG animations of himself (pore-perfect skin, janky movement) that play with the virtual representation of human emotions.  Still from ED ATKINS PIANOWORK 2 2023COURTESY: THE ARTIST, CABINET GALLERY, LONDON, DÉPENDANCE, BRUSSELS, GLADSTONE GALLERY In The Worm we see a CGI Atkins make a long-distance call to his mother during a covid lockdown. The audio is from a recording of an actual conversation. Are we watching Atkins cry or his avatar? Our attention flickers between two realities. “When an actor breaks character during a scene, it’s known as corpsing,” Atkins has said. “I want everything I make to corpse.” Next to Atkins’s work, generative videos look …