Saturday Good Reads

British actor Alan Rickman, 69, died this week. He’s perhaps best known for his role in the Harry Potter movies, or as the hilarious if evil Sheriff George of Nottingham in Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood. But the very first movie we saw him in, and I still think one of the best we saw him in, was 1990’s Truly, Madly, Deeply, with Juliet Stevenson. He plays a ghost. And in a movie filled with humor and laughter and pathos and “best scenes,” one of the best scenes of all was Rickman and Stevenson singing “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More.” See below.

And a beautiful photograph of trees in snow, an elegy for poet Walt Pascoe, and more.

Art and Photography

Tree in Snow – Tim Good at Arts by Tiwago.

Various Light – Jack Baumgartner at The School of the Transfer of Energy.

The Moviegoer – Jared Ragland at Oxford American.

Faith

The Nominalist Church at Year Zero – Rod Dreher at American Conservative.

The One Thing Prayer Always Changes – Jason Vana.

Can Writing Heal the Writer? – Mick Silva.

Bold Faith – A Lesson from the First Century – Ron Edmondson (video).

Poetry

Why Teaching Poetry is So Important – Andrew Simmons at The Atlantic.

Laurie Klein – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

Island of the Earth-Shaker – Brendan MacOdrum at Oran’s Well.

Elegy for Holly – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

My Friend and I - Danny Barbare at Curator Magazine.

British Stuff

The Crown – A new series coming from Netflix (trailer). Queen Elizabeth II is played by Claire Foy, familiar as Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall.

Life and Culture

The Triumph of Email – Adrienne Lafrance at The Atlantic.

The Evolution of David Brooks – interview at Moment.

The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More

Top photograph: In the movie Truly, Madly, Deeply, Alan Rickman recites this poem in Spanish to Juleit Stevenson as she translates the poem into English.