Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Bluma

@bluma.bsky.social

150 followers 76 following 2.5K posts

Werewolf advocate, Golem appreciator. Writes a little about H. Leivick on https://blumalangerobertson.substack.com/

blumalangerobertson.substack.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 7h

My hot take, I’m sticking to it.

Extra points if there’s a ‘I’m not Jewish, but I do support Israel!’

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 7h

I swear, every time someone decides to describe to me in loving detail some act of antisemitism they were witness to as a non-Jew, it‘s like…second-hand smoke.

1 1

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 11h

I have not heard them yet, I’ll have to get the 12 year old expert in

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 11h

I love covers, the more bizarre, the better.

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 11h

Spotify is playing me covers of David Bowie and covers by David Bowie and this is absolutely fine.

A cover of ‘Andy Warhol’? Yes!

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 11h

It’s department store quality costume jewellery! I have been presented with earrings from them before

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 12h

There was an ad for a sushi place in Normandy called ‘Balagan’ that made me snicker every time we passed it.

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 1d

Quite frankly, I only trust dead poets.

1 1

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 2d

That’s terrible behaviour. Just...bad.

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 2d

All action all the time here.

It’s like watching tv with my grandfather. I love it.

Mack and Junior lay on their bellies in the tall Philippine grass. Lying — legs outspread, rifles ready, at the foot of Bloodbath Hill. Twenty-four hours now that the battalion lay at the foot of the hill and could not reach its rounded top. They had assaulted the hill four times in twenty-four hours. The air was full of torn up earth, bits of stone, bits of flesh. And close behind the artillery barrage, the battalion had started to crawl uphill on their bellies, slithering from stone to stone, debris to debris, on uncovered, churned-up earth. But as they’d reached the halfway mark, mortar shells, the flames of machine guns began to rain downhill from the other side. And all around, there were blazing steel and iron flames, handfuls of tropical earth, the squealing, sighing and gurgling of wide-open, torn-open mouths.

The battalion had retreated. Ten men were left lying here, there — five men, and they hid at the foot of the hill. And Bloodbath Hill, as the men has named it, was still again, sat, massive, unmoving, under the sizzling sun, as the day before and the day before that. Only here and there, on its grey, bowed sides, amongst the jungle grass, a stiff hand with curled fingers, a hunched back, an outstretched leg, an open eye, stared up at the sunny, blue, silent sky.

The battalion lay on one side of the hill and the sons of the rising sun waited on the other side. Waited with mortars, sat on the top of the hill, hidden behind machine guns, embedded in trenches.

Four times in twenty-four hours, and now the clock moved towards three ‘zero’ hour, the second-hand moving mercilessly toward the minute, the moment for attack number five.

Behind the battalion, cracking and thundering, artillery began to tear apart the top of the hill, and the earth rose up to the sky, the sky descended to the earth, and the sun disappeared behind clouds of dust and smoke. And the battalion began to move, moving behind the barrage, the wall of fog from the explosions.

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 3d

It’s also the start of a three-story arc about ‘Mack’. Which I really like. I’m a sucker for interconnected short stories.

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 3d

Next up, ‘Bloodbath Hill’

(These are all about the invasion in the Philippines)

— We’re going into hell.

The harmonica wheezed:

I’ll be seein’ you
———————

— Brooklyn! — your girl, the one who’s down for half your insurance, she’ll be having a ball right now. She’ll be splashing out with five thousand of your smackers.

— Her? — Brooklyn laughs — She won’t get a dime. The broad’s joined the WAVES and didn’t even ask me. Me, a soldier. The least she could have done was enlisted in the WACS in my honour. But no. Only the sailors with their light feet that attract them. To hell with her. I changed my insurance right away. Let her make some sea-bird happy.

— That’s wifely gratitude.

— And how, and how — Brooklyn sighs — she was great in bed. A demon, a she-devil…

The harmonica sang again:

I’ll be seein’ you
———————

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 4d

Serious, it‘s like going from ‘Martin’ to ‘Martin’s’ — why?

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 4d

Am enjoying all the immigrant name-change chat today.

Definitely got told the story as a kid, but the change? A single S.

That’s…like…why even bother?

1 1

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 4d

A small boat floated amongst the ship. A boat called an LST, built to sail right up to the shore, open its wide mouth, and spew trucks, jeeps and soldiers from its innards. Supply trucks, guns, rifles, ammunition rest in the belly of the LST, and the deck is loaded with war materials. And amongst the vehicles, crates of rifles, young men lie staring in the dark.

Eight days they had been cutting through the sea, and tomorrow, on the ninth, the bloody shore must appear from the blue of the ocean.

The youths lie in the LST, packs under their heads like pillows at night. Rifles resting close by their sides. Young men lie, thinking thoughts, rocked on the waves.

In the darkness, a harmonica plays. The thin, yearning notes draw out across the length of the boat. The tune — a story of a girl and her soldier-boy:

I’ll be seein’ you
In all the old familiar places…

The harmonica weeps, creeping into the eyes, into the throat — until ——————

— Give it a rest, Okie — a hoarse voice shouts from somewhere in the darkness.

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 4d

Scots have no problem with that ‘ch’ so I don’t even know what’s happening there.

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 4d

I thought things might get better in high school after ‘Striped Pyjamas’ in primary, but no.

The social studies teacher is teaching WWII/the Holocaust right now and can’t pronounce Kristallnacht and doesn’t know ‘Die’ means ‘the’ and I just want to go into a corner and scream

1 2

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 5d

Mmmmm not anymore.

I’d like to say I’ve moved up in the world, but it feels more lateral than anything.

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 5d

Time in Dundee hastens the coming of the Moshiach and takes time off your punishment after death.

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 6d

You clearly never lived in Dundee.

There are statues.

(There’s also one for Lemmings, so, you win some, you lose some?)

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 6d

I’d like to think I’m past all of the squishier bits, but I know I’m not — the story about a farm boy being deflowered by a middle-aged housewife on holiday in the Catskills is still to come!

Save me

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 6d

Thanks for the reply. I’m not super formal myself (and slightly shy) and I’m a little anxious about approaching ‘civilians’.

1 1

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 6d

May I ask how you decide whether or not to contact someone? Do you always have a firm project in mind before reaching out?

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 6d

If someone told me that I could be taken serious in life and not have to be graceful and generous, but I’d have to give up having children….

I don’t know what I’d say other than I don’t think a lot of men are presented with that theoretical choice while casually reading the paper.

Bluma @bluma.bsky.social · 6d

The little voice in me that goes ‘the forties were a different world’ keeps shouting to be heard. But it’s going hoarse.