You have to swear you won’t tell anyone, ok? I rather not have the whole school know I need help. The last thing I need on my plate is someone like Azul using my dilemma against me and having me in steep debt.” Big Monkey tries to push me away. Big Monkey always does. I do not go away. I lay down on Big Monkey’s face. NYAH! What do ya need now? My henchman and I want to get our spring break started!” Grim starts to wiggle in your arms as you take a seat in the chair across from Crowley’s desk, your co-student is obviously eager to enjoy a well-earned vacation from school before final exam season starts up. And for a young Swede, an unwavering curiosity for earth’s natural wonders takes him on an expedition that will forever alter the way we understand the world around us. Caleb and I, while Jon was in the editing room, would shoot set-up after set-up with different lenses and different focal lensing, and then the edit kind of tells you as we’re trying to discover what the scene should be. Like, for this circular move with a helicopter, I would add the crane to the camera that’s circling around so I could be doing this resting, moving up a foot or two, or moving down a foot or two, moving up – all that, so it felt much more helicopter oriented where it was kind of slightly changing altitude, say.

Ah, even better! Then you already have experience on what to do!” Crowley clasps his clawed hands together, clearly pleased to hear his charge is independent enough to not be his responsibility. As if Grim and the prefect were at all to begin with. The other point I’ll make about about the live camera operator behind the camera – which I discovered really more on this film than I ever thought – is that intellectually I did not really think of it this way, is they are the audience. When you view what they’re looking through through that eyepiece, they’re the audience, too, and we’re slightly adjusting the frame, and we’re slightly panning and tilting, because our attention span is making us want to do it. The ‘on-set’ experience

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So we auditioned a bunch of skies and were able to, in VR, just spin them around until we found the sky that we liked, and we then imitated that when we did the shot. Then, we would change the sky even when we did reverses or other angles, much like you would if you were shooting it. In a real shoot, you might wait for a different time of day or shoot part of the scene, a sunset compared to sunrise, because that might have given you a little bit more of a glow where a glow would not have been if you were to do a dead reverse on sunrise. All of it still has to look like we didn’t shoot that much, i.e., that it looks like it’s a normal film version of a cheat and not a computer you can do anything you want cheat. This books is literally just talking about people’s travel and potential travel plans. It’s become unbelievably boring. As I listened to the sweet sound of Janice Pariat reading excerpts from her latest book, I was transported to beautiful fruit-laden forests and the quiet in the cacophony of birds, and I could see how she has managed to piece together a book of such magnificent proportions. Just like the book, she exudes a sense of calm, a feeling of having touched something pure and of the earth. The cradle of the book—the first and final piece in the Russian Doll-esque narrative—is the story of Shai, set in the contested wilderness of Meghalaya, and conflates historical fiction with real-world questions of land ownership and the suppression of indigenous voices. “It was really important for me to explore how indigenous communities had been in tune with this particular way of seeing for as long as they had lived on the land,” says Pariat. “Yes, we have Goethe and the Victorian botanist, and we have Linnaeus at the heart of the book, but the story that really book-ends everything is Shai's story, a story about our relationship to the planet, to the earth, to land, to season. Yes, the book is about science and scientific discovery, but I am more interested in the point at which science and philosophy intersect.”

On the surface Everything The Light Touches is about Welsh Elvis impersonator Juan Lozano. A man who would appear to be in his early fifties, he lives in the depth of the Welsh valleys, and makes what seems to be a good living as an Elvis impersonator and singer for hire. But Juan is so much more than this, and the film’s maker, Ellen Evans, sees that. Waiting a beat, staring at him, and internally debating with yourself on whether to tell him what the Headmage has done now. What’s the worst that could happen?

WHAT!! You’re not allowing us to take a break?! Haven’t a mage as great as I-mmph!” You clamp one hand over Grim’s mouth and use your other one to scratch under the cat-monster’s chin to help him calm down. So far this is engaging with relatable & flawed characters, and a strong sense of place in contemporary India. I appreciate the nudges to highlight our need to reconnect with the Earth." He points to the large ears atop his head, which got the result he wanted and got you to match his smile. We’re all there together at the beginning. At the point of working on the Everything the light touches scene, we had shot some other footage like the stampede that needed some work, so Jon was in the editing room, and he had a live video tap to our stage, so he was always seeing what we’re doing anyway. Where the real camera would be

A novel of great charm, curiosity and adventure—a passionate call for shaking up the certainties of science and history so as to heed the intuitions and instincts that perhaps only fiction can give voice to." — Anjum Hasan, author of A Day in the Life: Stories I took my time with this book, because there simply is no other way to read it, except to savour it, at leisure, without haste. As Janice herself says, at the heart of the book is a tussle between stillness and movement, between ways of seeing and perceiving. All her characters are on a journey to find something, but ultimately come to realise that it is the smallest of things that teach them the biggest lessons. Cool, sweet and sour goodness flooded your mouth, while Ruggie readied his straw, intending to blow the paper still on it to hit you in the face.Did Crowley now know about Azul’s plans for Mostro Lounge 2? Does he pay attention at all to what happens at this school? Reading this book was like taking time off to wander into a forest and spend a few days taking in all that nature has to offer. Lush and layered. ... There’s an abundance of lush details of northeastern India, and the smooth synthesis of ideas and narrative keeps everything together. This is a feast" — Publishers Weekly

We see Goethe himself as a character in this novel, we see his own metamorphosis, his journey to Rome and he refinding himself there. Especially when he visits the streets of Rome with a woman he had fallen in love with, she is a commoner, not even aware of his achievements, for her the Pantheon is the place near which she buys curd. It is through her that he starts seeing everything arround him differently. He also arrives at his inspiration for the metamorphosis of plants that he wrote later. You start walking off too, but your renewed pep in your step from being with Ruggie slows as you see a familiar silhouette in the distance, leaned against the front gate of your dorm. Pariat recalls spending a lot of time outdoors as a child in Meghalaya and Assam. In the pandemic she returned to Shillong, rediscovering the forest and farms behind her house. This relationship with the natural world that she has so lovingly nurtured informs the tactile sense of place in Everything the Light Touches. Earlier, you and Grim agreed to split up and cover more ground when it came to finding a place to crash for vacation. You hope Grim will manage to find someone because… You haven’t asked anyone. This is a book about life- while we read about the journeys of Shai, Evelyn, Goethe and Linnaeus, we are also on a journey into ourselves. The Fifth traveller is us- and our journey leads to the discovery that we are each stardust.

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It’s totally “friendship”. But everyone in this damn school is too proud to admit they like being around someone. Everything the Light Touches is published by HarperCollins. For more on Goethean science see: tinyurl.com/goethean-science Evelyn is a student of science in Edwardian England. Inspired by Goethe’s botanical writings, she leaves Cambridge on a quest to wander the sacred forests of the Lower Himalayas. A book to savor rather than rush through. Janice Pariat shares prescient wisdom, especially to reconnect and care with our natural world; I look forward to celebrating this book with many readers!"