“Yes, it's story time on WJAD in the heart of Times Square, New York, New York. The city so nice, they named it twice.”

– Johnny LaGuardia, on the air

“Matto, caldo, soldi, morto… girotondo…”

– Ah, regarde, c'est Tati ! – Tati qui? – Tati, comme Mon Oncle.

“I think it's really rotten of them to lock you up like this for making love to a boy.”

– Thomas Manzoni

“I'll be eating frankfurters and onions. Plenty of tomato ketchup. Chips with lots of vinegar. Few cockles and muscles. Jellied eels, Coca-Cola, beer, the old jukebox, lollipops, all the lot.”

– Pete

“Mr. Cadell got a bad leg in the war for his courage. And you've got your sleeve in the celery, Mr. Phillip.”

– Mrs. Wilson

“My son – Sebastian – and I constructed our days. Each day we would carve each day like a piece of sculpture, leaving behind us a trail of days like a gallery of sculpture until suddenly, last summer.”

– Mrs Vi Venable

“I still think it would be wonderful to have a man love you so much he'd kill for you.”

A clock face for Tick Tock Day, USA.

 

After World War II, the Japanese martial arts of #kendo was banished by the occupying forces in an attempt to “remove and exclude militaristic and ultra-nationalistic persons from life”. With that in mind, it makes complete sense that nationalist author and former kendo practitioner Yukio Mishima wrote a short story – Sword, originally published in literary magazine Shincho in 1963 – about the art.

– So what is your goal in life then?

– Satisfaction of the present. The sword, and nothing else.

Both the story and Kenji Misumi's 1964 film adaptation follow arrogant kendo student Jiro, played by sublime kabuki actor Raizō Ichikawa who also appears in an earlier Mishima adaptation, 炎上 [Enjō / The Temple of the Golden Pavilion / Conflagration] (1958).