#seance-theme

#seance-theme

Jamie Campbell Bower gave the standout performance as the big bad in the otherwise ho-hum fourth season of Stranger Things, and in this tawdry but fun occult-themed thriller, like Satan himself, he's back to his same old scene-stealing tricks. Once again, he's not the protagonist but a sinister figure first met literally in the shadows, making ominous pronouncements in that posh-boy accent. When finally revealed, he is dipping his chin and looking up with those uncannily blue eyes like a vogue dancer catching the spotlight. If he keeps at it with roles like this, he could be the Peter Cushing of modern horror, but with catwalk-queen hair, or the goth equivalent of the young Ralph Fiennes in his rent-a-villain era. What's not to love?

Abū Nuwās's poetry is sheer joy: it never fails to delight, surprise, and excite. His diwan, his collected poems, encompasses the principal early Abbasid poetic genres: panegyrics ( madīḥ), renunciant poems ( zuhdiyyāt), lampoons ( hijāʾ), hunting poems ( ṭardiyyāt), wine poems ( khamriyyāt), love poems ( ghazaliyyāt) to males ( mudhakkarāt) and females ( muʾannathāt), and transgressive verse ( mujūn).

A book about witches casts a spell, and arguments about whether blue-green algae should be called blue-green bacteria, in this week's pick from the Nature archive.