Monthly Archives: July 2008
neoteny lobotomy
A reader asks: “Uncle Zip, what shade is ‘neoteny pink’ (Nova Swing) & can I get it?” Yes, reader, it is easy to get if only you follow one simple rule. Evolution, as many admit, sometimes proceeds by retention of … Continue reading
Filed under fantasy, Uncategorized
benighted
Jonas wakes up and the world is empty. What is happening ? Is this a disaster, or only a disaster for Jonas ? His fantasies–now that they can be fulfilled in an empty world–now that he’s “free” –reveal themselves as … Continue reading
Filed under books & reviews, lost & found, science fiction
chimurenga
Lara Pawson draws my attention to a “sci fi and speculative” edition of Chimurenga. Meanwhile Lara herself has a chapter in Rasna Warah’s anthology Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits (it originally appeared in Radical Philosophy). & I’m off to Helsinki tomorrow … Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
skeleton keys of the rain
Unconvinced by Nova Swing, a friend asks me, “Are you happier than before, or something ?” The Course of the Heart, she says, scared her stiff. “This book doesn’t scare me at all.” I answer that I don’t think it’s … Continue reading
Filed under ghosts, lost & found, writing
ghosts
I loathe Rudyard Kipling for the obvious reasons, yet I’ve read “They” four or five times since 2004, & I’m increasingly fascinated by Adam Nicholson’s narrative (in Perch Hill) of Kipling at Bateman’s. I’m trying to understand what I might … Continue reading
90-400-1
The bird calls here get stranger & stranger. Sometimes I wonder if I’m in Stoke-on-Trent at all. I sit & count our mosquito nets, while aircraft lug themselves into the air above me like suitcases full of cheap new clothes. … Continue reading
Filed under fantasy, lost & found, writing
& speaking of helmets
Here on the third floor of the Ambiente Hotel Retirement Unit we barely remember last week, let alone 1979, so Brian Cropper’s pic of the novice MJH grinding up Mississippi Variant on Stanage is a valuable aid. Helmets, de rigeur … Continue reading
don’t watch the movie without your helmet, darling
Andrew Pulver has a point here until he runs out on it & effectively turns his own piece into a coffee table conversation. It happened to books across the same period. The reading group & literary festival select for clever, … Continue reading
Filed under books & reviews, the horror
