If the classic mystery writer is to keep her covenant with the reader (PD James calls it “playing fair”, though she may be taking up a slyer position than first seems), large volumes of data must be conveyed. Any channel is acceptable. The cast face front & announce themselves, adding a brief genealogy, a short [...]
Entries from August 2008
August 29, 2008
friday afternoon
Lovely to get a namecheck for Climbers in the comments here. I agree with “nickum” on James Salter: Solo Faces is such a sharp novel. I’d add “any essay by Jim Perrin” to the list, too; & also anything by John Krakauer. This is not to mention Robert McFarlane.
Re-reading: TM Wright, A Manhattan Ghost Story. [...]
August 28, 2008
you haven’t been conned
I watched David Hare’s TV adaptation of My Zinc Bed, his play about three drunks, gripped by its weird tensions & astonished by the oblique intensity of the interactions between Paddy Considine & Uma Thurman as they hoovered one another up. I say “oblique” because I was never entirely sure what I was being shown. [...]
August 27, 2008
dominance & submission
I read this & then this & I’m not sold (sorry Paul & Ellen).
Instead of upping the presentation-to-content ratio, & bringing your praxis into line with everyone else’s, you could ask yourself why you’re writing. As a result you might find you want to submit the story by stencilling it on to sixteen roughly torn [...]
August 26, 2008
offers
Things I can remember storing: around 500 books; bookcase made of found wood; a broken dining chair only needs a little glue; two thin ethnic rugs, rolled & cat-haired; Indian folding inlaid table 1976, hinges gone; signed copies of books by people I had fallen out with; single-spaced typewritten drafts on pink, yellow & white [...]
August 23, 2008
paradoxes i don’t get them
Despite my trade, C believes, I have no imagination. This came up because I admitted I don’t enjoy paradoxes (except my own ones deep down in the psyche etc etc). I don’t enjoy paradoxes because, despite apparent evidence to the contrary, I am quite a pragmatic person. Also, all the pre-quantum ones seem cheap.
Take hares. [...]
August 20, 2008
socked
Infinite Thought just so sums it up. Me for that sock puppet life, too.
Or this. Right now.
August 19, 2008
tony @ the museum
Flushed by the success of his July workshop, Tony White is running another on Tuesday, August 26th. 09:45 to 17:00, the Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2DD. It’s free, but pre-booking is essential. Go here for more information and to reserve a place.
August 18, 2008
london through a lens
C’s latest project at Time Out, London Through a Lens, launches on Wednesday evening at the Getty Images Gallery (exhibition runs from Thursday). C chose the pictures for the book, organised them, and wrote the captions (although not the ones used by the Telegraph). “Think of it,” she told the Telegraph, “as an idiosyncratic photo [...]
