Monthly Archives: March 2009
being a ghost
It was very fine to be evicted from the David LaChapelle exhibition at the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, for carrying a bottle of mineral water; especially since the work concentrates itself around images of immersion. Water lay still in … Continue reading
mexico city
An old Ford Taunus with a drift of fallen petals across its bonnet; sunshine at the end of a side street off Reforma; guns in the cafes. At dawn yesterday, I thought Mexico City had this strange brown soapy light, … Continue reading
Filed under science fiction
allegra goodman
My review of Allegra Goodman’s The Other Side of the Island, in the NYT today. Interesting reactions to the same book by Liz Hand & Abigail Nussbaum here & here.
Filed under books & reviews, science fiction
i wanted to be a junkie but Buffy wouldn’t let me
Urban fantasy: the domestication of a few images & behavioural tics which were barely unacceptable in the first place. It was a frisson obtained not so much by glamourising or romanticising the disordered (though it did both) as by denying … Continue reading
Filed under fantasy
i think i’ll go to mexico
Reviewing: Far North, Marcel Theroux. Reading: Peter’s Room, by Antonia Forest. Re-reading: Michel Faber’s extraordinary Under the Skin–what can you say ? Looking forward to: Mexico City–the Festival del Centro Historico–in a couple of days’ time. I might blog there, … Continue reading
Filed under books & reviews
winners & losers
A chimpanzee did pre-planned violence, something we believed only human beings had the intelligence for. While that’s interesting & –of course–comical behaviour, it might conceivably have been a safety hazard for visitors. So we castrated him. This solution (a) maintains … Continue reading
Filed under outright politics
can we please not have the global conversation any more, please
This is all so dreary. No one in the 50s quite understood what the term “global village” would actually mean. What it turns out to mean is that village concerns become globalised. Those of us who left Deep Warwickshire in … Continue reading
Filed under books & reviews
