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| Tuesday, September 18, 2001
Ask an intelligent question... ... and you get a gratifying answer. My askance about whether HST had written about the WTC disaster was answered by the enigmatically named "--". It's on ESPN, of all places. He/she also recommended "Stand On Zanzibar by John Brunner if you liked Transmetropolitan. Stylistically, I think Warren Ellis either consciously or unconsciously borrowed from this book, which isn't too hard to figure since this is what started 'cyberpunk' (my opinion)." This sort of erudite mail is what makes it all worthwhile. New banners on Spike - one for V.K. Mina's The Splintered Day, which has been receiving plaudits from the likes of Fay Weldon, The New York Times and The Guardian. Check out the book's site. Similarly, also take a peek at the Centre For Book Culture's Context forum which you'll see popping up on Spike - lots of good stuff there. A novel which sounds fascinating (and, yes, which I still have to read) is Michael Zandoorian's Second Hand, which seems to revolve in part around the joy of discovering gems in other people's discarded stuff. As a reformed junkaholic myself, (I used to haunt charity shops in Brighton to resell supercheap donated books to secondhand bookshops for a somewhat dishevelled profit - an afternoon's work would just about pay for a pack of fags), it has a definite appeal. I'm beginning to think that rather than being an ideal reader I'm becoming the worst reader around, on account I don't seem to be doing much reading at the moment... Monday, September 17, 2001 World War Three Hmm. Having looked at Spike's stats this morning, the most popular phrase by far which is bringing people to Spike through search engines is "world war three". They're finding this old review of James Adams' The Next World War. Sunday, September 16, 2001 With God on their side? Two recent comments about last Tuesday: “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians …helped this happen.” And: “God has never been on the side of sexual perverts and liars.” Who do you think made them? Well, the first was from US Far Right evangelist Jerry Falwell, and the second, Falwell's apparently long lost buddy Osama Bin Laden. The second link is an article on the Sudan bombing, mentioned below.
Sudan It’s at times like this – when time stops – that free speech and democracy start to mean something. And so, at times like this, one notices a uniformity of opinion in the corportate news media. Yesterday I heard a presenter on the BBC compare those who have tried to explain why the US is hated so much with those who deny the Holocaust. Noam Chomsky, veteran campaigner and analyst, says in this article: “The September 11 attacks were major atrocities. In terms of number of victims they do not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and probably killing tens of thousands of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it).” If this is true – and what Chomsky says is invariably based on sound evidence - doesn’t it make you wonder why this didn't "change the world"? Or maybe it did, and we've only just noticed. Saturday, September 15, 2001 The Way Of All Flesh Amazon.com have already raised over $5 million in Red Cross donations for the WTC disaster. You can contribute here. If you're looking for alternative reporting and reflections on the events of the past week beyond the mainstream press, check the main Blogger page. Thousands of people are putting their thoughts in their weblogs and creating a vast archive of personal journalism that runs parallel to the traditional media. Some more top titles arriving here - Midas Dekkers' The Way Of All Flesh: A Celebration Of Decay looks particularly interesting - something of an attack on our obsession with youth and beauty by the looks of it, and celebrating what we spend so much time denying - that things get older and slowly disintegrate. Looking forward to that one. The book comes out in a week or so. There's also the new Dylan biography Down The Highway from Grove Press. I think I need to start doing Spike as a full time job to be able to read all these... However, this afternoon I read Bjork's self-titled book in one go - not difficult as it's one of those luxury coffee-table type affairs so there aren't that many words in it. I've always had a lot of time for Bjork because she radiates intelligence and humour and she's restlessly creative, always trying different stuff and refusing to rest on her laurels. Bjork the book is a beautifully crafted book in its appearance - cloth cover, full colour pages, lots of photos - and with someone as photogenic as Bjork, that's no bad thing. There's an essay in here that compares Bjork to Bowie in having the same need to reinvent herself all the time, and that she prefers hiding behind certain masks of herself rather than putting the real Bjork fully on show to the public. Certainly that's borne out by the collection of photos of her from over the last 10 years. The other thing I like about Bjork is that she's not obsessed with looking perfect or beautiful everytime someone points a camera at her - she seems interested in photography as art and the possibilities of the images that can be created using herself as the focus - or rather, exploiting the photo opportunities that she has to deal with as part of being a pop star to do something different rather than the usual toothsome grinny stuff. Besides the Bowie/Bjork essay there's an interview between her and David Attenborough, of all people, as she's been a big fan of his for a long time - sadly it's pretty short.There's also some impenetrable academic essay about the nature of Bjork's fame and then a closing collection of photos and writing from people who have worked with and been an influence on Bjork - each one gets four pages to do whatever they want, which is a refreshing acknowledgement that no matter how creative you are, you still need other people to help you. It's a shame there isn't more in the book from Bjork herself - she seems content to let others speak about her than to let slip her own thoughts, except for a few pages on her dreams - so while this is classified as biography, it's more a scrapbook of what she's been doing over the last decade. If you're a Bjork fan, this will be pretty essential - if you're not, it's still a good book to browse through for some random flashes of beauty and imagination. I've also just finished the latest Transmetropolitan collection, Lonely City - not quite as cohesive as the other collections as it's a set of smaller stories rather than an ongoing narrative, but still an excellent addition to the Spider Jerusalem saga. If you've not read Transmet before (and I strongly recommend you do), then starting at the beginning with the first two volumes, Back On The Street and Lust For Life is the best way into it. The series' themes of political corruption and media manipulation are bang on the money, acting as a satire and commentary on the real world through Transmet's slightly-future setting. If you like Hunter S. Thompson, you'll like Transmet - trust me. Speaking of whom - does anyone know if HST has written anything yet about the events of the last week - all details gratefully received if so. Wednesday, September 12, 2001 What next This article from indymedia.org does a good job of summarising some of the reasons for why yesterday's events occurred. The emotive power of September 11th threatens to cancel out any rational discussion or consideration of the fraught nature of American/Arab relations and foreign policy over the last 50 years. If that consideration doesn't happen, the cycle of mass violence will continue - especially with the American military gagging at the bit to execute retribution on the first target to which they can attach the most tenuous of justifications. War is politics fought by other means, but the only people being killed in 21st century warfare are innocent civilians. Tuesday, September 11, 2001 No title Literature is the last thing on our minds today, but literature is how we accommodate today's impossible news. Certain phrases come to my mind, the words of WH Auden from his poem written in New York on September 1st, 1939. "Waves of anger and fear But perhaps more significantly, in light of the probable perpetrators: "I and the public know Monday, September 10, 2001 Blatant Promotion Doesn't it ever strike you as strange the absolute absence of book advertising on the Web? There's absolutely nothing out there, which seems bizarre for a medium that's all about words with the occasional fuzzy picture. As such, I've decided Spike will now start running banner ads promoting new book titles for free - so, authors, publishers, publicists, send me your banner ads - and a copy of the book - and I'll display it on the site for nothing. Unless I decide I don't like it, which is my perogative. And indeed, pejorative. Check the current banners for Antony Johnston's Frightening Curves (Cyberosia) and Alejo Carpentier's Music In Cuba (University of Minnesota Press) - both good examples of what you could do. I've also just discovered Burned Down Days, the official site for The Psychedelic Furs. Torch - one of the best songs ever written. So good you can only buy it on a compilation these days, as the album Book Of Days appears to have been deleted. Should God Forget indeed. A criminally under-appreciated band. I blame John Hughes.
I stepped into an avalanche... I discovered the other night that the pub opposite my house has Leonard Cohen lyrics graffiti'd on the back of the door in the men's loo. Not just by one person either - several souls have been moved to scratch away at the paintwork with whatever came to hand (as it were) , usually following on with the next line of the song. It's my kind of pub. Here's hoping that the lyrics on Len's new album, Ten New Songs, will be as worthy of such immortality. New books keep arriving through the letter box from kindly PR people too. I love the random nature of new tomes turning up - it's like Christmas come early each time. Especially if they're of the calibre of The Grove Press Reader 1951 - 2001, which contains not only a brief history of this legendary publishing house but also extracts of virtually all its most important writers - Beckett, Burroughs, Henry Miller, David Mamet, Pinter, Borges - scores of the buggers, many of whom were given first light to the world through Grove. There are lots of authors in here I've never heard of and loads more I'm going to enjoy going back to - an absolute must to browse in a bookshop. Amazon.com has a useful write-up and reader review, but there's little extra info at Amazon.co.uk. Also in from Grove is Yell-Oh Girls! Emerging Voices Explore Culture, Identity and Growing Up Asian American. I'm always a little confused about my own opinion of such anthologies - on the one hand giving a platform to such voices is a good thing, but doing so en masse separate from any other context seems to undermine the real need of getting this sort of stuff under the noses of those who wouldn't normally read it. I'm also a little dubious of the sub-academic jargon too - written by students for students. Mind you, there's a stack of rave reader reviews on Amazon.com from Asian-American women who have found Yell-Oh Girls! useful.
Want
more? Visit the Splinters archive: April
2001: March
2001: February
2001: January
2001: December
2000: November
2000: October
2000: September
2000:
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splinters (daily weblog) • interviews
• features • new
writing • book reviews • daily book news • music reviews • daily music news • forum • search • mailing list • links • open directory • buy books & CDs • about spike • contact spike • |
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