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Dredging the literary depths
America’s most wanted
"I've long realized that a general puritanism in the US and a fear of difficult subject matter and a deep disrespect for the minds and ideas and emotions of teenagers and so on were going to be a problem my work would always face. It interests me to try to sneak through and around that prejudice."
Alan Kelly interviews Dennis Cooper.
Posted in: Interviews
Dogs
June 15, 2009
Tonight I leave New York forever. I'm on Christopher street, the half litre of vodka decanted into my old jogging bottle and the plan is this – History day – I am history - I will stand beneath the triumphal Arch on which Duchamp in 1913 declared the Free Republic of Greenwich Village. I'll have a double in the bar on 11th where Dylan Thomas had his last. Another double in Café Wa on McDougal where Hendrix played and Ginsberg ranted. By Ewan Morrison.
Posted in: Fiction
This is a low
June 5, 2009
Its influence has permeated down the generations. It’s been adapted in song to varying degrees by Blur, Radiohead, British Sea Power, Gavin Bryars and in verse by Carol Ann Duffy and Seamus Heaney. It’s been sampled by Beck and Terence Davies, all seeking to capture some of its curious haunting essence. What is it that gives what’s essentially a glorified weather report a seeming magic? Darran Anderson on The Shipping Forecast.
Posted in: Listening
Journey to the end of the night
May 29, 2009
"Daniel leaves Ireland because this love and the new Republic of Ireland cannot co-exist. So he flees the island because of something negative, rather than because he is searching for love. I think a huge amount of people were suffocated by this new Ireland." Alan Kelly interviews Denis Kehoe.
Posted in: Interviews
An antic romp
May 29, 2009
All three musketeers are of the ranks of the Eurozone’s unemployed and unemployable. Unskilled and poorly educated, they bitterly lament their derailment to third world status. The construction jobs they once took for granted are now filled by migrant labor from North Africa and Albania. On a drunken picnic Reno, Danilo & Quattro Formaggi hatch a plot to steal an ATM machine as the means to temporary financial nirvana. If this sounds a tad depressing, it’s not. Jonathan Woods reviews Niccolo Ammaniti's The Crossroads.
Posted in: Reading
Songs From the Films of David Lynch
May 18, 2009
His version of ‘Falling’ from Twin Peaks is initially hilarious and disconcerting, so much does it subvert the original, but on repeated listening it reveals a certain beauty and charm. De-synthed, he strips it down to its bones, speeds it up into a kind of bluegrass version with its own jaunty power, substituting the mesmerising quality for something more fun. Darran Anderson on Thomas Truax.
Posted in: Listening
Three Poems
May 18, 2009
I don’t blame you / Well maybe a little / Another reason I keep talking / Like I had a theory of everything / And why you think to live for ever / No great shakes / Too many full moons you say. By Paul Perry.
Posted in: Poetry
Dead again
May 6, 2009
Bosch. Dante. Blake. Doré. Each had their own teeming and unique visions. For Flann O’Brien, it was a depressing rural village in Ireland where men slowly became bicycles. Will Self had the afterlife as simply a suburb of London. Darran Anderson reviews David Eagleman's Sum.
Posted in: Reading
Outcasts, graphic violence & a bad ending
May 1, 2009
"Baise-Moi has nothing to do with 'bad girls', it is a low budget, punk, violent movie. Forget the tits and cunts, for one second. The key words here should be: gun, death, fake blood. Not “pussy pussy pussy”. We did not know people would be so amazed about the “pussy pussy pussy” angle. I don’t care those two characters have cunts. They are archetypes: violent outcasts. Should not be always defined by them having cunts." Alan Kelly interviews Virginie Despentes.
Posted in: Interviews
Four Little Pieces
April 24, 2009
Marion Bloom was standing in the middle of Clare Street, in the drizzle, watching them both. She was clearly unimpressed, and frowned, as she slit a steaming scone in two and plastered butter over its smoking pith. On glimpsing her, Stephen tried to make amends and appeal to her more merciful side. He held her steady-eyed gaze. “The heart is capable of great sacrifice. It is able to forgive and repair itself,” he said softly. “It is the same with the vagina,” said Marion Bloom, biting into the last piece of soft scone, hungrily. By Graham Bendel.
Posted in: Fiction
dogmatika [version] 
June 15, 2009
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