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alexsarllAs the programme for Primavera's staged reading of Byron's Manfred notes, he's a great writer who has been effectively sidelined by being treated for the most part as the first celebrity - which saves anyone from actually having to read him. And while it would be hard to deny that he created the template for the wasted, world-weary rock star...well, like so many drugs, nihiline was a lot stronger back in the day. Even now that rebellion shores up the market, it's shocking to see Manfred's rebellion against everything; the master magus, with spirits of earth and air at his command, he can still find no reason to give a toss, about anything; even when it comes to the lost, incestuous love which is the closest thing to an engine of desire for the character, one is left with the strong suspicion that he wasn't half so consumed by it before it was lost. He beards the Devil in his lair, in search of oblivion - but when the demons come for him, he refuses to let creatures whose betters he has bound take him. Marlowe's Faust was a prototype for this, but Faust could never escape the Heaven and Hell who divided his world between themselves; Manfred's triumph (and truly, it does feel like a triumph) is to die as uncreconciled to Hell as Heaven.
In spite of which soul-shattering stuff, the downbeat conclusion to The Wire's first series, my melancholy discovery of the Dustbin's Graveyard and general tiredness, I managed to make it to Shoreditch for a little while, where in the refurbished Spread Eagle I confirmed the handy realisation that Magners needn't depress me after all, so long as I have it without ice.
Oh, and these will probably be all over my friendslist, but just in case: the equal and opposite problem to the 'size zero' business as regards cultural ideas of beauty, and the news that "Israel is replacing its ambassador in El Salvador after the current envoy was found in a street, drunk, wearing only bondage gear". I hope he's just being replaced in order that he can be promoted, or my usual boundless respect for Israel might take a small knock.
In spite of which soul-shattering stuff, the downbeat conclusion to The Wire's first series, my melancholy discovery of the Dustbin's Graveyard and general tiredness, I managed to make it to Shoreditch for a little while, where in the refurbished Spread Eagle I confirmed the handy realisation that Magners needn't depress me after all, so long as I have it without ice.
Oh, and these will probably be all over my friendslist, but just in case: the equal and opposite problem to the 'size zero' business as regards cultural ideas of beauty, and the news that "Israel is replacing its ambassador in El Salvador after the current envoy was found in a street, drunk, wearing only bondage gear". I hope he's just being replaced in order that he can be promoted, or my usual boundless respect for Israel might take a small knock.
