'huge, queer and tawdry' but 'much admired by the public'

Some time since I've said what I've been up to, isn't it? In brief: Fitzrovia pub full of indie celebs, partying on the roofs of Holloway, much pizza, and an unexpectedly good Tuesday night on which more anon. But I shall pause to note that until further notice, the decor, the food and the (free, quality) jukebox have conferred upon The Mucky Pup the status of New Favourite Pub. Although fair enough, I imagine the company helped.

Two fascinating, flawed creators are breaking their silences this year. Neal Stephenson has a new book coming in September; having taken a well-deserved rest since finishing his magnificent Baroque Cycle he looks to be returning to SF, although the cover looks rather coy about implying anything of the sort. Meanwhile, there's Dave Sim's Glamourpuss. If you don't know about Dave Sim, I'm not sure I can summarise him for you; let's just say that as a comics writer and artist he's first rate, and as a letterer he's simply the best, but over the course of 26 years devoted wholly to his self-published magnum opus Cerebus, he understandably went a bit strange. In some ways, though, it's better not to know that, and just to read Glamourpuss, a remarkably sui generis comic* which combines fashion mag satire, art criticism, and Sim's commentary on his own progress as attempts to emulate the photorealist style of old comics artists he admires. I have no idea who he thinks is going to read this, and I find it glorious that he doesn't care. It's not something which would normally interest me, even, but he's good enough that it does.

I have no interest in seeing the film 21, but I've become somewhat obsessed with the soundtrack. Well, let's be more specific. The sleeve of my copy says only that it begins with the Rolling Stones' 'You Can't Always Get What You Want', failing to alert me that it is in face a desecration of as they are currently known a 'remix', one which I have since learned is by the ever-execrable Soulwax, our era's enthusiasm for whom will one day be considered in the same damning light as Jive Bunny's record sales. Nor have I ever got past The Aliens' contribution, which is exactly the sort of pleasant psychedelia one expects from them. But in between...well, you've got Peter, Bjorn & John's 'Young Folks', and that's always good to hear when the sun is shining. A couple of pleasantly unnerving pop-dance tracks. A fairly strong new effort by LCD Soundsystem - nothing on the level of 'All My Friends', but given how much of Sound of Silver sounded like a band suffering from that song's complaints rather than making them, welcome nonetheless. And more than any of these, MGMT's 'Time To Pretend'. This is exactly the kind of smug, hipster pop I normally loathe, or at most tolerate as background music, but here the serene arrogance wins me over just like it's meant to. "I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life. Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives"...and I just think, yeah, sounds like a plan. I don't even mind that it's a clean radio edit.

*Like Alice in Sunderland or Black Dossier, Glamourpuss is another nail in the coffin of that absurd combination of marketing speak and cultural cringe that is the term 'graphic novel'. Whatever these are, and whatever they are is great art, they are sure as all the Hells not novels.