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Every Day Should Be A Holiday
Apr. 14th, 2008 10:55 amAnybody else coming to see The Indelicates launch one of the albums of the year at Madame Jo Jo's tonight?
An unknown unknown: I was unaware that I did not know whether there are moles in Ireland. Apparently there are not. Whereas the snakes so famously driven out by St Guinness are not absent as such, only "poorly represented".
Since the century turned and everything started going madder, I've often said that there's no such thing as contemporary fiction anymore - you're either writing SF or historical. That Joe Stretch novel about which I was enthusing turned out to be both. Like Atomized, it had a framing narration from the future - but that future stemmed directly and divergently from the book's 'present', and that present must have been the past because the characters kept smoking in bars and cafes. Speaking of which, 2000AD is currently running a Savage strip in which Poptimism's venue, The Cross Kings, is one of the key locations. An alternate Cross Kings in an alternate London, one under neo-Stalinist occupation - but for all the brutalities of life under the Volgan jackboot, there are ashtrays on the pub tables.
In other science fiction news: wasn't 'The Fires of Pompeii' splendid? Having found Tate's performance one of the less dreadful aspects of 'Partners in Crime', here she was definitely the weak link. Not enough to ruin the episode by any means, but I did wish for Martha.
I suppose it was inevitable that should the Guardian publish an eminently sensible article questioning the vogue for China among galleries, and the dubious tone of some of the accompanying commentary, in light of recent reminders of the Chinese regime's failings, then the comments would instantly decline into name-calling and facile moral equivalence.
Finished The Wire last night. Not really ready to talk about it; what is there to say? It is what it is. Maybe in five, ten years - if we last that long - some kids who grew up on it will make something that compares. For now and for myself, I can only say that I'm glad I never got round to getting any LJ icons from it; right now I wouldn't want to identify as anyone in there.
An unknown unknown: I was unaware that I did not know whether there are moles in Ireland. Apparently there are not. Whereas the snakes so famously driven out by St Guinness are not absent as such, only "poorly represented".
Since the century turned and everything started going madder, I've often said that there's no such thing as contemporary fiction anymore - you're either writing SF or historical. That Joe Stretch novel about which I was enthusing turned out to be both. Like Atomized, it had a framing narration from the future - but that future stemmed directly and divergently from the book's 'present', and that present must have been the past because the characters kept smoking in bars and cafes. Speaking of which, 2000AD is currently running a Savage strip in which Poptimism's venue, The Cross Kings, is one of the key locations. An alternate Cross Kings in an alternate London, one under neo-Stalinist occupation - but for all the brutalities of life under the Volgan jackboot, there are ashtrays on the pub tables.
In other science fiction news: wasn't 'The Fires of Pompeii' splendid? Having found Tate's performance one of the less dreadful aspects of 'Partners in Crime', here she was definitely the weak link. Not enough to ruin the episode by any means, but I did wish for Martha.
I suppose it was inevitable that should the Guardian publish an eminently sensible article questioning the vogue for China among galleries, and the dubious tone of some of the accompanying commentary, in light of recent reminders of the Chinese regime's failings, then the comments would instantly decline into name-calling and facile moral equivalence.
Finished The Wire last night. Not really ready to talk about it; what is there to say? It is what it is. Maybe in five, ten years - if we last that long - some kids who grew up on it will make something that compares. For now and for myself, I can only say that I'm glad I never got round to getting any LJ icons from it; right now I wouldn't want to identify as anyone in there.
