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Can anyone find a definitive story on which version of Battlestar Galactica the lorry driver was watching at the wheel? Obviously there's no excuse for inattentive driving, but if he's hooked on the new version I can at least sympathise - whereas if he was watching the original, as some reports claim, then add bad taste to dangerous driving and throw away the key.
Went to that big Concrete and Glass festival last night. Well, sort of - I went to one venue right on the periphery where the only three bands who interested me* were very thoughtfully all playing not only in the same venue, but the same room.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
augstone and I attempted to take advantage of this by smuggling chairs into that room, but others, jealous of our seating, stood spitefully in front of us. Not a bad little venue, either - called the Brady Arts Centre. You could tell it didn't get used for many gigs, though; when I first walked in the lights were blinding, and you could smell the scorch as the dust burned off them, like the first time a radiator goes on in Autumn. They'd also had to bring in a bar - and not just cans, draught, but you could see the workings giving it a splendid mad scientist's lab feel - "You call me mad? I, who have created pints?" And they were using the bottom drawer of a fridge for the cashbox. A sign on the door to the garden said children shouldn't play unsupervised, because there was an open pond; I went out looking for it, didn't find it and was briefly locked out.
Weird being in Whitechapel a day after playing binge catch-up on Warren Ellis' Freakangels.
I've been reading two biographies of peculiar writers, AJA Symons' The Quest for Corvo and Steve Aylett's Lint. Though written 70 years apart, they have a lot in common. Both writers, like so many, struggled to find success during their lifetime - something one cannot in all honestly be completely surprised at given the work. Lint's novels included I Blame Ferns, Nose Furnace and Sadly Disappointed (about a child who is not possessed by the devil); he was also the writer of the short-lived TV show Catty and the Major and the seventies comic The Caterer. Corvo wrote historical romances, translations from languages in which he was not fluent and a history of the Borgias in which he refused to use the word 'poison' and which he eventually disowned in an argument over grammar, but is best known for Hadrian the Seventh, a book in which his Mary Sue becomes Pope and saves the world, the efforts of thinly-disguised versions of his enemies notwithstanding. On which note, both had a knack for making enemies. Lint favoured the principle of 'effortless incitement', by which he was able to provoke violence even in casual passers-by, but was the subject of particular loathing from the critic and dullard Cameo Herzog (author of the Empty Trumpet books); Corvo had a spectacular feud with the Aberdeen Free Press, but beyond that was convinced that all the forces of the Catholick Church were arrayed against him (he had failed in two early bids for the priesthood, in spite of a liking for young boys). Of course, upon their deaths such enemies as had outlived them were quick to change their tune and hail their genius - something which threw several of Lint's enemies given the persistent 'Lint is dead' rumours during his lifetime. Both cut odd figures - "Lint filled the room like a buffalo, with a haircut like a Rolodex and a greying beard like a surf explosion", while Corvo described himself as a "haggard shabby shy priestly-visaged individual". Corvo claimed to have invented colour photography; from childhood Lint was obsessed with the search for new and unnamed colours. Both have been survived by their work (and in Corvo's case by his handwriting), leading to small sodalities of devotees - Stephen Fry is among Corvo's fans, while Alan Moore gives a rave review of Lint on the back of Aylett's book. Lint, described by Gore Vidal as "entering the world of letters like a fat man jumping into a swimming pool", died while writing his thankfully incomplete attempt at autobiography, The Man Who Gave Birth To His Arse; Corvo left the scandalous The Desire And Pursuit Of The Whole, having earlier declared "I am now simply engaged in dying as slowly and as publicly and as annoyingly to all of you professing and non-practising friends of mine as possible", attempted to commit suicide by gondola and then threatened to publish an edition of pornography in the names of his enemies (their crime, for the most part, that they declined to 'lend' him further money once it became clear that they were never going to get the last lot back).
Neither of these men is quite plausible, but one of them is real.
"Oddly inspiring and supremely pointless" - Andrew from Swimmer One interviews Bill Drummond.
Bran Mak Morn - the movie. With a Solomon Kane film also in the works, could it be that one day not that far away, Robert E Howard will no longer just be known as 'the Conan guy'?
(The director's past work does not enthuse me, it's true, but he does mention that he's also a fan of Slaine)
*Flipron, (The Real) Tuesday Weld and Mr Solo, whose band now contains more people than David Devant. All very good, obv.
Went to that big Concrete and Glass festival last night. Well, sort of - I went to one venue right on the periphery where the only three bands who interested me* were very thoughtfully all playing not only in the same venue, but the same room.
augstone and I attempted to take advantage of this by smuggling chairs into that room, but others, jealous of our seating, stood spitefully in front of us. Not a bad little venue, either - called the Brady Arts Centre. You could tell it didn't get used for many gigs, though; when I first walked in the lights were blinding, and you could smell the scorch as the dust burned off them, like the first time a radiator goes on in Autumn. They'd also had to bring in a bar - and not just cans, draught, but you could see the workings giving it a splendid mad scientist's lab feel - "You call me mad? I, who have created pints?" And they were using the bottom drawer of a fridge for the cashbox. A sign on the door to the garden said children shouldn't play unsupervised, because there was an open pond; I went out looking for it, didn't find it and was briefly locked out. Weird being in Whitechapel a day after playing binge catch-up on Warren Ellis' Freakangels.
I've been reading two biographies of peculiar writers, AJA Symons' The Quest for Corvo and Steve Aylett's Lint. Though written 70 years apart, they have a lot in common. Both writers, like so many, struggled to find success during their lifetime - something one cannot in all honestly be completely surprised at given the work. Lint's novels included I Blame Ferns, Nose Furnace and Sadly Disappointed (about a child who is not possessed by the devil); he was also the writer of the short-lived TV show Catty and the Major and the seventies comic The Caterer. Corvo wrote historical romances, translations from languages in which he was not fluent and a history of the Borgias in which he refused to use the word 'poison' and which he eventually disowned in an argument over grammar, but is best known for Hadrian the Seventh, a book in which his Mary Sue becomes Pope and saves the world, the efforts of thinly-disguised versions of his enemies notwithstanding. On which note, both had a knack for making enemies. Lint favoured the principle of 'effortless incitement', by which he was able to provoke violence even in casual passers-by, but was the subject of particular loathing from the critic and dullard Cameo Herzog (author of the Empty Trumpet books); Corvo had a spectacular feud with the Aberdeen Free Press, but beyond that was convinced that all the forces of the Catholick Church were arrayed against him (he had failed in two early bids for the priesthood, in spite of a liking for young boys). Of course, upon their deaths such enemies as had outlived them were quick to change their tune and hail their genius - something which threw several of Lint's enemies given the persistent 'Lint is dead' rumours during his lifetime. Both cut odd figures - "Lint filled the room like a buffalo, with a haircut like a Rolodex and a greying beard like a surf explosion", while Corvo described himself as a "haggard shabby shy priestly-visaged individual". Corvo claimed to have invented colour photography; from childhood Lint was obsessed with the search for new and unnamed colours. Both have been survived by their work (and in Corvo's case by his handwriting), leading to small sodalities of devotees - Stephen Fry is among Corvo's fans, while Alan Moore gives a rave review of Lint on the back of Aylett's book. Lint, described by Gore Vidal as "entering the world of letters like a fat man jumping into a swimming pool", died while writing his thankfully incomplete attempt at autobiography, The Man Who Gave Birth To His Arse; Corvo left the scandalous The Desire And Pursuit Of The Whole, having earlier declared "I am now simply engaged in dying as slowly and as publicly and as annoyingly to all of you professing and non-practising friends of mine as possible", attempted to commit suicide by gondola and then threatened to publish an edition of pornography in the names of his enemies (their crime, for the most part, that they declined to 'lend' him further money once it became clear that they were never going to get the last lot back).
Neither of these men is quite plausible, but one of them is real.
"Oddly inspiring and supremely pointless" - Andrew from Swimmer One interviews Bill Drummond.
Bran Mak Morn - the movie. With a Solomon Kane film also in the works, could it be that one day not that far away, Robert E Howard will no longer just be known as 'the Conan guy'?
(The director's past work does not enthuse me, it's true, but he does mention that he's also a fan of Slaine)
*Flipron, (The Real) Tuesday Weld and Mr Solo, whose band now contains more people than David Devant. All very good, obv.
