- How many times have you sworn since tuesday?
- Have you ever lain in bed at night unable to stop thinking about something utterly embarrassing you did that day, occasionally reprimanding yourself out-loud?
- Gliding across a dance floor, were those shoes a bad choice?
- Are we all failed actors, unless we are successful actors?
- What do you think of Julia and Dave?
- Do you think it's going to burn all by itself?
- How're we gonna get there? Take a train?
- Enjoying your summer holiday, Iris?
- But you obtain moral satisfaction from your work?
- Delicious. Am I the first customer?
- Do you take precautions in locking up the truck?
- Could I sit on the veranda?
- Were you the one who broke it?
- She stood on a pedestal scanning the ocean?
- Are shopping center's to towns, what cathedrals are to city's?
- Are you walking back?
- What does she do for breakfast?
- Is it okay if I stay for a week or more?
- 10 years in a movie what does it all mean?
- Where will you ever arrive at?
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Questionnaire
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Hi,
The latest issue of WTF PWM is up. The reason I tell you is that I have a story in it. Go and read it, it is very funny.
I have been writing some 'nature' poems recently. I was thinking of printing them as a chapbook or something and calling it 'South Downs Syndrome', but I probably won't. I'll probably just post them on here in like a week or something. [edit: did this, then decided they weren't very good. new regret.]
Also, I had a story rejected recently. In the rejection email they said "While I thought there was some good writing and observations in the piece I thought it lack any real incident." Is this what people mean when they say "form without substance"? If you would like to read a story where nothing happens then get in touch and we can make those dreams of yours a reality.
Thanks.
The latest issue of WTF PWM is up. The reason I tell you is that I have a story in it. Go and read it, it is very funny.
I have been writing some 'nature' poems recently. I was thinking of printing them as a chapbook or something and calling it 'South Downs Syndrome', but I probably won't. I'll probably just post them on here in like a week or something. [edit: did this, then decided they weren't very good. new regret.]
Also, I had a story rejected recently. In the rejection email they said "While I thought there was some good writing and observations in the piece I thought it lack any real incident." Is this what people mean when they say "form without substance"? If you would like to read a story where nothing happens then get in touch and we can make those dreams of yours a reality.
Thanks.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Sometimes I Read
A Goalie’s Anxiety at The Penalty Kick
I bought this from a second hand book shop in Balham the day England lost 4 – 1 to Germany in the Football World Cup. The shop keeper laughed out loud when he saw the title of the book. I turned to my friend who had taken me to the book shop and made a face as if to say, “get a load of this guy,” (although maybe not because I don’t think I’ve ever used that phrase). My friend asked me where I had heard of the book, after he read the synopsis on the back. Later we would discuss how the cover looks like the cover of an Adrian Mole book. It is a 1978 paperback edition, published by Quartet. As far as I can make out from their website, they have not reprinted it*.
On the back, the book is compared to L’Etranger. It’s an easy comparison to make. Both are short novels that deal with existential alienation and murder. But whereas Camus seems concerned with motive and consequence as well as alienation, Handke seems solely preoccupied with the emotional isolation of an ex-goal keeper, now murderer, Bloch. Bloch seems to have more in common with Michel Poiccard in Goddard’s A Bout De Souffle than Mersault.
Bloch seems to suffer from some sort of 'Depersonalisation Syndrome'. Handke combines Bloch’s inner thoughts and the third-person narration of the book to emphasise this. Here is an excerpt from towards the end of the books, where Handke makes use of Wingdings, or whatever the pre-Microsoft equivalent of Wingdings is:
“He repeated the look from left to right; this look seemed to him like reading. He saw a “wardrobe”, “then” “a” “waste-paper-basket”, “then” “a” “curtain”; while looking from right to left, however, he saw [chair], next to the [table].” etc...
* * *
The same day I bought the book, my friend and I went to a shop called Clapham Books. There was a shelf of Penguin’s ‘Great Ideas’ series. My friend made a comment which could have been, “Fucking love these.” I pointed to a copy of George Orwell’s Cigarette’s vs. Books and said “Yeah, this is really good.” Or something to that effect. He said, “I haven’t read this one.” I said, “No, I meant the cover,” as if that was what we were talking about all along. This moment has crossed my mind perhaps every day since then.
*Amazon tells me that Farrar Straus Giroux published the book in 2007
I bought this from a second hand book shop in Balham the day England lost 4 – 1 to Germany in the Football World Cup. The shop keeper laughed out loud when he saw the title of the book. I turned to my friend who had taken me to the book shop and made a face as if to say, “get a load of this guy,” (although maybe not because I don’t think I’ve ever used that phrase). My friend asked me where I had heard of the book, after he read the synopsis on the back. Later we would discuss how the cover looks like the cover of an Adrian Mole book. It is a 1978 paperback edition, published by Quartet. As far as I can make out from their website, they have not reprinted it*.
On the back, the book is compared to L’Etranger. It’s an easy comparison to make. Both are short novels that deal with existential alienation and murder. But whereas Camus seems concerned with motive and consequence as well as alienation, Handke seems solely preoccupied with the emotional isolation of an ex-goal keeper, now murderer, Bloch. Bloch seems to have more in common with Michel Poiccard in Goddard’s A Bout De Souffle than Mersault.
Bloch seems to suffer from some sort of 'Depersonalisation Syndrome'. Handke combines Bloch’s inner thoughts and the third-person narration of the book to emphasise this. Here is an excerpt from towards the end of the books, where Handke makes use of Wingdings, or whatever the pre-Microsoft equivalent of Wingdings is:
“He repeated the look from left to right; this look seemed to him like reading. He saw a “wardrobe”, “then” “a” “waste-paper-basket”, “then” “a” “curtain”; while looking from right to left, however, he saw [chair], next to the [table].” etc...
* * *
The same day I bought the book, my friend and I went to a shop called Clapham Books. There was a shelf of Penguin’s ‘Great Ideas’ series. My friend made a comment which could have been, “Fucking love these.” I pointed to a copy of George Orwell’s Cigarette’s vs. Books and said “Yeah, this is really good.” Or something to that effect. He said, “I haven’t read this one.” I said, “No, I meant the cover,” as if that was what we were talking about all along. This moment has crossed my mind perhaps every day since then.
*Amazon tells me that Farrar Straus Giroux published the book in 2007
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