Sunday 21 November 2010

Long Night

Stepping over the vomit, you remember too late: only a fool would go out into a provincial English town centre late in the evening. It’s night of the living dead out here.

Screams that sound like they come from the Dante-damned. And that’s just from the people who are enjoying themselves.

The lurching zombie threat of violence simmering.

Saw two fights on West Street last night, and a third on Division Street. None of them amounted to much; the second came closest when a girl took off her heels and went for the chap with whom she had her grievance. Police jumped out of a van and intervened, but not before his shirt was ruined.

Later, walking to The Wicker to get a taxi, I attempted some photos of Castle Market.

None of them came out.

Saturday 6 November 2010

The steaming bowels of the earth

J.B. Priestley, English Journey (1933)

Thursday 21 October 2010

The ideals that dominate the colleges to-day will rule the world to-morrow

Bookmark found in Culture and Society, by Raymond Williams.

Wednesday 8 September 2010

Ruined towers and broken bridges

 

It is almost embarrassing to say, but I am not sure that I have ever really loved Nabokov. Maybe the closest I came was with Pnin, but for the most part admiration is not love.

Saturday 28 August 2010

Wednesday 30 June 2010

Fragments are the only forms I trust

I expect that in certain circles the above is as clichéd a thing to quote in relation to Barthelme as ‘Fail again. Fail better.’ is in relation to Beckett.

But what of it? There are times when even the most laboured of clichés can be profitably put back to work.

Monday 17 May 2010

This fierce and unregenerate clay

This map of Scholes Village, South Yorkshire, was drawn by Kevin Rooney and appears in his book Rook Town.

 

Sunday 16 May 2010

What does it all mean?

Bookmark found in The Fall of Public Man, by Richard Sennett.

Saturday 1 May 2010

Happy Loyalty Day!

 

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Leaflet printed on 100th Anniversary of first Chicago May Day Demonstration, by Coventry Trades Council, May 1986.