And now I get it. This is low-key storytelling at its best, the weaving of anecdotes into a whole: into a life. You can only tell a life in stories if that life is not too mundane, but what Murray challenges himself to do is walk the tightrope of a v[…]

The first blurb on the back of the jacket is by Michael Chabon, and that’s very apt, because this is a perfect companion piece to his Kavalier & Klay on just about every level. The comics period he covered was known as the Golden Age, and […]

I just used the phrase “blue-sky thinking” in an email. And I meant it. (To the extent that one can mean the meaningless.)
Suggested penances in the comments box welcome.[…]

I really, really did not expect to see the set pieces directly in the novel. Mrs Robinson naked and the whole race to the church at the end are so visual, such staples as classic cinema that it comes as quiet a shock to see these described almost ide[…]

It’s a bold title but a good one. Published in 1996, it’s a history of the South African apartheid state from 1948 to its wrap-up in 1994 — about the time that South Africa generally fell out of the international consciousness asid[…]

Our first encounter was in Trieste. Back in the days of empire this city port belonged to the Habsburgs and later became the southern pin of the iron curtain. Most of the surrounding coastal towns are Venetian in character, with tall campanile towers[…]

I just started reading Visual Arts In The Twentieth Century by the always good Edward Lucie-Smith. The jacket blurb includes this as one of three bulleted points highlighting this books special features (the others are analysis by decade, and informa[…]

Not that I see myself as some sort of purely cerebral literary analyst at any time, but sometimes a book resonates so much with your current mood that, for better or worse, you struggle for anything resembling a tiny shred of objectivity. I hated thi[…]

Grant Morrison has a rep for being an ideas man but what he’s really good at is creating and sustaining a mood. A Morrison first issue generally presents you with a fully-formed aesthetic and if it hits your particular frequencies you’ll […]

http://www.robotsonstrike.com/motion/ROSnebraskaqt.html
robots on strike has made a short video, with a small ambient soundtrack, black and white, blury scenes of nebraska, hand wound and sped up–sounds almost dull and horribly prententiuos, bu[…]