David J. MacKinnon's Blog, page 2

SERGE ALTERNES OF THE ORMSBY REVIEW PRAISES “BLAISE CENDRARS SPEAKS…”

“Blaise Cendrars Speaks… presents a remarkable set of interviews done in Paris in 1950 by Michel Manoll of Radio France with the Swiss-born French author Blaise Cendrars.

In this long-awaited English translation of what is by far the best introduction to the vast scope of Cendrar’s oeuvre, the modernist Blaise exudes his joie de vivre, his eternal wanderlust to travel, and the compelling urge to explore and perfect his writing. Shy behind his mask, he weaves fantastic legend with his life and...

August 18th double book launch at Paper Hound

August 18th 2016 Double Book Launch – The Eel (Guernica Editions) and Cendrars Speaks (Ekstasis Editions) Paper Hound bookstore, Vancouver, B.C.

In the shadow of the spiritual ruins of downtown Vancouver, where the night was once governed by brawling, and junkies and the high and mighty cavorted with the profanum, and the marriage between homo politicus and ignobile vulgus was consummated in most unholy and raw ways in the drinking parlours of the Main, the clubs of Hornby, and the pubs of Da...

Cendrars Speaks

Poet, novelist, filmmaker, world traveler, raconteur, rounder and roust about, Blaise Cendrars blazed an arc across the star-lit skies of modernity.
Originally published by Denoel in 1952, Cendrars Speaks… is a collection of radio interviews and memories of his life and times. From surrealism, to cubism, to the French novel, Cendrars was enormously influential.
Modernity began when Cendrars met Apollinaire. It is all here in his oral memoires, including the story of the theft of the Mona Lis...

Santiago de la Compostella

Enter The Commune

The Long March to Rome

www.longmarchtorome.com

New York Book Reporter Review of “THE EEL”

David MacKinnon should be a household name in households where literature holds sway. Trucks groaning under the weight of boxes of his books should be making their way to campuses across the country each fall, as serious English professors make his novels required reading for skulls full of mush, in hopes of transforming them into sleek, high-functioning circuitry. MacKinnon is brilliant. I became acquainted with him in 2012 when I stumbled across LEPER TANGO, which literally changed my life....

Jim Christy – vagabond poet

I have my own litmus test for writers. I ask whether my literary heroes—plain-speaking men such as Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, Blaise Cendrars or Harry Crews—would drink with them. It’s unlikely that Blaise Cendrars—who had lost his writing hand in World War I, counted serial killers and gangsters among his acquaintances, couldn’t stomach Picasso (“the son of a curator”), André Breton (a “liar” who barely knew Apollinaire) or Rilke (whom he punched out in the Closerie des Lilas for his...

The Eel – A literary obsession

Paris, France: ca 1925. Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961), French writer. Henri Martinie / Roger-Viollet / The Image Works

He saved me. Cendrars, that is. Not for what he was – one-armed legionnaire, millionaire three times over, bankrupt, tracker of African and Brazilian tales, inventor of French modern poetry. Thief of Chagall’s paintings, drinking pal of Modigliani. Vagabond.

Ah, wait … vagabond. That word begins this story. Vagabond. That came like a message from afar. There was a way out of th...

The Dogs of Fianarantsoa

A half dozen dogs are barking. Now, there is only one left, but he won’t stop. Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof!! We are in the Soafia hotel, right in the middle of the town of Fianarantsoa, across from a Total gas station. The hotel is a mix of Chinese, kitsch colonial, and other unidentifiable proto-baroque styles. The building juts out in every direction – towards a garbage dump and an open stream of sewage, towards the filth of the street, towards the eternal sky over this gateway to the Sou...