Quentin S. Crisp's Blog, page 7

Launch event and general remarks

Hello everyone.

I am involved in a launch event in London on this coming Saturday. The details are thus and so:

https://www.facebook.com/events/21329...

http://london.carpediem.cd/events/648...

19 May at 15:00–19:00

The Oxymoron
Royal Oak, 78 Fitzalan Street, SE11 6QU London

A multi-publisher launch event featuring new works by Rosanne Rabinowitz, Rhys Hughes, Quentin S Crisp, Tom Johnstone, Brendan Connell, Terry Grimwood and others. There will be readings, chat over drinks in a wonderfully eccentric pub, and plenty of unusual books for sale from small/independent presses. Come and join us!

There will be readings from the following books:

Resonance and Revolt by Rosanne Rabinowitz
How Many Times?, a collection of experimental/OuLiPo writing by Rhys Hughes
Aiaigasa by Quentin S Crisp
There is a Way to Live Forever by Terry Grimwood
And more (I will update as they are confirmed).

We also hope to have recent titles from Chômu Press, Eibonvale Press, Exaggerated Press, Snuggly Books and others available for sale.

Please do come along, if you are free and willing.

Apart from that, I thought I would also remark upon various things, such as the lack of updates in my Goodreads account. In the past few years much has happened. I haven't stopped reading, but I have had little time to list and review here what I have read. Perhaps I will try and catch up someday.

If you visit the Zagava website, you'll see my name under the word 'Forthcoming':

http://www.zagava.de/

It has also been announced that my Gothic novel Graves is to be released by Snuggly Books, probably some time early next year.

There's plenty more stuff in the pipeline, but sometimes the pipeline is very, very long. And sometimes it gets blocked, or is over-run by mutant rat creatures.

I suppose that means there are several pipelines, shorter and longer, in various states of maintenance and order.

What else? We'll let you know...

Announcement

There is a book, written by me, illustrated by Beehive Crick, with the title of Aiaigasa, which will be released by Snuggly Books in June this year.

You can pre-order it, for instance, here:

https://www.bookdepository.com/Aiaiga...

Moreover, there is a novel in the offing (also from Snuggly Books), with the title of Graves (A Distressing Novel).

I'll provide more news as and when.

An Interview with P.F. Jeffery

Recently, Chômu Radio Archive (on SoundCloud) uploaded an interview with P.F. Jeffery, the author of Jane, here:

https://soundcloud.com/chomuradioarch...

Topics discussed include Postwar Britain, the Kennedy administration, the far-future, post-apocalyptic world of the Warriors of Love and the Egyptian goddess Hathor.

The author's website may be visited here:

http://petjeffery.co.uk/welcome/

Interviewed by Dominika Kieruzel

I hope the following link is self-explanatory:

https://dominikakieruzel.wordpress.co...

It's a link to an audio interview, conducted by Dominika Kieruzel, with me.

The sound recording was by Joe Campbell, and there is backing from musicians, Mengting Zhuo, Emmanuel Doshinaro and Matthew Berka. Worth listening to for the music alone.

The Paris Notebooks

This book was officially released yesterday:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

There are also plenty of things in the pipeline, though it's always hard to know how long they'll take actually to appear and there's always the chance that in the meantime I shall come to the end of my human/earthly existence.

I think I've lost the knack of blogging, but, anyway, the point is (maybe) something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaSVM...

John Elliott (1938 - 2017)

On Thursday I received news that John Elliott, author of Human Pages and other works, passed away earlier in the week.

Yesterday, in the manner of one of the characters from his works, I took Human Pages from my bookshelf, opened it at random and put my finger on the page. The passage was as follows:

"Exhausted, she fell back on the pillow. Agnes's hand rested on hers. Its weight was almost too much to bear, yet she took comfort from the knowledge that his name had been on both their lips.

"From then on the die was cast, cast forever. Some other hand Sula could not see had spilled the dice free from their shaker. Patiently, she waited for their roll to cease. Hands, she thought, hands that once might have been folded in prayer. A deck of cards fanned out before her on the green baize of the bedclothes. Surely, they must realise she lacked the power or concentration to pick them up; especially when the dice still rolled and rolled."

The dice are still rolling, and I cannot hope to write an adequate tribute here, but I do hope to write one in time, at least more adequate than this blog post.

In the meantime, I am posting here a link to an interview I did with John almost six years ago, recorded and made available again by Joe Campbell, to whom many thanks. Please feel free to download it:

https://soundcloud.com/chomuradioarch...

Human Pages is already in the list I have been slowly compiling of my top one hundred books:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Finally, a story by Anton Chekhov that seems to me appropriate:

http://www.online-literature.com/anto...

Human Pages

Alternating Current

Artist and musician Rachel Margetts interviews me about the Dao De Jing and its relevance to certain issues of the 21st century. Please click on the following link for further details and for the first part of the interview itself:

https://rachelmargetts.wordpress.com/...

Sound and image by Rachel Margetts.

Parts 2 and 3 are to follow.

Incidentally, the phrase 'alternating current' (and the concept behind it) will turn up in the work I am just about to write, and in the sequel to that work.

I hope I can get these works to readers before too long, but writing and publishing, as we know, are very dilatory matters.

General update

Hello.

I keep writing things, and sometimes some of them are published.

Last month, my second volume of tanka poems, October, was published by Snuggly Books.

See here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

And this month, the novel The Cutest Girl in Class is to be released in paperback by Snuggly books. Review from Publishers Weekly here:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1...

There are many, many things I am working on, and I will die while only a fraction have seen the light of day.

Literature and Evil

Thanks to NiK for bringing this to my attention.

The calm, clear voice of sanity, from Georges Bataille:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XCnG...

Out There

So, it seems my new novella, from Mount Abraxas, Out There, is back from the printers:

http://www.i-m.mx/Thessarether1941/pr...

As I understand it, the book is 80 euros (incl. p&p?), but full ordering details are available here:

http://www.i-m.mx/Thessarether1941/pr...