Barry Graham's Blog, page 85

The Big Click has a new essay by me and a call for submissions from proles and minorities

The September issue of The Big Click is out. It has an essay by me in which I dscuss Robert Mitchum, Gene Hackman, The Yakuza, Irreversible, The Conversation, Robert Bresson, Paul Schrader, Lee Marvin, Monica Bellucci, Jim Thompson and others, and how art can transcend artifice.

There’s also fiction by Libby Cudmore and Christina Scholtz.

And there’s this from the editorial:

we’re trying something new. Co-editor Seth Cadin is taking submissions for a forthcoming issue from “proles, p...

Are you going to write any more boxing stories?

I don’t know. I don’t have any plans to, but I also don’t have any plans not to. I know what my next few books are going to be, and none have boxing as part of the story.

I might already have told all the stories I have to tell about boxing in The Champion’s New Clothes, and in the story “What Goes On” which is in Get Out As Early As You Can.

The Love Glove lets you pet and brush your cat simultaneously

The LoveGlove lets you pet and brush your cat simultaneously:

My main role in life is personal servant to the cats who allow me to live with them. I just got one of these, and I agree with the Boing Boing review. So do the cats.

Glasgow author Barry Graham on the life and times of legendary US novelist Elmore Leonard

Glasgow author Barry Graham on the life and times of legendary US novelist Elmore Leonard:

My obituary for Elmore Leonard in the Scottish Sunday Mail.

criminalwisdom:Attention: Shit Could Be Worse by TrustoCorp

criminalwisdom:

Attention: Shit Could Be Worse by TrustoCorp

Mourning Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard, my favorite English-language novelist, has died. I had the honor of doing a signing with him at the Tucson Book Festival last year. I’m glad I got to tell him how important his work is to me.

Poem: In Praise of a Cat (2007)

- for Brother Ron Fender

No tailor’s artistry

could equal the elegance

of my cat’s stripes

as he walks into the bathroom

where I’m taking a shit.

Purring, he rubs

against my legs.

He accepts me on any

terms, comes close

however I smell,

loves me without illusion.

He makes me ashamed

of my own cowardice,

of the times I have flinched,

repulsed by the stench

of human beings

who only needed

an embrace.

Poem: No Order of Things

- for Daishin

my feet knit the socks

that knit her knitting-needles

that knit her

and send her to the river

where she finds the rock

that sets her on a path

to where i’m waiting for her,

though neither of us knows it

criminalwisdom:Murder By Craigslist A serial killer finds a...

criminalwisdom:

Murder By Craigslist

A serial killer finds a newly vulnerable class of victims: white, working-class men.

[Image: Akron Beacon Journal/AP]

(Source: theatlantic)

Two Things I Wrote on Why You Should Beware of Cops

A friend posted links to two pieces I’ve written about dealing with cops on his Facebook page, so I decided to repost them here.

Effective Self-Defense Includes Never Talking to Cops

Zen in the Street