Barry Graham's Blog, page 92

Michael Musto and Robert Sietsema Leave Village Voice

Michael Musto and Robert Sietsema Leave Village Voice:

Michael Musto, the paper’s gossip columnist, and Robert Sietsema, its restaurant reviewer, have left the paper, a week after the top editors resigned.

Last year, I suggested that Village Voice Media was in financial trouble. Its Phoenix paper has only a couple of professional journalists left on staff, and now its main paper, The Village Voice itself, has lost writers and editors in the latest purge. I wonder how long the company will cont...

"What I find to be very bad advice is the snappy little sentence, “Write what you know.” It is the..."

“What I find to be very bad advice is the snappy little sentence, “Write what you know.” It is the most tiresome and stupid advice that could possibly be given. If we write simply about what we know we never grow. We don’t develop any facility for languages, or an interest in others, or a desire to travel and explore and face experience head-on. We just coil tighter and tighter into our boring little selves. What one should write about is what interests one.”

- ANNIE PROULX (via kadrey)

LAMENT on the predicament of the Member of the European...

LAMENT
on the predicament of the Member of the European Parliament for South East
England, Mr Nigel Paul Farage upon alighting in Auld Reikie, one May afternoon
to the tune of The Wee Magic Stane

Live at The Canons’ Gait, Edinburgh, 17 May 2013, assembled company of The World’s Room / Seòmar an t-Saoghail traditional singing club.

Does Prozac help artists be creative?

Does Prozac help artists be creative?:

Do antidepressants hamper the creative process, or are they the answer to tortured artists’ prayers? Alex Preston recalls his experiences of Prozac and asks others how the drug affected their own work

I think that this article, while interesting, is limited in that it considers Prozac only in the context of its use as a treatment for depression. I’ve never been depressed, so can’t speak from experience of its efficacy there, but I find Prozac to be enormo...

Larry Fondation - "The Raymond Carver of Noir"

The French magazine Mariannerecently described Larry Fondation as “the Raymond Carver of Roman Noir.” I think the comparison flatters Carver.

Fondation’s new story collection, Martys and Holymen, was published this month. To coincide with that, I republished his earlier collection, Common Criminals, which was first published in 2003 and had been out of print for some years.

fallen leaf | zen, photography, & life in the city: friday flick: A Trip to the Moon

fallen leaf | zen, photography, & life in the city: friday flick: A Trip to the Moon:

Daishin Stephenson reviewed A Trip to the Moon. For what I wrote about it a couple years ago, click here.

daishinstephenson:

A Trip to the Moon, Georges Méliès’s masterpiece.

a bit of history. prior to turning his life over to film making, Méliès was a renowned stage magician. Méliès was inspired to make films after seeing Auguste and Louis Lumière’s invention, the Cinématographe, in 1895.

Méliès desired…

Alice Walker on Assata Shakur: This Is What American History Looks Like

Alice Walker on Assata Shakur: This Is What American History Looks Like:

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

I don’t know why, given where we are with dronefare, but I didn’t expect the man making the announcement about Assata Shakur being the first woman “terrorist” to appear on the FBI’s most wanted list to be black. That was a blow.

I was reminded of the world of “trackers” we sometimes get glimpses of in history books and old movies on TV. In Australia the tracker who hunts down other aboriginals who...

Haiku

(from Traffic and Murder)

yes, life is suffering,

and yet -

the moon over the woods

Back in print: "Common Criminals" by Larry Fondation

Back in print: "Common Criminals" by Larry Fondation:

“Larry Fondation’s second book reads like a collaboration between Elmore Leonard, Dennis Cooper and Eminem.” - Metro Times (Detroit) Larry Fondation writes about what he knows best, the inner city with a twist. Raised in Dorchester, MA, where street fights and criminal acts were common occurrences, Fondation studied at Harvard University where the disparity between his history and his present stood out in sharp relief. He went on to become...

The Lethality of Loneliness

The Lethality of Loneliness:

For the first time in history, we understand how isolation can ravage the body and brain. Now, what should we do about it?

This research is of urgent importance, but it surprises me not at all. I’m certain that every fear - with the possible exception of the fear of physical pain - is really a fear of loneliness, and that companionship is essential medicine. I wrote more about it here.