I swear that as soon as I’m done churning out novel after novel like I’m Barbara Cartland with a moustache, I’ll put together a few essays tackling the noble art of Writing, if for no other reason than this blog section doesn’t just become a parade of Chart entries. Fortunately, I’m almost done with the next draft of The Distance, so expect a treatise on why Henry Miller’s writing laid the blueprint for Coltrane’s Interstellar Space next month. I’m kidding. Even I’m not that much of a pipe-smoking, beard-stroking Whitester.
In pleasant Reality Testing news, I received a highly complimentary review from Justin over at 23rd Legion. The highlight: “This dystopia is an absolute chef’s kiss of “wow, everybody got fucked really badly.”” Now, this is going to sound a little bitter, but isn’t it funny how I can find people willing to read the book over in deepest, darkest USA, yet not a single publication I’ve written to in Berlin has responded to my noble entreaties? It was the same old situation with By the Feet of Men, but I thought that was because the book wasn’t set in Berlin. This time, though, I gots da proof: Unless you’re a cocktail maestro who thinks it’s a good idea to add a shiitake mushroom reduction to a rusty nail or a fashion designer whose latest collection is modelled on the balletic movements of the Brazilian wandering spider, this city’s blogging elite gives approximately zero shits about Berlin-based artists. Yes, yes, like I said, very bitter.
Book of the month: Slim pickings. I read The Warriors by Sol Yurick, which was disappointing (don’t get me started on the Afterword, in which he decides to start dissecting The Stranger for who-the-hell-knows-what reason) and Women Talking by Miriam Toews, which was, for my taste, poorly written. Let’s say this short story by Chaya Bhuvaneswar instead.
Album of the month: Hushed and Grim by Mastodon. One and a half hours of twisty riffs, three dudes singing and guitar solos. Just mainline it into my eyeballs.
Musique concrete:
mellow yellow.