J. Alfred Prufrock may have measured out his life in coffee spoons, but here in Edinburgh we use a different unit.
Incredibly, we’re already over a week into the 2015 Festival. This year Beth and I are centring our participation mostly around the book festival.
[For more of Ricky’s thoughts on this year’s Festival,
you can subscribe to the Apoplexy Tiny Letter here.] Continue reading Gerontocracy
During the past couple of weeks, for no particular reason, I’ve found myself relating to a number of different people – independently – the experience that Longsufferinggirlfriendoftheblogeth and I had at Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief’s death cafe not long after we moved to Edinburgh.
Continue reading Savaged by a Dead Sheep
Thanks to last week’s commentators for all their input on apocalyptic fiction after the last post. There certainly seems to be something about the genre that appeals to people. It might be that, as J.G. Ballard said, it’s no longer possible – in the long lunar shadow of the moon landings – to create serious fiction without reference to science fiction. And as stroke blokes all over the world will know, you don’t get much more serious than the issue of continued existence.
1m 36s on continued existence in a long lunar shadow right here, buddy.
Continue reading Apoplocalypse! 2 – Der Zeitgeist
Last week’s post closed with the reflections of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Company on the nature of the BBC weather map.
This isn’t an original problem, of course. Africa’s got it a lot worse. There’s a summary of some of the problems and approaches to mapping here. Have a think about what projections of the globe you like, and then find out why Randall xkcd hates you here.
‘What’s this got to do with strokes?’ you might ask. If you’ve not been here before.
[Pretend you liked apoplectic.me before it was cool. Sign up for the apoplectic Tiny Letter here.]
Continue reading Presidential Cookie Bake-Off
I’m back in uni for the second semester (well, trimester) of the 2014-15 academic year.
Well, there’s an opening line to strike excitement into the hearts of men. Didn’t they say in first semester to start a flash piece strongly? Yep. So, if you’re looking for that sort of thing, please think about checking out my piece in the first issue of the new international journal of English-language poetry and short fiction, Brain of Forgetting.
I shouldn’t have been able to see Glen Coe from Brooklyn. It’s thirty-two hundred miles. Yet the last thing I saw was a cairn.
You can pick up a free digital edition of Brain of Forgetting #1: Stones here. It’s a good-looking, 106-page book that’s also available in hard copy. Continue reading Brain of Mutilation
THIS POST WILL RETURN. PLEASE CHECK BACK AT THE END OF MAY.
THANKS, RICKY
For anyone who’s particularly keen to get an insight into this guy’s fear and frustration and confusion and claustrophobia during the early stages of stroke recovery, please sign up for apoplectic.me Tiny Letter distributions, if you haven’t already. I’ll be covering that today.
But as Longsufferinggirlfriendoftheblogbeth likes to say
It’s OK. We live in the future. He survived.
Was anyone keeping an eye on the award of the Man Booker Prize last week? It’s, like, the World Cup for novels.
Well, that’s not quite right. Historically, the Man Booker has only been open to authors of the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland, or Zimbabwe. So it’s kind of more like the Commonwealth Games for novels. The 2014 prize was the first year the prize was open to authors from anywhere in the world. AS Byatt said the prize risked diluting its identity, but blog favourite A.L. Kennedy was all for it.
[Sign up here for apoplectic.me Tiny Letter distributions, and more hilarious insular nationalism] Continue reading Jazz
I was recently asked to complete one of those ice-breaker questionnaires.
[We live in interesting times, so leaven that with some boring old tat —
sign up for more personal apoplectic.me Tiny Letter distributions here.] Continue reading McEwan Hall
Last week, one of the amalgam of Andys who make my Facebook page such a pleasure to visit (see last week’s post) put up a post “listing 15 movies that will always stay with me, and tagging the shit out of 15 people to do the same.”
[Are you the sort of saddo who makes top five lists? Are you the type of cool guy who doesn’t make top five lists? Sign up for more personal apoplectic.me tiny letter distributions here.] Continue reading Why Fidelity?