Hunter S. Thompson was not short of opinions. You could get him riffing on Nixon or disco or motorcycles or breakfast — anything, really. He’d gibber into a handheld recorder until the cassette stopped or the beer ran dry. That was his method: to observe close-up, with extreme prejudice. To fill the pages of Rolling …
Within ten miles,The thirst-crazed grassRoiled with hoppers,Which ricochetedAgainst my glossy tracks.Those trainers — black —Adhered to lines,Packed dirt on leathered flats.The sun was lecherousAnd high:Scouring bogs,Souring marshes,Polishing salt to pinprick spackle.O, the tortured snows of August.O, the madness of my march.
Joan Didion could deal with hippies. She could deal with addicts and officers of the law. But she couldn’t deal with the deadline set by The Saturday Evening Post. The paper had partnered Didion with the photojournalist Ted Streshinsky – and sent the pair of them into Haight-Ashbury. Their assignment was to gather an impression …
Who is American cinema’s greatest hero? Indiana Jones… who thwarted Nazis? Ellen Ripley… who exploded an alien queen? Or a lawyer from Maycomb County in rural Alabama… who didn’t even win his case? I side with the American Film Institute in this debate: the top spot belongs to the attorney. The character of Atticus Finch …
Toeing rusted tins, I know.Draining slow sirens, I know.Counting carrion crows, I know.I know. I know. There is treasure where I go. Green woodpeckers, last month.This month, foxes testing paws. Oblivious, they didn’t noticeUntil my hand closed.
Fitzgerald’s Latest A Dud When The Great Gatsby was published, it was panned. Fitzgerald — who had been hailed as a ‘young man of promise’ — was mauled for being ‘bored and tired and cynical’. Here’s the damning judgement of H.L. Mencken, critic at the Chicago Tribune: What ails [The Great Gatsby], fundamentally, is the …
Like a vaulter crying for the mat.Recursively yawning on screens,Caught in the broadcast thatThose same surfaces were showing. Drill, drill, drill. Buffers, sand, sack. All that Footage of athletes curling,Belly-to-butt-tuck rolling.Live-streamed: no winding back.We tend towards collapse. Hit the buffers.Hit the sand.Hit the sack.
That’s the voice of Demon Copperhead: titular character of Barbara Kingsolver’s novel. It’s a narrative voice that sticks like mud. Once you read it, you can’t shake it off. (Especially if you careen through all five-hundred-plus pages of Kingsolver’s book, like I did — unable to put it down.) Demon would be pleased with the …
‘In six seconds, you’ll hate me. But in six months, you’ll be a better writer.’ That’s how Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club) starts his essay to new writers, because he’s about to fire a water cannon of bitter medicine down their gullets. If Palahniuk had his way, beginners wouldn’t be allowed to use Thought …
Sure. I’ve been out walking while clouds raced across the sky. But I didn’t recognise them as ‘greyhounds of heaven’. Nabakov did. Nabakov was a twentieth-century author. He worked in English, Russian and French, yet said: ‘I don’t think in any language. I think in images.’ His lavish descriptions seduced readers… and frustrated critics. Nabakov’s …
