3:AM Magazine

» Stupid Women With Glasses

If your body dictates that you should try to breed with a violent sociopath, then you may find yourself with a good story to tell. If you survive. Animals do all that scanning stuff too, but they don’t write books or pop songs. Still, that’s no reason to ignore science. Or animals. It’s just that recent scientific developments in no way supersede all the fascinating work on love that humans have produced over the last few thousand years — science is just another strand of it.

Sophie Parkin discusses love with Anouchka Grose and asks tricky questions about her new book.

» On Serbia & Europe, Philosophy & Poetry: An Interview with Bogdana Koljević

If it is a poetry that stirs up political emotions, then I am against it. The reason is rather simple: if political emotions prevail to political reason then one can easily slide off the track of reasonable judgment and thinking. I believe poetry here should come as close to Aristotle’s definition of it as possible – led by a special kind of mimesis and in proximity to “political realism” and truth of events that looks into the future. Inasmuch as politics is “the art of the possible”, (engaged) poetry is “the politics of the possible.”

Steven Fowler discusses politics and the role of public intellectuals as political creators with the philosopher Bogdana Koljević.

» Interview with a Mardy Old Bastard

There’s such a lot to take in with Zola; the research, the detail, the crowds, the weather.. basically what everybody says when they say nice things about Zola. But for me..it’s how he does it all that holds me to his work, how he controls it all, how he takes down all that scaffolding of research and painstaking observation and how he leaves us with those towering edifices of Germinal, The Earth and L’Assommoir. Anybody could have made 1200 pages of notes about the French railway system if they really wanted to. Only Zola could have done that and then turned them into the monster novel of La Bête Humaine.

Steve Finbow pumps Simon Crump for info.

» Myth of the Open Road Closes Doors

Motorways are a fact of modern life, but are frequently seen as boring, or are completely ignored. This is a state of affairs Moran seeks to redress, positing motorways as an example of the ‘infra-ordinary’, a term used by Georges Perec to refer to that which is often overlooked as insignificant in contemporary existence. The everyday, however, is double-edged; while potentially a site of radical change, it is also where one can locate an intense conservatism: the world could collapse around us as long as the bus comes on time, our sandwich is just so, or petrol prices remain affordable, so we can drive wherever we like.

Karl Whitney on Joe Moran’s On Roads: A Hidden History.

» The Intense Humming of Evil

He raised not a word of protest when a government decree dismissed his former teacher and assistant; he had complained that the universities had been ‘Jewified’ under Weimar, and organised his study sessions as outdoor ‘work camps’ in a creepy homage to the horror that was coming. Heidegger rejected the abstract pursuits of art and humanities. Authentic existence could only be experienced through confict and struggle; the lectures fairly drip with blood and soil. He justified racial selection, eugenics and dictatorship. Reading Faye’s book, I had two thoughts going through my mind. How the fuck did he get away with this? And: Why did anyone take this guy seriously? It’s not the case that a romance with totalitarianism corrupted Heidegger’s philosophy. Heidegger’s philosophy was structured around his support for Nazism. There was nothing else.

Max Dunbar reviews Emmanuel Faye’s Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy.

» In the Company of Men

Go into a place where there is men and booze and after a while the conversation will get distinctly nasty. Men will make light of rape, domestic violence and even child abuse if they know their words will go unchallenged. The tone will be the same in a working-class pub in Dagenham, or a Hampstead gastrobar. Men know that to pull they must appear to be sensitive, they must wear wooden necklaces and have had a gap year and talk vaguely of setting up a band: but underneath the FairTrade moisturiser lurks a familiar set of perceptions and priorities.

Max Dunbar reviews Natasha Walter’s Living Dolls.

» Come and See: An Epic of Derangement

Seen from the rear, a lone motorcycle with sidecar weaves along the unmade road in a dense brownish fog, sprawled upon it lies the bullet sewn corpse of a man who carries a placard in his stiffened hands stating ‘I insulted a German soldier’. From the nearby fields trucks unload the obscure shapes of soldiers. They peel off symmetrically from the fog bound vehicle in a silence loaded with menacing intent. Then, as Florya races about the shacks and outhouses like a cornered rat, they close in across the folds, their gradual appearance through the fog all the more intimidating. As the sun rises and the fog clears, the whole body of German troops arrives in the village heading for the main square where the forlorn wooden church at its centre is soon surrounded.

The poet Will Stone on Elem Klimov’s stunning glimpse into the abyss Come and See.

» Hipsters, Flipsters & Finger-Poppin’ Daddies

The Flipside series offers an incredible overview of both emerging youth cultures and London as a world centre of libidinal energy during the 1960s and 1970s, documenting the clubs that played a key role in winning London the appellation ’swinging’.

Stewart Home discovers an accidental history of London nightlife and youth culture via the BFI’s reissues of forgotten British movie classics, That Kind Of Girl, Privilege and Permissive.

» The Velvet Gargle

Bryan Ferry is played exquisitely by Ripley (who co-runs the excellent Night Of The Long Swords night in Old Street) and his performance, vocally, is stalker-faithful. It’s delicious to hear that velvet gargle, the aural finesse — without actually having to be in the same room as Ferry. Close your eyes and you are most certainly starting to ‘dance on moonbeams’, ‘by the pale moon’, and ‘in Quaglino’s’, etc. It’s that good. It’s sometimes a little rough round the edges, which (still with eyes closed, plus drugs) makes you actually believe you are witnessing one of Roxy’s first-ever gigs.

Graham Bendel on Proxy Music (includes the definitive list of tribute band names).

» Lesson for My Son III : An excerpt from badbadbad, a multimedia novel

There were long pauses in our conversation as we sipped our drinks and stared at the silent cartoons. The music in the background mixed pop and classical standards - the Beatles, Brahms, Irving Berlin - but the kicker was the instrument: solo mandolin. While I can’t recall the name of the artist, I remember how on the CD front he wore a black tux, with a baby-blue bow-tie and cummerbund, and a gray cowboy hat. With a heavy sigh she said the songs made her feel light and airy like fairy dust. “If I could disappear into the stars . . .” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

By Jesús Ángel García.

» His Tattoos

To him, standing looking at the puddles settled in the plastic tubing, it would probably be better if Stevie didn’t come at all. He wonders whether it would be the right thing to do to warn the boy off. It would be their secret. He imagines what would happen if he did. He wonders what Louise would look like all fierce and spiteful. And then naked. He takes the phone from the pocket and then puts it back. He starts to wrestle with the castle, its sagging weight is surprising.

By Stuart Evers.

» Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

Peter is becoming hysterical in his hypochondria. The appearance of a little red spot on his stomach has him deciding a list of songs to be played at his funeral. Nina Simone’s Mister Bojangles to kick things off? No, something more celebratory like Teenage Kicks by the Undertones. Christ, he isn’t John Peel – what’s he thinking of? And why celebratory? What’s to celebrate in an unfulfilled life cut short by cancer? Why not go the whole hog and have Louis Armstrong singing What a Wonderful World? No, it would need to be a miserablist song, one designed to encourage tears; that would be fitting and cathartic.

By Alan McCormick.

» Fabled Streams

“Doesn’t the carnival turn a little more sinister each passing block?” she says huskily, smacking her lips on the p and b. It did seem many revelers had begun chanting praises to the glorious Nada, to a sacred shush between
all songs.

Please understand, if I am kept, for a time, from my quest by the succubus, it is not because of the perfect, smoky sheen of her skin, no, nor her tightly laced up cleavage. I am disgusted by her riches, her retinue of loyal gnomes, her palace inscribed with arcane symbols. But her spells are strong. Her clairaudience anticipates and disarms each attempt to resist.

From the lowest ramparts we watch the procession. Spiked plumes, sequined masks, whips going taut in slow motion–or do I grow a bit feverish? A French horn tumbles from a float. Is stolen.

By Daniel Hales.

» The Reading

Sometimes the work is unappreciated, indigested: ‘I can do better than that shit,’ thinks the lightly-bearded bohemian type. ‘It’s so fucking do-mestic!’ ‘Hattie under ash looked like a burnt soldier in the dying fire of the trenches reflected Michael,’ the reader continues. The clink of a wine glass from a new arrival into the room momentarily inhibits the writer’s flow and fleetingly takes the egg-breast woman’s attention away from the reader and down to the shopping bag nestled at her feet: a small bottle of vodka waiting to be opened and emptied.

By Alan McCormick & Jonny Voss.

» Brain Chemistry, Extinction, and Moon Honey

I was drumming the “William Tell Overture” on my throat with my bony fingers, and that skill made me feel superior. We were having a sleep over, and playing roles that felt real. “The nurse” (my best friend, Julie) was thin waisted and she had tiny broomlike arms. I remember flipping around on the bed and playing the nutty patient in the psychiatric ward. The nurse looked like she was always witnessing a disaster, and was threatening to quit nursing. She would say, “They do not pay nurses enough money!” This role made her feel superior. Since we both felt superior, neither of us had a problem feeling worthless.

Three stories by Meg Pokrass.

» Maintenant #2: Elena Vladareanu

I published my first book, which was an unusual and bizarre book and there were some people who said “wow, this is courageous” and other people who said “oh, no, this in not literature, this is not poetry, this is pure pornography”. And that’s how I became a controversial and well known writer… I’m joking of course, but this bad reputation helped me a lot. I was invited to open the Euridice literary group because I played the pornography card. I read some aggressive and erotic texts written especially for this occasion, there were again people who advised me to give up writing. But Euridice’s moderator, Marin Mincu – who was a very important writer and a textuality theoretician – encouraged me to continue with poetry. He published my second book with his publishing house. I was more disobedient, I continued to be so.

For the second in his series on new voices from Europe, SJ Fowler interviews the Romanian poet Elena Vladareanu.

» Three Poems

this is how things stand:
mom will never
leave romania
dad will never
leave romania
if you die you’ll never
leave romania…

history is a piece of the wall
in a city at europe’s center
history is the corner of a photograph…

in every street urchin ragged and high
there’s a part of me
in every dog haunted and starved
there’s a part of me

By Elena Vladareanu.

» Three Poems

a poem is this city now,
50 miles from nowhere,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
this poem, this city, closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears, aging without pity,
the hardrock mountains,
the ocean like a lavendar flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows…

By Charles Bukowski.