London’s Forgotten Fiction
Luckily I dipped into the text. The effect was instant. The writing was strong and stylish, the locations familiar yet exotic, the prose pounding in from the pavements outside, slang easily shifting into sharp observation. I bought the book, enjoyed my chow mien and, within days, was a Kersh fan, his writing showing that maybe there was a world of London fiction I’d missed. Robert De Niro was explained — the book had been turned into a film twice.
John King‘s introduction to the reissue of Gerald Kersh‘s vintage Soho, low-life masterpiece Night And The City.
Japanamerica: Talk to Tanaka san
The stereotype of Japan’s anime producers as insular, cloistered and sealed off to foreigners was not what Tekkon screenwriter Weintraub encountered when he arrived in 2001. “I found the openness with which people treated me in Japan refreshing,” he tells me from New York, where he runs a film production company with his wife. “Especially within the context of what is supposedly such a closed industry. I felt that everyone I encountered, from Taiyo Matsumoto to the animators to the distributors, treated me the same as they would any writer.”
Roland Kelts on Tekkon and Afro Samurai.
Oh, he’s going for that ‘Missing a Dead Comedian Market’
By far the most effective element of the show was, however, how Chas Early — the actor playing Bill — dealt with the paradox of impersonating a dead comedian who shouldn’t ever be impersonated (as Dennis Leary must realise every morning). Early used the act to raise the question of why we are so backward looking, so nostalgic for the past, why instead of trying to find new voices, we blinker ourselves, worshiping old heroes.
Glenn Fisher takes in the Bill Hicks play Slight Return.