It’s Spreading!
The original Offbeat publisher, Social Disease, has a spanking new website. After publishing the likes of Tony O’Neill, Lee Rourke, Travis Jeppesen or H. P. Tinker, they are bringing out Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone‘s Home on 26 November. Toby Litt describes it as “an extremely strong first novel”: “dark, perverse, convincing and passionate”.
Four Poems
Johnny! Twanging Beeping Johnny
where you bin, Johnny?
you bin in the breath before we die?
the breath when death announces its grey intentions?
and takes you into the hall…
and its rare as meat outside, Johnny,
livid and smelling
an ECG sunset of mad painters red…
where you bin, Johnny?
when I was left to sleep on the kerbstone
a hero without missiles or headphones?
By Ford Dagenham.
Kill like a girl
Qaddafi’s efforts to promote the idea of women in the military, has often had the “F” word — feminism – tossed his way like a hand grenade by Arab critics. He has deftly sidestepped this potentially explosive accusation by charging the women with not just the guarding of his body, but more importantly, the guarding of an ideology. Throughout Shadows of a Leader, both men and women will repeat this sentiment, that the women are guarding not just a leader, but an ideology. And part of that ideology is women’s military participation will not come at the expense of their femininity. As if to emphasize this notion, Colonel Fathiya Tabishat who is centrally featured in the documentary, is shown purchasing make-up and a purse in a fist-sized store as two bemused shopkeepers watch.
Andrea Fischer on Rania Ajami‘s Shadows of a Leader.