There’s No Place Like Home
Trying to take a poetic x-ray of recessionary America is an admirably lunatical ambition. Approaching a subject as multifold as an entire civilisation is an astoundingly difficult task. After all, what the fuck is America? Is it the land, the State, the population, the culture, the collective experience, an idea or just the chaos peculiar to the vast area between the coasts of Maine and Alaska? Oprava choses to present the various aspects of American life, the vices and virtues, personified in human form as if some medieval drama; Vanity dancing on tables for tips, Greed who’s skipped town with all his ill-gotten gains, Sloth the half-witted child, Sage ranting that we were all warned what was coming, missing the portents in “the radio-wave sky / scorched in vapour-trail lines.”
Darran Anderson reviews D.E. Oprava‘s American Means.
A 3:AM Xmas: Mixtape
1. ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ [Peel Session] – The Fall 2. ‘Christmas Reindeer’ – The Knife 3. ‘Jesus Christ’ – Big Star 4. ‘So Much Wine’ – The Handsome Family 5. ‘I Feel Like Going Home’ – Yo La Tengo 6. ‘Plastic Mistletoe’ – Aidan Moffett 7. ‘Jingelbell Rock’ – Arcade Fire 8. ‘Fallen […]
A 3:AM Xmas: Bob Dylan
Must be Bob.
ampere’s and
Today’s quick lit [& alt.cult] links from around the web: Does anybody remember laughter? Pondering the fate of comic novels (Sam Lipsyte, Pynchon) (via Vol. 1 Brooklyn) & Why Kafka‘s manuscript still speaks volumes & 20 body part-covered book covers & Alan Moore in Vice (via HTMLGIANT) & Nell Boeschenstein on “folk music’s holy man” […]
Truth and Lies at Christmas – a Seasonal Encounter With Mr Luke Haines 3
Reaching down to a part of the floor which the light from the fire had been unable to illuminate, his hand returned into the warm glow holding a large, dark woollen hat — which he proceeded to place upon his head. Flinging his scarves from his frame, he stood and turned. Mr Haines was wearing a black, woollen suit! With his beard, boots and hat, he was the very symbol of defiance of all that Christmas has become in these market-driven, God-forsaking times! He was the anti-Santa. And the youngsters loved him.
Read the concluding part of Tim Mitchell‘s Christmas story.