They do not love you
The problem with Robert Appelbaum’s book Working the Aisles: A Life in Consumption lies with me. Read the rest of this entry »
Wait until next year
Putting off what could be done tomorrow, today
Category: reading and writing
September 30, 2014
The signed editions
There’s a really interesting post over at the blog of author Jonathan Gibbs, concerning the cult of the signed edition book. You should probably just go over there and read it rather than let me butcher the argument made, but I thought is raised some really thought-provoking points around the connection between author and reader, the compromises authors need to make, and the weird motivations we might have for getting a book signed. Read the rest of this entry »
September 23, 2014
un-direction
During my odd brain-breaks this week I’ve found myself heading down the internet rabbit hole of geofiction. Geofiction is essentially the art of drawing maps of imaginary places. Read the rest of this entry »
August 4, 2014
500
After very nearly six years this post is the 500th on the blog. A small achievement and probably also a bit of a daft one. It is only a number. Why didn’t I celebrate the 431st post? Or the 497th? Read the rest of this entry »
July 24, 2014
The Baffler and The Nostalgia Gap
Nostalgia is a form of propaganda, an exercise in laughter and forgetting, in which the right visual iconography and perceived authenticity can create a longing for an existence which is no longer possible and was in fact never possible.
The Baffler have opened up their archives, so you can now access articles from their 25 issues from 1988 to the present day. The piece quoted above, The Nostalgia Gap, was published in 1993, yet still reads as something valid and true today. It is well worth your time, as are the complete archives that I’m slowly working my way through now. Oddly, reading the old issues creates a similar misplaced longing as outlined in the quote above, which makes my head hurt a little.
Wait until next year 