Wait until next year

Two quotations about/from authors I haven’t yet read, so probably shouldn’t be mentioning

Man and woman writing

“Asked, in 1954, why he chose to change languages, Beckett answered: out of a “need to be ill equipped”. His response is exceedingly sly because, if you listen more attentively, its boastful tone is deafening. For in French the need “to be ill equipped” (d’être mal armé) doesn’t sound very different from the need to be (another) Mallarmé (d’être Mallarmé). Anything less than a Mallarmé status would not have been enough for a Beckett on his quest for the new self.”

“My being a poet probably has something to do with my preferring questions to answers, ambiguity to resolution, and with my being bored to tears by most of the mainstream supposedly realistic novels that run bland 21st-century sentences through 19th-century structures in order to produce what’s essentially very inefficient television.”

Image from Mennonite Church USA Archives, via Flickr

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Sunday Reading

Boys reading the comics from the Sunday papers

This week I’ve been working my way through David Peace’s new novel, Red or Dead. It is outstanding, although perhaps an acquired taste as it combines football with some proper modernist writing, but if you have the slightest interest in either you really should pick this book up.

I’ve also been reading the following shorter pieces, all well worth a look:

Image from State Library of New South Wales, via Flickr

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Video | August 9, 2013

Weekend

August 6, 2013

The Health Kick

Women in pool exercising

Time to get in shape. That is not to say that I’m massive. That is not to say I have a completely unhealthy lifestyle. But there is scope for improvement, hence this week has seen the start of a health kick. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 31, 2013

I’m Not The Loving Kind

Another lazy video/music post. Mark Lanegan is releasing a covers album in September, rather appropriately called Imitations. He has always been one of those artists I’ve admired more than loved, but I think this cover of John Cale’s I’m Not The Loving Kind is all kinds of wonderful.

It is pretty faithful to the original, yet Lanegan’s voice adds the necessary gravel and gravitas. Sometimes I’ve thought he’s been playing at the whole grizzled veteran act – some of his work with Isobel Campbell was fun enough but more Lee and Nancy pastiche than anything deeper – but he hits something truer somehow here.

What makes this song great to me is the rhythm of the refrain. “I’m not the loving kind” is written/sung in an almost rushed, pretty much throwaway fashion. It is perfect for the song and adds a necessary ambiguity. Does the protagonist care so little that he is happy to throw the line away, or does he not believe himself, so is unable to sing it with conviction?

And for comparison, here is the John Cale original: