Jason Weaver sees two very different sides of London in Nicholas Blincoe’s Jello Salad and John L. Williams’ Faithless What is there to say about Jello Salad by Nicholas Blincoe? Well, there’s a bit of sex, and a lot of drugs and even more violence. Blincoe’s characters do things to the body that will never […]
Bertie Marshall : Psychoboys : Text Maniac
Chris Mitchell meets Bertie Marshall, the original psychoboy When does a debut underground experimental novel featuring a stomach-churning mix of depraved sex, hideous death, wanton coprophilia and insane genetic mutation gain critical praise from the mainstream likes of i-D, Time Out and The Big Issue? When it’s written by Brighton author Bertie Marshall. Psychoboys is […]
make up: it’s not only rock N roll but I like it
Jason Weaver on the musical impact of rock’n’roll band make up The Marxist project was about the conditions of work. Parasites grew fat on the labour of those who worked only to stay alive, an imbalance based on the arbitrary division of society. Marx phrased this situation as an equation, a mathematical formula, an argument. […]
Iain Banks : Whit and Excession: Getting Used To Being God
Chris Mitchell meets the relentlessly imaginative Iain.M Banks Twelve years and fourteen books since the publication of his debut novel The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks has become one of Britain’s most prominent and prolific writers. Whether writing mainstream novels as plain “Iain Banks” or science fiction under his ubiquitous “Iain M. Banks” nom-de-plume, Banks […]
Francis Ford Coppola : The Godfather : Saturday Night Fever: John Badham: Sex And Spaghetti
Bethan Roberts watches the transformation of the American-Italian man, from The Godfather to Saturday Night Fever With The Godfather recently re-released in a new print, Don Corleone and his family are back on our screens, shovelling spaghetti into their mouths, screaming at their wives and shooting other Mafia families – all with excessive amounts of […]
Derek Jarman: Preserving A Harlequin
Spike reflects on the work of England’s quintessential Renaissance man, Derek Jarman By the time you read this, Derek Jarman: A Retrospective will have closed at the Barbican Centre. However, the Barbican Centre’s comprehensive catalogue of the exhibition, which has been published by Thames And Hudson, gives a chance to re-evaluate the impact and splendour […]
Patricia Morrisroe: Robert Mapplethorpe: A Biography
Nick Clapson Robert Mapplethorpe has long been a contentious figure in the art world, with much of this debate focusing on whether or not his erotic/homoerotic photographs trespass the boundaries of pornography. This is a matter which becomes especially prejudiced by the fact that they often deal with the difficult subject of gay sadomasochism. Much […]
Quentin Crisp : Resident Alien : An Englishman In New York
Chris Mitchell goes for lunch with Quentin Crisp This month sees the publication of Resident Alien, the selected diaries of Quentin Crisp. It is difficult to surmise whether this man needs an introduction or not, such is his longevity as a cult figure of quintessential Englishness, “a stately old homo of England”, to quote […]