Why is a raven like a writing desk?

For me, the correlation between the sun and having a burnt scalp is so strong that the past few days I’ve winced in advance of brushing my hair, even though I’ve spent next to zero time in our star’s harmful rays.

(And no, a sunhat is not the answer.)

Bret Easton Ellis and Fan-funding

On Friday 11th I came across this tweet:

And scrolling down, I came across this earlier one:

“Oh great,” I thought. “All of BEE’s wit and ingenuity that he showed with Lunar Park, which ebbed away with Imperial Bedrooms, has now completely fucked off. Unless, of course, it’s a knowing self-parodic gimic, in which case he’s as big a genius as ever.” Is BEE being ironic by using those elements of American Psycho that gained him such notoriety to advertise an investment opportunity for his fans? 

I followed the link, to this Kickstarter crowd-funding site, and found it all pretty interesting: for a start, BEE’s Twitter references to foursomes, violence, etc, are all absent, and instead there are some convincing reasons as to why the production team are going down the crowd-funding avenue, when Hollywood would undoubtable bite off their hands and arms for the film: 

in order to maintain complete creative control of the distinct source material.  According to Schrader, “We all experienced the frustrations of financing and institutional censorship. But now, with advances in digital photography and distribution, we can tell a story in the manner we choose. Movies are changing and we’re changing with it.”

There’s also some waffle about “connecting with the fanbase”, but actually, when I look at the number of price options for fans to get involved, it makes me think that there is a lot of interaction with audiences: there are nineteen different prices, ranging from $1 to $10,000, and the top prizes even focus on fans’ creativity. The 6 opportunities for BEE to “read and review your novel” have all gone, at $5k each, but actually, that’s a pretty hefty task for a busy author/screenwriter to do. Unless he undertakes the task in a manner similar to my former university mentor …

Anyway, there was a point here, I think, about yet another element of the internet that will be getting the bowels of publishing houses and the like a little too loose for comfort. 

I’ve seen bands, authors, film-makers, wannabe shop-keepers/gallery-owners use the internet as a method for funding their wares, when previously they had to self-release at great cost, and be haunted by unsold copies for the rest of their lives (this is a recurring joke amongst musician friends of mine). 

Can it work for artists who aren’t famous and don’t have an existing fanbase? It’ll be nice to see, and anything that encourages publishing houses to really think about how to treat both their artists and their fans could be for the good. After all, with Waterstones dominating the highstreet with chirpy 3 for 2s, and Amazon dominating the internet, it’s not as if anyone’s providing a good service as a real arbiter of taste anyway.

Mindless rant over. 

#TLDR

John Simm on Pinter's "Betrayal" and earning your pause - Radio 4 →

I went to a cheap preview of this short play (an affair in reverse order) on Monday night, and it was excellent - I cringed and bristled and laughed right the way through, and the structure of the play makes the final scene uncomfortable beyond belief. If you can, see it.

NEWS

I’ve not posted in a while, because my mind hasn’t really been on books or writing, and because I didn’t have any internet for a few weeks, and because I commonly vascillate between stressed and lazy as my default position, neither of which is conducive to maintaining a blog.

It’s self-promotion that’s got me writing this, because the very nice editorial team at Manchester’s indie arts magazine Shoestring (here, I think, or perhaps here) are including a short story of mine in their Paris edition, out in June. 

Running an arts magazine is evidently a difficult thing to do at the moment, so if you’re a photographer, writer, designer, follow the link above and think about submitting something for their next edition, which will be based on the subject of Berlin - an evocative theme if ever there was one.

Anyway, I’m heartily chuffed, and feel encouraged to send out some stories elsewhere. Unfortunately that involves researching which magazines are free to submit to and which happily accept fiction with swears aplenty …

Pass notes No 3,178: Jack Kerouac | From the Guardian | The Guardian →

Maybe I’ll read this again before I see it at the cinema. Or should I bother? It’s massively overrated, right?

I have everything to be bodily comfortable. Only that devil - the human mind - drives one crazy at times.

— 

Roger Bushell, the RAF squadron leader interned during the Second World War, who served as the basis for Richard Attenborough’s character in The Great Escape.

RIP Levon Helm. The Band featured heavily in my cultural upbringing. (I would’ve chosen the clip of this song from The Last Waltz, but Robbie Robertson’s ostentatious two-necked guitar makes me feel more than a bit cynical.)

Today, I thought of an excellent title. It’s so excellent, that no fiction would be worthy of it. Still, maybe the fug is beginning to dissipate.

I enjoyed your story for its psy­chology and point of view. Honestly and frankly, I did not enjoy it for its literary charm or value. In the first place, it has little literary value and practically no literary charm.

— Letters of Note: You must deliver marketable goods

For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

— 

Hamlet

EDIT: Is it weird that I often think about how much I’d fancy Shakespeare if he were a contemporary figure? Don’t answer that.