October 2008
Kosmopolis 08: Switching stations
Sat, 10/25/2008 - 09:04 — AnonymousThermonuclear noon at Sydney airport (photo: Simon Sellars).
Further to this….
You cannot claim to be truly versed in international travel until you have taken a flight from Australia to Europe. Flying to Spain took me the better part of 24 hours and shunted me through no less than five airports: Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore, London, Barcelona. I have travelled to Europe before, but never, as far as I can recall, through so many terminals.
It was absurd. Little parts of my brain leaked at every stop. In Sydney I thought I was in Melbourne; in Melbourne I thought I was home. I was reading Irvine Welsh’s Porno
on the flight and I began to think wholly in the flourescent Leith dialect that peppers the book. Welsh manages this narrative technique so well, and combined with the cognitive sponge-wipe that is a 24-hour plane flight, immersion was complete. From Sydney to Singapore I sat...
Kosmopolis 08: Switching stations
Sat, 10/25/2008 - 09:04 — AnonymousThermonuclear noon at Sydney airport (photo: Simon Sellars).
Further to this….
You cannot claim to be truly versed in international travel until you have taken a flight from Australia to Europe. Flying to Spain took me the better part of 24 hours and shunted me through no less than five airports: Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore, London, Barcelona. I have travelled to Europe before, but never, as far as I can recall, through so many terminals.
It was absurd. Little parts of my brain leaked at every stop. In Sydney I thought I was in Melbourne; in Melbourne I thought I was home. I was reading Irvine Welsh’s Porno
on the flight and I began to think wholly in the flourescent Leith dialect that peppers the book. Welsh manages this narrative technique so well, and combined with the cognitive sponge-wipe that is a 24-hour plane flight, immersion was complete. From Sydney to Singapore I sat...
I am still alive! (Final blog post)
Wed, 10/22/2008 - 23:38 — AnonymousHello out there! For those of you who are still keeping an eye out on this blog for new posts, if there are any of you out there, I want to apologize for my unexpectedly long hiatus. I owe all of my colleagues and friends out there who have nurtured me professionally and personally (and blog-ally) a proper closing and final blog post.When I left you in Februrary, I had all sorts of good intentions (as I always do). I figured with my new job that is fairly well confined to business hours I would have all kinds of time to blog and keep up with my emails. Well...it didn't quite work out as I planned.Between February and June, I was adjusting to a new job in a new environment while planning for a wedding, which took and increasingly large amount of my time and energy as the date got closer. Both of these changes were good things, but demanded a heck of a lot more of my time than I imagined. I had a hard time with the idea of being on the computer all day and then coming home to respond to emails, Facebook requests, and all of that, especially as I got further and further behind. I needed a break. So I took one. And I'm glad I did. But I'm not glad the one of the results of that was that some of you didn't get responses from me and that the blog was left hanging. I owe you all ...
Kosmopolis 08
Sun, 10/19/2008 - 09:35 — AnonymousWhat is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.
Salvador Dali.
Tomorrow I’m flying to Barcelona as a guest of the Kosmopolis literary festival. On the 25th, I’m honoured to be appearing on a panel with V. Vale (RE/Search publications) and Bruce Sterling, discussing Ballard and the Ballardosphere. This is kind of unreal to me. The panel will be moderated by Jordi Costa, curator of the Ballard exhibition at the CCCB. I intend to post daily reports from the festival, and if any reader of this site is in town, let’s meet.
After, I’ve got a few days to...
Kosmopolis 08
Sun, 10/19/2008 - 09:35 — AnonymousWhat is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.
Salvador Dali.
Tomorrow I’m flying to Barcelona as a guest of the Kosmopolis literary festival. On the 25th, I’m honoured to be appearing on a panel with V. Vale (RE/Search publications) and Bruce Sterling, discussing Ballard and the Ballardosphere. This is kind of unreal to me. The panel will be moderated by Jordi Costa, curator of the Ballard exhibition at the CCCB. I intend to post daily reports from the festival, and if any reader of this site is in town, let’s meet.
After, I’ve got a few days to...
Ballard & Lovecraft, part 3
Fri, 10/17/2008 - 23:38 — AnonymousThanks to Mike Holliday, who unearthed the following quote, the Ballard/Lovecraft connection now makes brilliant sense to me:
David Pringle: Have you read any modern horror – Stephen King, for example?
JGB: I enjoyed Clive Barker’s Weaveworld. He gave me a copy, and it was a pleasure to read. He’s an engaging, lively character. I liked him enormously – very lucid and intelligent and simpatico. But, I’m afraid, apart from the Barker, I’ve read almost nothing. No, I haven’t read Stephen King, though I enjoyed the TV movie of Salem’s Lot. I thought that was well done, but then I enjoyed the Omen films too. I know nothing about the world of horror. My reading of horror fiction is strictly Edgar Allan Poe and W W Jacobs and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
DP: Would you consider yourself a writer of horror stories?
JGB: You could say Crash is on the edges of horror fiction. I take it that, in horror fiction, the horrific effects are the object of the exercise. In the Gothic novel the clanking chains and creaking drawbridges and whistling pendulums are the object; the chill of terror and fear is the whole purpose. Whereas in a book like Crash I’m not out to make the b...
Ballard & Lovecraft, part 3
Fri, 10/17/2008 - 23:38 — AnonymousThanks to Mike Holliday, who unearthed the following quote, the Ballard/Lovecraft connection now makes brilliant sense to me:
David Pringle: Have you read any modern horror – Stephen King, for example?
JGB: I enjoyed Clive Barker’s Weaveworld. He gave me a copy, and it was a pleasure to read. He’s an engaging, lively character. I liked him enormously – very lucid and intelligent and simpatico. But, I’m afraid, apart from the Barker, I’ve read almost nothing. No, I haven’t read Stephen King, though I enjoyed the TV movie of Salem’s Lot. I thought that was well done, but then I enjoyed the Omen films too. I know nothing about the world of horror. My reading of horror fiction is strictly Edgar Allan Poe and W W Jacobs and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
DP: Would you consider yourself a writer of horror stories?
JGB: You could say Crash is on the edges of horror fiction. I take it that, in horror fiction, the horrific effects are the object of the exercise. In the Gothic novel the clanking chains and creaking drawbridges and whistling pendulums are the object; the chill of terror and fear is the whole purpose. Whereas in a book like Crash I’m not out to make the b...
'The Meaning, if Any, of Life': New Ballard Book
Fri, 10/17/2008 - 13:35 — AnonymousBallard and the meaning of life
Agent Margaret Hanbury, who is enjoying her 25th Frankfurt Book Fair as an independent agent, touched down with something rather special in her briefcase: a new book by J G Ballard. An envelope arrived, quite out of the blue, a couple of weeks back — Hanbury admits she assumed it was a royalty query.
In fact it contained an outline for a new book, working title Conversations with My Physician. The physician in question is oncologist Professor Jonathan Waxman of Imperial College, London, who
is treating Ballard for prostate cancer. While it is in part a book about cancer, and Ballard’s struggle with it, it moves on to broader themes — indeed, the subtitle is The Meaning, if Any, of Life. The
agent — whose careful handling of Katie Price has propelled the artist formerly known as Jordan to the top of the charts, and to great wealth — is talking to Ballard’s long-standing publishers, among them Fourth Estate in the UK.
It is a poignant moment for Hanbury: in 1983, she arrived in Frankfurt with the manuscript for Empire of the Sun in her briefcase. Balla...
'The Meaning, if Any, of Life': New Ballard Book
Fri, 10/17/2008 - 13:35 — AnonymousBallard and the meaning of life
Agent Margaret Hanbury, who is enjoying her 25th Frankfurt Book Fair as an independent agent, touched down with something rather special in her briefcase: a new book by J G Ballard. An envelope arrived, quite out of the blue, a couple of weeks back — Hanbury admits she assumed it was a royalty query.
In fact it contained an outline for a new book, working title Conversations with My Physician. The physician in question is oncologist Professor Jonathan Waxman of Imperial College, London, who
is treating Ballard for prostate cancer. While it is in part a book about cancer, and Ballard’s struggle with it, it moves on to broader themes — indeed, the subtitle is The Meaning, if Any, of Life. The
agent — whose careful handling of Katie Price has propelled the artist formerly known as Jordan to the top of the charts, and to great wealth — is talking to Ballard’s long-standing publishers, among them Fourth Estate in the UK.
It is a poignant moment for Hanbury: in 1983, she arrived in Frankfurt with the manuscript for Empire of the Sun in her briefcase. Ball...