When a strange story broke about the confiscation of a bag of giant African snails at JFK airport this week, I knew Patricia Highsmith was calling. The man who brought them from Ghana declared them to customs, but didn’t realise they were illegal. Why’s that, you say? ‘They eat almost anything, breed like crazy, and carry a…
Noir Classics: I Wake Up Screaming (1941) K. A. Laity Even though I teach a course on film noir, there are some I still haven’t got around to seeing: I Wake Up Screaming was one of those. Released through the Fox Film Noir brand now, it’s one of those artifacts that reminds you ‘film noir’ was retconned into existence.…
Review: Sisters With Transistors SISTER WITH TRANSISTORS 2020 / 84 MIN / UK / Metrograph Pictures DIRECTOR: LISA ROVNER Thanks to EMPAC I had a chance to see this new film and a talk by the director Lisa Rovner and producer Marcus Werner Hed. This documentary chases the early history of electronic music and the women who…
Review: Mountains – Alan Dunn & eleni poulou Many people have found the lockdown a time of loneliness and isolation. Others have jumped into collaboration to assuage that feeling and to find hope and the energy of inspiration in new ways. The fun that springs from good collaboration is a magic of discovery and frisson.…
While musing on Nightmare Alley (something I do more than most people I suspect) I often wonder how deeply William Lindsay Gresham studied the tarot and whether it was for more than just carny sideshow purposes. So I was pleased to receive a gem from a talk hosted by the Folklore Society. The Katharine Briggs Lecture by…
Palace of Swords Reversed ‘Look, this is the Five of Swords. That means conflict or strife. Which seems appropriate, right?’ Joy looked up with bright eyes but Will only grunted. ‘Strife it is, indeed. Oh, but look! It’s reversed. Now let me remember. Oh, no I can’t. I have to peek.’ Joy picked up the…
Noir Classics: The Candy Kid – Dorothy B. Hughes by K. A. Laity While Hughes’ reputation is assured by the brilliance of In a Lonely Place, Ride the Pink Horse or The Expendable Man, her other novels offer great reads that show her experimenting with characterisations and locations as well as story-telling methods. Her love of the southwest takes…
Linear Obsessional is delighted to present the first of two EPs by the extraordinary Irish composer Daniel Figgis: Figgis (a long time friend of this label) released the magical “Skipper” in 1995. Since then Daniel has primarily worked on extraordinary large scale live happenings involving waterfall, abandoned buildings, forest, World Financial Center New York, Symphony…
Brawl Records has begun a new year long series These Feral Lands, growing out of last year’s release of the same name. Brawl Records is proud to present JANUARY SOUNDS from UK and Ireland based musicians Laura Cannell and Kate Ellis. Featuring Cannell’s signature evocative overbowed violin alongside Ellis’s deeply expressive cello playing. This release is the first in…
My practicality consists in this: in the knowledge that if you beat your head against the wall it is your head which breaks and not the wall … that is my strength, my only strength. ~Antonio Gramsci Had a beard which was weird Some time ago Heard Ramones in ‘81 Has a Spanish guitar ~The…
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