Subversive Activities . Org

A Subversive Triumph



The really rather fine Luke Kennard has a marvellous review of Dean Young’s “Elegy on Toy Piano” over at Stride, and there are (as usual) other interesting goodies there too.




A Ragged Edge


K.M.Dersley’s “The Ragged Edge” has for a while now been producing “magsheets” – “Lively pieces of prose: articles, stories or memoirs suitable to be read at a sitting – and often re-read.” They cost just £2 each, post free, or four bucks if you’re in the US or overseas. Past titles include things from Jim Burns, Gerald Locklin and Joan Jobe Smith. The newest one, just out, is a story by Doug Draime. My reproduction of this particular magsheet's cover is crap, incidentally, for which I apologise, but technology is only as good as the hand that fucks with it, I think.


A War of Worlds

I just saw “The War of the Worlds” – the 1960s version - for the goodness knows what number time, and also the new one, which has Tom Cruise’s fashionably dysfunctional family somehow surviving against the odds. And they are pretty big odds, too. I was kind of enjoying this new one, because it was satisfyingly grim and bleak, and visually it was pretty attractive. The way people get blown away is cool, although it's easy to remember it's Spielberg doing this. There's a kid in danger, for one thing. Then dad and delinquent son end up being reunited and hugging one another and, oh, I’m sorry if I spoiled it for you….

Global Frequency

Much more fun is (or was) “Global Frequency”, a pilot of a TV series that never got off the ground and which has apparently been available on the Web for a little while. Warner Brothers passed up on the series, but the pilot already has a cult following, or so I hear. It’s based on graphic novels by Warren Ellis. I know little about graphic novels, and watching “Sin City” recently didn’t make me want to find out much more. But “Global Frequency” is kind of cool – it’s a sort of X-Files, really, but darker, and more knowingly arch and sexy. And sharp and funny, too. You have to have BitTorrent software and be into file sharing and downloading of dubious legality to get hold of it, sadly, and E&D cannot condone such nefarious activity. Much.

Brilliance


I've been reading again. Sometimes I wish I could just sit around and listen to The Bee Gee's first LP, but I can't. I'm driven to read poems. Yes, driven, like an ox thing to the market thing. Anyway, what I meant to say was, I have a review at Litter of Peter Gizzi's "Periplum and other poems" which is out from Salt. He's a good poet, and I'm a good reviewer. That's what Mrs Trellis of North Wales says, anyway.


Did I ever mention that drama is where it's at?

Drama enthusiasts will be delighted to know that some new plays by the play writing team of Mark Halliday and Martin Stannard have just been published in The Indiana Review, which is based in, um, Indiana. It's the Summer 2005 issue, devoted to Collaboration and Collage. The plays are "Crystal Bride" (a cracker), "Inspiration" (inspiring) and "The Hawk and The Mask", which we're waiting for Hollywood types to start bidding for any day now. Of course, your local shop or newsagent may not stock The Indiana Review, but their website is here. Oh, and the issue illustrated here isn't the issue we're in: they don't have a picture of that one on their site yet so I couldn't steal it. Come on, lads, keep up. You're at an American University. You can't be that busy....


More Brilliants



But who knows anything? I've just downloaded 34 episodes of "The Itchy & Scratchy Show", so I'm not sure if my opinion counts for much any more. I may have lost whatever plot there was.