• About
  • Cats Dig Hemingway
  • Guest Bookings
  • John King’s Publications
  • Literary Memes
  • Podcast Episode Guide
  • Store!
  • The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film
  • Videos
  • Writing Craft Discussions

The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Category Archives: Pensive Prowler

Pensive Prowler #30: Manger Montreal

27 Monday May 2019

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Pensive Prowler

≈ 3 Comments

Pensive Prowler #30 by Dmetri Kakmi

Manger Montreal

When my friend Cam Rogers invited me to stay with him in his girlfriend’s flat in Montreal I could hardly say no. After all it was his birthday and this most French of all Canadian cities has fascinated me since I saw Denys Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal in the early 1990s.

Montreal is also the home of the legend that is Leonard Cohen; and, thanks to Instagram, I knew that queer enfant terrible Bruce La Bruce was shooting his new salvo, Saint-Narcisse, there at the time.

How exciting. I might bump into the great man himself or actually be in a Bruce La Bruce provocation. I’m ready for my humiliating, yet oddly erotic sex scene with skinheads, Mr La Bruce!

As further enticement, the Musee des Beaux Arts boasted an exhibition of fashion designer Thierry Mugler.

So off I went, only to arrive in the Ille de Montreal feeling like I’d bathed in the other passengers’ excrescences for almost twenty hours in the air. Never the less, after a quick shower and a change of clothes, Cam and I hit the streets in search of fortifying ramen.

It was a chilly night. Despite it being May, spring was yet to arrived. The dismal Canadian winter swept boulevards in which cars glistened like evil spirits as they swished by in the persistent drizzle.

The discomfort of being out on the cold was forgotten when Cam pointed out Leonard Cohen’s house across the bare trees of Parc du Portugal, and the very next morning treated me to breakfast at Bagels Etc, a regular Cohen hangout. Over the next week, I discovered that giant murals of the crooner’s face loom over many parts of the city, like the all-seeing eye of a benevolent despot, lending Montreal the air of a hip dictatorship.

Montreal is built around Mount Royal, an extinct volcano on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River, the slopes of which were once occupied by the Iroquois. Perched atop the mount, like a supplanting god, is a giant crucifix that lights up at night to remind you not to enjoy yourself too much because the wrath of god is around the corner.

Maybe that’s why the populace of under two million pursues hedonistic pleasures like a wolf after a moose. The minute the sun came out Sunday morning everyone stripped down to shorts and T-shirts and rushed to the park that slides off the mountainside to enjoy the free drum and dance event known as the Tam Tams, the smell of weed thick in the air. By mid afternoon, when Cam and I descended from the mountain, the park was jammed with families, hippies, Rastaferians, brazen flirts and eccentric fashionastas, enjoying the music in a hazy carnivalesque atmosphere reminiscent of a medieval fair.

It must be said the denizens of Montreal did not strike me as a particularly fashion conscious lot. I saw little above the standard blue jeans and voluminous grey jackets the whole time I was there.

The success of the Thierry Mugler exhibition at the Musee des Beaux Arts tells me they are desperate for fantasy.

I mean what suburban Mum doesn’t aspire to wear a bustier inspired by Detroit car styles from the 1950s? Or which business woman doesn’t want to climb into a suit composed entirely of rubber tyres before driving the kids to school? Want to look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon before sitting down to peel potatoes? Thierry Mugler has the dress for you, madame.

Of course you’d have to subsist on a lettuce leaf and a glass of water for a year to fit into those tiny creations, but what price fashion, darling?

Cam and his girlfriend (who was in Spain at the time) live in a borough known as Le Plateau. It’s a lively, up-and-coming area, full of cafes, bars, and restaurants, catering to an ethically diverse clientele: Portuguese, Jews, Greeks and of course the French. English is very much a secondary language and it was delightful to hear people switch from Quebecois to English in the blink of an eye when I mumbled with some alarm, ‘Je ne comprends pas. Parlez vou Anglais?’ Though I understand there is a degree of resentment.

Several times during my stay, I walked to Mile End, the next borough along, to buy chewy sesame bagels straight from the oven at Fairmount Bagel. Heedless of my waist line, I devoured one on the way home and shared the rest with Cam over breakfast. If there’s anything I miss now that I’m in Melbourne it’s those bagels, so full of give and bite— amazing with Swiss cheese and a ring of piquant salami.

Were the bagels better than the poutine we had one rainy day at Maam Bolduc?

The large white enamel bowl placed on the table between us overflowed with french fries covered in gravy, topped with caramelised onion, curds and roast duck.

Poutine means ‘mess’, and that’s exactly what it looked like. A great big mess. But the burst of umami when the lot was conveyed to the mouth via a fork was utter heaven. Even though I was full, I kept shovelling in the carbs until it felt as if I carried a food baby. The walk home hardly touched the sides and I passed out for several hours on the bed, unable to move and providing a perfect resting place for Cam’s two Siberian cats.

I didn’t meet Bruce La Bruce, which was just as well. After all the food I’d consumed, I looked like Jubba the Hut. Unless Mr La Bruce was making a film about fatty fetishists, I wouldn’t make it past the front door. So Cam and I shuffled to L’Express one last time and toasted this fun city with a Montreal Martini.


This is the final Pensive Prowler column.


dmetri-kakmi

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

Pensive Prowler #29: Lazy is as Lazy Does

15 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Pensive Prowler

≈ Leave a comment

Pensive Prowler #29 by DMETRI KAKMI

Lazy is as Lazy Does

Hello. We didn’t speak last month. I know you missed me. Strange as it may sound I didn’t miss you. Well, not much anyway. I wasn’t myself, you see, and I needed time out. Mine host John King kindly gave me leave and here we are again, back where we started, and I still feel pretty much the same. Shithouse, as we say in Australia.

Here’s the low-down. When the time came around for last month’s Pensive Prowler, I had so much on, I couldn’t find the time to sit down and write. Even if I had made the time to put finger to keyboard, my brain was so overloaded I couldn’t have found a topic on which to ruminate.

I had too much on my plate. Subsequently, my brain put down its foot and refused to go further with the constant hurly-burly I imposed on it since the start of the year. Instead of working with me, it sent me on a holiday.

Even though I felt guilty about letting you down, and then feeling like a lazy good for nothing for not enlivening your drab, uneventful lives with my extraordinary wit and eloquence, I threw my hands up in the air and went along with it.

No column? One less thing to do. What a relief!

I am by nature lazy. If I can get out of work, I will. But I’m not telling you anything new, right? You’re like that too. I can see it from here. Your indolence is visible to my all-seeing eye. That sluggish slothfulness, the listless torpor, that takes over the minute you’re alone and no one is looking.

Yes, I know, you’re annoyed because you’ve been exposed as a fainéant,for all the world to see. (Look it up you lazy bugger.) That’s okay, you needn’t feel bad. Like I say, I’m one too.

As dear Emily Dickinson so wisely wrote:

I’m Lazy! Who are you?
Are you – Lazy – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Industrious!
How public – like a Fart –
To tell one’s name – the livelong April –
To an admiring Blog!

My natural mode is reclining on a comfy couch with a dozen buttery croissant and a row of Hanky Panky cocktails (look them up) arrayed before me, dozing, eating, drinking, and watching horror movies.

I’d even have a servant who looks like Dirk Bogarde (look him up), fanning me with a palm frond and giving me inappropriate massages if I could.

Hey, calm down. There’s no need to get offended and all #mootoo on me. I’m being honest and open with you for the sake of furthering the human condition.

But really what is this thing called lazy? An unwillingness to work or use energy. That’s the definition on the online dictionary because I’m too lazy to reach across and open my excellent but really heavy Oxford English Dictionary.

Far as I’m concerned, there is no such thing as a lazy person. There are only people who lack the motivation for specific tasks. Laziness is relative. Just as there is no person who works hard at everything, there is no person who is lazy at everything.

There is only a lack of drive, an absence of motivation. If we could motivate people by giving them tasks they love to perform, there would be an end to laziness.

That sounds like I’m saying I lacked the motivation to write last month’s Pensive Prowler. That’s not true at all.

It’s just that I had to finish the third draft of my novel (done), finalise the program for the second Greek Writers’ Festival (almost done), check the proofs for a forthcoming essay in Archermagazine (done), finish reading seventy-four shortlisted entries for the Ada Cambridge Writing Prize on which I’m a judge (done), check my students’ writing (ongoing) and pack my bags for Montreal (look it up), which by the way is where I will be speaking to you from next month.

If someone could start a Crowdfunding thing to get me to Canada business class I’d really appreciate it. Thanks. Bye.


dmetri-kakmi

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

Pensive Prowler #28: On Indignation

18 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in animation, Pensive Prowler

≈ Leave a comment

Pensive Prowler #28 by Dmetri Kakmi

On Indignation

Late in January, first thing in the morning, I received this on Facebook messenger: ‘You want to laugh at kids being groomed again come to my gym and do it on the mats. Will knock your ass straight the fuck out so a [sic] can laugh at you.’

The correspondent alluded to a Ren & Stimpy Facebook post in which he mentioned creator John Kricfalusi’s misdemeanours with minors.

His first message was followed by: ‘Will be sending a pic of you laughing to Eland book [my British publisher] see how they feel.’

A screen shot of the email he sent to the publisher popped up.

After contemplating the dizzying possibilities inherent in me rolling on a gym mat with a sweaty stranger, I pulled myself together and replied: ‘I don’t know who you are or what you are talking about. As someone who was sexually molested as a child, I do not find grooming amusing in the least.’

Back he came with: ‘Fuck you very much. Prick. Well you laughed at it. Why if thats [sic] the case.’

Sucker for punishment said: ‘Let me be very clear. I like Ren and Stimpy cartoons. That is not the same thing as approving child molestation. I often press like on Ren and Stimpy posts. To my knowledge I’ve never laughed at any cartoons about child grooming, something which horrifies me. Given my own experience as a child. Again I do not know what you are talking about.’

His reply: ‘Well I’m sorry Demtri [sic] you clearly hit the laugh and my post highlighting him grooming kids.’

Followed by a screen shot of the Ren & Stimpy post in question. Sure enough (much to my horror) I had pressed Laugh on his comment about Kricfalusi.

He went on to say: ‘You clearly did it. Am sorry for your experience thats [sic] horrible but it confuses my [sic] to why you done it then. You can explain it to your publishers.’

I explained it was probably a mistake when I was trawling comments to the Ren & Stimpy video. And I apologised for upsetting him. He accept the apology, adding that he will send another email to my publishers ‘suggesting it could possibly be a mistake.’ (Note the wording.) He signed off by saying he works in community development with victims of abuse.

I don’t bear the man a grudge. I’m not angry. He sounds sincere and well-meaning, if rather volatile. This is not about him. It’s about a phenomenon. Trolling. Call-out culture. Call it what you will.

I am astounded a stranger—someone I’ve never met and who knows nothing about me—can threaten violence, make vile accusations and fling about damaging insinuations; and then escalate the matter by including business associates in what is obviously a foolish error, something that could be sorted out in minutes if he and I engaged in civil conversation.

The intention was clear. Counting me among the worst offenders, he wanted to sully my relationship with my publisher and thus affect my livelihood. Why? Because a Ren & Stimpy fan, dizzy with laughter, mistakenly pressed Laugh on a comment about child grooming.

In the age of emotional upheaval and indignation, laughter (albeit mistaken) is complicity. Woe betide a dark or perverse sense of humour! On the internet individuals can now take it upon themselves to police behaviour and act as judge and jury, condemning willy nilly, certain of right doing.

Mature conversation goes out of the window. To say nothing of consideration and some degree of self-control.

I wouldn’t speak to the lowliest specimen like that. (Well, maybe a politician.) It seems untoward and rude. It’s no way for civilised human beings to conduct themselves in civil society. Given the far-reaching consequences, it’s tantamount to terrorism.

Only, of course, it’s happening invisibly and at a distance on the internet. We need never meet to destroy one another. Thus we need take no responsibility for the fallout. We need only sit back and enjoy our handy work.

How could you live with yourself if you got it wrong? Or doesn’t that matter when you’re piously beating your breast?

Even if I had deliberately pressed laugh, so what? It is not a crime to laugh. Given the subject matter it might be ethically and morally reprehensible. It might be in bad taste. But it’s still only laughter. It’s not the actual doing. Nor does it mean that one approves the crime.

People who go on the attack like this are ruled by their emotions. One word and they flare up. They’re offended. Their feelings are hurt. Now they will punish you. A scorched-earth policy rules. They have no self-control whatsoever.

If words can throw you into such turmoil, it means any one can control you. Anyone can press your buttons whenever they wish. Whereas true power resides in restraint. Sit back, take a breath and let it roll. Choose your battles.

When I mentioned the incident to friends, they laughed. ‘Welcome to the internet,’ they said. It appears I got off lightly. Lives have been destroyed for less. Offend online and you’re a goner. Might as well pack your bags and go live in the Vatican.

The double irony hit home when it was over.

Not only did this business happen because of Ren & Stimpy (an absurdist cartoon that sends up ugly behaviour), it also made a bad into a good. Getting molested as a child turned out to be a blessing for me in this instance. Something that blights my life, saved my bacon. If I hadn’t been fiddled with, I’d have no recourse against the march of the true believer—those who shoot first and never ask questions.


dmetri-kakmi

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

Pensive Prowler #27: A Modest Proposal for Politicians of all Nations*

14 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Pensive Prowler, politics

≈ 1 Comment

Pensive Prowler #27 by Dmetri Kakmi

A Modest Proposal for Politicians of all Nations*

It is a melancholy truth to those who walk through this great world of ours and see capital cities filled with politicians and their minions, amassing wealth and wanting to live all of their lives on the backs of the working people, that a pressing problem begs for solution.

london-parliament

It is agreed by all that this prodigious outpouring of parasites is a very great grievance; and therefore whoever should find a fair, cheap, and easy method of making the leeches useful members of society would deserve ample financial recompense and acclaim for all the world to see.

But my intention is far from being confined to provide only for current practicing members of the political classes. Like Herod with the baby Jesus, I intend to act pre-emptively, hoping to strike early and to net youngsters whose ambition is to one day rise to the dizzy heights of presidency and to prime ministership, chancellor or emir, or whatever title applies to the jurisdiction in which you, dear reader, reside and chaff under the load of hardship while those charged with looking after your welfare live in luxury and want for nothing.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject and maturely weighted the various schemes and opinions of others, I have found them wanting in the extreme. And I have no doubt, if put to practise, my scheme will save many a tear and lamentation in the dead of night as we sleep safe in the knowledge the office-bearer truly serves his nation with every fibre of his or indeed her ability.

I know not where you reside, dear reader, but I live in Australia—the lucky country (if you are not Aboriginal)—and therefore my comments will be limited to my borders, lest I overstep my expertise and offend.

canberra parliament house

At any rate, not taking in the shadow ministry and local councils, the Australian parliament has seventy-six senators and 150 members of the house of representatives. It is, you will agree, a fraction of the overall population and yet these moochers avail themselves of the greater sum of monies from the public purse and think nothing of besmirching the name of the sick, needy, and unemployed and blaming them for all of the nation’s ills.

The prime minister, for instance, is lauded with $AUD527, 852. By comparison, the average cabinet minister struggles with a mere $AUD350, 209. As an addition, these honourable personages receive superannuation and business expenses, including travel expenses, health benefits, a spouse allowance, an electorate allowance, and a resettlement allowance. They get a supplementary income for taking on additional duties, such as chairing a committee. Furthermore, retiring federal politicians are awarded six figure pensions for life. The ‘reportable’ fringe benefits make for most interesting reading.

Meanwhile, the median salary in Australia is $AUD80, 000. Homelessness is on the rise. Most live under the poverty line and many struggle to find work.

Thus inspired by Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau and given extra zip by Mr Rod Serling, I shall now humbly proffer my solutions to this most exasperating dilemma, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

I have been assured by a very knowing Greek physician of my acquaintance that a pampered, well-fed politician over the age of twenty-five makes for a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether fried, boiled or baked; and I have no doubt that the middle-aged will offer choice cuts and equally serve a mouthwatering fricassee, a ragout and, at a pinch, hamburger, thus freeing us up to reserve the grizzled elder statesman for sausages, mozzarella, and salami.

salami

The parliamentarian who takes especial care with his or her skin can be turned into designer handbags, shoes, belts, vests, leather chaps for sadomasochists, coats, and various other fashion accessories. Bones can be put to the service of furniture, kitchen implements and cutting-edge sculpture, thus using all necessary parts and assuring that no wastage whatsoever be entered into. We are after all in the age of recyclables.

As for up-and-coming politicians, from let us say the age of fifteen or sixteen, they can be rounded up in schoolyards as soon as they express the least interest in the political sphere and sold to Russia and China for organ harvesting, thus nipping the bud before the disease can spread far afield.

I reserve the best for the politician who treats the public with contempt and for whom lying and deceiving is second nature only to hypocrisy: round them up and turn them into pet food.

milk- dog

After all, they did want to serve their country and there is no better way to do that than to serve them up in a platter.

I can think of no objection that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless we desire to act against the number of people who will thereby find material and spiritual benefit in this endeavour.

And I profess in the sincerity of my heart that I have not the least personal interest in promoting this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good; and I challenge any politician or member of the public who dislikes my overture that they first query the patents of their morals, whether they would not at this day think a gross injustice is remedied by my modest, though far-sighted submission.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

jonathan_swift_by_charles_jervas

*With sincere thanks to Jonathan Swift.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

dmetri-kakmi

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

Pensive Prowler #26: Angel Frankenstein

17 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Pensive Prowler, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Pensive Prowler #26 by Dmetri Kakmi

Angel Frankenstein

When George Mouratidis asked me to launch his first collection of poetry, Angel Frankenstein, I decided to talk about the cover, rather than the work contained therein.

AF_cover_15_final C

The jacket speaks volumes. It tells us everything we need to know about the poetry and about the poet. It is a rare instances where a proper study of the cover is essential to an understanding of the work.

Let’s begin with the image. A carnation stuck in a fly-screen door.

Ironic? Kitsch? Nostalgic? Funny?

It’s probably all these things in equal measure.

It’s definitely woggy*. And it’s most certainly recognisable for any Greek who grew up in Melbourne in the 1970s and ‘80s. I look at that image and a part of me smiles, while another part shudders. It brings back memories, some happy, some not so happy. It’s everything I grew up with in Melbourne and everything I wanted to get away from at a young age. I know that’s how George feels as well.

Objectively speaking, the image represents a time and place, frozen in a moment. It evokes a ritual and way of life that is pretty much dead. This is what first-generation Greeks did when they dropped in on friends and relatives—as they did invariably unannounced—and found no one home. They left a flower in the grille of the fly-screen door to signal a visit.

Greek morse code for I came, I saw, you weren’t there.

It wasn’t important to know who left the flower. It was only important to know someone had dropped in for a kafedaki. People did that in those days. Now they text or phone; and this rather sinister love token, as I saw it, has gone the way of the dodo.

So straight away George announces his intentions. He is looking back to his ‘Thommo years’, as he calls his upbringing in Melbourne’s north-west suburbs. But not in a sappy, sentimental way. This is sober, knowing reflection on a working-class Greek-Australian upbringing, its joys, aches and pains.

The image, like the poems, evokes complex subterranean emotions. George isn’t slinging off in a knowing, ironic sort of way. That’s easy to do. Harder still to infuse those times with affection and see them for what they truly were. Much as he chaffed at the bit to get away from Thomastown, George knows this is where he was formed—as a poet and as a human being. He owes a debt to the endless stretch of bland, bleached suburbs. It’s the wellspring of his poetry. Without it he wouldn’t exist. Or he would be someone else, not the George we know.

It’s worth noting that a fly-screen door doesn’t just keep out flies. Locked, it keeps out people as well. You can look but you can’t enter. A locked door says I am barred against you and you can come in by invitation only, like a vampire.

The next best thing to do is draw close and peer through the grille’s intricate, even Byzantine, curlicues into the beyond. This is the heart of Stygian matter.

Like a vampire, a poet may stand at the door, looking in, but he can’t enter. It’s best if he occupies a liminal space—all the better to observe, hover and critique. The door offers resistance against his invasive, often unwelcome, scrutiny. On the other side is a mysterious realm, familiar yet alien. Threatening and welcoming. Like the title above the image, a dichotomy.

And so we come to the extraordinary title. Angel Frankenstein.

What a powerful play on two seemingly contradictory words. Angel and Frankenstein. Light and dark. Placed above the door. Come in. Herein lie monsters and beings of light. Invitation and menace.

An angel is, by definition, good. But the devil is not. He is a fallen angel. Which means an angel can be bad, given the right circumstances. Just as a devil can be good, as Lucifer once was. Or the devil can stray as he tests boundaries and quests for knowledge. To paraphrase Monty Python, he is not really bad; he is just a naughty boy. He doesn’t accept the status quo and therefore falls from grace.

Doctor Victor Frankenstein, as opposed to the monster he creates, is a fallen angel. He was a good man until he cruelly abandons his creation and becomes more monstrous than the benighted man-monster he forms from bits and pieces of cadavers. If anything, by the end of this sorry story, the monstrous creation is more human than the creator.  The hell-spawn freak is elevated through forbearance and suffering, while the creator follows a downward spiral through hubris and vanity. Oppositional journeys beginning from the same core. Elevation and descent, cut through with the limbo of a middle-ground.

The point is, nothing is cut and dried. Nothing is as simple as it seems. Life is varied, complex, contradictory and filled with ambiguities and unexpected byways. It takes a questioning and questing mind to see that. As we see with the poems, George has these qualities in spades.

You wouldn’t think to marry Angel and Frankenstein unless you understand nothing in the world is diametrically opposed. There are only parallels, interconnections and corresponding points.

This new creation—the Angel Frankenstein—is ultimately the electrifying synthesis of disparate parts that form a cohesive whole, a shared communal, even pluralistic, space. That’s why the dedication reads ‘for my tribe’.

*a foreigner or an immigrant, especially one from southern Europe.


dmetri-kakmi

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

Pensive Prowler #25: The Algorithm That Ate the Dick Pic

19 Monday Nov 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Erotic Literature, Pensive Prowler

≈ Leave a comment

Pensive Prowler #25 by Dmetri Kakmi

The Algorithm That Ate the Dick Pic

It all started with a dick pic. This one to be precise.

The Big Penis Book

It’s the cover for Taschen’s The Big Penis Book. I posted it in response to a friend’s Facebook post—from here on referred to as Facepalm Booklet.

The friend wanted to know which book I’d put in his ideal library and, feeling rather wicked, I posted the pic that brought about my demise. Within seconds—20 to be precise— a message popped up, telling me I’ve been excommunicated for 30 days for contravening ‘community standards’.

I was shocked. Outraged. I objected. But my objections fell on deaf auto responses.

It appears the ‘community’ of more than 100 million people who use Facepalm Booklet daily were outraged by my untoward behavior. Because, you see, they have incredibly high ‘standards’ in their dealings with their ‘friends’. They neither see, nor hear, nor speak evil. And I most certainly don’t meet the benchmark.

The sheer hypocrisy bugs me. It’s acceptable to post misogynist, racist, homophobic, bigoted bilge. It’s okay for people to attack each other in the most vile, personal terms. But it’s not okay to post pictures of nudity, unless it’s art or educational.

This raises the question of who decides what constitutes these abstract and highly contestable nouns and adjectives? And why is the elevation of mind and soul placed above carnality? Which mental at Facepalm Booklet’s Mentlo Park headquarters decides? (Don’t get me started on the name of the street, Hacker Way.)

I’d argue the Taschen cover is art. Possibly even highly instructional. In the right hands.

Certainly, Hindus see it my way. Sex, for them, is a gateway to spiritual elevation. That’s why their temples are plastered with vivid orgiastic scenes of contorted bodies doing it every which way but loose. I bet they’re very loose after they’ve tried all the positions in the Kama Sutra.

Bizarrely, female nipples are not allowed on Facepalm Booklet. Male nipples are. This, of course, means that the people who make the rules haven’t sexualized the latter in the manner of the former. Which in turn implies the rules are made largely by men. A male nipple is of no sexual interest to a heterosexual man. But it is for a heterosexual woman, as it is for a homosexual man.

There are countries in which the sight of a woman’s ankle or the back of her neck is a daring come-on. Men in certain religious communities in North America are driven wild by a woman’s elbow. The revelation of a single strand of female hair can enflame a man’s passions in countries where the burka is obligatory for a woman. Does Facepalm Booklet censor these body parts as well?

What rails is this. The picture I posted does not contain nudity. It’s an image of a tumescent male member, tilting wildly to the left, encumbered by straining white briefs. You don’t see anything. It’s left to the imagination. Though I must say the special 3D cover will poke out your eye, if you dare to put on the glasses that come with it.

Far as I know, no one complained about the picture I posted because no one saw it. An algorithm, that invisible, electronic nemesis of our online prowling, tracked it down, deleted the dick pic that wasn’t a dick pic, and hoisted me out with a slap on the wrist. That’s the same algorithm that happily mines our data for marketing purposes—happy to sell you crap you don’t need, but don’t get too big for the cheap boots we sold you via Masorini.con.

In retaliation, I got rid of the Faceslap Booklet and the Messenger apps from my phone and iPad, and logged out on the desktop. No social media for a month. Great. I can work without distractions. And instead of checking my feed, I can read, watch a movie, go for a walk…

As Friar Lawrence says in Romeo and Juliet, ‘Hence from Facebook you are banished. Be patient for the world is broad and wide.’

In the first week I was doing quite well, actually, with only the very slightest withdrawal symptoms. Until the emails started to arrive.

Now that I’ve been kicked out, Faceslap Booklet is keen to draw me in again. It keeps asking if I’ve seen so and so’s comments on so and so’s post. Hey, look, so and so has posted on a group you follow. You’re tagged in such and such post. We care about you and your memories.

Sure, you do. You care about the marketing potential I represent, more like.

I’ve not received these notices before. They started coming when I turned my back on the great weevil.

My attitude is: who cares, bitch? You banned me for nothing. You made it so I can see but not reply. You pushed me to the outer limits, rendered me invisible, like a ghost, able to observe but not take part. And now you want me to come see the fun everyone is having at the party to which I am not invited? Hell, no. Sounds like you need me more than I need you. I ain’t no Romeo who thinks to be banished from Facebook is to be banished from the world.

Now excuse me, I’m going to play with my Taschen 3D cover.


Dmetri with Hat

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

Pensive Prowler #24: Justice League of Steppenwolf

22 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Pensive Prowler

≈ Leave a comment

Pensive Prowler #24 by Dmetri Kakmi

Justice League of Steppenwolf

The following does not constitute a film review of Justice League. More a running commentary as my befuddle mind tried to make sense of the movie through an alcoholic haze.

As the movie begins (I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong with the title), I console myself with one fact. Even thought I don’t know what happened in Man of Steeland Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, I’m familiar with the main players: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman…

Hold on. Who’s the black electronic kid in the hoodie? Cyborg? Never heard of him. Good thing he looks like disco inferno, circa 1979. If he’s ever unemployed, he can hire himself out as a disco ball.

And who is Amy Adams supposed to be? Can’t be Lois Lane. She’s not wearing a pillbox hat and making smart quips. Oh, dear, what a long face she has. Looks like a smacked bottom.

And right off, first kick in the gut: Superman is dead. In comic book parlance that’s like saying God is Dead. No wonder Trump’s in the White House and Melanoma is wandering the globe in a pith helmet.

Exhausted by the welter of new info, I fortify myself with a sip of martini, turn to screen and SCREAM.

A really ugly actor is pretending to be Batman.

Ugh, I need another drink after that. Nobody told me this was a horror movie.

Seriously, the guy squeezed into the Batman mask looks like one of those average Joes you see on amateur gay porn websites where they dress like a favourite superhero and get off with other wanna-be superheroes with bodies that are propped up with Enchiladas.

Only this actor—whoever he is—looks like he needs to have his blood pressure checked as well, and cut back on calories. If he doesn’t, he’s going to bring a parapet down on someone’s unsuspecting head.

Recovering, I pull out the iPad and hop on to IMBD. The puffy dude is Ben Affleck? Seriously, Mr Ben, you’re younger than me. Pull yourself together. You’re heading for a stroke.

While I’m there, I check out Aquaman because—hate to tell you—there’s something wrong with him, too. Jason Momoa, Hawaiian. Lazy eye. Probably got hit in the head with a surfboard. I’m not kidding, he resembles a gecko with eyes looking in opposite directions. Must freak out the fish.

All I can say is, director Zak Snyder must have told the casting director to gather Hollywood’s most unsightly actors and bring ‘em in, baby, cause we is a gonna make Freaks 2. Jeremy Irons, Amy Adams and Diane Lane are the only decent looking people in sight.

A better title for this might be Justice League of Fuglies. If nothing else, it’d console mere mortals who are condemned to sit there, looking at Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot’s plastic perfection with envy. By the way, did you notice how Cavill is fully dressed when he’s dead in the coffin and half naked when he leaps out like a demented jack-in-the-box? What’s that about?

And right there it hits me—what’s wrong with the title. When I was a teenager reading these comics it was The Justice League of America. Not the neutered Justice League. But I suppose the abbreviation is necessary today. No one in their right minds would call a multi-million dollar blockbuster The Justice League of America, because—well—American Imperialism. Box office poison.

Even so that doesn’t stop the script from lodging the great evil in Russia and rubbing Putin’s nose in it by sending American vigilantes to save the neglected peasantry from dastardly overlords.

Next, I check out Gal Gadot on IMDB. Because—hate to tell you—there’s something wrong with her as well. Odd accent. Is it a cleft palate? No, she’s Israeli.

Look here, the Amazons came out of Libya (that’s north Africa for those who’ve never looked at a world map), made their way through Egypt and Syria to settle on the Black Sea, in north Anatolia, not too far from where I was born. That’s why I think of the warrior women like distant lesbian aunts. And I can tell you the gals around Samsun don’t look or sound like Gal Gadot. More like the Hulk.

At least the Flash is there to give my eyes a rest. He’s so perky in that body-hugging crimson costume. When I was in my teens I wanted to be the Flash. Why? So I could run away from gay bashers. If push came to shove, however, I’d be the Silver Surfer. Because who doesn’t want to surf naked in the sky?

For me the star of Justice Leagueis the villain, Steppenwolf. Check out his achievements:

  1. He says marvelous things like ‘Praise the mother of horrors.’
  2. He wears fabulous hats with horns that’d make Philip Treacy envious.
  3. He turns Russia into Mordor.
  4. And he generates more personality than Gadot and Cavill combined.

I laughed when one character said Steppenwolf is “the end of worlds” and “he needs only to conquer.” In other words, he’s Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk rolled in one. I for one hope he wins. And let’s me wear his hat.


Dmetri with Hat

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

Pensive Prowler #23: Of Film and Book

17 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Pensive Prowler

≈ 1 Comment

Pensive Prowler #23 by Dmetri Kakmi

Of Film and Book

A friend recently asked me to take part in a 10-day movie challenge on Facebook.

In case you live under a rock, this is one of those dubious social media memes that spreads like a virus and infects any one with idle hands. They’re probably started by an algorithm that wants to figure how you think so that it can sell you more blu-rays.

The point of the game is simple. Every day for ten days you choose a movie that ‘has impacted’ you and present it without explanation. (I wager ten days is how long it takes for the algorithm to colonise your thought processes and behavioural patterns.)

Being a cinephile, I leaped on board, being aware all along of the spurious nature of such lists. Under different circumstances, or different states of inebriation, I’d probably pick a different lot of films. As a pedant, I also changed the irksome and inaccurate noun ‘impact’ to ‘affect’ on my posts because the verb more accurately describes the effect the following movies had on me when I saw them.

A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956), Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1957), Le Samurai (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967), Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa, 1975), Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976), In the Realm of the Senses (Nagisa Oshima, 1976), Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977), Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999), In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000), Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012).

It’s an eclectic list, one that perhaps self-consciously focuses on ‘foreign cinema’. (Foreign for whom?) For me, the list highlights ‘pure cinema’. That is to say films that rely heavily on vision and movement, rather than dialogue, for story telling. In other words, it’s a return to the medium’s elemental origins.

Half way through the ten-day challenge (which was no challenge at all), I had a revelation. I’m a writer, I thought. I ought to be putting together a list of books that affect me. And why don’t such memes circulate more often?

Probably because, I went on to tell myself, cinema is the primary art form of the last two centuries. Not jazz, as some claim. The novel features only for those who think they have a novel in them when it’s really only gas.

If I were to put together a list for a ten-day book challenge, what would I choose?

Weirdly, the list of films came easier than the list of books. A lot more thought went into choosing the books I will soon put before you, which tells me I’m probably more in tune with cinema than literature. Which, in turn, suggests two things:

1: I’m not cut out to be a writer. Or, more accurately…

2: So powerful and overwhelming is the influence of cinema on the popular imagination it has ‘impacted’ every other art form, which may account for why writing schools nowadays encourage students to write a novel as if they are writing a film script (short, sharp sentences and paragraphs, lots of dialogue, story beats that are more suited to cinematic story telling than the flow of a novel, and so on) and to have their eye on the holy grail of film adaptation.

In certain quarters, writing a novel for the sake of writing a novel is no longer enough. It must be ‘cinematic’ — think of the number of times a book reviewer positively cites a novel’s ‘cinematic qualities’. When was the last time a reviewer observed that so and so utilises ‘novelistic details’ in his or her film?

Or maybe I had a hard time putting together my ten best books list because the novel’s innate qualities reach deeper than film and we must therefore excavate the substrata to find the source?

In any case, here is the list of ten books that have affected me over the years. Keep in mind that under different circumstances, or under different states of inebriation, I’d probably pick a completely different lot films. I mean books.

The Arabian Nights, the Richard Burton translation, Metamorphoses, Ovid, To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, The Song of the World, Jean Giono, The Violent Bear it Away, Flannery O’Connor, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson, Therese Raquin, Emile Zola, Tirra Lirra by the River, Jessica Anderson, The Tree of Man, Patrick White, The Complete Short Novels, Anton Chekhov.

Must I explain them to you as well? How tedious you are. Let me see…

In short, the first two contain stories I absorbed by osmosis as a boy. If you’re born on a Greek-Turkish island in the Aegean Sea you naturally imbibe not only the Greek myths of creation and transformation recounted in Ovid, but you also get a taste for tales of the djinn and desert sands. With her fifth novel Woolf captures lightening in a bottle and made me want to be a writer. In pure, simple language, Giono’s epic perfectly evokes man’s symbiosis with nature. The Americans O’Connor and Jackson are exemplars of the stylised novel. Both toss out the window every rule about novel writing and still manage to produce books that stand the test of time. Zola is ruthless in his forensics of mind and body. Anderson is melancholy, beguiling as she draws you into a hornet’s nest. White evokes a new mythology of becoming in a new, though hardly uninhabited, land. As for Chekhov, he’s there because he can do no wrong in my eyes.

Now go away and read them all before we next speak. You will be tested.


dmetri-kakmi

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

Pensive Prowler #22: On Being Sick

20 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Pensive Prowler

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

A Country Doctor’s Notebook, Anton Chekhov, Illness as Metaphor, Mikhail Bulgakov, Oliver Sack, On Being Ill, The Bell Jar, The Doctor Stories, Virginia Woolf, William Carlos Williams

Pensive Prowler #22 by Dmetri Kakmi

On Being Sick

In 1926 Virginia Woolf asked why illness was not one of the great literary subjects, alongside war and love. Of course, she was howled down by critics who accused her of being silly and trite. But Woolf has a point.

Virginia Woolf

Maurice Beck And Helen MacGregor, Portrait of Virginia Woolf, 1925.

We all get sick. We are all laid low by cold, a broken leg or worse at some point. We know the wastes to which illness can take us, the deserts traversed. How isolating and debilitating pain can be. How terrifying, immobilising. How the spirits plunge to new depths. You really do drift off and feel as if you’ve stopped being part of human continuance. You feel as if you will never be well again and when you are well again you can hardly believe you had been to that far-off country. So close to death’s door.

So why not write about it?

Possibly because illness is perceived as passive and fiction (let’s stick to that for the time being) is an active progression from one point to the next. Even so, you’d think an innovative mind can turn the act of lying in bed, sick, into an active journey to the interior.

On the other hand we have to face the fact that when we are in rude health, we don’t want to think about illness. We want to forget it exists.

Things have moved on since Woolf wrote On Being Ill in 1926. In fact, they were on the right track all along and maybe Woolf was making a bigger point.

Anton Chekhov published his medical stories before the most famous member of the Bloomsbury group pioneered the modernist novel. Another Russian, Mikhail Bulgakov, wrote A Country Doctor’s Notebook the year before Woolf put in her two cents. Much later there was William Carlos Williams, the poet, with his The Doctor Stories, and John Berger with A Fortunate Man. For me, though, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is possibly the most famous offering to the genre, if I can call it that.

The Bell Jar.png

And we can’t go past Oliver Sacks’ important contributions to the field. Before all of them, however, there was Galen, the Greek physician and philosopher. I’m irritated by Susan Sontag so I’m not going to mention her book Illness as Metaphor. Damn, just did!

Still, Woolf is right. To this day if someone is asked to outline two or three enduring literary themes, they won’t put up their hand and go, “Illness!”

As you can tell, being sick has been on my mind lately. I’ve suffered from migraine most of my life. It’s been playing up lately and no amount of pill popping makes it go away. To add to my woes I have high cholesterol and now it seems I’m suffering side effects from the tablets I take to counteract its effects: nausea, unusual tiredness, itchy skin, memory loss, stiff and painful joints, unending thirst…

What gets me is this: how can pharmaceutical companies release medication knowing there are detrimental side effects? No one told me when I went on Crestor that my memory will go. Nor was I told that I will be shuffling around my home like an eighty-five year old because my joints seized up. I found out online.

What else are we putting in our bodies on a daily basis because we trust the manufacturer? Think of the chemicals in food, drink and water. We’re told chemicals are present in safe amounts and will cause no harm. But is this true? What are the long-term effects? What aren’t they telling us? How else can we account for cancers and the rise in food allergies in ‘developed nations’?

Why trust a faceless manufacturer whose one aim is profit? Government regulations mean nothing when politicians are in the pockets of corporations.

Let’s not forget in Victorian and Edwardian England, bakers adulterated bread with alum, which caused all sorts of gut problems, especially for children. Boracic acid was put in milk, with similar deadly results. Household cleaning products contained carbolic acid. Radium was put in toothpaste and chocolate. Of course people couldn’t understand why they were dropping off like bees. Now we look back and shake our heads. My bet is heads will shake over our folly in a hundred years’ time.

People will go, “What were they thinking?”

We didn’t think. We blindly trusted.

Illness strikes at the core because it’s a harbinger of mortality. It makes us vulnerable. It makes us question who we think we are and it reminds us that one day we will be dust. The body is not immortal. It’s a finite mechanism. Nor is it invulnerable, no matter how well we eat and how much we exercise. It will last however long it lasts. Why shorten its stay on earth by trusting multinational food and beverage companies that sure as hell ain’t gonna tell you the truth about their product?

If you don’t care either way, you will at least have plenty of books about illness to read as you drift off on your inflatable plastic mattress. And who knows? As you draw your last chemical intake, you might concede that illness is a vital literary topic.


Dmetri Kakmi

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

Pensive Prowler #21: Death Sentence

23 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Pensive Prowler

≈ 1 Comment

Pensive Prowler #21 by Dmetri Kakmi

Death Sentence

One long sentence is what it felt like, and I don’t mean a sentence as in ‘a set of words that is complete in itself, containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question or command, and consisting of a main clause and one or more subordinate clauses’; no, this felt like a death sentence, ‘a punishment assigned to a defendant found guilty by a court of law’ kind of sentence, because after all I’m talking about being hanged, drawn and quartered, in short punished, for failing to deliver this column on time, when all along I had forgotten it was due on the twentieth of the month because, you see, I’ve been travelling abroad, back home for two weeks, heavily jet lagged, overworked, sleepless in Melbourne; and I had completely forgotten a column was immanent, let alone thought about what to write, and it segued right into my guilt complex, or rather my desire to please, not let people down, disappointing the master of ceremonies at Drunken Odyssey, as I call John King, and I thought ‘By the camel’s lumpy hump, O might Jann, what shall I do?’; maybe I can pilfer something I wrote ages ago and send it to John—he needn’t know, but I’d know and then I’d only add to my misery by deceiving not only the MC but also the blameless reader by handing over soiled goods, so to speak, and there’s be disappointment all around; and then it came to me—be honest, tell the truth; I mean that’s what you normally do when in a tight spot or don’t know something—tell the truth and people will, hopefully, understand; they will be more accepting of a truthful admission, a cri de coeur, so to speak, than a lie, an attempt to draw the wool over their eyes—I’m talking about you, my dear members of the congregation—by pretending I knew what I was doing all along, which of course I didn’t, and couldn’t hope to, since the process of knowing implies conscious effort, knowledge and understanding of choosing a subject and putting one word in front of another to make a whole, which is pretty much what I’m doing now, I guess, as I kneel like a supplicant before you, begging for forgiveness, except of course in this case I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m headed or how this little misadventure in the confessional is going to end, whether with me absolved or damned, who can say?; all along I’m thinking of the long sentences I’ve enjoyed in books—Orhan Pamuk’s long sentence, buried somewhere in his Istanbul book(there’s another in My Name is Red, but it’s not as long as this one), immediately comes to mind—there are many others—the thing is you don’t realise you’re reading a long sentence until you turn the page and see Pamuk has been running (riffing?) on the same thought for almost a page and a half without a full stop, or a period, as you Americans say (isn’t a period the flow of blood and other materials from the lining of the uterus?), but hey why not punctuate a sentence with monthly lunar expulsions?; it’s better than masturbating on the page, which is what many authors do; but to get back to Pamuk, when you realise you’ve been reading one long sentence without pause, or drawing breath, you turn back the page, glance at what you’ve read and, in sudden wonderment, as if you’ve seen a splendid fireworks, you leap to your feet and clap with the sheer joy of it; it’s a virtuoso moment, a marathon run, and you can hardly believe he’s pulled it off, like those amazing cinematic long takes Brian De Palma is known for, the expertly choreographed, complicated set-ups that seem effortless to you and me, sitting comfortably in our cinema seat, observing, when really they require a lot of careful planning, are technically very challenging and difficult to pull of, flowing and weaving, drifting and swooping—think of the museum sequence in Dressed to Kill or the frenzied opening minutes of Snake Eyes—not a great film, the latter, but still exhilarating for however long it lasts before collapsing under its own misjudgements, with Nicholas Cage running amok, yammering and gesticulating wildly on his cell phone, as you Americans call it, which doesn’t make sense because it is not a ‘cell’ (okay it’s in the dictionary but it’s the last possible meaning); it’s a mobile phone you carry in your pocket and whip out to welcome the interruptions you anticipate in the course of a day; but that’s what I want to say about Pamuk’s sentence in the Istanbul book: it does not collapse; it sustains itself, floatingly sublime, on the spine of letters that turn to words, words that form sentences, units of meaning, on the vertebrae of carefully judged punctuation marks, unlike my piece, which admittedly is starting to wobble, show signs of fatigue, where I’ve clumsily patched things up, made near-invisible cuts and spliced two predicates together, hoping you haven’t noticed, like Hitchcock in Rope, to deceive you into thinking I’m clever using the hyphen instead of the semi colon to link sentences and tie my drowning not waving together so that I can tell myself, I wrote the column, damn it, and John King will be pleased; he won’t send his assassins to silence me before I put down a full stop, or a period, as you Americans infuriatingly call it.*


*Kind thanks and grateful acknowledgement to ‘One Long Sentence’ by Sven Birkerts. You saved my arse. Or ass, as you Americans call it.


dmetri-kakmi

Dmetri Kakmi (Episode 158) is a writer and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. The memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia; and is published in England and Turkey. His essays and short stories appear in anthologies and journals. You can find out more about him here.

← Older posts

Online, shop here:

If you must, shop Amazon and help the show.

Audible.com

Blogs

Not forgotten

Categories

  • 21st Century Bronte
  • A Word from the King
  • Aesthetic Drift
  • animation
  • Anime
  • Art
  • Autobiography
  • AWP
  • Biography
  • Blog Post
  • Bloomsday
  • Buddhism
  • Buzzed Books
  • Cheryl Strayed
  • Children's Literature
  • Christmas
  • Christmas literature
  • Comedy
  • Comic Books
  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart
  • Craft of Fiction Writing
  • Creative Nonfiction
  • David Foster Wallace
  • David James Poissant
  • David Lynch
  • David Sedaris
  • Disney
  • Dispatches from the Funkstown Clarion
  • Doctor Who
  • Drinking
  • Dungeons and Dragons
  • Editing
  • Education
  • Episode
  • Erotic Literature
  • Essay
  • Fan Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Film
  • Flash Fiction
  • Florida Literature
  • Francesca Lia Block
  • Functionally Literate
  • Ghost writing
  • Graphic Novels
  • Gutter Space
  • Help me!
  • Heroes Never Rust
  • History
  • Horror
  • Humor
  • Hunter S. Thompson
  • In Boozo Veritas
  • Irish Literature
  • Jack Kerouac
  • James Bond
  • James Joyce
  • Jazz
  • Journalism
  • Kerouac House
  • Kung Fu
  • Like a Geek God
  • Literary Magazines
  • Literary Prizes
  • Literary rizes
  • Literature of Florida
  • Litlando
  • Live Show
  • Loading the Canon
  • Loose Lips Reading Series
  • Lost Chords & Serenades Divine
  • Magic Realism
  • Mailbag
  • manga
  • McMillan's Codex
  • Memoir
  • Miami Book Fair
  • Michael Caine
  • Military Literature
  • Mixtape
  • Music
  • New York City
  • O, Miami
  • Old Poem Revue
  • On Top of It
  • Pensive Prowler
  • Philosophy
  • Photography
  • Poetry
  • politics
  • Postmodernism
  • Publishing
  • Recommendation
  • Repeal Day
  • Science Fiction
  • Screenwriting
  • Sexuality
  • Shakespeare
  • Shakespearing
  • Sozzled Scribbler
  • Sports
  • Star Wars
  • Television
  • The Bible
  • The Curator of Schlock
  • The Global Barfly's Companion
  • The Lists
  • The Perfect Life
  • The Pink Fire Revue
  • The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film
  • Theater
  • There Will Be Words
  • translation
  • Travel Writing
  • Vanessa Blakeslee
  • Versify
  • Video Games
  • Violence
  • Virginia Woolf
  • War
  • Word From the King
  • Young Adult
  • Your Next Beach Read
  • Zombies

Recent Posts

  • The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #26
  • The Perfect Life #7: Commit to a Dream
  • Episode 461: Isaac Fitzgerald/Brigette Barrager/Leigh Hobbs!
  • The Curator of Schlock #344: Evil Ed
  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #111: Under the Radar

Archives

  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×