Hello, readers.
Here are some things filling up my pocket. If by pocket you mean the program pocket which allows you to collect things for to read later. It’s like VHS. But for the internet. Time, and space, shifted reading.
On loneliness and narcissism:
Colson Whitehead writing in the New York Times…
Last year, Taylor Swift somewhat boringly testified that not only are “Haters gonna hate,” they’re gonna “hate hate hate” exponentially, presumably in direct proportion to her lack of culpability. Instead of serving the establishment (monotheism, patriarchal energies), the modern tautophrase empowers the individual. Regardless of how shallow that individual is.
Olivia Laing writing in The Guardian…
Curating a perfected self might win followers or Facebook friends, but it will not necessarily cure loneliness, since the cure for loneliness is not being looked at, but being seen and accepted as a whole person – ugly, unhappy and awkward, as well as radiant and selfie-ready.
On observations and anger:
“It’s always seemingly small things that get my attention. But they’re not small, they’re big—they’re just more everyday. They’re the things of our lives, and I think they’re just as cinematic as big moments, big breakthroughs—which I’ve yet to actually witness in my life,” he says, laughing.
Michael Billington writing in the Guardian about how John Osborne liberated theatrical language…
But who exactly was John Osborne? To find out, Devine made the unusual decision to track the author to his lair. He discovered the writer was living in a leaky old Rhine barge, moored near Chiswick Bridge, which he shared with a fellow actor, Anthony Creighton. So on a hot afternoon in August 1955, because the tide was high, Devine was obliged to borrow a boat and row himself out to the Osborne residence. He quizzed him eagerly and discovered that Osborne was a hard-up 26-year-old actor who had slogged his way round the regional reps, had written part of Look Back in Anger while sitting in a deckchair on Morecambe pier and was separated from his actress wife, Pamela Lane. By the end of the afternoon, Devine had offered Osborne £25 for a year’s option on his play. What neither man could have realised was that they were helping to make theatrical history.
Also. Eastercon begins tomorrow. I’ll be there with some other cool people. Probably, I should maybe go look at the program.
Happy Thursday, readers.
ttfn.
the magnelephant review 