I know the whole linkblog thing is a bit oldschool in these days of tweetage and facebookery, but let’s face it, I’m a bit oldschool too (if by “oldschool” you mean “guy who moans about how much better the internet used to be while quietly acknowledging it also used to be shit in places”) and I’ve started following a few blogs that are doing linky stuff that I like, so I’m going to jump on that bringing-it-back bandwagon and see how it goes. Who knows? I might bring back my blogroll too.
Anyway, on to the links:
Too Many Cooks (video)
For those of us who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s with VHS, sitcoms and horror movies, this is a beautiful, knowing, twisted take on the opening credits theme song phenomenon. Make sure you watch the whole 11 minutes and change.
Reading a Poem: 20 Strategies
This is a good list for either newcomers to poetry or longtime readers and writers of the stuff, though I think it gets a little fruity toward the end. If ’twere me (and, let’s face it, it kind of is) I would add:
- 21: If you read a poem and you don’t like it (e.g., you hate it/don’t get it/disagree with it/&c), find another poem (or poet) to read. Don’t let your disenchantment with a single poem trick you into giving up on poetry as a whole.
Saladin Ahmed – “Without Faith, Without Law, Without Joy” (short story)
Ahmed is fast becoming my favourite fantasy writer. This, his take on Spenser’s The Faerie Queene Book I, offers an alternative view of the generic “muslim infidel as villain” trope that appears in a lot of older Christian literature.
The Cassette Revival
Speaking of the ’80s, apparently cassettes are now all hip and cool and interesting and authentic.
It’s the World Wide Web (also a video)
Speaking of authentic, this is a frighteningly accurate picture of what the internet was like in the ’90s.
The Beckett/Bushmiller Letters
Did you know that Samuel Becket, author of Waiting for Godot, was a big fan of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy comic strip? And he wrote to Bushmiller to pitch some ideas for the comic? And Bushmiller sketched up some of them? And the two of them corresponded for a time, swapping thoughts and tips about avant-garde theatre and what makes a comic strip work? Well, he was. And he did. And he did. And they did.
The Other Adam Ford 