In search of the real thing

  Novelist Sherman Alexie generated hundreds of tweets, puns, grammar jokes and arguments with the simple Twitter post embedded above: “Grammar cops are rarely good writers. Imagination always disobeys,” he wrote.
You wake up with a key gripped tightly in your hand.  How did you get this key?  What does it lock or unlock? Bukowski and Alexie rock!

It seems that we recognise talent far more easily when it’s accompanied by success ~ Ach, what a talented world we live in. These days, hole up in a hotel room almost anywhere in the world, turn on the TV and, depending where you are, you might soon find yourself deeply immersed in the latest episode of, say, Slovakia’s Got Talent. I know it when I see it

In our work-ethic-as-self-worth culture, we ignore the importance of laziness to a life well lived. Leisure, not doing, is so terrifying in our culture that we cut it up into small, manageable chunks throughout our working year in case an excess of it will drive us mad, and leave the greatest amount of it to the very end, in the half-conscious hope that we might be saved from its horrors by an early death. What do you do all day ---The Art of Surviving

The Voice Is All

it occurred to me
that poetry is a gate;
and you might say
that’s a given,
considering we live in
a world, fenced and
narrow, harrowing
in its complexity,
seeking simplicity,
some gentle touch.

m but what if instead
it led, not out of
the world to some
secret garden, but into
the pit of vipers, where
snipers and grifters
drift between violence
and silence, and
, dare not to dream
That simple dream

“Every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.”
There is truly a courageous spirit inhabiting Janet Malcolm

In the first half, [...Podhoretz's] thesis is that the dirty little secret among the left, among artists and intellectuals, is that they really want to make it, and they want to make it big. And they conceal that from themselves and from others. But this is really the motivating factor that is never talked about. You can talk about sex but you can’t talk about ambition and desire for success.
~ Mailer also talks about the hypocrisy of the culture industry, via Podhoretz’s “Making It”

Why do we get pleasure from the imagination? Isn't it odd that toddlers enjoy pretense, and that children and adults are moved by stories, that we have feelings about characters and events that we know do not exist? As the title of a classic philosophy article put it, how can we be moved by the fate of Anna Karenina? The Pleasures of Imagination

Writers like to be seen as “artists” who suffer for our work–this gives us a great excuse to act out our neuroses, to selfishly lock ourselves away from the rest of the world as we “gestate” and create. And yes, it’s the perfect excuse for acting childish. Maybe the metaphor is reversed. Maybe our novels are creating and raising us? Maybe it’s our stories that school us and provide structure for our worlds, bringing control to the chaos, and guiding us through life? That I could believe. Because without stories, the ones in my head as well as the ones written by others, I would have no way to make sense of this crazy world…..much less all the crazy stuff that came through the doors of my ER. Think about it. With books, we have generations of knowledge, guidance, moral lessons to help us create our society. Where would we be without the wisdom of Homer, Dickens, Shakespeare, Buck, Twain, Dumas, Bradbury, and so many others? What kind of world would we be living in if we didn’t have their stories?
What kind of world will our children live in, if we don’t give them the gift of reading and instill in them a love of stories? Scary thought, isn’t it?

Everybody Knows The Last Bookstore

Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
~ Leonard Cohen, “Everybody Knows”

Authors have always faced a tough path: chronic rejection, no job security, low pay (if you’re lucky). But there’s a new threat to add to that list of old perils: the online revenge review. Everybody’s a critic, even the tailor

My father’s father was a carpenter. I never met my grandfather, but I know from photographs and stories that in addition to farming, keeping dairy cows, and working on a cannery line, he earned money by carpentry. I also know from the sawhorses that my father inherited from his father The Last Bookstore

New biographies shed light on the cohort of Germans of Jewish descent who historians have portrayed as having served the Nazis. Before Schindler’s List, an L.A. studio boss saved hundreds of Jews from the Holocaust. Why was he alone

"I always tell my students that if the reader knows something about your psychology that you do not admit, you're in trouble. The reader will notice that you're an asshole because instead of going to your mother's deathbed you're out buying really nice designer boots. If you don't acknowledge the assholery of that choice, then there's a rift, a disjunction between narrator and reader. And in autobiography, that intimacy is part of what readers want. They have to trust your judgment."
Mary Karr, interview, The Paris Review (Winter 2009)

 Schindler Factory Museum.

Power is in the hands of ill informed event organisers

I don’t recall a time when our community has been abused so much by few thugs. A Sydney mother was allegedly threatened with legal action twice by a private parking company over a $173 fine notice that was never received for an infringement that did not occur, a court has heard. Australian National Car Parks are currently under investigation by NSW Fair Trading Paul Gyles and Victor Nudle

The strangest experience ever on Australian soil ... I understand that a number of people were not admitted to this event tonight even though they paid for their tickets at $65 per person - the bad feelings, inconvenience and waste of time are hard to express as the event was supposed to be about tolerance. This is very opposite to what film festivals run by Palace cinemas are all about as the aim is all about tolerance and shedding more light on multiculturalism, practicing inclusiveness and most of all a fun filled cultural experience.

Meet The Gatekeepers at WIZO's Gala Event | WIZO NSW. www.wizonsw.org.au 28 August 2013 at 6:00pm in UTC+10. Ballroom ATC Randwick Racecourse . It was, as they say in the world of documentary and non-fiction, a great Filmmaker Dror Moreh convinced all six surviving former heads of Israel’s notorious secret service, the Shin Bet, to sit down for a series of interviews reflecting on their time in the top job To be frank DROR MOREH would be saddened by Sydney Randwick Racecourse Treatments ~ For the first time in history, all the former heads of Israel's internal secret service, Shin Bet, have joined together to send a message to the Israeli people—the window of opportunity to negotiate a peaceful solution with Palestine is closing Review of note which compliments pamphlets at Verona ~ Great documentary films often force you to look at things you thought you knew about in a different way. ~~~ Out of Shadow

Anthony Loewenstein on extremists

You’re Only As Good As Your Last Prolonged Period of Self-Loathing

Only in dreams, in poetry, in play do we sometimes arrive at what we were before we were this thing that, who knows, we are.
— Julio Cortázar, born almost 100 years ago in Mittleurope of Belgium - he was a modern master of the short story and according to my four sisters the best looking Argentinian Spanish boy on jackets oftanya of his books

The painful Absurdity of my life is reflected not just in the escape across the Iron Curtain but also the strange experiences at the Bear Pits ... Every year new stranger and taxier stories come out few with happy endings as this one - Robert Vaughn in his memoir becomes concerned about a Czech-born production assistant with the unusual name of Pepsi Watson - her father became a Czech citizen and named her after the one thing from the West he missed the most. In the days after the invasion she handed out anti-Soviet newspapers, even though people had been shot for this.
Both actors recount that at the International Hotel she went up to the balcony and hurled a Russian flag like a javelin at the tanks below. Gazzara says it followed an argument. Vaughn ties it to Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubček's speech after he returned from Moscow, clearly having been tortured. It was the speech where Dubček mentions that the situation in Czechoslovakia will be "normalized." ?.. "Like everyone else in Prague, Apolina wanted to leave once the Russians came, and the Gazzaras were ready to help" Comic Tragedies

Two wonderfully funny essays on the crafting of Cold River by Graeme Cameron Guided By Voices and You’re Only As Good As Your Last Prolonged Period of Self-Loathing
"It's difficult to accept what your psyche or history dooms you to write, what Faulkner would call your postage stamp of reality. Young writers often mistakenly choose a certain vein or style based on who they want to be, unconsciously trying to blot out who they actually are. You want to escape yourself."
~ Mary Karr, interview, The Paris Review (Winter 2009)

Hear from veteran bestsellers and first time authors whether or not they feel parental toward their literary creations Is Your Book Your Baby?

This chapter and verse comes from the voice of Czech born writer and Anglicky bred preacher Sir Tom Stoppard Listen now Front Row - Elysium review

Not long before Jesus’ death, a rich young man asked him what good thing he should do to have eternal life. Jesus told him to keep the six commandments that Jesus then listed for him. The youth, replying that he had always kept them, then said, “What do I still lack?” Jesus replied, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell whatever you own and give to the poor, and you will have a treasure house in heaven, and come follow me I'mRich Yet I have no Love of Money

From Another Tongue: the story of the human race is war

"This evening heard Carmen on the radio, and reflected how hard it was to vamp a man while singing at the top of one's voice. That is the operatic problem; the singer must keep up a head of steam while trying to appear secretive, or seductive, or consumptive. Some ingenious composer should write an opera about a group of people who were condemned by a cruel god to scream all the time; it would be an instantaneous success, and a triumph of verisimilitude."
Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (courtesy of Paul Moravec - from Morava River?)

What (if anything) gives literature value? Not originality or profundity, says Terry Eagleton. Great literature requires great criticism. How to Read Literature
Needing nothing less than a miracle to save myself Of I value Scrivener templates too
Arion Press is the only full-service letterpress left in America. From its cavernous workshop emerges that rarest thing: the perfect book A “peculiar slant / Of memory
Political power, said Mao, “grows out of the barrel of a gun.” His fondness for bloodshed should not blind us to the accuracy of his observation *** Anthony Less or Lesser *** Why Violence Works
Melville’s marginalia. His gifts weren’t born in a vacuum, but of a relentless rereading of the great books. Forget that blog is just one letter away from bog, or that the passel of burgeoning “literary” websites is largely a harvest of inanity with only the most tenuous hold on actual literature. "So many people write because they lack the character not to."

War and marriage. After World War I, survivors craved stability, not passion. After World War II, love (and sex) was prized above all Times are a changing ~ Moritz Erhardt had been interning with investment bank Merrill Lynch Magic Roundabout ~  A public-spirited chap called Adam Andrzejewski got fed up with the lack of governmental transparency and decided to do something about it.  Hence his invaluable website Open the Books, a project of For the Good of Illinois, Inc., a non-partisan, non-profit organization founded by Mr. Andrzejewski in 2007. The goal of Open the Books is something that the Obama administration came to office promising but never delivered: transparency.  Hence its motto: “Every dime. Online.” Every Dime. Online

"There are very few of us who are strong enough to make circumstances serve us."
Somerset Maugham, The Circle

Your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace

"Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first."
— Steve Irwin 

"Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive."
— Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

Once you find an agent you would like to represent your book, the pitch letter is the next step in the traditional publishing process. 23 Literary Agent Query Letters That Worked

We are fixated on the prospect of our own demise, believing in a world that can’t possibly go on without us. Call it apocalyptic narcissism. A certain Slav hasn’t been home in seven years. He thought he could stay away forever ... You Only Live Twice

i’ve got 99 problems and being a decaying organism that’s born to die in a society run by money that i can’t escape is one of them ...

Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about ourself.
— Introduction to Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card

"You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace."
— Frank McCourt from Angela’s Ashes (Pilhov is captured in this phrase my grandmother's mind was a castle ;-)

I am a Dreamer on Rakhi Day

"I intend to live forever. So far, so good!"
~ Steven Wright (Wrong Steve? It might have been the Godfather Steve M ;-)

“Every story has already been told. Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if (he) she will let (himself) herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had."
― Anna Quindlen [Wisdom atCommencement Speech; Mount Holyoke College, May 23, 1999]”

Hills. Arnhem land. Meadow grass of Vrbov - Mamka's & Gitka's deserts - the world after a snow fall - wood chips from my dad's workshop - Aga's love for doors and windows - the smell of the forest after the rain - spring and fall seasons - roasted pumpkin and chestnuts - cognacs and Bawa's single malts by a fire - ocean air - stones and pebbles - leather - wood - shadows and reflections. The random things I love. Antiques. Old tools. Mitchell road. Malchkeoun's secret garden ...

Ideal HOme ~ Vintage inspirations ~ amazing Home ~ Old farm ~ via Micasaessucasa ~ minimal wood ~ Every saint has a past ... via oyster dirt ~ Tour de France ~ bungalow ~ silence

“Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose...
...Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Expanding Cultures: Google+: Kelly Saks' Story

News from Google Blogger ...

From time to time, we like to highlight bloggers who successfully use Blogger and other Google products. Today we're featuring how Kelly Saks from Kelly's Kloset reached a wider audience with Blogger and Google+. All about Kelly:  Kelly Saks, the blogger behind Kelly’s Kloset, is a fashion and beauty expert based in Miami, Florida. 4 Million fashionists

Australia could face a growing threat from large nations with huge populations but diminishing food and resources, a new study warns. Strategic analyst Dr Robert O'Neill said those threats could be akin to those which confronted weaker states in the 18th and 19th centuries Expanding Down Under

Hat tip to Mitchell in Beijing:
Chinese workers have stepped up their campaign to scupper India’s largest acquisition of a US company, warning of continuing disruption at a joint venture that is a central element of the $2.5bn cross-border deal. The Chengshan Group operates a large factory in Shandong province with Ohio-based Cooper Tire, which accepted a buyout offer from India’s Apollo Tyres in June.
Chinese workers at the joint venture went on strike shortly after the deal was announced, and late last month Chengshan asked a local court to dissolve the venture with Cooper. It is the first time Chinese industrial action has targeted a large offshore acquisition involving two foreign companies, exposing a new risk for multinationals operating in the country.

Chengshan managers and the joint venture’s workers complain that they were not adequately consulted over the Apollo offer. They also argue that the deal will burden their prospective Indian owner with too much debt and result in a clash of corporate cultures. The union representing the joint venture’s 5,000 workers said they would “not welcome” senior Cooper managers assigned to the factory. The workers agreed to resume their shifts at the weekend, but insisted that they would only produce Chengshan tyres while boycotting any work on Cooper Tire branded products. “People are angry that Cooper Tire has refused to respect the union and employees’ right to information, to make suggestions and to participate in democratic management of the factory,” the workers said in a statement. “As long as [Cooper] does not respond to our legitimate concerns in a reasonable and satisfactory manner, the strike will continue.” Chinese try to derail India-US tyre deal

Jeremy Outen: Top fraud investigator quits UK crime agency role

Note to TF: Lou this is an amazing ship

The man appointed to co-ordinate the fight against financial crime in the new National Crime Agency will not be taking up the top job, in the latest setback for the government and its shake-up of the service. Jeremy Outen, a former KPMG partner, was announced as the new director-designate of the NCA’s Economic Crime Command by the Home Office in April.
He gave up his role in July with the forensic team at KPMG – where UK partners are paid an average of £580,000 – to take up a position at the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which will be rolled into the NCA when it launches this year.
However, Mr Outen has unexpectedly stepped down from the directorship, the Financial Times has learnt, despite his appointment being announced with fanfare by the Home Office only four months ago. His departure comes two weeks after the resignation of Sir Ian Andrews, chairman of Soca, who failed to declare that he owned a security consultancy with his wife, ahead of giving evidence to a parliamentary committee. Getting a senior leadership team in place

Creative Music For Soul: California rapper Raashan Ahmad and Bohemian Sarsha Simone

“We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.”
― Arthur O'Shaughnessy, Poems of Arthur O'Shaughnessy

Once upon a musical time Louis Armstrong said: “There’s two kinds of music; the good and the bad. I play the good kind”.

Not sure how many people have heard of Niels Bohr, the Danish Nobel Price winner. He noted that if individual souls are not shocked by quantum theory, they do not understand it ;-) That is what I feel about good soulful music. Such music should go deep and it should be disturbing. My hope is that many people will be disturbed, and acknowledge they have seen creative wrestle on you tube in "Music" by Rasashan & Sarsha. To deny that cute and playful creativity is happening in front of our eyes is to lose a fundamental, powerful part of the song.

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

Media Dragons are subjective and try to bring to surface good music such as “Music” which is the new single and video from Raashan Ahmad, and it features Ty and Sarsha Simone. The song comes from Ahmad's current album Ceremony. The visuals for the track “Music” that features UK verteran TY were shoot by Ashton Blessing, the man behing the equally great L’orange video for “Alone" - Czech out the simple yet complex song Music ~ Lady Gaga, I never expected to quote someone as young as her, said -" Let the blood and the bruises define your legacy.” ~~~ "The mind is everything. What you think you become." Sasha: Melodic Child of the Velvet Revolution Belgium Influence ~ “Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.” ― George Carlin Grandfather's Polish connections

Coda: The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses Anthropological Roots Of Slav(e)s

CHAPTER & VERSE penned by Sarsha: 1. I Came In The Form Of The Rays Of The Sun
Rise Of The Moon Sound Of The Drum
All In The Tune No Words To Speak
Kiss Of The Soul Smile On Your Cheek
Rocking The Beat And I Cant Even Choose
Finding The Good And The Joy In The Blues
Digging You Girl Can You Be My Muse
Travel The World See My Shoes
Dancing Feet Party And Play It’s A Passionate Week
Taking The Beat From The Sacrifice
Chop And Loop Make A Passionate Life
With The Music Sick To My Soul
Living In Love And Its Out Of Control
Feel Like A Drug I’m Addicted To Flow
Rush Of The Track High Of The Show
The Feeling Come On And The Higher We Go
Feeling Come On And The Higher We Go
Shockin And Clockin And Droppin The Toxin
The Whole World Is Watching

Music CHORUS VERSE 2. E.t. Bmx New Handlebars
Travel Light Hope You Can Handle Ours
New Music Air Drum Cinema
Take A Seat Grab A Drink And A Candy Bar
It Travels Far Like Zanzibar
I Keep It Close Like A Heartbeat
When You Feel Lost In The Matrix
Strap Yourself Into The Car Seat
Something For The Most Low Most High
Doesn’t Really Matter Let Your Soul Fly

Soul Glow Oh My
Help Me Deal With Life As It Goes By
Fame Is But The Be All End All
Drag It Down Take Notes Transcendor
Other Mediums Cover Bpm’s
Late Night Drum Machines Yeah We Be Them
With Those Tasty Ingredients
Kicks And Snares Must Be Obedient
I Feel A Rush It’s Immediate
With Out This I Could’ve Been An Idiot

There are many fools or idiots in this world who are seduced into obsession, thanks to what behavioural scientist and Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino calls “selfsignalling”. This is the willingness to go to what seems like risible lengths to secure an object because the process of doing so demonstrates that they are imbued with certain qualities they hold dear, which in this case is insiderness and an understanding of value. It’s the same urge that underpins the entire luxury industry; as various executives I talk to always say, they aren’t selling anything anyone needs, so they have to sell “the dream”. THE DREAM

Strangely, the heards tend to follow the noise emanating from empty vessels - I read recently that more than a million copies of the hit song featuring rapper Lupe Fiasco have been sold in the US since its release in August last year. Although written by Sebastian, the song was released as a Lupe Fiasco song featuring Guy Sebastian, to capitalise on Fiasco's strong profile.
It appears the move has worked and to celebrate the achievement, Sebastian has indulged in a glass of Lous XIII de Remy Martin cognac - that retails at Dan Murphy's for just more than $A3000. Battle Scars

'This Did Something Powerful to Me

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.
--V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River

Have a look a two dozen famous authors when they were teens When we were wee wild

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
- Anaïs Nin

I know you already know this, but it's nice to see it affirmed with Disney video clips and cool photos: 10 Reasons Why Real Books Are Better Than digital ebooks
Here are some great first lines that impressed great first line writers A Literary Life in Sentences ...

“Poetry is mostly hunches.”
- John Ashbery

Salon tackles the immortal question: what’s the difference between literary fiction and other fictions? Literary Friction

When Gary Shteyngart writes "the novel fell on my head like a bowling ball and knocked me the hell out", I sincerely hope he is giving us an account of a book falling from a high shelf and causing concussion." John Repp on Andrea Barrett’s Archangel: “At the end of each of these five tales, realizations occur that can only be sublime, everything preceding them consisting of the mundane stuff of the world transformed by the alchemy of story.” Alchemy of the Absurd ~ What is good for life is not necessarily Good for blogging

Novelist Leighann Dobbs took three spots on our Self-Published Bestsellers List this week with her cozy mystery, 3 Bodies and a Biscotti ~ To help GalleyCat readers discover self-published authors, we compile weekly lists of the top eBooks in four major marketplaces for self-published digital books: Amazon, B&N, Apple iBookstore and Smashwords. You can read all the lists below, complete with links to each book Currents of Self Publishing Rivers

"It's easy to be lonely when all your friends are human"
~ Jane Yeh, "On Being an Android."

Among the Immortals

The memorial involved piling between 50 and 60 tonnes of stone ~ Art of Rock

This 12-year-old Egyptian boy is putting together some very complex arguments against the Muslim Brotherhood's attempt to grab power in Egypt This young Egyptian Boy Flabbergasts An Interviewer

Author, Susan Hill, talks about writing people into crime fiction for a writing how-to series 'One of the most useful things a writer can do is sit about in coffee shops and pubs, alone, with a newspaper as cover' Czech out the Sydney bible and Susan's helpful story Like many green scribblers Media Dragon is grateful to Susan whose blog and emails managed to Give birth to Cold River

Eleanor Catton, a lecturer in creative writing at Manukau Institute of Technology, has been long-listed for the 2013 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for her novel The Luminaries

I’ve always been drawn to the end of the road, to the edges of where one might be allowed to travel, whether blocked by geographic features, international borders, or simply the lack of any further road

Fallen Idols: Nothing Like Being Scared

“You love the end product, but you don’t really want to know how it’s made.”

“If we didn’t read people who were bastards, we’d never read anything,” says Mary Karr. “Even the best of us are at least part-time bastards” Fallen Idols

When it comes to ideas, be a flirt, says Ben Kafka. Make everything unstable, uncertain; test the limits of your knowledge. Risk a slide into dilettantism. What sorts of explanations do we offer,” Kafka writes, “what sorts of anecdotes do we share, what sorts of ridicule do we heap on that man or woman on the other side of the desk or telephone?” He regards paperwork as one of the most ubiquitous, least understood forms of media in modern history

Portrait of madness. Shirley Jackson experimented with voodoo and tried to raise the devil. Her writing conveyed its own shock Nothing Like Being Scared

Comanchero boss Jay Malkoun sells up for new life overseas