We have gone into the west—well, a bit. Somerset, to be precise, for a few days away from—well, everything. Burnout sneaks up on you. The water in the pot warms up and your soul starts boiling off like pink steam before you realise. A long weekend probably isn’t enough, but we’ll take what we can get.
Quite a writery Swipe this week, with Kerouac and Irving and the guy who invented what we think of fetish wear. Ok, that took a swerve. Maybe the water’s hotter than I thought.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. Cosy fantasy crime with an eccentric detective and perhaps more than a hint of Jeff Vendermeer-style plant-based weirdness. A lot of fun, honestly, and the interplay between sleuth Anagosa “Ana” Dolabra and her assistant Din is beautifully portrayed. It won this year’s Hugo and the World Fantasy Award if that helps pique your interest.
Rob is watching…
Riot Women. Writer Sally Wainwright knocks it out of the park and a fantastic cast at the height of their talents, including Tamsin Grieg and Joanna Scanlan bring it all home. The power of punk compels you. This is top telly.
Rob is listening…
To Lord Huron. He’s got that Fleet Foxes/Midlake vibe which works so well at this time of year. Sharp-eared members of the Readership may have noticed him cropping up on WROB Monster Hits. Music to warm you against the rising gloom.
Rob is eating…
A potent mix of black-eyed beans, red peppers and canned ratatouille dosed with hot paprika and chili flakes, which goes as well with a big lump of tuna as it does sausages. I’m honestly tempted to bulk what’s left out with lentils and crumbled tofu, roll the whole glorious mess into a couple of tortillas, top with cheese and more hot sauce and hola muchachos y muchachas, enchiladas. I think I’ll be coming back to this unashamed slumgullion as a useful quick mid-week heart-restarter.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
It feels like a stupidly overcomplicated way of making things but oh my how satisfying is that end result?
The myth says Jack Kerouac wrote his magnum opus in twenty days in a fevered non-stop fugue state on a typewriter loaded with a continuous roll of paper. That much is true, but it isn’t where the story of the quintessential Beat novel finishes—or starts. No novel ever rolled out to readers in a first draft, and On The Road was no exception.
A lovely piece on riso-printing and how AI can be used in a creative context. Spoiler—not for the creative stuff.
On Terry Prachett, radical decency and how terrified men can be of a capable woman.
I’ll hang a black rubber flag on this one for depictions of a vaguely sexual nature. Let us consider the enduring legacy of John Willie, a man of particular tastes and the will to communicate with his people. Sidebar—I was a long-time subscriber to the UK magazine Bizarre, which opened my little brain up to all sorts of new ideas.
Pat Mills, best known as the editor behind the mid-70s Britcomic boom which brought us the controversial Action and the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, 2000AD, is still kicking at the barricades today. He’s working mostly with continental publishers, who totally understand his darkly satiric approach. An upcoming project, Ragtime Soldier, digs into the abuses suffered by WW1 Tommies and how the establishment used a brutal cocktail of stimulants and psyops to keep them compliant and fighting. Here, Pat shares research into a historical figure who features strongly in his story as a villain. The influence of Hugh Pollard on British popular culture is powerful indeed…
A long piece on John Irving, still cranking out doorstops at 83. I’ll confess, I’ve lost patience with a lot of his recent work, which retreads old themes and obsessions at increasing length and retreating levels of interest. But I pledge fealty to Garp, Piggy Sneed and the Cider House, who helped put me on the righteous path. For that, at least, there will always be a place in my heart for him.
Princes Of Maine, Kings Of New England
Trustworthiness in headwear. Keep going through the comments for once, there are some gems. No mention of my chapeau of choice, the forage cap, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
The history of computing is full of women like Grace Hopper, who did all the hard work and gained none of the recognition. That needs to change. Start here.
One last thing.
To close—Sugar are back. This is extraordinarily good news. The glorious noise returns.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 