Ubu Roi!

How to acknowledge a link w/out looking like you're name dropping, part 99. I recently read "The Broken World" by Tim Etchells and enjoyed it so much that, like the sad fanboy that I am, I 'befriended' him on Facebook. Recently Mr Etchells posted a link to www.ubu.com, describing it as "YouTube for the avant garde" and he wasn't wrong. If you've never been to the site I'd highly recommend it as it's an absolute treasure trove of 20th Century art, music and writing, with hundreds of audio clips and films. So far, some of my best finds include:
"Film" by Samuel Beckett starring Buster Keaton, which I haven;t seen for the best part of twenty years.
John Cage Meets Sun Ra, which I didn't even know existed.
And a doddery Bill Burroughs making his 'shotgun paintings,' because it's funny.
More will undoubtedly follow...

The Irresistible Rise of Roberto Bolaño

A sneak preview of Roberto Bolaño's poetry in translation is available here. It's taken from the collection that New Directions are publishing at the beginning of November. The American edition of the English translation of "2666" follows at the end of the month from Farrar, Straus & Giroux, with the UK version traipsing in from Picador next January. I can only hope that Picador bother to print it properly. I recently bought "The Lazarus Project" by Aleksandar Hemon in hardback and it looks like they bashed it out on a dot matrix printer that was a little low on ink. If you're going to ask people to spend fifteen or sixteen quid, surely you should make some kind of effort?

Beyond Our Ken

And while I'm going YouTube crazy, here is the marvellous and sadly deceased Ken Campbell on the Big Bang. Long may he haunt the internet...
Oh, and check this one, too. It's about Jackie Chan, eventually (part 3, I think). Aren't they all?

Quote of the Day

"Forever stuck in moral mediocrity, I could afford myself neither self-righteousness nor orgasmic existence" - Aleksander Hemon, "The Lazarus Project".

Raworth's "Hands"

Tom Raworth is a poet I very much admire, so I was really pleased to find this on YouTube. If the blurb is to be believed, it's a piece of "video art" (I suppose) by the man himself. Anyway, even if the hand is of another it's very beautiful indeed (though not as funny as the Lithuanian swimmer...).

Quote of the Day

"I just make the best book that I can and try to not worry about audience or if it will sell. The odds are against you, so why abuse your talent for the sake of a chimera? The only real pleasure for me in writing comes from pleasing myself." - William Vollman

Arise, Sir Roderick!

Someone knight him now, before I have to do it myself in a paper crown and with a wooden sword.

http://www.newstatesman.com/music/2008/08/roots-manuva-art-love-london