For or Against the Grain, Or: Huysmans’ Check-List
A guest-post made at the New Escapologist blog, with an illustration by Ms. Samara Liebner.
The title of J-K. Huysmans’ most famous novel, À rebours, can be translated as Against Nature or Against the Grain. But, for me, it is the second possibility that is the more appealing.
In the novel, the high-dandiacal protagonist, Des Esseintes, escapes [...]
A Crisis In Masculinity
Ms. Samara Lieber is the author of Astronaut, an astronomical comic strip, and art editor of New Escapologist, an escapological magazine. She may yet even prove to be the artist for a graphic novel idea that she and I have been considering of late. This is not to define her by her job, of course. [...]
In Translation & A New Career In A New Town
On Monday past, I joined Mr. Bailie on his show, as usual, to discuss somebody on the ‘edge of the radar.’ Luckily for us both, it was the great M. Jacques Brel and, frankly, we couldn’t play enough songs to satisfy ourselves. In furtherance of that:
*
I dislike thinking of the relationship between songs and singers [...]
On Seaneen Molloy; Or, I Propose A Crown
I have loved very few women in my time. And few of those have deserved it. Fewer still have been Ms. Seaneen Molloy: writer, reader, and raconteur.
A diminutive figure, like the number 1, she is possessed of no little charm: partly Gertrude Stein, partly Dorothy Parker, partly infinite monkey stenographers. Much is made of her [...]
