I have a Love Hearts advent calendar sitting by my desk. Today’s message is ‘Snow Flakes’ and the chocolate was shaped like an angel. I’d kind of hoped for a Love Heart sweet each day, but it seems there’s a mini-pack awaiting me on Christmas Morning, so that’ll be a treat. We’re already planning to have Huevos Rancheros for breakfast that morning, in celebration of, I dunno, memories of SoCal, Mark Poirer’s Goats and James Crumley’s Bordersnakes which I finished today and which was of course a riot.

I noticed that the Guardian showed rare taste this week in awarding it’s annual ‘First Book’ prize to Chris Ware, for his awesome Jimmy Corrigan, the first Graphic Novel to win such the award. It’s richly deserved, and the book stands as probably my favourite of the year too, and can I just say a hearty thanks to Mike Morris for first pointing out Ware in his article here way back in March of this year. Also heartening to see the Guardian finally picking up on the Lemony Snicket Series of Unfortunate Events books this week. Maybe the broadsheets are finally catching up with the world of Unpopular Culture, although with the books beaten only by the Potter madness in the NY Time bestsellers lists, perhaps I should re-consider that statement. I hope in the blur of all his writing activity Mr Snicket/Handler will have time to continue with his accordion playing…

Oh, and I saw Ghostworld last week which was as wonderful as I was hoping it would be. I kept thinking about the Seymour character (who of course doesn’t appear in the book) and about how nice it was that there was this self-effacing anorak character who was not being made fun of by the movie. Indeed, there was a real warmth cast by the movie, a kind of embracing deep sadness about lost souls who can’t, or won’t, for whatever reasons, connect with the obvious strata of culture. And as the bus pulls away at the end and drives off into the electric light, I couldn’t help but think of the end of Midnight Cowboy, which of course is only a good thing.

Anyone who wants to get me an Enid doll for Christmas, the address is right here…



posted by duke harringay at 8:10 PM

Last night I dreamt of C. We were walking up a mountain in the searing sun, the ground bleached and stony. Far below a cricket match was playing in the valley.

So this morning I played ‘Big Brown Eyes’ by the Old 97s and cried just a little bit inside on hearing the lines ‘I wish you were here, and I wish I was too’ and ‘now I cant get by without your big brown eyes.’


posted by duke harringay at 11:43 AM