forecast remains unsubstantiated

Farther calibrating The Fall’s stammering decline into the jaws of August. The last gasp of summer, before it has properly commenced.Paper Cut by Hans Christian Andersen. Uncovered here.▼ THE FALL: WEATHER REPORT 2 from “Your Future Our Clutter” CD + LP (Domino Records) 2010 (UK)

the mouse barks, the caravan passes

Or. Tracking the ongoing ballad of a part time rating agency assistant.“Köpek ürür, kervan yürür.“ In Turkish.“ha kla-vim novchim, v’ha-shayarah o-veret.“ In Hebrew.“Wot ? Wot ? Wot ?” Nathan NØ.Have mouse, will travel. “But what has been entrusted to one’s care one does not laugh at; to do so would be a breach of duty;

know your conjurer

To those of you who looked no farther than the sacrificial goat, you left the feast empty bellied; to those of you who asked no more from pablo’s danseurs than a festive showing, you missed a merry treat.Squatters on the Bleachers – and there are a few – will be aware by now of my

pablo dillinger, on registering a birth

A knife. A fork.And the forceps not so small,nothing remotely tidy,or encircling in pentameter.Two feet and a long syllable;drawn out, redly yawning.The cerci of an earwig.This is not what immediatelyoccurred to me, or even afterthe fact. The blood stilldrying on my hams. The wailing.And the young doctor’s face:contorted with the exertionrequired to change a tire.A

neville brand ate all the flies | the five gates to hell

“I’m a Buddhist. In case of an emergency call a Lama.”– Col. Vincent Kane The fly had been following the end of my brush for close to two days, flitting from room to room like a ball of lint on rotor blades. I do not care for flies. Houseflies; blowflies; bluebottles. Calliphoridae. Like something decaying

calling cllct

Why. Those unholy Oreaganomics get better and unrulier by the minute. Straight from the lips of lapsed ordainment: “We had to mortgage our soul to Satan to get it done & I know you’ll like it  (That’s a promise right from the “source”).“ What’s not to like ?  Late last week with the rain coming

another council tenancy < slight return >

So. Here we are, then. Surrounded by a jumble of unopened boxes still, the lingering itch from a hastily amputated limb. We packed the parachute before we leapt and slammed into the ground running. The pregnant one rode out ahead of the marital bed, while I scuttled back and forth between floors and jettisoned all

a sanitary riot

On threading our rented trolleybetween the aisles of a supermarket,we acquired a bottle of bath oil. As one does.“Revive & Restore“, the label advises.Very calming. Very restive.When one is prone, susceptible.It prompts the smoke detector to howleverytime we pour a bath.It triggers a bout of anxious scrabbling.The effect is less than therapeutic.Sandalwood, surely, is quite

22 unM4SKed

“the hollows” by simon woolham. biro on paper, 2008. Honest to Christ, that drill.  A machine gun rattling in its pillbox. Stalling ocasionally, the bit overheated, encased in concrete. Starting up again in earnest before one can catch one’s breath. At 3 AM, I rolled off the futon to close the windows. Hobbled into the

a cruel and incontinent punishment

If I did not know it for the broken crock of shit it almost certainly is, I might hazard that my game is cursed. For some time now, my son has been fond of golf.  What began simply enough as idle simulation on a games console quickly gravitated to genuine curiosity on the green. Junior clubs

a fluttering of owls

Some years ago, too many years ago, I was arguing with my then partner over breakfast. I no longer remember exactly what prompted it or where it went from there. I had arrived somehow in my thirties – a good way past the stain of the big “3-0” – without hitting the panic button, and

silkwood, wormwood, taggart | ghetto defendant

My wife sat down to watch the latest instalment of “Taggart” last night, hobbling on to our screen with all the weariness of a geriatric nosing after a curled fish supper. I caught most of it out the corner of one eye. Preoccupied as I was with clipping my toenails. It has never been the same

nine weaves of being

through an enneagram darkly by ib. manett as herself. Manett is all woman.An “Enneagram 4” currently residing in Brooklyn by way of Guam.She writes, “the organs sound kinda trippy dippy, I didn’t mean for that but I like it. I didn’t even write it with the organ riff, but when I got to my friend

fetch me a rickshaw | our bed is on fire

arson scare. adpapted from a photograph by grey villet, 1960. This post is a week behind schedule; the agony prolonged by the arrival of a mail order bed and the dismantling of the old. A brand new futon to be exact.The sagging fold down sofa which formerly occupied house room grew just too torturous. Full

time added on

The game is two halves of uneven possession,won and lost from corner to footstool. Coffee tableand kitchen sink. Dishes, ahtrays, spindle legs.In my mind I am still smoking Navy Cut behind thegoalposts – a late substitution, an opportunist –adrift somewhere between 1974 and four years on.Avoiding the pitching cross, passing on the play.Even now I

gang of four | content

Gang of Four are back with content over product. A share of profits pledged to Amnesty International.Arriving on the heels of The Mekons and Human League, four men from Leeds promptly introduced an unsettling essence to Bob Last’s Edinburgh based Fast Records in 1978. A seething undercurrent of ennui, an agitated dislocation as informed by

milton on drowning | waving one’s hands in the air

The breeze comes at a price.Each time we step out, tiny flecks of paint and metal are sucked up from the demolition site. Whipping against exposed flesh. Not quite drawing blood, but leaving face and neck scored. Livid.“Fuck off.” I spit. Dragging my son to one side as a tin of coke two thirds full

are we there, yet ?

If you are resident in the UK, you may be familiar with Stefan Girardet’s scores for prime time television. “Keeping Mum” for the BBC; the Melvyn Bragg executive produced “This is Not an Exit: The Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis“. Of course. If your life is blighted by an untempered diet of “Britain’s Got

making marx | in the ghost room

Some three years after Harrison Speck convened a party of one in his bedroom in Austin, Texas, One Hundred Flowers are decorating The Ghost Room with frail blooms.The product of seven songs, “Some Summer Falls” – the EP – germinated into something necessarily more resistant. Speck calculated he required assistance if he was to adapt

well oiled | BP free zone

That Star Folk Band’s latest outing on Old 3C Records is strikingly reminiscent of Zuma era Neil Young in places is cause for celebration. On “Ghost Man“, it even wanders joyously onto open blacktop like Luke Askew thumbing a lift from Dennis Hopper or Peter Fonda. Brady Burkett and Ryan Shaffer have been recording together