Scarecrow 45: Offbeat & Brutalism . . .

Brutalism

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Coming soon: Scarecrow 46. Including Dan Fante, H P Tinker, and much more .

If you’d have asked me one year ago if a literary scene existed and was alive and most definitely kicking in London, or New York, or California . . . anywhere, I’d have laughed at the very thought. We’re still standing in that long, drawn out shadow The Beats created I would have wailed. I would have bemoaned the very nature of it (not that there is anything wrong with The Beats really – I mean, has anyone actually touched the genius of William S Burroughs since? I very much doubt it). But now, one year on, ask me. Go on, ask me. [Read More . . .]

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[short fiction]

• The Song of the Canary - Tony O'Neill.
• The Grand Interrogator - Noah Cicero.
• Smoking Kills - Adelle Stripe.
• To the Veldt - Donari Braxton.
• Two Birds with One Stone - Heidi James.
• Carnaby Street - Stewart Home.
• Forty Tidly Winks - Andrew Gallix.
• The Song That Is Not Heard - Peter Wild.
• Phone Sex No 2 - Matthew Coleman.
• The French House, Soho - Paul Ewen.
• intermezzo - H P Tinker.
• An Odd Couple - Joseph Ridgwell.
• Pulling on the Train - Rik Haslam.
• Are You Alright? - Steve Vermillion.
• Fuck That For a Game of Soldiers - Michael Keenaghan.
• Anon Takes a Lunch Break - Lee Rourke.

[poetics]

• Shit From An Old Note Book ::: Welcome to Peckham - Ben Myers.
• Love Poem Much Delayed ::: A pretty Typical Day ::: New Wild Boys ::: Dancing in the Louvre-Summer, 1999 ::: The poet after forty - Robert Woodard.
• Celebrity Slumber - Judson Hamilton.
• Anal Mermaids - Travis Jeppesen.

[interviews]

• Lee Rourke interviews Ben Myers.

"I honestly only wrote the The Book Of Fuck for my own amusement, and never showed it to anyone for a few months, maybe a year or so. Then Wrecking Ball read a few pages and said they’d put it out. The slow part was actually getting the book out. For various reasons it got delayed a couple of years, so it ended up coming out four years after it was written. I think the lesson learnt was: just write for yourself and assume it’s not going to be published".

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Three new books are now available for your reading pleasure; two from the very beautiful Social Disease and one from Shoes with Rockets. Proof that good, solid, unforgiving Literature is out there:

HP Tinker - The Swank Bisexual Wine Bar of Modernity [Social Disease].

Siezure Wet Dreams - Tony O'Neill [Social Disease].

London Pub Reviews - Paul Ewen [Shoes with Rockets].

Please purchase generously as these authors deserve it. Oh, and if you didn't already know Lee Rourke's EVERYDAY will be published by Social Disease very, very soon.

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~book of interest~

Memphis Underground - Stewart Home [Snow Books].

And another thing:

::: Check out Social Disease on Myspace ::: Buzzwords ::: This-Space delights ::: Latest Offbeat gathering :::

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Hendrik Wittkopf

Hendrik Wittkopf's paintings in acrylic show an ephemeral figuration. Having stayed extensively in Kolkata, India, he refers to people living on the periphery. In the paintings the world shines through a multicoloured curtain. The people depicted seem to be captured in a moment, the social room of which being juxtaposed to the painted scene in a way that is both banal and sublime. There is a disturbing intimacy, suspending the notion of private and public space.

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