“Sod the wine, I want to suck on the writing. This man White is an instinctive writer, bloody rare to find one who actually pulls it off, as in still gets a meaning across with concision. Sharp arbitrage of speed and risk, closest thing I can think of to Cicero’s ‘motus continuum animi.’

Probably takes a drink or two to connect like that: he literally paints his senses on the page.”


DBC Pierre (Vernon God Little, Ludmila’s Broken English, Lights Out In Wonderland ... Winner: Booker prize; Whitbread prize; Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman prize; James Joyce Award from the Literary & Historical Society of University College Dublin)


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21 April 2017

ELECTRICITY IS SHOCKING

This old illo from an ancient diary records a different type of shock, but it reminds me perfectly of how I felt yesterday, giving myself a well-deserved and stupid 240 volt electric shock with wet feet and hands in a steamy bathroom and an ancient wireless that shouldna been anywhere near electricity. Praise the lord for fuses that blow!

What I find fascinating, as an ever-curious synaesthete, is the way this electrocution has enhanced my reception of high frequency sounds [in music and farm machinery] to an annoying degree and totally screwed with my organoleptics. I can suddenly smell licorice and star anise in my favourite limy Clare Riesling, for example.

[24 hours later, including 12 hours fitful sleep, this hasn't changed much.]

While I wait for these irregularities to subside, I'm drinking chamomile tea. Back with reviews soon!

The old wireless, by the way, has form. Some of this is more arcane than usual, and even personal for some reason at the end, but it does reveal some of that magnificent receiver's provenance. 

Death chamber: As I have never used that bathtub it always served only as a bench for Pat Dadonna's old wireless, but no more. I took that electric guitar outa there too.

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