velcro city tourist board
a blog by Paul Graham Raven
science fiction / social theory / climate futures / infrastructure / utopian narratology / sometimes cats
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a recurring theme in literary and cinematic history
This piece by Megan Marz at Real Life references a lot of (contemporary, literary?) fiction that I’m completely unfamiliar with, but in the context of a phenomenon I am more familiar with, and very interested in, as both a writer and a human being: the slipperiness and perpetual redefinition of the word story. The whole…
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(late) winter wonder-Lund
I’m given to understand that the weather here in SkΓ₯ne has been somewhat unusual this season, which is to say unusually clear-skied and sunny; that certainly tallies with my experience from last year, which was of around five months of relentless grey overcast from late October to mid March. It’s still pretty brisk, mind you,…
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it may be a delusion arising from some sort of psychological damage
My most recent review filed at (but, I think, not yet published at?) the BSFA Review is of The Art of Space Travel, a collection of Nina Allan’s short fiction. It was a somewhat out-of-the-comfort-zone commission, which is exactly why I chose it; in addition to reading outside my home range, I’m also trying to…
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keep your shit straight
Currently reading, and finding assorted resonances within, Maria Dahvana Headley’s radical re-translation of Beowulf. I’ve seen (admittedly few) accusations that its linguistic choices, exemplified by the use—first line, first word, and throughout the piece thereafter—of “bro” as a parsing of the tricky-to-translate “hwΓ¦t”, are somehow gimmicky. It certainly marks it at a translation of its…