Category Archives: Writers

Depression: at the Black Gate with Anton Chekhov and Leroy Jenkins

I admire Chekhov, and not just for his writing, and not just because he was startlingly hot either. To paraphrase Ivan Bunin, Chekhov was not a little bitch. Even when he knew he was dying from TB, he didn’t whine hysterically from the pages of Russian literary journals. He didn’t ask his readers for hugs.Continue reading “Depression: at the Black Gate with Anton Chekhov and Leroy Jenkins”

Link round-up (Polanski, hijab, zombies, etc.) and a moment of truth

Anne Applebaum annoyed me with her clueless stereotyping of Russian women, but she downright freaked me out the other day when she went to bat for Roman Polanski. Her subsequent defense of her comments is even worse – Applebaum has the nerve to call the victim’s testimony “salacious.” I don’t even know what to sayContinue reading “Link round-up (Polanski, hijab, zombies, etc.) and a moment of truth”

Yes, it’s perfectly OK for Mackenzie Phillips to sell her incest-rape story. Next question.

Ever since Mackenzie Phillips dropped her bombshell on Oprah – her father John Phillips raped her while high on drugs, and the sex even eventually became consensual – there’s been all of this discussion. Some people have been focusing on whether or not father-daughter incest is always rape, and others have been screaming “she hasContinue reading “Yes, it’s perfectly OK for Mackenzie Phillips to sell her incest-rape story. Next question.”

“Mirrorball” by Mary Gaitskill

Is a damn fine short story. That’s all for now. The weather has broken, the cold has started in earnest. Am doing lots of manual labour around the house, and an obscene amount of writing. Blockages gone, like the warmth that has reigned over Kiev for the last few weeks. I’d be happy about it,Continue reading ““Mirrorball” by Mary Gaitskill”

Dave Cullen & Wally Lamb on Columbine

I read Dave Cullen’s Columbine while in Edinburgh this year (yes, that’s what I do on vacation, hang around pubs with a book about some horribly depressing subject, after all the museums close), and came away both impressed with the thorough analysis of the massacre and deeply moved by Cullen’s sensitivity to the subject matter.Continue reading “Dave Cullen & Wally Lamb on Columbine”