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• Housing Haunted Housing

  

  After an amorphous and seamlessly integrated evocation of Modernism’s principles, such as the reminder it was ‘unfettered by traditions of the past’, other — more complex — presences emerge. Though the poems are varied in style, length, and layout, as one reads a through-structure soon emerges based on the use of concrete in each building’s construction. With a nod to the Anthropocene the ubiquitous material is portrayed as part of a ‘pastoral’ landscape, as a natural rather than man-made disaster. Concrete becomes some kind of endless glacial formation smothering the world’s surface, which is neither present, nor absent, neither dead nor alive.

  Matthew Turner reviews Oscar Mardell‘s Housing Haunted Housing.

• Alphahood Watch

  

  At the bottom of this is something deeper and elusive in the changing character and culture of the city, but equally something knowable in terms of being indexed simply by monetary value. It is a place in thrall to, directed by or rallied to the call of pounds, dollars, roubles and other currencies and those who wield them. We can see this power in the new skyline, in the basements dug beneath mansions, in the planning decisions that see profit as the guiding measure of progress and in the interwoven networks of super-rich from overseas with party circuit connections and political ties.  Knighthoods, political party funding, money laundering, planning kickbacks and other signs of corruption form the tip of the iceberg, signs of something much deeper and galvanising in the subterranean life of the city and the way that money captures and influences so many people. 

  Andrew Stevens interviews Rowland Atkinson.

• Imagined Transcriptions : A Conversation between Chris Campanioni and Christopher Linforth 

  

  The work of art actualizes what we feel, or want to feel, outside the work; outside the work, we aspire toward the conditions of possibility set forth by the book. It’s not a question of what comes first—the chicken or the egg is irrelevant here, because it doesn’t matter which is which, or even what comes first, only that it comes. Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that I’m impressed by the insight of the editors who chose our texts for Otis Books/Seismicity Editions’ Spring 2020 catalog, because the two books seem to have always and already been responding to each other.

  Chris Campanioni and Christopher Linforth discuss their new books.

• The Mindshaft

  

  He says, ‘Freeze!’ ‘You got me,’ says the suspect, ‘What took you so long’? Falotico says, ‘Now that I’ve got you, who have I got?’ ‘You know,’ says the suspect in a soft voice. ‘No, I don’t. You tell me.’ The suspects says, ‘I’m Sam.’ ‘You’re Sam? Sam who?’ says the detective. ‘Sam. David Berkowitz.’ After the arrest, police officers search apartment 7E, 35 Pine Street, Yonkers. The space is a mess, the walls covered with satanic graffiti and cryptic messages: ‘Hi. My name IS MR WILLIAMS AND I Live IN this hole. I have Several Children who I’m Turning Into Killers. WAIT TIL they grow up. My Neighbors I have NO Respect For And I treat them like shit. Sincerely WILLIAMS.’ ‘This ain’t the Garden of Eden / There ain’t no angels above / And things ain’t what they’re supposed to be / And this ain’t the Summer, this ain’t the Summer / This ain’t, this ain’t, this ain’t the Summer of Love.’

  Read an extract from Steve Finbow‘s The Mindshaft.

• Tatouine by Jean-Christophe Réhel: An excerpt

  

  I decide to eat the rest of my burger in my car. I get an email from my publisher inviting me to the book fair in Montreal. I don’t like the book fair; it makes me feel like a performing monkey. A ghostly, thirty-one-year-old monkey that no one can see. I pretend I didn’t read the invite. I’m an invisible monkey in an old Mazda. I decide to go buy some groceries. I buy frozen veggies, potatoes, a big box of rice, bread, milk, meat sauce, spaghetti, and tomatoes. I feel like getting drunk tonight. The girl at the cash gives me a big smile, asks if I’d like a bag. “You just saved my life.” She thinks I’m funny. I think I’m ugly.

  Except from Tatouine by Jean-Christophe Réhel, translated by Peter McCambridge and Katherine Hastings.

• Los Halcones

  

  Though they have pored over El Imparcial each morning since last Thursday, men with sticks and youths with mangled faces, they know the death toll from the capital will be worse than the press will ever be allowed to write of. It was supposed to have been the day to celebrate the body and blood of Christ. And while last Sunday some of them were at mass, with demands that gods speak of this violence, here there are two bodies that were brought through something that they can tend to.

  A short story by Ricardo Wilson.

• Rebel, Rebel

  

  … Moby-Dick is about lordship over nature … And now the time has come to transcend this type of lordship … Epigraph stolen from Roc’s dodgy memory-banks … W.H. Auden, the poet, said something like ‘The trouble with fighting evil is it generates evil. And there’s no time to create beauty.’ In most of its actions, Extinction Rebellion creates beauty. It creates fun. XR has a very strong sense of the importance of art in climate activism. In most actions, there are collective performances, and intellectually stimulating talks. Last week, it was the Summer Uprising. We parked the Polly Higgings ACT NOW baby-blue boat outside The Royal Court of Justice. A flag which read MAKE ECOCIDE LAW was raised half-mast by a dancer, while a violinist played music. It was beautiful. Many other beautiful performances and talks followed.

  Another extract from Susana Medina and Roc Sandford‘s We Are the Asteroid, We Are the Dinosaurs.

• Vinesburg, Ohio

  

  All spring, Lisa, you’ve been picking
  at the scabs
  of the one thing that went right
  in your life. All summer

  I’ve been watching your calves as they meet
  the backs of your knees that you give me to smooth
  with cool Noxzema cream from that
  blue expired jar.

  By Nicholas Rombes.

• Glitch in the Machine

  

  6.4 My leader spread his hand, took up earth, and with full fists threw it into the ravenous gullets, setting our feet on their emptiness, which seemed real bodies, profane wretches turning themselves to ensure pedestrians are kept away from trucks and lorries. All equipment must comply with the EC Directives set out in BS 5228. The straight way is lost, but concierge services are your ally to help navigate life in the world’s most exciting city, carpet to wall, bespoke drawer set, mirrored vanity unit, cinema room, the baseless fabric of this vision are indicative only and are melted into air, into thin air.

  Read Tom McCarthy‘s contribution to the Denizen of the Dead anthology, edited by Stewart Home.

• On Algolonialism: From Independent Media to Monetized Friendships

  

  Then there is the power of the human voice. I’ve noticed that on repeated listening to various podcasts I’ve got very used to the way voices carry through the air and the earphones. I avoid certain types of voices because my ears do not receive them well. It is often not what is being said, but how—the pitch and timbre, the cadence and the general attitude of the speaking voice. I tend to listen to voices that are mildly soothing but also abrasive, and to podcasts that are generally adversarial, that seem to have a lot at stake in challenging the injustices of ‘the system’ whatever that nebulous term means. The podcaster ‘friend’ voice is a thing onto itself. It is soft, deliberate, warm, without any pretense toward sarcasm or authority. It is in fact the very opposite of authority, the kind of voice we associate with the ‘father’ tone of old world news anchors and interviewers Edward R. Murrow, Dan Rather or Charlie Rose.

  By Tom Pazderka.