Caitlin DeSilvey’s Proposition
As a “cultural geographer” wanders through abandoned industrial buildings in “Curated Decay,” Brian Fawcett wonders whether “autoethnography” is just another fancy academic term for preferring self-therapy to dealing with the mess in Detroit and the rest of a dying planet.
Brawl on the Beach: The Making of an Absurdist Masterpiece
How Albert Camus’s literary classic came into being, despite an absurd world and an absent divinity.
Mein Trumpf, or Through a Cracked Crystal Ball Darkly
Reading the far-right subculture.
In Madrid: Landscape with Ghosts
In Spain’s capital there are absent poets, the absence of government, and terrace cafes on a late summer afternoon
The Martian Invasion: (Ch. 2) Travel Morons
In Ch. 2 of “The Martian Invasion,” Brian Fawcett, a coming-of-age young Canadian, is on the Grand Tour of Europe in 1963. The “Rover Boys” (Brian and a pal) are driving a 1953 Opel through a blizzard in the Alps, eventually ending up behind the Iron Curtain in Belgrade, Serbia. The adventures of “travel morons.”
SENTENCE: LIFE HAPPENED
Mikhail Iossel is in Kenya, being interviewed by a Young Writer for a Nairobi-based publication, who, upon being shown some photos of Iossel in his youthful 20s, asks, “But… but… what happened?” SENTENCE: LIFE HAPPENED is the latest in Iossel’s series of stories-in-one-sentence.
Scribbles from Italy: Men Who Know How, Hurt Words, Permission, Meta Metaverse, A Pressing Time
Vian Andrews’ journals from Italy’s Umbrian countryside include woodpiles, competent workers, words that hurt, bureaucratic permits, Sunday theme-parks, and lots of olives, harvested and pressed, and olive oil drizzled on hot grilled bread.
The Martian Invasion: A Love Story: (Ch. 1) An Incident in an Alley
Brian Fawcett relates an incident in an alley in Brighton, England in 1963 that involves dope, Rockers, switchblades, and books. But how to tell a story that doesn’t violate the principles of the Creative Writing Department Manual or the fact that there is no fiction in the real world? “The Martians are always coming,” as one writer once said.
The Sussex Variations, or Two Boars: (Ch. 15) Nightingales, and a Short Journey Through the Darkness
In the concluding chapter of Brian Fawcett’s “The Sussex Variations, or Two Boars,” the young Canadian acquiring an “education” on an English pig farm in 1962 is still learning about the birds and the boars. “Nightingales, and a Short Journey Through the Darkness” features robins, starlings, nightingales and a deadly dangerous boar.