>>Nostalgia For Infinity

I’ve been mulling this one over for a while. The review, not the book. It’s taken me quite a while to figure out how I should begin, and to establish exactly what there is for me to say. Eventually I decided this fairly rambling, conversational tone is probably the best (and, as an added bonus, easiest!) approach to adopt. As an added benefit it matches the tone of Diary of Indignities quite nicely. Sadly, I’m not going to be as funny as this book is. Which is very, very funny indeed.

It’s safe to say that you might not entirely agree with that claim. This is a book, based on a blog, written by a man “pimping out half-assed, embarrassing stories and mocking his family on the Internet in order to get the positive reinforcement denied him in his dead-end career or train-wreck social life”. It’s composed of self-deprecatory tales of indignity, woe, failure, drink and drug abuse, and every so often the author’s arse and its exciting adventures in medicine and blood. If you don’t find shit like this terribly amusing – you might, for example, consider it to be puerile, stupid, self-destructive or what have you – then stroll on by. Why are you reading about a book called Diary of Indignities, anyway?

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Just a throwaway piece this week, I’m afraid. I was hoping to write something better but I’ve been busy elsewhere: my PC now has a shiny new motherboard and PSU, I have another book review almost ready to post, and I’ve been planning my novel for NaNoWriMo. Well, I say “planning”, but I really mean “drawing spider diagrams and daydreaming of being fed grapes and wine by my naked publishing harem.”

Mmm. Publishing harem. Naked.

Have a little story:

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An old buddy and I have always wanted to travel over to Gainesville, Florida, in order to join in the fun of the Fest. Most of our favourite bands seem to come from Gainesville, or nearby, or be on No Idea Records (the folks principally behind the event). We look at the lineups and sigh, sadly, knowing that even though admission to the whole event is about $50 – £25, people, that’s like a sixth of the turgid overrated wankfest that is the Carling Festival, and almost certainly less than whatever Holidays In The Sun is called these days as well – that the plane tickets over there were just plain out of our financial reach. Now, of course, we’d probably also be dragged away to Gitmo for making inappropriate jokes, or checking the box on the forms that say “have you travelled to the USA to commit an act of terrorism?” (I flew into Fort Worth, Texas, the week after September 11th and spent some time pondering this. Do they catch any ‘terrorists’ this way? I suppose it’s a possibility in a country where someone tried to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge using a gas-powered blowtorch.)

Anyway, I could probably afford it now, although my buddy is lagging a bit behind on that front (and just had to cut his mohawk off to start a new job as a bouncer, ha ha ha). Would we even want to travel to the USA? It’s not a particularly welcoming place any more, and it sounds like flying there is among the most unpleasant travel experiences available.

Ah, who am I kidding? I’d love to go. And maybe some day we will. Not in 2007, though.

Fortunately, the lovely folks at No Idea and Punknews.org have taken a break from their busy lives (drinking rubbish American beer? Listening to music all day? Skiving at the day job? I have no idea) and put together a free compilation of songs by bands playing the Fest this year. It’s free! What could be better than that? How about some artwork done by Mitch Clem of Nothing Nice 2 Say fame? Yeah, that’ll do it.

At the moment, you can only stream it, but we’re promised downloads and artwork this afternoon. So that’s probably about 9pm in Britisher time. The stream is pretty decent, though, so take a leaf out of my book and listen to it now, now, NOW!

The “punk” bit of this blog is, more often than not, a bit of a lie. Although, come to think of it, my most recent posts have been a short story involving a digital Henry Rollins screaming abuse at a middle-aged perv, and a review of an Islamic punk novel. So perhaps I should say the “gaming” bit of this blog is a bit of a lie. But then that wouldn’t introduce this post so well.

Anyway, this is one of those dreaded news posts. Yes, the ones where the blogger links elsewhere, and the reader puts their face in their hands and thinks “fuck me, don’t let another one slip into the territory of the external linkfest”. Worry not. I’ll still be mostly putting my own rubbish up here, rather than pointing at other people’s. There are far better blogs out there for sounding the blogosphere. But I did want to share some fantastic news, which I can only hope marks the reverse of a trend in punk rock (by which I mean the areas of it which I care about, of course). It has just been announced that Hot Water Music, gruff and melodic stalwarts of Gainesville punk rock, are reforming. They split last year, resulting in many grown men crying, but it seems they’ve taken it back and love us again. The formal announcement is yet to appear but this preliminary news comes via PunkNews. If it turns out to be a cruel hoax, there’ll be murders.

This follows shortly on last week’s equally kickass news that Welsh label Newest Industry also loves us again. Ooh, it’s like having all the punk boyfriends in the world! Apparently those guys just couldn’t keep away from the scene despite losing all that money, and their office being knocked down. And I love them for it. I’d even put out on a first date for them. Or perhaps I’ll just buy that shiny new Four Letter Word 7″.

Has it really been three weeks since I last posted Friday flash? Time flies, I guess. I’ve been working on this one for a couple of weeks now, intending to post it each week, but never quite getting the time to finish it off. But now I have! Stories have happy endings after all, it seems.

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(The following is a review I wrote towards the beginning of the year; after sitting on it a while, I was to see it published in Scalpel Magazine. That magazine folded before the second issue, leaving this review homeless. I’ve not succeeded in getting it placed anywhere else so it’s going up here for the benefit of you lucky lot… lucky few, I should say.)

It’s a bit too James Bond, this.

Meet Ulysses Quicksilver: a gentleman, a dandy, a freelance agent of the Throne. In some quarters he might be considered a government bully boy, some secret agent hatchetman, a solver of unspecified problems – but here he is a debonair and dashing rogue with a distaste for the same authority to which he is unthinkingly subservient. So, yes, all a bit James Bond really. Which may or may not float your proverbial.

At the outset of Unnatural History our man Quicksilver has returned to London after being missing, feared dead, for a year. He arrives just in the nick of time, too, preventing a nervous, sweaty lawyer and his younger, less handsome and less protagonisty brother from claiming his home and property. These two unsavoury characters (and we’re left few opportunities to consider them anything but, the lawyer in particular being characterised by “small piggy eyes”, “flabby features”, and a vain attempt to hide a balding pate) are very rapidly turfed out by the clearly heroic Ulysses and his stolid, obedient ex-prizefighter butler, Nimrod. Ulysses, by way of comparison with his brother, possesses “a well-defined jaw-line”, has a “sparkling glint in his … eyes”, and is “the more handsome of the two”. Clearly. His manservant is blessed with “aquiline features”, “piercing sapphire eyes”, and “chiseled features” (the book gets an extra flaming sword out of five for its generous extra features).

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Revamped short fiction review venue The Fix has just been relaunched, and already there’s a good dose of spec fic reviewage online. Go have a read, bookmark/RSS the site, blog about it, spread the word, and all that promotional jazz.

While you’re there you should have a read of my review of Shiny #1. After all, I wrote it, and you’re reading this blog, so I presume you have some interest in the more coherent jibberish that springs unbidden from my over-chewed fingertips.

The following is a conversation between Yusef and Jehangir, drawn from around the middle of the novel. If you’ve not yet read my review, I’d suggest you go and do so before reading on. Or just do what you want: it’s your call. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this extract from what is quite possibly my favourite novel of 2007.
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Michael Muhammad Knight’s ‘The Taqwacores’ is a novel of unusual provenance. Originally photocopied and distributed in mosque car parks, it has since spawned a punk subculture based on the fictional taqwacore it portrayed and, if the blurb is to be believed, has been “confiscated in Malaysia, taught in numerous colleges and universities and cited as an influence in the American Muslim woman-led prayer movement.” Not bad for what is, on one level, just a tale of drop-out punks and counter-culture philosophy.

But really, ‘The Taqwacores’ is so much more than this.

The novel is written from the perspective of Yusef, who is something of an outsider in the punk house where he lives, deep in run-down Buffalo. He shares the house with several other Muslim punks, all with their unique takes on Islam. Umar is straightedge, and more of a religious hardliner than his housemates. He is festooned in halal tattoos: a black X on each hand; star and crescent on one forearm; salalaho alayhe wa salaam, the name of Muhammad, on the other; across his neck, in green, 2:219. Rabeya, the sole female occupant of the house, wears a burqa, and has never been seen by most of her friends. She is also an ardent feminist and a fan of Propagandhi.

Fasiq is a stoner or hashishiyyun and, aside from Yusef, is perhaps the most quiet and reclusive member of the household. He can often be found on the roof of the house, Quran and joint in hand. His usual companion is Jehangir, who tells drunken tales of the taqwacores out West and punk Islamic philosophy to anyone who’ll listen.

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How do you introduce a post which is, ultimately, an exercise in narcissism? You begin it with a rhetorical question.

This is really just a quick note to inform my reader (hello Mum) that I’ve been invited to take on a few new reviewing gigs recently, and I’d like to blow my own trumpet a bit. Firstly, I’ll be one of many contributors to the revamped The Fix. Yes, I’ve been slyly mentioning this to a few people for a while now, but Eugie Foster (recently of Tangent Online) has taken the reins of Project Fix and things look set to launch in about a fortnight’s time.

Paul Raven of Velcro City Tourist Board and more recently InterZone reviews ed fame has invited me to join those blogging book reviews over at the T3A Space blog. This, obviously, is also something of an honour.

I don’t expect I’ll be contributing huge amounts, as I work a full week these days and struggle to find the time just for flash fiction amidst life’s trivialities, but you will see material penned by yours truly on occasion. If all goes well and is well-received then who knows, I may set to writing more.

A few other invitations have also been floated at me, but as these are still up in the air I’ll remain sitting on them for a while longer. Still, these are shaping up to be interesting times. Now all that remains is to actually find the time to read and review these curious artefacts.

(Incidentally, my review of Jonathan Green’s Pax Brittannia: Unnatural History is still searching for a home. Perhaps I should simply post it here?)

Edit: I forgot to mention that NaNoWriMo is live. And running very slowly, due to the tens of thousands of people trying to sign up or log in.