Armed with Madness: Mary M. & Bryan Talbot

The embarrassment of riches continues: I have been eagerly anticipating this since Mary started dropping hints last year. I am hoping to arrange an interview with the two of them, but anon — in the meantime let me tell you about this fabulous book. You’ll know (or should!) Mary and Bryan from projects like the…

Review: Moonage Daydream

Thanks to Peg for wrangling the tickets and my students for relinquishing me a few minutes early so I could fly from Albany to Catskill for the screening at the Community Theatre, which is a lovely venue. There were even Bowie-themed doughnuts. Director Brett Morgan sent a short introductory video which conveyed how special this…

Review: Loving Highsmith (2022)

I meant to go to Film Forum on Saturday to see a screening of this with a Q&A after with the director Eva Vitija and Megan Abbott, but alas something I ate on Friday made it inadvisable, so checking the Zeitgeist website I found it was playing down in Newburgh. I had never been to…

Review: The Witch of Kings Cross

THE WITCH OF KINGS CROSS Writer/Director: Sonia Bible The story of Rosaleen Norton is not very well known outside Australia, even among the pagan world. I was lucky that a friend who was a huge fan introduced me to her art in the 90s. Powerful stuff, it is, too. With occult, spiritualist, and surreal art…

Friday’s Forgotten Books: Mad World

MAD WORLD Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead Paula Byrne Harper 2009 (though my Sunday Times edition gives the date as ‘2099’) One of the things that interested me in this book was Byrne’s declaration that the heyday of the “heavily footnoted biographical doorstopper” was over and the ‘selective’ approach should be recognised. She…