The shapeshifting Nagual is folkroic at its foundations and mercurial in its transformations, sliding into and out of its other frame. It’s the perfect emblem of the work of Ian McColm and David Shapiro who come together to transform what they know, what they make and what they do in the presence of each other and […]
Author Archives: lisathatcher
January
08
Nagual – Ian McColm and David Shapiro shape shift sound. (Music Review)
posted by lisathatcher
January
08
Autumn Spring – Vladimír Michálek and the influence of death. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Like many Czech films, Autumn Spring cannot be defined by its surface matter, and considering Vladimír Michálek’s first feature film was an adaptation of Franz Kafkas novel ‘Amerika’, it is safe to assume the absurdism is emblematic of something other than what it appears to be. Autumn Spring uses some tropes / actors of the Czech New […]
January
07
Museum Hours – Jem Cohen’s masterpiece. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Our relationship to art in all its forms, but particularly visual, is contextualised by the political, economic, social and cultural factors that surround it and inform our appreciation, and yet art retains the ability to mean whatever those contexts need, as well as defy the great impositions of the technological age. Reprints can’t replace the experience […]
January
06
In the Future this Will Not be Necessary – Paul Samael and the cathartic voice. (Book review)
posted by lisathatcher
In The Future This Will Not Be Necessary by Paul Samael Published June 2012, Smashwords, ISBN: 9781476248400 Stream of consciousness, in literary theory, often represents the direct thoughts of the protagonist together with all that monkey-jumping-from-tree-to-tree thinking that is both the bane of every Westerners life together with being the primary impulse behind creativity and imagination. In linguistics and […]
January
05
Hypothermia – Álvaro Enrigue’s journey through hell (Book Review)
posted by lisathatcher
As I was leaving his office, my right hand touched the gold fountain pen in my shirt pocket, a gift from my sister when I finished my BA. We call it la pluma de Dumbo, which is to say – because pluma is plume is feather is quill is pen – Dumbo’s feather, because until […]
January
04
The First Light of Evening – Mark Ernest Pothier and the beauty of solitude. (Story Review)
posted by lisathatcher
The First Light of Evening is a lovely little short story available through the Kindle single range for free. It’s another of those examples of good writing available free of charge or through independent publishing as I already highlighted this week in my post about the Free Indie Reader. (Update – I just discovered that […]
January
03
Enough Said – Nicole Holofcener and the wealthy poet. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Nicole Holofcener may not be famous for her deep scripts or fascinating side characters in her films about white middle class angst but the empty vessels of thinly drawn nobodies that orbit Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Albert (James Gandolfini) join in the plot in becoming little more than a distraction from the genuinely interesting story […]
January
03
50 Years ago Today: Marnie – Hitchcock’s unrecognised masterpiece. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Robbed! Not just poorly criticised in its time, but reviled and even hated, Marnie, situated just after Hitchcock’s Psycho and The Birds is something of a sleeper masterwork by the brilliant director that may still be revealing it’s multilayered brilliance fifty years on. In fact Marnie is so intelligent, so complex, so laced with conflicting […]
January
02
This is Water – David Foster Wallace and the compassionate life. (Book Review)
posted by lisathatcher
The absolute capital-T Truth is about life before death. it is about making it to thirty, or maybe even fifty, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. David Foster Wallace did make it to thirty without shooting himself in the head, but he didn’t make it to fifty without killing himself, although his speech, […]
January
01
Blank Tape Positive – Richard Garet and the sublime. (Music Review)
posted by lisathatcher
The relationship between making a sound, choosing what to listen to and listening are fraught with an infinitesimal series of choices that render listening an almost impossible act. Many of the choices that determine the registered sound (for a human creature going about their day) are unconscious, some are political, some are rational and a […]
Lisa Thatcher 