The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit

the shutdown.

2009-05-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hey there. Almost a year without a post and no wonder, PBHP is all but dead. There should be a final spurt from the bleeding monster but for now much to our regret we must ask you not to submit new material.

We may see you around.

Vim.

A Poem by Sam Pink.

2008-05-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

PLEASE PUT YOUR MOUTH AROUND MY EAR
SO IT SOUNDS LIKE I'M DROWNING IN THE OCEAN.

I WILL TAP YOUR RIBS WITH MY SKINNY FINGERS.
AND EAT AS MUCH OF THE GROUND FROM BENEATH YOU AS POSSIBLE.
THERE IS NO SCENE.

Sam Pink blogs at http://impersonalelectroniccommunication.com/

Flash Fiction by Caleb Puckett

2008-03-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

Sugar Land, Texas

There’s a broken gumball machine next to the exit and a new machete under the register at the grocery where I used to please my sweet tooth. Raul says that he must cut me if I mention “candy” aloud, though he slips me a note that indicates he knows where I can score some black market baking chocolate if I’m feeling really down. Yes, life has changed since that ruthless dental syndicate took over Sugar Land, Texas and started eliminating decay among its citizens in order to stimulate business for those higher paying cosmetic alterations that afford exotic vacations for the assistants, practitioners and insurance agents. I guess they figure less is more in the long run, but with all the violence and crime I wonder if it’s a worthy cause. Just last week, for instance, Linda Henneman ended up with a broken hand for planting some honeysuckle behind an old shed. She’s such a kind matron, a quiet, harmless retiree, that it makes me question the dental syndicate’s methodology. But times have changed, sure enough. Why I even hear that Grapevine will be taking similar punitive measures sometime in the near future, although I’m unsure if the focus will be the same, especially since that city has its own share of unhealthy problems, judging by their name.

Postmodern St. Louis

So much for the myth of the sedate Midwest. You’d think after T.S. Eliot renounced his citizenship for a more cultured shoal in merry old England that the place would’ve become even safer, more milquetoast, but no. According to recent findings, St. Louis tops the national list for crimes of every variety, thus rendering its famed arch into the sharp eyebrow of the stock villain who ties you to the tracks in the final scene leading to your screams, split seams and oblivion. The only thing missing is Ezra Pound’s maniacal laughter infusing the background with an Italianate sense of tragedy. It’s hidden somewhere in the eerie old archives with all the defunct laugh tracks, but you may rest assured that it will be retrieved in time to haunt Ernest Hemingway’s thwarted efforts to untie you, my dear heroine, my perilously positioned Gertrude Stein dressed to the nines in Hilda Doolittle’s seductive finery and nude tights. And there will be no William Carlos Williams around to save your organs for science, and if there were he would inevitably fail as well, being but a doctor playing an actor in the silent film of your mind. That said, I think it’s best to avoid taking Interstate 55 while listening to political appeals between bouts of soft jazz.

Caleb Puckett has work forthcoming in Asterisk: A Journal of New Initiatives, Elsewhere: A Journal for the Literature of Place, The Oklahoma Review and Salt Flats Annual. He recently co-authored Next Exit 8, now available through Kendra Steiner Editions, and he has a poetry chapbook, Desertions, available through Plan B Press.

Petty satisfaction

2008-01-27T03:16:00.001-08:00

http://xkcd.com

4 poems by Christopher Mulrooney

2008-01-26T11:38:00.000-08:00

the boulevard

the spindle-leg reviewers sat on the fly of a sailor's suit
and squirmed to beat the band

the tall ships entered the harbor
like hobby-horses in the stable of a speculator

my compatriot

he savvies near as much as possible
the ornamental truth of any mirror
he tells them as he passes gaily
unreflective with a glint that's tiny
it might be a million years for him under the wan hot blazing sun
and then again he and his kind might rove to moon and maidens
fall back like a petal in an ass's ear and laughingly
pretend the chorus of Don Giovanni
played itself nightly around his slum with fountains
rising mightily in the air as far as possible
cascading like a pis-aller down there

the sewing circle

here you have the fine old art
competes for face time on the Peeb
you make it out of scraps and rags
in which the discerning movie eye
of a born director on the sill looking out at the day
sees oh such things a roundelay
upside down a thousand things sideways something else
this too the art of making art
is stolidly discussed on telly

the city

it's not a bad story really
not so's you'd notice anyways
it doesn't go
or do much
doesn't say what it wants
to have it says have nothing else
and then it walks to the corner store for something
it admires the hills you've read it before
shut up in the library
that's alive and kicking out with boots or waders
nothing else a Winslow Homer hat for rain
yellow or gray a slicker too
perhaps same color
a pulley

Christopher Mulrooney has written poems in The Delinquent, Vanitas, Guernica and Beeswax.
His own website is here

2008-01-19T16:22:00.000-08:00

Comics fever

2008-01-19T05:33:00.001-08:00

2008-01-19T05:28:00.001-08:00

This guy is amazing.

Yes, but when?

2008-01-19T03:32:00.000-08:00

Well, soon. We've been delayed, as you may have noticed but, honest, PBHP 5 is nearing its completion.

But then again, you know it's worth waiting for.

Please don't send submissions at this time since we're pretty full.

Annus Horribilis, by Sam Jordison

2007-12-12T14:27:00.000-08:00

If Schadenfreude is what you usually get drunk on, prepare for a massive piss-up. Sam Jordison delivers, with Annus Horribilis (John Murray, £9.99) one of those indispensable coffee table books (you can also read it in other, more secluded places) that trigger some needed chuckles in these dreary autumn days. The principle is disarmingly simple. Jordison compiled stories of remarkably stupid deaths, resounding failures, entertainingly catastrophic mistakes and sundry embarrassing moments, the whole giving more credence to the saying that what appears as a tragedy on an individual scale becomes slapstick when seen from a distance. Jordison made the bold assumption that a man's misfortune is another man's guilty delight and I'm not one to prove him wrong.

Finally, am I the only one to promise myself that I'll read books like this in small, savoury shots and end up hogging them in one big gulp? I suppose it's the chocolate box syndrom, only the box this time may once have belonged to Pandora (am I clever today or what?).

So long Fred

2007-11-30T02:55:00.001-08:00

R.I.P.

Gay for Johhny Depp

2007-11-27T12:45:00.000-08:00

Gay for Johnny Depp's second album is not for rock for your mother, unless she's really fucked up. GFJD's arrangements evoke At the Drive in to my relatively uneducated ears, but with a good thick extra layer of distorted, urgent screaming, a dangerous whiff of sexual confusion and pointed evocations of self-harm. While the production, the piercingly distorted guitars, the fast and precise drums parts would place GFJD on the hardcore/mathcore shelf, their imagery, their lyrics, their universe, their clothes and hairstyle associate GFJD with more sophisticated (and generally more literate), UK rock acts. This said, lyrically as well as visually the band takes the expression of violence and sex well beyond the tasteful innuendos of your average well-mannered art rockers à la Velvet Underground (incidentally, they have the coolest song titles ever. )
There's a fundamental disequilibrium there that makes it worrying and fascinating at the same time, like that good friend of yours who's just come back from 2 years at a psychiatric hospital and is officially cured. Of course you can take him to your girlfriend's birthday party...

Here and there, the band hints at a more melodic, more 'sung' kind of punk rock but they quickly chastise themselves for such indulgences. I can't say I wouldn't like to hear more of that, but as it is I'm impressed.

You can catch GFJD live in the UK, tour dates are given on their Myspace.

miracles of chemistry

2007-11-20T13:36:00.001-08:00

PBHP compilation: it's now or later

2007-11-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

The submission deadline for the PBHP compilation has been extended to 4th December.

PBHP 4: still a few copies left

2007-11-12T01:55:00.000-08:00

For those of you who've missed PBHP 4, we still have a few copies to sell.

And for a limited time only, here's a preview of issue 4. Go get it quick before we remove it.

Gay For Johnny Depp

2007-11-09T03:40:00.000-08:00

GAY FOR JOHNNY DEPP have released ‘The Politics Of Cruelty’, their debut full-length album on Captains Of Industry.

Gay For Johnny Depp are: Marty Leopard (vocals), Sid Jagger (guitar) Fabrizio Coxboi (bass) and JJ Samanen (drums).

The single ‘You Have A Theory, I Have A Gun’ was released October 8 2007. Gay For Johnny Depp will tour the UK in November 2007.

This is angry music.

Speaking of Chris Killen...

2007-11-06T13:09:00.001-08:00

Help Chris along his way to rap-mogulship by recording yourself saying 'i like Raymond Carver' and sending him the result. You'll feature on the next Wig of Blood recording.

Sometimes making it in the business is as easy as dat.

On a more literary note, Chris's next novel will be published by no less that Canongate! Does he puff his chest? No he doesn't. Should he? You bet he should.

You really need to use torture to get some self-promotion out of Chris. Did you know that he won the 2007 Manchester Blog Award for Best Writing?

PBHP in Manchester

2007-11-06T12:44:00.001-08:00

We hear that PBHP 5 may still be found (free) in Manchester in the following places:

Piccadilly Records (oldham st.)

Magma (oldham st.)

Vinyl Exchange (also oldham st.)

Thanks go to Chris Killen.

Mental fight choreography

2007-11-05T13:26:00.001-08:00

courtesy of Randall Munroe.

The Error Corporation

2007-11-03T14:23:00.000-07:00

The Error Corporation is now in business.

Blatt Novel of novels contest

2007-10-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

The finalists for the BLATT Novel of Novels contest are :

Michael Graham – Auto Immune
Clarence Bard Cole – This is Where My Life Went Wrong
Jason Price Everett – UnFictions
Peter Wild – Espionage
Eugene Lim – Fog & Car
Eckhard Gerdes – White Bungalows

The winner(s) will be announced by next week. Each of the finalists will be published in a forthcoming issue of BLATT.

The next BLATT Book, a collection of poems by Aleš Mustar called C(o)urt Interpretations, will soon be published.

You can read selections from this book online, courtesy of the following virtual publications:

http://www.blesok.com.mk/tekst.asp?lang=eng&tekst=974 http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/excerpt-court-interpretations/ http://www.brindin.com/pomuspri.htm http://gloomcupboard.blogspot.com/2007/10/3.html http://blatt-blatt.blogspot.com/2006/09/happy-birthday-to-me-by-ale-mustar.html

2007-10-25T04:14:00.000-07:00

Lee Rourke on J.G. Ballard over at the Guardian.

Is the Guardian Offbeat or what?

PBHP compilation

2007-10-23T02:28:00.000-07:00

We're now accepting audio submissions for the downloadable compilation that will accompany the publication of PBHP 5.

This is for unsigned artists.

There is no genre limitation, except that the tracks mustn't be longer than 5:10 (we're funny that way), that we're usually not interested in mainstream/soft rock/classic rock stuff and that we tend to prefer something with vocals, but that's not absolute.

Nine tracks will be selected.

Please submit via a link to the track, which must be hosted online somewhere. To make things easier, make sure to place your work under this Creative Commons license. We can't afford a lawyer.

Extended deadline is 5th December, 11:59 pm Paris Time.

PBHP 4 Review

2007-10-23T02:24:00.001-07:00

We love Dogmatika for many reasons, and Darran Anderson's review of PBHP 4 is just another one to add to the list.

Darran Anderson

Sein und Werden, Summer 2007

2007-10-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

We're a bit far into Autumn now, but the summer issue of S&E, 'Rejectamenta', is still available.

Editors Rachel Kendall and Spyros Heniadis take us through a beguiling literary/artistic jungle full of bizarre sideshows that looked for a shortcut, exotic literary plants that drank the wrong liquid and poisonous species hiding in the branches.

Sein und Werden is getting better, wilder, more ambitious each time. This issue is a rough, relentless, perplexing, worthwhile collection of literary slaps, from the stylistic exercise performed by Juliet Cook, who offers a poem and then its "office" version, to Matina L. Stalakis's and Spyros Henidadis's "automatic writing" poems, from Corinne Holmberg's all-encompassing "Things I Have Put in My Mouth" to the absurdist/existentialist/Dadaist "bedrock" by Michael Loughrey, from J.J. Steinfeld's postmodern/nouveau roman/surrealistic story of a man haunted by a firing squad... to all the rest.

Get it while you can.

And since it'll leave you wanting more, have a look at the online Autumn issue, too!

And so...

2007-10-23T01:52:00.000-07:00

...the cycle comes to a close again. Submit before tonight 11:59 (Paris Time) for PBHP 5.

oulet update

2007-07-27T10:33:00.001-07:00

PBHP # 4 now available in New York City from :

McNally Robinson Booksellers

52 Prince St.

New York, NY 10012

in the foyer.

Go grab them before they're all gone.

v

PBHP in Paris

2007-07-20T11:51:00.001-07:00

Issue 4 of the Paris Bitter Hearts Pit is now available in Paris at Shakespeare and Company (on the racks immediately to the left of the entrance) and the Village Voice bookshop (behind the counter, you have to ask for them!)

Matthew Wascovich's new book of poetry

2007-07-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

DEVOID OF DECLARATION - New words (poetry + lyrics) from Matthew Wascovich.
Hab Discontent Books, 2007,#1.

Wascovich plays music with Thee Scarcity of Tanks.

61 pages. 8.5 x 11.5 inches, stapled. Art by D. Banhart (yes, him).

"I don't know how Matthew Wascovich wrote these. I don't even want to know. It's enough just to be taken up in the beams of dark light which come from them. [...]
And I just meant to say thanks, without laying a burden or, by the same token, seeming completely unaffected. Face to face, I would probably slam the breast with a fist and stumble backwards. "-
T.L. Kryss, poet

Wasco in all his bearded glory.

PBHP 4: Outlets update

2007-07-14T06:17:00.000-07:00

PBHP 4 Availabe from Foyles, Soho, London. Some copies can also be found at Crockett & Powells andthe mighty Calder Bookshop, pictured above (thanks to Lee Rourke at Scarecrow )

Keep posted for availability in Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, New York City and elsewhere.

Tony O'Neill live

2007-07-13T14:18:00.000-07:00

Tony O'Neill reading from Digging the Vein @ KGB bar, NYC.

Dogmatika spotted this before us...

Live fast, write slow.

2007-07-03T08:21:00.000-07:00

3 AM Magazine Supremo Andrew Gallix (pictured above, surveying his 800-acre ostrich ranch in Nevada) has an interesting article in the Guardian about the Ionic and Platonic writing modes, or, to put it more simply, slow vs. fast writing (or the other way round, rather). Read it here and leave a comment if you have a minute. Suggestions: "Hey, great article" or even "Hey thanks for letting us know about all this". But then again, you're free.

Wasco live

2007-06-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

Check out Matthew Wascovich's projects here and here and here.

PBHP 4 sent to press

2007-06-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

Dear readers

PBHP 4 has been sent to press. It should be ready in about a week, but you can preorder it right now for 5 euros, shipping included.

Here's a peep at the contents:

Smoking Kills, by Adelle Stripe
Shut your Lungs – Jump, by Vim Cortez
Orgies, by Daniel Coleman
Kunt, by Steve Vermilion
Rotted Fruit, by Jessica Buck
Just Like He Said, by Adelle Stripe
Doves, by Steve Ely
Three Thousands Poems, or Blockhead, by Glenn Fisher
Evening Song, by Joseph Ridgwell
Phone Sex, by Matthew Coleman
Three Looming Cranes in the Distance, by Lee Rourke
Ilie Nastase, by Ashley Reaks
Honesty, by Chris Killen

Vim Cortez

Two poems by April May March

2007-06-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

La Gazza Ladra

The city expects me to drop some change

onto the floor amongst the clowns, cobbles and malnourished pigeons

who peck out the eyes of faces covered by tatty sleeping bags and the news

well, its never good unless you are rich

what that means

matters little.

A few daffodils pinned to cardigans or grey suits

which can be found in charity shops

with many browsing noses

nosy nobodies flicking

through Kafka and other assoted bric a brac

Psalm 23

They took me to the old theatre just off Waldour Street

in order to experience

a vision of hell.

We got drunk beforehand in order to

unsettle out strong stomachs.

We entered the empty hall

cherishing the silence before the show,

sat down on velvet seats

consuming salty snacks.

I was willing to place a bet with my two companions

that nothing would happen.

Relax, they told me

take two of these

and wait

April May March is a Factory Girl from Norwich, England. More of her work can be read at Dogmatika, Zygote in my coffee and laurahird.com

Review of Memphis Underground, by Stewart Home

2007-05-23T09:22:00.001-07:00

Two parallel narratives open the book. In one, a man finds himself artist in residence in a former American military base converted into an upmarket real estate development off the north shore of Scotland, a position earned through dishonest though partly justified means. The artistic events and projects that ensue wreak gradual havock on the community. In the other narrative, a man struggles through a series of miserable clerical jobs, lost as soon as they are obtained, and through an increasingly impossible housing situation, that fuels and echoes a love/hate relationship with London. These two plots later cross, twist and explode. The rest is too intricate to summarize.

Reviewing a novel by Stewart Home is a daunting task, if only for the tight web of cultural, artistic and theoretic references that sew the narratives together. I use the plural for narratives because, as you would expect, this is no linear fiction but a self-asserting attempt at laying down an anti-novel using most of the tools available to a post-modernist, post-marxist, post-nearly everything author.
Stewart Home constantly hovers between a bona-fide, partly nostalgic anti-capitalist stance and a more straightforward satirical approach of the art and the publishing worlds, of London and its metamorphoses since the early 80s, of the alienating power of work, the need to find a pay for a home (no pun intended) and the increasing difficulty in obtaining welfare... the list is long and exciting.
Yet this is not an essay nor a manifesto thinly disguised as fiction, but quite something else, and Stewart Home's insistence on being entertaining is everything but ironic. Many of the inventions, premises and scenes are sparkling with wit and soul. Soul music is, incidentally, one of the obsessive themes of this book and explain in part the cover design.
Stewart Home's fictional double, John Johnson, spends a lot of time and hard-earned cash on finding rare groove records at bargain prices, and when Home himself, in the autobiographical chapters that take more and more space as the pages turn, talks of the genre, it is with the passion and erudition of the real worshipper, although he would probably reject the appellation. Beyond the idiosyncrasy that the author thus reveals, it is also an affirmation of the central, orienting role of art in his life, and perhaps a counterpoint to the general atmosphere of dubiousness surrounding art and its production in Stewart Home's universe.
This is one disturbing, exhilarating, bustling proof that an anti-novel can make a very real book.

My Wife and the Moustache, by Chris Killen

2007-05-06T14:54:00.000-07:00

My wife won’t try on the moustache I’ve bought her. She says she’ll leave if I mention it again. She says I must throw it away. It’s the moustache or her.

I’m on the bed, thinking this over.

She’s in the bathroom, crying.

The moustache rests on my palm like a furry little bird. I love my wife, of course, but I’d love her even more if she’d try on the moustache. We’ve reached an impasse, the silence hanging between us like a wet towel.

My wife’s name is Bernice. I do not call her Bernie. She does not have much pubic hair.

My first girlfriend’s name was Cordelle. I called her Cordie. She had lots of pubic hair, and got rather wet, and sometimes, when I went down on her, I’d see the hair curling up on either side like a Salvador Dali. I imagine it was like kissing a man with a vertical mouth.

I’m not gay. I like women, but women with moustaches most of all.

I went to the circus once. I loitered around the tent that housed the bearded lady, but she was overweight and not beautiful and in general something of a let down. I want my moustaches small and dainty. The bearded lady’s was lost somewhere in her beard, which cascaded down her face like a hairy waterfall.

I did not have much luck with the women.

Then I met my wife, at a costume party. I fell in love at first sight. The theme was great philosophers. She’d gone as Friedrich Nietzsche – a great wolfish thing obscuring her top lip and cheeks. I was Schopenhauer.

We make a good couple, I said, and she smiled, the moustache glittering in the smoky candlelight.

She never wore that moustache again, but the memory of it was enough. I figured there would be other occasions. So I waited for them, stood at a street corner, holding a bunch of roses, hoping this might be the time she turns up, moustached. And I carried on waiting through countless dinners and trips to the opera and the all-night bowling alley.

But there was no moustache action. There was no other action, either.

She is a strict Christian.

Our honeymoon was a fiasco. Consummating our marriage, I found I was not able to enjoy myself unless I surreptitiously got a bit of her hair and draped it over her top lip. But in the excitement she kept shaking it free.

The following night, once she was asleep, I drew a small moustache on her in felt pen. Then I woke her up and ravished her, and she enjoyed it greatly until she went to the bathroom afterwards. There was a pause, and then a scream, and then there was cursing.

We spent the remainder of the week in separate beds. This was at her insistence.

We do not have any children.

I’ve not mentioned moustaches again to my wife until tonight. I figure five years is a long enough time for a change of heart.

Tonight is our wedding anniversary.

She’s in the bathroom, crying.

I’m on the bed, thinking this over.

It’s either you or my wife, I say to the moustache, and it curls in the moonlight as if my hand is smiling.

PBHP interviews Chris Killen

2007-05-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

Chris Killen, an exquisite, talented young man, is currently writing a novel "about a twelve year old boy whose uncle spontaneously combusts. " in between sessions of "till monkeying". So at least we gather from informed sources.

Chris Killen was born in 1981. He is currently living in Manchester. Recently his short stories have appeared online at 3am and Pulp Net, and in issue four of Parameter magazine.

Though he doesn't get out much, we managed to corner him and force him to answer the following, urgent questions.

Once, or even before you have read the following interview, be sure to read his story "My Wife and the Moustache", on this very blog. Check out Chris's blog too. It's not strictly about moustaches. And thank you, Chris, for playing the game. We beat that spam filte together.

---

Why do you do what you do?

I write to amuse myself. I work in a bookshop because I need to pay the rent and buy pairs of shoes and orange juice and things. I have no idea why I lose things or mess things up or occasionally say inappropriate things.

Because you’re human? You’re human, aren’t you? Just a sudden atrocious doubt.

Yes, I am a human.

What else could you have done that wouldn't have made you feel too bad about yourself?

I honestly can’t think of anything. The first thing I thought of was ‘start a museum’ but I wouldn’t know what to put in it. Maybe I could start a cat/bird/moustache museum. It would chronicle the history and development of those three things and try to find tenuous connections between them. There would be lots of stuffed animal displays in there, I think. One would be of a cat and a bird sitting in human positions in a miniature living room, wearing fake moustaches and watching the TV. On the TV is footage of cats and birds and moustaches.

I can already picture the range of souvenirs on offer at the museum shop. That’s where museums make their money, you know. Cat and bird porn for instance? It would have to have an edge somehow.

I would like the museum to be ‘an experience for the whole family’. The porn would have to be really well done. You know, tasteful, inoffensive. Soft lighting and tenderness.

Are you a filmmaker?

Not really. I have only made a couple of short films. I don’t own a camera, and at the moment I don’t know anyone I could borrow one off. I would like to make more films at some point. I am still surprised that there has never yet been a full-length ‘feature film’ made on a digital camcorder for absolutely no money. Technology has improved enough for this to happen now. Someone just needs to have a good enough idea. If I ever do, that would be the film I’d make.

Are you a writer?

Yes. I write quite a lot.

Do you prefer to read or to be read? Say, if you had to choose?

To read. There are books I love a million times more than anything I have written (Pan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, Sombrero Fallout). I don’t think I have written anything very good yet. I don’t like the idea of never being able to read those books again. I feel kind of scared now at the idea of not being able to read those books again.

We didn’t mean to frighten you. It was, you know, just theoretical. For conversation’s sake.

Too late. I’m scared.

Where do you buy your fake moustaches?

I have not bought many fake moustaches. My first ‘proper’ fake moustache was done on photoshop. I like photoshop ones the best, I think. Then maybe the drawn-on ones, and after that the regular joke shop kind. I bought a ‘poseable’ one in a shop in Stratford once. And a friend of mine gave me a whole set called ‘Moustaches for Every Day of the Week’. I haven’t dared to take those out of the packet. But if I did, today (Saturday) I would be wearing ‘The Grandpa’ which curls up at the ends and is like a silver version of Sunday’s ‘The Hollywood’.

I do like moustaches quite a lot, but I am worrying now about being known as ‘the moustache guy’. I think my continuing ‘public’ obsession with moustaches is possibly some kind of self-sabotage.

We at PBHP know that the moustache is merely a window onto your universe, or, if I may venture the comparison, a dash between the reader’s mind and yours (boy, are we clever or what?) Note to our readers, don’t expect any moustaches in Chris’s short story to appear in PBHP 4. At most some pilosity.

Thanks. (I just googled ‘pilosity’.) I feel comforted now. The moustache-to-no-moustache ratio in my stories is, at present, about one to four. It used to be much higher. I am slowly getting it out of my system. I think my fascination stems from the fact that I can’t grow a very good real moustache.

Is this interview irrelevant?

I don’t know. I think I would find this interview interesting if I didn’t already know me. But then I quite like poking around on the internet and wasting time reading little interviews with people I haven’t heard of.

Please define "relevant", or any other vague term of your own choice.

I would like to define the term “novel”: a novel can be anything at all. I don’t even think it has to be a book if you don’t want it to be. A novel could be an apple standing on a windowsill. I did a creative writing MA, and spent all my time asking the tutors and the visiting authors and agents and other members of the class what they thought a novel should be, and especially how long it should be. One tutor told me a novel was something 80,000 words +. At that point I was writing my first novel (‘The Bird Room’) and I knew it was only going to be 30,000 words at most (I recently re-drafted it and it is now 19,000), and so I spent a lot of time on this MA nodding and agreeing with everyone and secretly panicking. Now I don’t give a shit anymore. I wrote a novel the other day which was eight words long. I will reproduce it for you below, in full:

The Man in the Road

We were watching the man in the road.

I like the idea of getting ‘The Man in the Road’ hard-bound somewhere, with blurbs and an ISBN and title page, etc.

Amazing. I’ll write the blurb if you’ll let me. How about “Chris Killen delivers yet another gripping tale of out-of-order traffic lights and excited, voyeuristic gangs of blue-haired grannies stuck in a second floor retirement house lounge with a broken telly” ? I can even think of a possible sequel: “And then Came the Lurching Lorry.”

That sounds great. Thank you for the blurb. Maybe I could spin out a whole series of these. I think I could write about a thousand novels a year this way. I have already sent Penguin a copy of the manuscript. I know they don’t normally accept unsolicited manuscripts, but I figure this one is so small it might just slip under the door somehow. I am aiming for the top. I will keep you posted on its progress.

Please do. Was your creative writing MA valuable to you as a writer? French people (and that includes writers and literature teachers) are usually convinced that writing can’t be taught.

It was beneficial to me at the time. I didn’t learn anything about how to write, but I learnt that if I wanted to write a novel, I needed to just keep writing it, and not give up after the initial ‘honeymoon’ period was over. I needed, at that point, deadlines. And it was good to meet other people who wrote, too, and to talk to them about writing. I really needed to do that at the time. I met a lot of really smart, helpful people and I am still in touch with some of them. I am sharing a flat with one of them.

Name three things that lift you up.

Reading. Writing. Receiving long emails from my friend Charlene in the Philippines. (She is another of the smart, helpful people I met on the MA.)

Name three things that bring you down.

The ‘state of British publishing’. Having to work all the time. The mild, panicked feeling that there is always ‘something I have to do’ but never knowing quite what it is.

Imagine you could say one sentence, to the whole world, with their undivided attention focused on you alone. What would you wear?

I would wear a t-shirt with ‘The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit’ written on the front of it. (I’m such a suck-up.)

I never even thought of that, but somehow I’m immensely satisfied by your answer. I predict a dazzling future to you. Thank you Chris.

The Flash

2007-05-02T00:51:00.000-07:00

A collection of 100 stories by 100 writers. All proceeds to Amnesty International.

Published by Social Disease, edited by Peter Wild (cf. PBHP 3).

Includes contributions from: Daren King, Ian Sansom, Nick Stone, J Robert Lennon, Patrick Neate, Nicholas Blincoe, Niall Griffiths, Willy Vlautin, Sara Gran, Gina Ochsner, Dermot Bolger, Rick Moody, Sam Lipsyte, Percival Everett, Jonathan Lethem, Katherine Dunn, Ben Myers, Lana Citron, Damon Galgut, Steven Sherrill, Michel Faber, Jeff VanderMeer, Stewart Lee, Charlie Williams, Rebbecca Ray, Matt Thorne, Kate Pullinger, Emily Maguire, Christopher Brookmyre, Steve Aylett, Aimee Bender, Steve Almond, Nick Johnstone, Stella Duffy, Arthur Nersesian, Carlton Mellick III, Fred Dutton & 73 other writers…

The Flash can be bought here.

Sometimes I've Believed Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

2007-05-02T00:44:00.000-07:00

See an exhibition of new work by six illustrators including Ruth Bartlett (who designed some pages of the upcoming PBHP 4), Mr Bingo, Peter James Field, Emily Forgot, Natsko Seki, Alice Stevenson. Curated by Gina Cross.
Sometimes I've Believed Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast /Nolias Gallery, 60 Great Suffolk Street SE1 0BL Bankside. Nearest tube: Southwark or Borough. Private view 7 pm Thursday 3rd May - the exhibition runs from 3 - 8 May. Noon to 6 pm daily. Hand drawn works, screenprints, collage and printed plates celebrating Fantasy Karaoke, Hair Portraits, Playtime prints on plates, Carol McGiffin's Saliva Tree, 100 year old Flying Machines and the Night Visitor. Limited edition prints available to buy.

Who is Henry Slit?

2007-04-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

A short film by Chris Killen.

Coming up, an exclusive short story by Chris Killen, and a revealing interview with him, right here. Or slightly above that is, in a new post. You get my drift.

Meanwhile, read this and this.

Sein und Werden 3

2007-04-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sein und Werden # 3 is still available, but you'd better hurry, folks. We know we should tell you these things earlier, but there you are, we live a life of slavery.

Rachel Kendall and Spyros Heniadis, two literature warriors, continue on their impressive journey and bring you another multitudinous, bountiful issue.

If you don't know this grand mag, don't miss the occasion. If you know it, well, you know why you should get this issue. So go accomplish your destiny.

2007-03-09T23:53:00.000-08:00

Josh Cohen reads from his debut novel, Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto, a post-modern rumination on 20th-century culture, music and politics as told from the perspective of a brilliant but obscure Hungarian composer.
The evening also features a concert of Hungarian Folk Music
$12 adults; $8 students/seniors
(alcohol included)

Wednesday, March 21 at 7 PM
The Eldridge St. Project at the Eldridge St. Synagogue
12 Eldridge betw. Canal & Division

$12 adults; $8 students/seniors

For the penniless and/or the cheapskates among you, Josh wil also be reading at
Pratt
144 West 14th St, 2nd Floor Auditorium
Friday, March 16, 7pm
This is the opening of the "State of Mind: Death Row" show, and Josh will be reading with almost fifteen people. It's this or the 12 bucks. Your choice.

PBHP in London

2007-02-23T03:23:00.000-08:00

Here's a few pics of the latest 3 AM Magazine event at Indo, London.

Big Ben Meyers

The Enfant Terrible tries to corrupt the saintly Stevens.

Adelle Stripe, focusing.

Lee Rourke, meditating, with Ben Myers in the foreground, keeping an eye on the meditating process.

Matthew Coleman persecuting Andrew Stevens, of 3 AM Magazine.

Paul Ewen in action.

Sam Dodson, of Transmitters' fame.

A mighty fine evening, I say.

"I Fear no-one", by the Transmitters

2007-02-18T02:11:00.000-08:00

You know the feeling,when you stumble upon a gem from the past, how you know your mates will thank you for enlightening them (and even more often, forget after a time it was you who did, and become all snotty about how they were among the early admirers?) Such is the feeling I got when I first heard some of these tracks on The Transmitters' Myspace page. The impression that this is the real thing, cutting through all the heavily hair-styled cohorts of contemporary imitators, talented and less so, from Franz Ferdinand to more recent acts like The Blood Arm, the Fratellis and whatnot.

This compilation features The Transmitters' special brand of cut up, tripping, at times dissonant, at times groovy punk/post punk rock ("Persons Unknwown") verging on the no-wave ("Uninvited guest"). It's clever, aggressive music, and the "demo" quality of some the songs, grainy, crackling and frayed around the edges, evokes the times of analog recording, which remain dear to some of us and undeniably lend warmth and grit to the overall sound.

Few of these songs are what you'd call straightforward 70s punk rock, though there is a measure of overdriven nasty, at times provocatively short tracks ("Paper Boy"), but these are laid alongside some more adventurous sonic explorations that put The Transmitters closer to Television or Scritti Politti than, say the Buzzcocks ("Testoterone", with its Roxy Music-like vocals and complex rhythm pattern). Accordingly, atonal riffs scratch the back of your brain, evoking early XTC, and some guitar work is suprisingly sophisticated, with late 70s guitar heroes as obvious influences, but thankfully without the nauseating masturbatory emphasis and self-indulgence that make most wizards of the neck a pain in the ass: these interventions remain tense, sharp and good-manneredly short.

In short, the Transmitters deserve their place among the bona fide pioneers of punk/post punk rock and I wouldn't be surprised if their name turned up alongside the likes of Magazine, The Fire Engines or the Slits in future name-dropping competitions on what original punk was really about.

The compilation is available in stores from 5th March on Elsewhen Records, but pre-release copies are available now for download, or from CD Baby.

Sam Jordison: a man of taste

2007-02-13T06:05:00.000-08:00

If you've got your finger on the pulse of the Offbeat Generation you've probably already read this, but Sam Jordison (author of Crap Towns, Crap Towns II, The Joy Of Sects and Bad Dates. ) at the Guardian recently wrote two very good articles about the writers we love and support, here and here.

Here are a two extracts:

"Closely associated with 3:AM is the Offbeat Generation, a loose confederation of writers, who all - at the very least - show considerable promise. Worth investigation are: HP Tinker, Ben Myers, Paul Ewen, Heidi James, Matthew Coleman, and, especially, Tony O' Neill. The latter seems to be the figurehead for this burgeoning scene. He's a man who has taken the phrase rock'n'roll poet to its furthest edges, as a former member of the infamous Brian Jonestown Massacre sacked for behaviour too wild even for that notorious band. Having finally cleaned up his act he's written a memoir due out in April and (already touted as the next underground classic) and some quite brilliant, not to mention shocking, short stories."

"[...]there's no denying the abundant energy, passion and pleasingly warped imagination of writers such as Matthew Coleman, Ben Myers, HP Tinker, Tony O'Neill and Andrew Gallix - not to mention Heidi James herself. There's every hope that soon one of them might produce something rather special - and that, if they continue to expand their influence as rapidly as they have been doing in recent months, mainstream publishers will have to sit up and take serious notice."

Travis Jeppesen's intriguing Myspace photo is also mentioned (replaced now by epileptic colors).

Kudos to Sam and the Guardian for being on the ball.

Paris comes to London

2007-02-12T10:38:00.000-08:00

(pic: Adelle Stripe reading at the last event)

Come have a pint with us next Monday (19th February) at the 3 AM event "Bedtimes Stories" featuring Niven Govinden, author of Graffiti My Soul (out now on Canongate), Heidi James, author of Carbon (Wrecking Ball Press, 2007) and Paul Ewen, author of London Pub Reviews (Shoes With Rockets, 2007).

We'll have a few free copies of PBHP #4. This said, beer offerings are seldom refused.

Monday 19 February 2007, from 8pm
Indo
133 Whitechapel Rd
London E1 1DT

PBHP in London

2007-02-12T10:30:00.000-08:00

PBHP # 4 is available at the ICA and at Indo (133 Whitechapel Rd, London, E1.).

Thanks piles to Andrew Stevens at 3 AM Magazine.

3:AM Magazine reborn

2007-01-24T13:51:00.000-08:00

The mother of all online lit zines, 3:AM Magazine, has been entirely rebuilt. It looks really, really good. And it is good, to boot. Know many online zines that have really been at the cutting edge for more than 6 years?

Go visit it now. Check out, for instance, the Brutalists'first public outing.

Tony O'Neill reading

2007-01-12T05:51:00.000-08:00

As part of NYC's Sunday Salon reading series, Tony O'Neill will be reading January 21st with Lisa Ferber, Joyce Marcel and Matt Cav @ Sunday Salon
Sunday, January 21st @ 7pm (Free)

Stain Bar
766 grand street
brooklyn, ny 11211
(L to Grand,
1 block west)
718/387-7840

Tony's novel Digging the Vein is available from Amazon.com

PBHP 3 now available in Dublin!

2007-01-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

PBHP is now available in Dublin, at Books Upstairs (beside Trinity College ) and at The Winding Stair (40 Ormond Quay Lower Ormond Quay) .

Many many thanks to Susan at Dogmatika.

Joshua Cohen reading in NYC

2007-01-06T03:13:00.000-08:00

Josh Cohen will be reading from his new book, Cadenza for the
Schneidermann Violin Concerto, at the KGB Bar (85 East 4th St. NY NY), Sunday, January 21st at 7pm.

While you're there, you might take a look at KGB Bar's new literary magazine - which features an excerpt from Cohen's next book, A Heaven of Others, out in early 2008.

The Transmitters fear no one

2007-01-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

The Transmitters, a mutant post punk outfit were spotted by John Peel in 1979 who invited them to play a rambunctious session now included, alongside other tracks in "I FEAR NO ONE", the Transmitters' soon-to-be-released compilation.

Melody Maker’s Chris Roberts described the track “Dead Siamese Sister” as “one of their frenetic mutant paranoid stream-of-consciousness bohemian jazz-noise anthems which like very much to grab you by the retinae and throw you across the doghouse walls”.

Watch this space for a review of this compilation.

PBHP 4

2006-12-28T02:09:00.000-08:00

Submit now for PBHP 4, to be published in April 2007.

We're after experimental, provocative, disquieting, exultant, weird but consistent and substantial short fiction and poetry.

Also looking for graphic artwork.

Please please please read (and abide by) the SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES!

PBHP 3 now out

2006-12-27T00:50:00.000-08:00

Coming soon to London, Dublin, Belfast, Berlin, New York, Paris, and other interesting places.

Watch this space for more info.
Meanwhile, you can order it for 5 euros: simply send us an e-mail :

parisbitterheartspit###@###gmail.com

(remove the #, of course)

Sein und Werden

2006-12-25T03:11:00.000-08:00

If you're lucky, you might just be able to get hold of the Autumn issue of Sein und Werden, which was sent to us a while ago. Like swines, or rather like the overworked wretches that we are, we kept it conspicuously on a shelf for much too long, its literary appeal literally pulsing through the air of our office everyday to tousle the hair in the back of our heads while other, drearily mundane tasks kept us glued to the screen.

This issue presents 13 authors, and the (by now) customary mix of short and somewhat less short fiction and poetry, this time under the conceptual banner of the "Doppelgänger", or, for the less germanophone among us, the double, even the ghostly double (think Joseph Conrad's Secret Sharer). Experimentation is still a very prominent feature of this excellent issue. Look elsewhere for traditional or mainstream literature.
This is the playground of the literary outlaws.
Special mentions go to Juliet Cook, to the very disquieting "Praying for the Dead", by D. Harlan Wilson, and also to the Nouveau Roman-like short story by Marc Lowe, "The Third Person". Not including the cover art, this issue also contains three photographs that provide a perfect graphic "double" (pardon the pun) to the violently enigmatic and dark written contents. In short, unilaterally extend the Christmas indulgence period and get yourself a copy before it runs out. If its has run out, curse us for being late reviewers, it's all we deserve.

PBHP Interviews Lee Rourke.

2006-11-10T02:47:00.000-08:00

Lee Rourke, of Scarecrow fame, among many other achivements, accepted to answer our cheeky questionnaire. Shakespeare vs. Jonson, rubbish, murder, pigeons, being Blaise Cendrars, meaninglessness, ultracrepidarians, it's all here.

Please tell us (in any order): who you are, what you're trying to do, why, what you're actually doing, why the discrepancy (if any), and who you'd like to become.

I’m Lee Rourke. I’m a Mancunian who lives in East London. My favourite word is probably “meaningless” (although its meaning for me changes almost constantly). I’m pretty boring and very pretentious. I’m a writer too. I write for glossy magazines like Dazed & Confused. I have been published in many literary magazines too, my favourites being your fine offering and Prague’s BLATT. I also have a book, a short story collection called “Everyday”, that is about to be published by London’s Social Disease Press, it’s retailing at £6.99 which is pretty good value I think. In my spare time I edit (with the help of Matthew Coleman) Scarecrow, an online litblog/zine that has published the likes of Tom McCarthy, Stewart Home, Tony O’Neill, Heidi James, Travis Jeppesen, Mark SaFranko, Robert Woodard, Paul Ewen, HP Tinker, Andrew Gallix, A. Stevens, Matthew Coleman, Noah Cicero, Fern Bryant, Henry Baum, Janice Earlbaum, Ellis Sharp, and many, many more . . .

All this is what I’m actually doing.

No discrepancies of any description (okay, that’s a lie). If at all possible I’d like to become Blaise Cendrars. That would be really good.

What do you reject, loathe, steer clear of? Does it help you to define yourself?

I reject the 3 for 2 table and marketing departments. I steer clear of people who rely on dead philosophers to help mould their own thoughts. I loathe Manchester City Football Club to its very foundations, people who pursue a bohemian existence, and individuals who seek a higher platitude of, supposed, superior existence through Literature or Art. Most of the time I think Literature, like Art, is meaningless and not that important (I am aware though that the vast majority will disagree with me here. But I’ll take it to the grave) ; anyone who thinks that Literature or Art will transform them is probably a pointless ultracrepidarian or a twerp (most probably both) and is to be avoided at all costs. Human folly such as this I find incredibly irksome.

"I’d like to become Blaise Cendrars. That would be really good."

Why write, then?

I write because it’s the only thing I’m mildly good at (mediocre is a word that springs to mind); if I could lay bricks I’d do that (incidentally, Ben Jonson was a bricklayer by trade before turning to the pen, he killed a man during a duel in a field that is now a road just around the corner from where I live. I can feel his presence each time I step out of the door. He is, in my humble opinion, far more exciting than his contemporary Mr William Shakespeare, not that I’m slagging The Bard off you understand), if I liked heights I’d operate a crane and erect sky-scrapers, if I could drive I’d be a taxi driver or something; maybe a bus driver, but not in London as it’s too frustrating; I’d be a bus driver in somewhere like Dorking or Leigh-on-Sea.

"anyone who thinks that Literature or Art will transform them is probably a pointless ultracrepidarian or a twerp"

I once, during my summer holidays aged 15, worked in an umbrella factory in Manchester. My working day consisted of knocking the tips of the umbrella on with a piece of clumsy metal; it had tape wrapped around one end that served as a handle (the result of a previous worker no doubt). I got paid for how many I did in a day (which wasn’t many). The bloke next to me (he was called Douglas) had been doing that job for 25 years. If I learnt one thing that summer it was that life for most people is pretty rubbish, boring, and mundane. If I’d have heard of Sisyphus then I might have come to terms with this fact. To date I never have (come to terms with this, obviously I’ve heard of Sisyphus now). Maybe one day I will. I doubt it though. Nothing much really inspires me. But Vim, I don’t want you to think it is all doom and gloom with me.

I know you didn’t ask me this but I feel I should tell you that I love pigeons. Pigeons make me happy. We live side by side. We keep out of each other’s way. Pigeons are the perfect metaphor.

Being the vainglorious fool that I am, and a true believer that hypocrisy is the greatest luxury, all of the above probably helps, little by little, to define me.

Are you fearless (artistically)?

No. I’m a poltroon artistically. And quite lazy to boot – though never sluggish. I live in constant fear; it penetrates deep into the core of my very being and horrifies me. It is a true, palpable horror that clings to me like a damp, black towel I can’t shake off. This horror gradually haunts me throughout the night and is at its unremitting peak just when the sunlight first starts to creep into my room early in the morning. John Keats (a poet I greatly admire along with Rimbaud, Lowell, and Baudelaire) said:

“Vanish, ye phantoms, from my idle spright, /Into the clouds, and never more return!”

Like Keats I rather like the idea of indolence.

This has nothing to do with “artistically” anything but, seeing as you touched upon the notion of fear, I am seriously petrified of all arachnids – especially the ones that have the temerity to break into my flat at night.

"hypocrisy is the greatest luxury"

Literature: a means or an end?

Neither. Literature, for me, is just something to do. I like to write. I like to read. I’m always reading. Although sometimes I get bored and can’t read – even if it’s good literature. Sitting down to write can be pretty boring too if I think about it, it takes up too much time (I hate these writers who say things like “If I wasn’t writing I’d die.” Utter fucking bollocks. They’d be first against the wall come my revolution). So, when things get tough, I go for long walks through the city on my own, stopping off at pubs along the way. Cities are far more interesting than Literature anyway.
Would you say that you are (un)faithful to yourself?

I don’t know. I believe in contradiction and ambiguity. I’m both. Through contradiction you can destroy truth (you can also make yourself look like a twit) which always brings a wry smile to my face. I suppose that’s why I like writing fiction: none of it is true but all of it is real. I also believe in repetition. The humdrum patterns of day-to-day life. Some days I see myself making the same mistakes over and over and over again, yet, some days I don’t. I like that.

"I hate these writers who say things like “If I wasn’t writing I’d die.” Utter fucking bollocks."

What does the word "intellectual" mean for you? (forbidden answer: "nothing")
“Intellectual” immediately makes me think of vanity and ego. Some good, some bad. There are so many different categories of “intellectual” if you think about it. Martin Amis is considered an “intellectual” and he’s a fucking dubious blatherskite at the best of times. Tony Parsons was once considered “intellectual” (maybe he still is somewhere) and look at the utter pointless shit he ejaculates into this world. It’s a bit of an oxymoron but some “intellectuals” can be pretty damn thick. I was in my local boozer the other day and two “intellectuals”, both swathed head-to-toe in black, walked in and sat at the next table from me. I pretended to read my book (Stewart Home’s The Assault on Culture). They began to talk about the state of the modern novel in Britain today. The shorter of the two stated that the British novel is at its strongest since Defoe whilst the taller one rubbed his chin and acquiesced politely before stating that this year’s Booker shortlist was a work of art in itself. I peered at them both over my book, noticing their self-satisfied faces, their haughty accents, and I wanted to say to them that the British novel is pretty much dead and if it wasn’t for writers such as Tom McCarthy and Stewart Home it would be (both are real “intellectual” writers and the way forward.

So the British novel has its saviours?

If you find meaning in Literature then Tom’s debut novel “Remainder” is a turning point and the benchmark for all aspiring writers. It’s where we’re at. “Remainder” is ultimately modern. If, like me, you find most things meaningless then Stewart’s anti-fictions will leave you weak at the knees. He’s the closest thing this country’s got to a genius. He’s “writer in residence” up at Strathclyde University as I type: Scotland will be producing another gaggle of exciting young writers in the next couple of years). Anyway, I wanted to tell these two “intellectuals” that the Booker is stinking pig’s meat. That it’s all hogwash and tripe. I wanted to holler at them that the British novel, and any chance of a new wave of British writers emerging, has been ruined by odious marketing departments.

Martin Amis is considered an “intellectual” and he’s a fucking dubious blatherskite at the best of times.

We live amongst a literary wasteland, a sewer of ruination, a quagmire of “life-style fiction”, “chick-fucking-lit”, and romantic yarns relaying the topsy-turvy woes of this inner-city diaspora and that inner-city community, dreary fictions that always seem to span decades and ignore voice, all beautifully designed and packaged, all made to look good in bookstore window displays on uniform highstreets, all very depressing. Where is the voice? That’s what I want to know? It’s not for me. It never will be.

Of course this incident didn’t ever take place in my local boozer. I just wanted to rant. Seriously, I quite like “intellectuals” (the real ones that is). I see their value (even if I find their interests meaningless). I try not to engage with them though as they’re usually far more intelligent than me and they invariably make me feel small and foolish. I also believe that we need more “intellectuals” of this ilk in this country. All the real “intellectuals” should get together and take it back, reclaim the British novel, snatch it out of the slimy hands of those cretins in the marketing departments the width and breadth of this fair land.
Do you procrastinate as often as you should?

Blaise Cendrars said:
“I don’t want to be part of a gang. I am not behind, as you say, but ahead. It all belongs to yesterday, not today. I will be visible tomorrow. Today, I’m working.”
I’ve always loved that quote. I reckon he meant it too. The thing is, Vim, with me it’s “Today, I’m Procrastinating.” And I do most of my procrastinating in the boozer – which is where I’m off to now actually. Thank-you and toodle-pip.

Current PBHP playlist

2006-11-05T01:56:00.000-08:00

The Freek Out are a cool band from Dallas, Texas.Check'em out

Neonbirds is a (in spite of the plural) smart, young, French synth pop wizard. Check him out

The Ungodly Hours are mostly from Paris and London. Check'em out

2006-10-31T09:26:00.000-08:00

The mighty Dreams That Money Can Buy organize another terrific event with Vic Godard & Subway Sect and Jock Scot, on 12th November, in Manchester.

When will the fucking Eurostar run straight to Lancashire?

En avant! With The Ungodly Hours

2006-10-30T03:59:00.000-08:00

Listen to four songs by The Ungodly Hours right here and visit their Myspace.

Gallix reborn

2006-10-19T14:55:00.000-07:00

Mr. Gallix is back with a cool Myspace. Go request his friendship!

PBHP interviews Matthew Coleman

2006-10-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

Matthew Coleman occupies bandwith and minds on his Myspace. He also treats the gourmet readers to his regular Provocative Pages, of which we at PBHP simply can't get enough. He is, bdesides, the lead singer for The Ungodly Hours. Which doesn't prevent him from directing films. He is, in other words, an accomplished man.

Please tell us (in any order) : who you are, what you’re trying to do, why, what you’re actually doing, why the discrepancy (if any), and who you’d like to become.

My name is Matthew Coleman. I am a filmmaker and a writer. I write short fiction and have been the right hand man to Lee Rourke at an online literary forum called Scarecrow. On top of this I am currently wrestling with the soon to be released Social Disease magazine, as well as Faux Pas Magazine, which will be launched in March ‘07. And as all of this spins joyously around me I am editing a collection of cutting edge fiction with Andrew Gallix.
In a nut: I’m a provocateur out to perpetuate ‘The Provocative Pages’, which is a boisterous banner I write beneath. It is a kind of pastiche of pulp and pornography. But I am still an infant, an offensive child who curses aloud, who shouts expletives and laughs, an enfant terrible, of sorts, grappling with my words whilst full of shits and giggles. But it is still too early to see who this beast of a child will grow up to be, what kind of a man he shall become, what kind of a jabbering madman will be his metamorphosis? Will he still keep that look of lust in his eyes with the ping in his pants as he hops about the city full to the brim with a wild kind of energy that’s bursting at the seams?
Hell, only time will tell, and that bitch named time can be mean!

Do you draw inspiration from artists who don’t work in your branch, and if so: who, and why/how?

I never gave two flying shits for anything whilst growing up. I never read a book for pleasure until I was twenty. I had shit for sense, I truly did. But since I got turned on by literature and learning I’ve been self-educating myself fiendishly ever since, cramming Christ knows what into this spinning brainpan of mine that sits within my skull. I have soaked up so much, like a newborn child, that it seems dizzying on retrospective. So much inspires me, so very much. But the saddest thing of all is that I will never read every book I want to read, or see every film I want to see, its impossible, just utterly impossible that it drags one down a notch with the doldrums.

What do you reject, push back, loathe, steer clear of? Does it help you to exist?

I loathe a hell of a lot of things in this world, a hell of a lot, and too many to go into now, for it’d be a savage word lashing and my mood is far too delicate to leap sideways into the excrement of the world around me. But these things I reject and loathe have made me who I am, one way or another, they have effected my choices, my thoughts, my decisions, which in turn has carved out the character who I am, for good or ill. What I will say is that I spend most of my life with my head and my arse in the clouds and a lot of things escape me. I hunker down in the world of my own manifestation that bubbles away in my mind and there I sit there whipping the words out as they roll rapidly through me.

Who do you secretly – shamefully perhaps – admire?

I have read a quite a bit since my eyes opened up to books, a lot of American writers, you know, the usual suspects, and a lot of the great minds from France and Northern Europe. I’m a cinema junky to boot, especially world cinema and I’ll make it my personal mission to get my mitts on movies from every corner of the globe. Thinking more about this I may be bold to say that pornography, Henry Miller, Hunter S Thompson and William S Burroughs have certainly left a firm stamp on me as a lot of my writing can be intense, aggressive, and most of it deals with sex, in one form or another.
In truth I admire things that move me, jolt me, grab me by the throat and throttle me, no matter what they are. I want to be left breathless. I want to be beaten and I want to weep, for there is nothing finer than being kicked awake by a saying, a line in a book, a scene in a film, or a painting. I want intensity, I yearn for intensity, crave it, need it. As soon as this jolt happens I then hunt down everything that this creator has to offer the world and I inject it into my mind, my thoughts, my emotions. What is more joyous than finding a writer who grabs you so fucking hard and whispers so wonderfully at your self that you’re shaken so badly afterwards that you don’t know what to do? Nothing, there is nothing better, nothing as potent and powerful as that, and there are so many more people out there of sheer wonderment just waiting for you to stumble across them.

What’s your biggest fear regarding your art?

I do not fear anything with my art. As I said before I am an infant with it and have not yet to even begin to grow proverbial hair on my balls. Everyone reacts differently to art, everyone, and that’s its beauty. What can make some shit their pants with fear can make another shoot their wad. Some people seriously hate the things I write about, yet others are amused by the whole thing. That’s the way it is, the way it’ll always be. It is all a matter of taste. You just got to reach out to the ones who are down with a devious mind. But thinking more about this I suppose that the only actual fear I feel is that I would not be able to create. This would be death. I have to create. I go mad when I cannot do it and erupt into that of a detestable beast, a snarling son of Satan that one should keep locked away, forever.

Does your art relate to any political, social, or spiritual conceptions you may have? Should it?

No, I wouldn’t say so, not yet. For the last few years I have spent my time writing and writing, that is all I’ve been doing, just churning out short stories and fucking around with style, form, ideas, seeing what comes out and why. Trial and error, that is what it’s been with my writing and my film, a long series of trial and error, of seeing what works and what evidently doesn’t. I am not content with what I have done so far, and I have not even begun to say what I want to say. I am still practising, experimenting, just plain getting my kicks doing what I’m doing and still wanting to do more. I have become addicted, terribly addicted and I cannot stop.
Somebody put a leash on the fucker?
Fuck you, is my retort!
Hee haw!

In spite of/thanks to all the compromises made necessary by this our modern world, would you say that you are (un)faithful to yourself?

I am a bastard to myself. A swine and a scoundrel too. I am my own worst enemy. Shit, we all have to make compromises, and most of us, whether consciously or subconsciously, have to drown in these daily. If I was living ‘the dream’ I would not have to waste my time riding the rotten work horse to keep a roof over my head and a little food in my belly. But, because of the way the world works, I am not allowed to do this seemingly heavenly pleasure continuously, fuck no, I got to slash the hours of my life away for my little handful of pay. This is life, this is the compromise most of us have to make, this is what we do, this is what I do, but we do it because we have to do it. This is what makes me who I am, the swine and scoundrel too. We’ve got nothing to loose but our sanities, and most of us have shot those to shit a long time ago.

Look me in the eyes now: are YOU a procrastinator OR a dilettante?

I, good sir, am manic.

Voltaire and his vegetable patch

2006-10-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

Laconic secretaries are
the precious gateway to opulence
the solid gold of corporate life
Setting examples and
forging the candid estate of kindred fiends
and ailing nations.

Missing profile

2006-10-01T04:13:00.000-07:00

Andrew Gallix of 3 AM Magazine (seen below manifesting his solidarity with reindeers) has lost his myspace profile. If anyone finds it, please let us know. We are very worried.

Dreams That Money Can Buy #4

2006-09-30T02:05:00.000-07:00

Life finally gives us a respite and we spring on the fourth issue of Dreams That Money Can Buy, the finger-licking-scrumptious magazine (we're no longer talking fanzine here in our view) edited by Ben Ware and Sarah Lomax. DTMCB is a very impressive endeavour in contemporary literature and more generally, a mighty "cultural detox" for those of us who lament ourselves over the spiritual state of the brainy nations (and for the others as well.)

This issue opens with the burlesque/cynical/apocalyptic declaration of the dead living artists, a lucid, outrageous, hilarious counter-manifesto or rather non-manifesto that sets an acute, acid vibe on the rest of this collection. HP Tinker follows with consideration about the "Situation" and the frozenness, the condemnation implied in not being in existential motion and more particularly, in trying to take stock of your life from a fixed point in time (situations do not, or should not exist, only fluxes, right?) Bob Foeppal's short treats make clever use of the traditional end-of-story reversal, taking us from an old publisher with whores and Victoriana on his mind to big-breasted, squirrel-cooking Donna Lynn.

Jumping to Steven Hall's Oulipian/Pereckian exercise in scientific classification and through to Stewart Home's sordid council estate evening (a sneak peak at Stewart's next novel). And on to Heidi James's biting love letter (recommended if you like strange knots), and finally to our favorite stretch in this jolly spin through underground lit back alleys, Tony O'Neill's "The Doctor Takes a Walk", in which the hero meets with the "tanned, white teethed monsters" that populate malls and seem to have taken the world in a "bloodless coup" while he was out there doing horse.

And in between of course, plenty more reasons why you should buy Dreams That Money Can Buy and thank whoever it is you believe is responsible (apart from the afore-mentioned editors and authors, and the Arts Council) that contemporary writing still gets that good. Did we mention that the magazine is beautifully manufactured too (think Faber and Faber for instance)? We have now.

This is Hardcore

2006-09-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

Thee Scarcity of Tanks

An interview with KLUtCh

2006-09-20T01:45:00.000-07:00

We stumbled across KLUtCh's myspace a while ago and were intrigued by his small videos. It turns out that Denis, aka KLUtCh, is a multimedia artist with an already long history of creation, and a great guy on top of it all. From St.Petersburg through Paris to this here blog, here's our conversation with KLUtCh.

Please tell us (in any order) : who you are, what you're trying to do, why, what you're actually doing, why, and who you'd like to become.

My name is Denis Popyrin, better known as Denis KLUtCh or simply KLUtCh ("key" in Russian ). I was born in St.Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) in 1978. I'm a musician/composer and visual artist/vj and a little bit of a writer. In music and visual design I came from the demoscene in 1996.

From 1992 to 1994 I produced sounds and graphics for ZX-Spectrum demos and game loaders. I did graphics at ZX-Spectrum and did it by hands, using a joystik to recreate my favourite pictures "pixel by pixel". It was like a competition - who would recreate the coolest pictures without using a scanner.

When demomaking started to bore me, I started spending more time learning and creating music and visuals directly.

In 1995 I got an AMIGA computer. It was amazing! For the first time I could record 4-track music. Later, I got my first professional synthesiser, an AlesisQS6. So KLUtCh as a character was born in 1997.

Straightaway, something inside me starting to say very agressively that I wanted to be a musician, a writer, a photographer, a video artist.

The following album by KLUtCh was "8 bit freehand beat", where I published the best of what I did and wrote in 2001, using my texts for the first time for the design of the CD sleeve.

I got a a lot of positive feedback from listeners and readers, especially listeners around the world and especially about the track "Strochnik".

And I again I told myself - I wish to be and I shall be one of the most interesting persons of this and the next century. And if I become successful I will help the people who are not understood or accepted in society. I think a lot of people who reach success forget about what they wanted at the start. You need to make it by yourself, but there must be support from people like you. I believe in this.

And sometime rises the main question: - I really don't need all this! Who needs my existence or anything I do here?

But each time, a short while after having thought all this, I go back and make music and visuals.

Do you draw inspiration from artists who don't work in your branch, and if so: who, and why/how?

In video they are - Chris Cunningham, Aronofsky Darren, David Fincher and Lynch as directors – These people create exciting pictures, I am very much inspired by them. But at that moment I am more a VJ than a director. The main things I love in their videos - ideas, well shot & edited, the emotional contents of the pictures and a lot of technical things as well. Cunningham's "FLEX" is my favourite. "Fight Club" by Fincher is another favourite.

In literature : Ayn Rand (Alisa Rosenbaum) , Philip K Dick, - Stanislav Lem, , G. Garrisson.

In music: - R.D.James, Mouse on Mars.... I didn't know these people when I started to write music, but I feel connected to them.

Any specific audience or public you want to reach? why?

I really want my creativity to influence all manner of audiences and publics.

Today I have 10 albums out. They are all different in terms of ideas and sound realisation. But..

All my music and videos are me. The Musical tracks of each successive album continue a certain idea of a previous album. It is my life, my feelings, my fears and desires, it is a sculpture of my essence and it is like a fractal. People can share something of it, I know.

What's your biggest fear regarding your artistic work?

I don't think about my work only. I think about culture and art as a whole.

I am very afraid of censorship and a possible attack by the powers that be on freedom of expression.

Does your art relate to any political, social or spiritual conceptions you may have?

The hard question. Really. At that moment I can't fully answer on this question in the English language. I think my art and music convey more of my personal feelings than political or social conceptions. Mostly, my art is just Me.

And one thing is true - most independent music & art are freedom itself.

In spite of all the compromises made necessary by this our modern world, would you say that you are faithful to yourself?

YES. I know what i say.

More music by KLUtCh: http://www.discogs.com/artist/KLUtCh

2006-09-19T13:57:00.000-07:00

Video Art by KLUtCh

wheeled leftovers

2006-09-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

Mighty Big Ben Myers (seen here "summoning the force" ) is selling his car. Awright?

PBHP 3 contents

2006-09-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

Dear all

PBHP 3 is now in the graphic designing stage. Not knowing exactly how long that stage will be, here's a suggestion of the delights that await you:

A Jataka Tale, as retold by Tom Bradley

Two Poems by Matt Finney

What Would You Do? By Fern Bryant

True lives of Hollywood script writers, by Bob Short

Davy Coppelli, by Heidi James-Garwood

Lost Sock Circus by Lauren McCarthy

The Royal We by Peter Wild

Not here when they get here (leipzig) , by Matthew Wascovich

Free Particulars, by The Anonymous-Ex

Etre et devenir

2006-09-08T07:23:00.000-07:00

Sein und Werden, exciting literary fanzine received a few weeks ago and come back to ever since. Rachel Kendall and Spyros Heniadis edit this zine, the print incarnation of an intriguing Webzine, out of Manchester. The paper and web contents are different and complementary. We like the DIY look of the print version, evocative of guerilla/ghetto publishing actions in which we believe. In this promising first issue, Jesus was a Salvation Eater, by Jessica Daigle Virdine, and The Things you Find by the River especially caught our attention. But the discriminating reader (that old bastard) is certain to find something suited to their literary cravings in this diverse yet coherent issue, which sports the colours of a special brand of surrealism / existentialism.
Find how to order and subscribe here.

Bob Short

2006-07-13T03:23:00.001-07:00

We're excited to announce that Bob Short's new book, Trash Can will be launched July 16 by Independent Jones Books (www.independencejones.com).

Five months later

2006-07-10T01:52:00.000-07:00

life being what it is...

we're back and aching to release PBHP n°3
there's still some room so send your submissions (see guidelines) to parisbitterheartspit AT gmail.com

cheers

vim

Godspeed BLATT

2006-02-02T11:55:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow evening, 3rd February, in Prague will see the launch of BLATT, a new
international publishing initiative, under the auspices of publisher
Miro Peraica and Anagram Books.

Rising from the ashes of the defunct Prague Literary Review, editors
Joshua Cohen and Travis Jeppesen (pictured below with writer Guillaume Destot) have once again teamed up with art
director Mario Dzurila to produce a bi-monthly review featuring a
mixture of literature, art, and ideas.

In addition to the magazine, the first titles in a BLATT BOOKS
publishing imprint will be hitting the shelves this spring.

The Prague launch party will begin promptly at 8pm at Café Metropole,
Anny Letenske 18, in the Vinohrady district; an invitation may be
downloaded from the website at www.blatt.cz .

A New York launch party is being planned for March 2006.

Here at PBHP we were fans of the Prague Literary Review so we're really looking forward to Blatt.

Travis Jeppesen, right, eating a traditional French dish.

Leah Hayes

2006-01-29T13:32:00.000-08:00

Ballpen is dangerous. It's a doer's weapon, a subversion of a piece of school equipment. Can you have second thoughts with a ball pen? Can you regret? It's not about how, and yet it is all about how. Using this tool is a testimonial to the secondariness of the tool and yet look at what a difference it makes.
Leah Hayes is a dark child with unnatural talent. The sophistication of her faces, her shadings, side by side with (falsely, of course) naive, tacky, superherofairytalebirthdayparty banners and lettering, the awkward kind, the kind you scribbled when you customised your first t shirt. And the eavesdrop-like inner captions that throw it all askew, ill, they scream to me, they entertain the way I want to be. The twins with unhealthy looking eyelids and too many teeth. Celluloid families and chubby children, red-black cheeks hard as a ballpoint, precisely.
A permanent dance of dubious tenderness and grinning faces: are they so confident in the future fun and the big novel? Leah digs deep in the cheap paper of her notebooks and carves the faces and textures down down the skin of your eyeball and then a casual awkward line to finish off that sleeve, because who gives a fuck? And colour - ah yes Bacon is still too close, body still too warm but...

Leah Hayes's website.

PBHP in Dublin

2006-01-10T11:06:00.000-08:00

PBHP # 2 now available in Dublin, Republic of Ireland from Anthology Books, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar.

2006-01-03T15:14:00.000-08:00

white heather compromise
##5

Tony O'Neill online

2006-01-03T14:56:00.000-08:00

Tony O'neill's brand new website now online . Full of links to poems and stories published in various online zines (3 AM Magazine, Laura Hird's showcase, Lit Vision...) as well as details of ONeill's print publications, public appearances, you name it. Also an exciting section about O'Neill's experience in various bands, among which Kenickie and the Brian Jonestown Massacre.

In case you hadn't noticed, Tony O'Neill's MATTERS so go educate yourself.

PBHP in situ

2005-12-21T02:08:00.000-08:00

PBHP @ The Bowery Poetry Club, NYC:

PBHP @ McNally Robinson, NYC:

Pics courtesy of Tony O'Neill

Coming soon: Andy Bullock's new project

2005-12-19T03:34:00.000-08:00

Outlet update: NYC

2005-12-17T15:10:00.000-08:00

PBHP #2 now available in New York City from :

The Bowery Poetry Club

308 Bowery @ Bleecker, (right across from CBGB's)
New York, NY

McNally Robinson NYC

50 Prince St. (between Lafayette and Mulberry)
New York, NY

Special thanks to Tony O'Neill.

The Savage Kick

2005-12-17T03:02:00.000-08:00

The Savage Kick literary magazine, issue 2, includes texts by Joe R. Lansdale, Peter Wollman, Zsolt Alapi, Tony O'Neill and Doug Stanhope. Art by Richard Watts.

you've been warned...

2005-12-11T06:49:00.000-08:00

The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit #2 out now

available from Shakespeare and Company bookstore, Paris, and soon in London, New York, Santiago...mail order: 5 euros including shipping (send us an e-mail)

Contents:
Matt Thorne - extract from his forthcoming novel, Privacy
Paul Ewen - The Albert, Westminster
Lee Rourke - Mother and Son
Tony O'Neill - 1319 Iris Circle #3
Rositza Pironska - The Desert
Richard Cabut - Stevie Spealks in Tongues
Jacob Sam-La Rose - Three Poems

With exclusive signed, numbered colour print of Andy Bullock's "God Bless America"
Design: Nicolas Vitte

Special thanks to Andrew Gallix, Nicolas Vitte, Andy Bullock.

The Raveonettes...

2005-10-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

New album, Pretty in Black, especially "Ode to L.A.", a Motown feel to it, Ronnie Spector as guest vocalist. Listen here.
An exciting mix of doo-wop, retro garage rock with tons of reverb, old school country ballads, synthetic beats behind apparently naive 50s rock ditties. Sometimes like the Ramones, only much more sophisticated, and much more female.

Blastitude

2005-09-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

Interesting zine from Chicago, with notably an interesting small press reviews section.
Check'em out!

News from the Cleveland underground front

2005-09-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

A benefit party for the "fair trade artzine" took place on 23rd september at the inside/outside art gallery in Tremont, Cleveland; it also saw the opening of "viva libre books & music", located in the aforementioned gallery.

Several bands performed: JJ Magazine (featured first from top), New Lou Reeds (featured second from top) and "A Real Knife Head", the latter featuring Slowtoe publications and records' Matthew Wascovich (featured last).

Devendra Banhart surprise gig

2005-09-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight Wednesday 28th September 5:45 pm to 6:45 pm, Place de la Bourse, Paris
Free!

The D4

2005-09-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

Remember "Get Loose"?
The D4 have a myspace, with 4 songs on it, here.

Music update

2005-09-22T14:27:00.001-07:00

Weekends and Bleak Days, by the Young Knives (photographed above by someone). Listen here.

The Decemberists are more fun than we first thought they were, and they have a fondness for looking stupid on press photos, which can only be endearing to us(see example below). Incidentally, their record is not bad at all. Also they have a cool website.

Louis XIV - mentioned before in these columns. Like most bands now, they have a MySpace with stuff on it.

Digging Tony O'Neill

2005-09-09T12:13:00.000-07:00

Tony O'Neill's book, Digging the Vein, is now available from Amazon here. Tony is one of the great writers featured in the coming issue of the Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, and he has led, as far as I know, quite an eventful life so far. This, mixed with his obvious literary talents should (I say should because, let's be honest, I haven't read the book yet) make for exciting reading, as they said in Victorian times, when sideburns were all the necessary and sufficient qualifications for reviewing books in a professional, profitable way. And I shoud know, as I sport, these days, the most respectable, 19th century sideburns, gracefully arching down to below my double chin.

Where was I? Yes, Tony O'Neill. Buy his book now.
Read one of Tony's stories on the mighty 3 AM Magazine here.

Scarecrow event

2005-09-09T04:15:00.000-07:00

The excellent blog cum litzine Scarecrow will be launching the paper version of their mag at their first Shindig, on 14th September at S.M.E.R.S.H. bar in London. Accordingly to reliable sources, shemales will be revealing their true identity to overweight temulent men with wallets like grenades, spoken word will be uttered from under hoods, special music inflicted, and further similarly refined debauchery will be indulged in. A great outing for the boys and the girls, in other, more mundane words.

Big Words at the Pineapple

2005-09-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

If you're in London, don't miss "Big Words at the Pineapple" -- a spoken word gig with Matt Thorne, who will probably be reading from his work-in-progress, and Ewan Morrison, a "Scottish purveyor of erudite filth" according to Arena. I haven't read Morrison yet, but I enjoyed the following quotes: "In the absence of any greater goals, sex is as good a reason as any to get out of bed in the morning and, I guess, an even better reason to get back there at night"; "We're public-sector people cast adrift in a private-sector world; dreamers who can't access how to be happy".

It's on Sunday 18 September at The Pineapple: 51 Leverton Road, London NW5. Doors open at 8pm and admission is free. (Pic: Matt Thorne at 3:AM's Xmas 2003 gig by Andrew Gallix).

Don't miss the next issue of PBHP, with an exclusive extract from Matt Thorne's novel in progress.
This story , courtesy of Andrew Gallix, first appeared in Buzzwords.

Discoteeth bares its fangs

2005-09-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the cheap pun, but Discoteeth have a brand new website, and are revealing exciting ambitions. Shendyl Movedo is probably the coolest chronicler of the Paris indie scene, in case you didn't know.

Prague Literary Review n°4

2005-08-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

Issue 4 of the Prague Literary Review is available now. This issue includes exclusive interviews with renegade authors Michael Brodsky and Peter Sotos, as well as new work by both; poetry by Clark Coolidge, Vernon Frazer, Maria Karo, Geoffrey McCarthy, Rositza Pironska, Stephen Rodefer, Martin Solotruk, and Davide Trame. The artist of issue 4 is Prague-based painter Jeremiah Palecek.
They also have a beautiful new image, a new logo, and a new website, http://www.pragueliteraryreview.com where you can purchase copies of the latest issue and subscribe (via Paypal.)

Ricardo Vega's second solo exhibition

2005-08-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

Ricardo Vega, the beloved designer of issue 1 of PBHP, invites you to "Micrografic 1.0", his 2nd solo exhibition. He will show 50 small size personal and commercial artworks (digital illustration, collages, designs for magazines, books, press , etc), created between 2000 and 2005, as well as an interactive visual ans sound installation in the hall.

The opening date is August 30, 19:30 hrs, in the School of Visual Arts & Photography Gallery, UNIACC, Av. Salvador (alt 1200) with los Jesuitas, Santiago, Chile.

Invitation by:Faculty of Architecture, Design, Art and Decoration,
UNIACC
Organized by: School of Graphis Design &amp; Multimedia

More info:
UNIACC; 640 6148
Ricardo Vega:info@ricardov.cl, 09 6710918, www.ricardov.cl

Franz Ferdinand's new single

2005-08-27T02:37:00.000-07:00

Listen to it here.

Camelia Ashbach live, twice.

2005-08-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

Indie rock pop band from Paris Camelia Ashbach will play two gigs next week:

Tuesday 30 Aug.: Le Charming, Paris 14, 9 pm (acoustic)
Wednesday 31 Aug., Abracadabar, Paris 19, 9 pm (electric)

More detail on their website.

New outlets for PBHP

2005-08-25T02:37:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Andrew Stevens, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit is now also available for free in London at the two following places:

The Institute of Contemporary Arts (a.k.a. the ICA), The Mall, London
Filthy Macnasty's Whiskey Cafe, 68 Amwell Street, London EC1,

So go there now and grab one if you're real.

evening statement

2005-08-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

Beat Poetry anyone? / Route Magazine

2005-08-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

Sore Throat's "Always Choking on Something" and "Dedicated to the Dedicated" online at Route magazine here. It's spoken word with a background of electro.

Route Magazine started in January 2005 and is an original publishing project:

"Route is a cultural organisation and a home for contemporary story telling and ideas. Route runs a paperback publishing programme of fiction and performance poetry and this is supported by Route-online, which presents byteback books for download, performance recordings and an online gallery, as well as news, views and features."

Route magazine propose downloadable books they call Bytebacks; galleries and performances in mp 3 format. So check it out.