Rather than commissioning pieces, the fourth issue of Beat the Dust was open to all writers to submit work. No theme – anything was considered. So, expect blasphemy, a gravedigger in Disneyland, Mark Ronson having sex with Lady GaGa on a piano, a dwarf pissing on dolphins, an actual message in a bottle thrown off the Isle of Wight Ferry and a child killer. Yep, it's creamy literary goodness, folks.
DF on Eugene O’Neill: O'Neill's frankness and raw emotion showed me that a writer can portray rage and love and brutal honesty and compassion in one scene.
Submission Date:
03 Apr 2009
Category:
Video
Title:
long day's journey into night
Excerpt:
A scene - Jamie's Confession - from the Sidney Lumet-directed film version of long day's journey into night. It was made in 1962, starring Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell.
DF on Bukowski: Bukowski's ability to say things with simplicity and expose the deeply personal, is brilliant. I had the opportunity to know Bukowski. He admired my father's work and visited him. Later, when I read his poems, it was helpful to my own work to have known him. The same holds true with Hubert Selby. I got to know 'Cubby' and I showed him my first novel. I've been lucky enough to have met three of my most important literary icons.
Submission Date:
03 Apr 2009
Category:
Video
Title:
the secret of my endurance
Excerpt:
A video clip of Charles Bukowski reading the secret of my endurance.
Boo Hewerdine is one of the UK’s best singer-songwriters, though tragically, as is often the case for underground creatives, most people will have never heard of him. His career began with the group he formed in the mid-Eighties, The Bible. Two of their finest songs, Graceland and Honey Be Good, came tantalisingly close to becoming huge hits. The first Boo Hewerdine solo album, Ignorance, was released in 1992, followed by Baptist Hospital in 1996 and Thanksgiving in 1998, both made with Nick Drake producer John Wood, and by Anon in 2002. Boo has written with and for other artists. In 1994, five songs Boo had written or co-written appeared on Eddi Reader’s Eddi Reader, triggering a parallel career with her that continues to this day. In 1989 he released an album, Evidence, in collaboration with the American country singer Darden Smith. Towards the end of the nineties he also began to write songs for and with pop artists, something he considers a completely separate endeavour. “I don’t think of myself in that world at all,” he explains. “It’s just I quite enjoy the Brill Building aspect. I enjoy it because it’s not what I do.” Amongst the many artists he has written for in this way are Natalie Imbruglia, Mel C and Alex Parks. Meanwhile, other songs of his had their own adventures. Baptist Hospital’s Last Cigarette, for instance, was covered by k d lang (as My Last Cigarette) on her smoking-themed album Drag. And in 2004 Boo was asked to re-record Thanksgiving’s Bell, Book And Candle for a climactic, award-winning death scene on the TV soap Emmerdale.
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Video
In Chap-book
Title:
footsteps fall
Excerpt:
Boo says of his lyrics, “with songs, the subject matter’s not the most important thing – I just like to pinpoint something. It’s more a feeling. You don’t have to be specific or breast-beating or anything like that. [Listeners] know what I’m talking about. I sometimes try to write a song about ridiculous things because I don’t think the subject matter is as important as the feeling. When it’s right, there’s a sense of something.”
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