Aug 9, 2005
BOOK REVIEW The Devil’s Broker: Seeking Gold, God and Glory in Fourteenth-Century Italy, by Frances Stonor Saunders, Fourth Estate Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence, by Tim Parks, Atlas Books, WW Norton From Heaven to Arcadia: The Sacred and the Profane in the Renaissance, by Ingrid D. Rowland, New York Review Books… Read more
Aug 4, 2005
Two poems published in nthposition Neighbourhood watched Warm rain rises from the high street. Buggy wheels plough through cabbage shells that once were green. Above the sky hurries away on business of its own. We’re safe here for the moment. We’re free to evade each other, darting into shops, eating sandwiches… a humming sound permeates… Read more
Jun 30, 2005
Dylan’s deal with Starbucks is no surprise The Guardian, 30 June “One more cup of coffee before I go / To the valley below…” Will Starbucks customers be dwelling on death’s incoming darkness as they sip their mocha frappacinos and listen to Bob Dylan? Clearly, the corporation is confident that its appeal can withstand even… Read more
May 28, 2005
The Guardian, 28 May Review of Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads by Greil Marcus On the eve of its 40th birthday, “Like a Rolling Stone”, Bob Dylan’s splendidly splenetic six-minute rock’n’roll hit, sounds fresher than any number of more recent chart successes. Tantalisingly mysterious yet brutally plain spoken, mean-spirited and deeply… Read more
Feb 4, 2005
Two poems published in Magma, February 2005 Friend at large Alan swings his bat-detector in self-defence. On their toes, humans creep in the penumbra cast by a lantern perched on his skull. Its beam rises over the Lea Valley like a klieg light, catching wildlife in its glare, setting creatures free – to hover on… Read more
Feb 1, 2005
The Guardian, February 2005 ‘Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie’ by Ed Cray, Norton, £18.99 Review by Mike Marqusee Had Woody Guthrie not been cremated, his spirit surely would have erupted from the grave in the early hours of 3rd November, as Republicans celebrating Bush’s re-election in Washington bellowed out his anthem,… Read more
Nov 1, 2004
Red Pepper, November 2004 From movie theatres to music arenas, popular culture is proving a major battleground in the presidential election. Bruce Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks and Pearl Jam have been touring the swing states and ‘rockin’ the vote’. The gigs are packed but there’s a debate about just what effect any of it has…. Read more
Oct 27, 2004
As the world focuses on the US presidential election, Americans focus on the World Series, the best-of-seven game competition to determine the champions of Major League Baseball. To European ears it’s always smacked of arrogance. How can a “world series” be contested among teams entirely drawn from one country – the USA (plus Montreal and… Read more
Oct 16, 2004
The Guardian, 16 October Mike Marqusee reviews Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan “I went though it from cover to cover like a hurricane. Totally focussed on every word, and the book sang out to me like the radio.” Thus Bob Dylan, forty five years after the event, recalls a formative moment in modern popular… Read more
Oct 1, 2004
India Today Travel Plus, October 2004 Don’t go to Sicily expecting the civilised charms of Tuscany or the aesthetic refinement of the great Renaissance capitals. This is a different world, haunted by a past of great antiquity, riddled with tragedy. Here the boundaries between east and west, Europe and Africa, Christian and Muslim are blurred…. Read more
