Photos from Letters from Yelena by Guy Mankowski launch party at Dance City















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kristen Pfaff biography: representation for it, my TEDx talk, its first chapter and who has become a part of it...

Image
Now being at the point where the first chapter of this book is finally out in the world it is remarkable to think I was first inspired to write a book about Kristen Pfaff from Hole when I read her mother Janet's book about her daughter's life (available  here ) and it contained excerpts from Kristen's diary. An entry in which she describes as a young girl having a conversation with the sea was perhaps the most beautiful piece of writing I've read and it probably began all this work. I have been working on it with Jason Pfaff after I got in touch with him. Jason gives his side of how we decided to work together on  this  podcast. One reason the book has taken longer to write than anyone might have expected is revelations about Pfaff from people who knew her are still being offered to me. However much I know about Kristen the more news about the book comes out the more people come to Jason and me to talk and open up about their recollections of her. Jason Pfaff and I h...
Read more

'Kristen Hovers At The Edge': Excerpt from 'I Know How To Live': The Life of Kristen Pfaff via 3AM Magazine

Image
This is the first chapter from  ‘I Know How To Live’: The Life of Kristen Pfaff  by Guy Mankowski  (with an afterword by Jason Pfaff). It’s 1993, and a teeming English summer afternoon. A crowd sways in front of the stage. The singer wears a guitar over her grey trench coat. Smoke flows through her hair as she waves her lit cigarette at the crowd. A man in the crowd shouts, with contempt, ‘she’s dyed her hair!’ There’s a woman next to her in a black miniskirt, carrying a black bass with the confidence of one who treats it as an appendage. The black hair that obscures her face is somehow more convincing than that of the singer, who doesn’t look at her. The singer strums, her singing inaudible at first and the woman to her right winds her mike stand, plectrum in her mouth. There’s a sense of growing conviction about her. Ear-splitting feedback. A sense of occasion, the clenched body language of a band determined to prove themselves to this huge crowd at The Phoenix Festival...
Read more

'Our Past Sins Will One Day Knock On The Door And There'll Be Nothing We Can Do': Heath Ledger's Joker and The Jungian Shadow

Image
The capacity that narrative has to reveal psychological truths about human nature is often overlooked. To illustrate this point we will take a look at the character of The Joker in Batman. We are familiar with the idea of The Fool as an archetype.  In the Tarot deck is The Fool is also the character which takes us through the great mysteries of life, and that is worth bearing in mind in terms of what I’m about to say about The Joker. Historically the jester’s place in the court was as the one person who could speak the truth to the king (representing power) using comedy as a cover. In the Christopher Nolan directed film The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger’s character reveals some dark truths about reality and human nature. I think Nolan understands the archetypal power of the fool far more deeply than any other adaptors of the Batman story have. I’ll paste a couple of clips to show you what I mean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7LsBMA-rKg In the interrogat...
Read more