Part of an irregular series where one of the three of us will share interesting and frequently extraordinary articles we’ve found on the Internet (Rosabel also posted all the good articles here, two months ago). Huddle in and read up, all! The Limits Of Fuck You by Chris Ott | Shallow Rewards (June 2011) You can find an okay piece on who Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (aka: Oh Fuck Will God Kill These Animals) are via a Google search — be told […]

As sent to a television station in Florida seeking a part-​time studio camera operator. Fuck human resources, professional templates, and qualifications. This is how it’s done. Hilarious and actually awfully poignant (“FILE BANK RUPP….No DAGREE”). If I owned some sort of business that could afford to fly him over to NZ and set him up, I’d employ him at the drop of a hat.

…I had only just slunk into a heavy, doleful sleep, fuelled on wine and Citalopram. I dreamt I was making the downhill descent into town on my bike, when this deafening bell rang behind me. I peeked around to see what, or who it was, couldn’t see a thing, turned to face forward. The second time it tolled, there was a snot-​green flash and I spun my whole bike around in a long, floating arc. I tumbled forward, flailed for a bit, and the third time I had the face of […]

American comic artist Charles Burns’s new project, X’ed Out, is only a volume deep but already utterly compelling — merging the exotica of Hergé’s classic Tintin with a painful eye on the 1980s hardcore scene Burns himself came of age in and a heavy dose of psychological horror to boot. Hergé’s work was bootlegged around the world — cheap photocopied replicas for remote markets, sometimes even adapting and appropriating the art for risqué purposes. Extending the homage, Burns has decided to ‘bootleg’ X’ed Out himself as Johnny 23. […]

A selection of gorgeous book inscriptions, courtesy of The Book Inscriptions Project — feat. bonus burn by Amy Sedaris

When I was much younger, I would eagerly devour the comic strip anthologies I found in second-​hand book stores or public libraries. I would hustle and save pocket money, guffaw in the privacy of my little bedroom, try to replicate the characters on tracing paper, try and create my own. None of this was especially distinguished or selective, because lonely 8-​year old boys consume their cartoons much the same way lonely 28-​year old men consume their pornography — omnivorous, voracious, and none too picky. I’ve kept […]

Last week, I published the first part of my interview with Flying Nun founder Roger Shepherd for 1972. In the final part, we talk about those rough n’ ready early days of Flying Nun, how close at least one of the bands came to being the next My Bloody Valentine (or at least, a big deal on the same UK label) — and a tough question has to be posed — did Roger know what he was doing half the time?… PP: Even by the standards of this […]

All night I lay on my pillow and pray For my boss to stop me in the hallway Rest his head on my shoulder and say “Son, I’ve been hearing good things” — The National, ‘Baby, We’ll Be Fine’ (keyposes.tumblr.com has all the photos of John Key)

The Race That is Not About Winning by Mark Oppenheimer | The Believer (April, 2011) I’m not a fan of Michael Cera. I don’t hate him, but I don’t like him. Okay, I liked François, his character’s alter ego in Youth in Revolt, and I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen his Two Ferns interview with Zach Galifianakis, but most of the time I can’t stand him, with his squeaky soft-​spokenness and his endearingly nervous banter, and I’ve tended to dismiss him as a sort of pre-​puberty Jesse Eisenberg. But after reading Mark Oppenheimer’s […]

Back in February I had a chance to sit down and catch up with Roger Shepherd for a feature in Barkers’ new lifestyle mag/​look book 1972. The rest of the publication is well worth picking up too, with original writing from Steve Kilgallon, Gavin Bertram, Aaron Yap and Shayne Carter. Shepherd, for those who don’t know, is the founder of Flying Nun Records, whose musical and visual aesthetic became one of our main exports to a number of other fertile cultural undergrounds in the […]