Lewis Crofts - MyBlog

Paris von Gütersloh

2009-10-26T17:21:00.002Z

One of Schiele's most stunning portraits is that of fellow painter Paris von Gütersloh.

To some, the symbolism can appear somewhat unsubtle. Von Gütersloh's portraint screams out his identity: in the hands which he holds up as the tools of his trade, and the vibrant colours which surround him.

But this is a Schiele painting. The hands bear Schiele's signature touches (pained, crooked, tormented, tortured, torturing) and the colours are not just any old paint, but burning yellow that surrounds him like a midday sun, rivaling Van Gogh's own yellow obsession.

Even Schiele can take these simple signifiers of paint and hands and transform them.

US film-maker Roy Allen has recently put together a short film on what might have happened on the day of the portrait. Watch below.

The Portrait from Roy Allen on Vimeo.

The Edifice Complex

2009-09-25T10:27:00.006Z

Yesterday, I read about a 394-metre glass phallus that has just been cleared for construction in the middle of that Russian jewel St Petersburg. It's going to be Gazprom's new pad (here).

But what the oligarchs of today are building, the leaders of the past have already built.

Looking at this, I recalled a couple of fascinating examples of architectural megalomania.

First up Lenin

And then this aria-singer on an oil field.

And lest we forget the heinous dictator of sweetcorn. Truly heinous.

Colombia on your doorstep

2009-03-31T16:06:00.003Z

Go to this. That's an order.

More Italy, More England

2009-03-07T20:19:00.001Z

Affaritaliani and Lestaret have a few things to say.

And I agree with all of them.

Italian wisdom

2009-02-21T09:25:00.003Z

A thoughtful blog posting and subsequent conversation on the PoV in Italy by some people clearly well-versed in art.

Click here to see Lankelot.eu

A Slice of Culture?

2008-11-05T22:23:00.002Z

Fancy a Slice of Culture? A Slice of Life? Well, then you'd do as well to pop by here.

A new blog on all things cultural by colleague and cultural firebrand Anna Jenkinson. Have a look. Go on. I dare you.

Viennese musings

2008-11-05T22:10:00.003Z

Sylvia Petter, an Australian writer based in Vienna and the author of Back Burning, has just published this review of the PoV. She certainly knows a thing or two about Vienna.

Have a look at her blog Merc's World here. And there is more on Back Burning here.

Pictures (in colour) & Words (in Italian)

2008-10-08T18:32:00.002Z

In Italy I met a delightful anglophile called Marilia Piccone, who interviewed me for the WUZ.it. In a bit of role reversal, I reckon it was more stimulating and engaging for the interviewee (me) than the interviewer (her)!

Not only has she written a review (here), but she's also published the interview (here) complete with a great choice of Schiele's works.

The Best Day of My Life

2008-10-05T13:09:00.006Z

A new anthology entitled "The Best Day of My Life" has just hit the shelves. It brings together a load of short stories by people like Phil "The Power" Taylor, Mike Gayle and Sophie Kinsella talking about - unsurprisingly - the best days of their lives were.

For a sneak preview, click here and you can read the moving story by James Corden (from Gavin and Stacey).

It's all for charity (The Sporting Chance Foundation), so put your hand in your pocket. Go on.

Also included are James Crossley (formerly 'Hunter' off Gladiators) and little me.

Caught in a spam filter

2008-10-04T12:20:00.003Z

Once again I've been caught in an email spam-filter... I should perhaps avoid inflammatory titles in the future.

Google is an unforgiving mistress.

Have a look at the Stuck in a Book blog.

Keeping a breast of Italian TV

2008-09-18T22:00:00.004Z

An Italian TV channel has broadcast this piece intercutting an interview with me with shots of Vienna and excerpts of a Schiele film from the 1980s. It involves some breasts. Not mine.

Get up at 3:AM

2008-09-15T20:20:00.006Z

The acclaimed webzine 3:AM has published this interview with me where I side-step the question about my next book by making a joke about sex in a chip-shop.

Lame and cowardly, I know.

Mamma Mia – 2

2008-09-15T19:26:00.004Z

Lorenza del Tosto has written an atmospheric piece here recounting a dense but delightful day in Rome with the pornographer and Egon.

And this from Leonardo Merlini, a fascinating journalist from APcom whose mind bubbles with all sorts of marvellous literary and philosphical connections. lewis_crofts.rtf

Mamma Mia

2008-09-04T20:18:00.011Z

I'm in Italy at the moment for the publication of Il pornografo di Vienna. As two millenia of civilisation and culture have shown, the Italians have a nose for art and sensuality. And I'm grateful.

Naples' major paper – Il Mattino – has published this piece on the book (see here), following a chat with the charming Santa di Salvo.

Also, La Reppublica has found space for Egon alongside Hemmingway and Shakespeare – which is kind of them. Read it for yourself in the language of love here.

Meanwhile, Tonino Bucci published this interview in Liberazione – replete with some novel questions on Schiele. Thanks to him as well for the valiant job of transcribing my blathering. See Liberazione%20review.pdf

Daniela Pizzagalli wrote this piece for Genoa's Il Secolo XIX (see here). A biographer in her own right, you can see Daniela's work here. Or read an interview with her here.

Not to forget Milan's Il Giornale which summed things up with delightful north Italian diligence here.

And if you're interested in Italian travel writing tips, then you'd do well to have a look at Messana 28 - look here.

Italian class

2008-08-02T19:51:00.003Z

There's something classy about Italy.

Even the title of my book sounds classier in Europe's most romantic tongue: Il pornografo di Vienna

It's out on 4 September, published by Marco Tropea, an imprint of Il Saggiatore.

Italy: it's all classy: opera, fashion, ancient history, art, scultpure, cuisine, architecture, poetry...a government with the longevity of a gadfly. Aaaah the class.

Schiele as Joy Division

2008-07-30T20:13:00.004Z

One of the most insightful blog postings on Schiele and his enduring - but alternative - charm can be found here.

Some choice cuts from Take Art:

"Sexuality burns through his paintings like a fever whereas Klimt has more of a satisfied glow. Schiele is a confrontational painter — his subjects looking straight at the viewer in a way that seems, to me at least, to be markedly different from how the people in Klimt’s paintings watch you, make you complicit in whatever they are doing, or mutely acknowledge you as some kind of voyeur.

"The figures are more angular, seem less comfortable. Schiele’s work seems less rooted in a kind of bourgeois bohemia and as a result escapes the trap of history that some of his contemporaries are burdened with. His work is very modern and by that I mean that it still seems fresh and full of vitality, a leanness of stroke and effortless conversion of thought and movement into image.

You look at one of his paintings and you can hardly imagine him over-working a piece (I speculate here, he may have been as troubled in his process as everyone else; his life hardly seems to have been perfect). There is an immediacy to the work though, and whereas Klimt might fit nicely with some smooth cocktail jazz Schiele always made me think of Joy Division.

Read Porn. Eat Chocolate

2008-07-18T08:14:00.003Z

This is the advice of Salena Godden, poet, writer and half of the feisty SaltPeter, a ska-drum-n-bass-breakbeat duo, which you can lap up here.

She is currently researching a piece on erotic film-makers, which involves some groin-numbing hours of DVD watching. Read her blog here.

To counterbalance the filth, she took up a copy of the Pornographer of Vienna and some organic chocolate.

Much more than Marquez

2008-07-09T21:28:00.004Z

Columbia, the nation of Shakira, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alvaro Mutis and
Gregorio Vázquez Arce y Ceballos and so much more... so much more

Like the sound of it, but can't get enough because you're stuck in London?

Well, you're in luck. Click here for a taste of the modern post-Marquez Columbia. I promise no Shakira. My hips don't lie.

To support Columbiage 08, a festival for contemporary Columbian culture, keep an eye on this.

Liverpool: Klimt & Redmond

2008-07-06T11:08:00.008Z

Antonia, a friend of mine, has been up to Liverpool which is currently one of Europe's 'Capitals of Culture' and is hosting a Gustav Klimt exhibition and the Tate Liverpool. I've heard from some that it is phenomenal, while others, notably Waldemar Januszczak in The Times, doesn't think so.

Anyway, I'm grateful to Antonia for doing a bit of PR work for the Pornographer of Vienna. It seems, however, she might not have needed to.

Read her posting 'Totally Starstruck' here and learn about Phil Redmond.

And if you are interested in what Phil Redmond thinks of Liverpool, look here.

The Prague Revue is back!

2008-06-29T18:49:00.004Z

Prague's literary journal, The Prague Revue, has been relaunched.

After a hiatus of a few years, edition number 8 is out, and features work by Ivan Klima, Jay Rubin, Gerald Turner and some waste of editorial space called Lewis Crofts.

Click here and support an important publication in one of Europe's most important cultural centres.

A Rotted Pit in a Peach

2008-06-28T18:42:00.004Z

This is the kind of imagery I like. It's not mine. It's this lady's. GimmeBackMyCoat.

Click here for her journal and a lyrical description of the hollow feeling that you have when finishing a book.

The Shropshire Star

2008-06-14T18:23:00.003Z

Shropshire, the county of numerous stars: Charles Darwin, Clive of India, Wilfred Owen and... wait for it... T'Pau (picture right).

And it is also the county of the Shropshire Star which has recently published this article. Click here.

Flattery gets you everywhere

2008-06-14T12:52:00.001Z

The most insightful and respected blog in the literary community – Uncool – has produced this long-awaited analysis of the cross-over of writing and aesthetics. Click here.

It is to be applauded...and is proof that flattery gets you everywhere.

3 for 2: choose well

2008-06-01T18:03:00.005Z

The dilemma: the PoV is released this week in pocket paperback format and will be available in the '3 for 2' offer at Waterstones.

But if you get your mum and dad a copy each, what to do with the third one? Oh, the choice, I hear you cry through cyber-hell. Oh, the dilemma of variety. Oh, the onus of selection... whatever. Well, some ideas:

1) a sacred text as the basis for a polygamous cult in a Norfolk enclave
2) slip inside a Mills&Boon cover and give it to your gran
3) give to that guy in the tight trousers who smiles at you in the tube
4) a fire-lighter for a sacrificial pyre in your back-garden
5) grind down with extract of thyme and use as a cure for baldness
6) douse in petrol and hurl through a library window
7) reading

Any other suggestions, write them on the back of a copy of the book and send them to my enclave in Norfolk.

Ich bin ein ExBerliner

2008-05-10T17:28:00.004Z

...as Kennedy is probably saying now.

The Berlin magazine ExBerliner has published a review of my book and an interview in this month's edition. If you haven't had enough of me already, please go click here.

I am also off to Berlin later this month (28 May) to give a reading at Kaffee Burger at 9.00pm. Do come along. I'll be the lanky bloke at the front with a book on his lap.

If you can't bring your tired finger to click on the magazine itself, here are a few tit-bits.

"This is the ultimate introduction: perceptive, comprehensive, and so evocative of the decadence and decay that marked turn-of-the-century Vienna that the streets and cafés seem to etch-a-sketch themselves onto the pages, a kind of literary biopic."

"Lewis Crofts brilliantly explores Schiele's fascination with female forms, starting with that of his sister, and their metamorphosis into symbols of patrician sanctimony. These sections of the novel are mesmerizing and come close to echoing the morbidity of writers such as Joseph Roth."