Fragile Things Neil Gaiman

 

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders is a collection of short stories and poetry by English author Neil Gaiman. It was published in the US and UK in 2006 by HarperCollins and Headline Review.

Most of the stories in this book are reprints from other sources: magazines, anthologies, and even CD sleeves.

Gaiman says in the introduction that the original title for the collection was These People Ought to Know Who We Are and Tell That We Were Here, after a word balloon in a Little Nemo in Slumberland strip. This exact line also appears in the text for the included short story "Bitter Grounds".

Contents

• "The Mapmaker" – a very short story included in the book's introduction, originally written for American Gods
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• "A Study in Emerald" – a Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu Mythos pastiche written for the anthology Shadows Over Baker Street
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• "The Fairy Reel" – a short lyric poem
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• "October in the Chair" – dry run for The Graveyard Book, inspired by the work of Ray Bradbury
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• "The Hidden Chamber" – gothic poem about Bluebeard for the anthology Outsiders
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• "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire" – gothic story published in the anthology Gothic!
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• "The Flints of Memory Lane" – a real life ghost story
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• "Closing Time" – a club story / ghost story inspired by M. R. James and Robert Aickman
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• "Going Wodwo" – a poem about a wild man in the woods for the anthology The Green Man
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• "Bitter Grounds" – written for the anthology Mojo: Conjure Stories
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• "Other People" – originally titled Afterlife
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• "Keepsakes and Treasures: A Love Story" – began as a comic for Oscar Zarate's collection, It's Dark in London illustrated by Warren Pleece. Contains the characters Mr. Alice and Mr. Smith, a pair of dubious men who also appeared in a Gaiman novella called The Monarch of the Glen, suggesting that this tale is a part of the American Gods universe as well.
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• "Good Boys Deserve Favors" – inspired by a statue by Lisa Snellings-Clark of a man holding a double bass
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• "The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch" – inspired by a painting by Frank Frazetta of a savage woman flanked by tigers. Not present in the British paperback from Headline Review.
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• "Strange Little Girls" – twelve very short stories to accompany Tori Amos's CD Strange Little Girls
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• "Harlequin Valentine" – written for Strange Attraction, a book based on a Ferris wheel made by Lisa Snellings-Clark
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• "Locks" – a conversational poem editing the tale of Goldilocks
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• "The Problem of Susan" – written for the anthology Flights by Al Sarrantonio, written in response to the character Susan in Narnia
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• "Instructions" – a poem giving instructions about what to do when you find yourself in a fairy tale, later republished as a picture book
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• "How Do You Think It Feels?" – story inspired by gargoyles, in this case protecting the heart. Not present in the British paperback from Headline Review
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• "My Life" – a monologue written to accompany a picture of a sock monkey in the photography book Sock Monkeys by Arne Svenson
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• "Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot" – not present in the British paperback from Headline Review
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• "Feeders and Eaters" – based on a nightmare of Neil Gaiman's, it first took the form of a comic and later the outline for a pornographic horror film
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• "Diseasemaker's Croup" – written for the book The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts
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• "In the End" – imagined as the last book of the Bible. Not present in the British paperback from Headline Review.
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• "Goliath" – set in the Matrix universe and included with The Matrix Comics Vol. 1
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• "Pages from a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, Kentucky" – written for the album Scarlet's Walk, by Tori Amos
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• "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" – nominated for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Short Story and won the Locus Award for Best Short Story
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• "The Day the Saucers Came" - short narrative poem about the end of the world
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• "Sunbird" – written as a birthday present for Neil Gaiman's daughter, a story in the style of R. A. Lafferty
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• "Inventing Aladdin" – a poem depicting the invention of stories, in this case, Aladdin
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• The Monarch of the Glen – a novella-length sequel to Gaiman's novel American Gods inspired by Beowulf and set in remote areas of Scotland

The four stories not included in the British edition are included in the British edition of Smoke and Mirrors.

Strange Little Girls Tori Amos

 

Strange Little Girls is a concept album released by singer-songwriter Tori Amos in 2001. 

The album's 12 tracks are covers of songs written and originally performed by men, reinterpreted by Amos from a female point of view. 

Amos created female personae for each track (one song featured twins) and was photographed as each, with makeup done by Kevyn Aucoin. 

In the United States the album was issued with four alternative covers depicting Amos as the characters singing

 "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", 

"Strange Little Girl",

 "Time", 

and "Raining Blood". 

A fifth cover of the "I Don't Like Mondays" character was also issued in the UK and other territories.

 Text accompanying the photos and songs was written by novelist Neil Gaiman. 

The complete short stories in which this text appears can be found in Gaiman's 2006 collection Fragile Things.

Additionally, Amos later acknowledged that she had attempted to reinterpret four other songs that she "couldn't find her way into." 

They were 

"Fear of a Black Planet" by Public Enemy, 

"Hoover Factory" by Elvis Costello, 

"I'm Sick of You" by Iggy Pop

 and "Marlene Dietrich's Favorite Poem" by Peter Murphy. 

These tracks have not been released. 

She also mentioned later in a 2012 interview that, with drummer Matt Chamberlain, she had recorded "Growin' Up" by Bruce Springsteen for this album, but it has also not been released although she has played it live.

Track listing

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Original artist	Length
1.	"New Age"	Lou Reed	The Velvet Underground	4:37
2.	"'97 Bonnie & Clyde"	Marshall Mathers, Jeff Bass, Mark Bass	Eminem	5:46
3.	"Strange Little Girl"	Brian Duffy, Dave Greenfield, Hans Wärmling, Hugh Cornwell, Jean-Jacques Burnel	The Stranglers	3:50
4.	"Enjoy the Silence"	Martin Gore	Depeche Mode	4:10
5.	"I'm Not in Love"	Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman	10cc	5:39
6.	"Rattlesnakes"	Lloyd Cole, Neil Clark	Lloyd Cole and the Commotions	3:59
7.	"Time"	Tom Waits	Tom Waits	5:23
8.	"Heart of Gold"	Neil Young	Neil Young	4:00
9.	"I Don't Like Mondays"	Bob Geldof	The Boomtown Rats	4:21
10.	"Happiness Is a Warm Gun"	John Lennon, Paul McCartney	The Beatles	9:55
11.	"Raining Blood"	Jeff Hanneman, Kerry King	Slayer	6:22
12.	"Real Men"	Joe Jackson	Joe Jackson	4:07
Total length:				62:09

Thomas Chatterton

 Thomas Chatterton (20 November 1752 – 24 August 1770) was an English poet whose precocious talents ended in suicide at age 17. 

He was an influence on Romantic artists of the period such as Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge.

On 24 August 1770, he retired for the last time to his attic in Brook Street, carrying with him the arsenic, which he drank after tearing into fragments whatever literary remains were at hand. 

He was 17 years and nine months old.

There has been some speculation that Chatterton may have taken the arsenic as a treatment for a venereal disease, as it was commonly used for such at that time

Antonin Artaud

 

Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud  4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director.

He is widely recognized as a major figure of the European avant-garde.

 In particular, he had a profound influence on twentieth-century theatre through his conceptualization of the Theatre of Cruelty.

Known for his raw, surreal and transgressive work, his texts explored themes from the cosmologies of ancient cultures, philosophy, the occult, mysticism and indigenous Mexican and Balinese practices.

In 1943, when France was occupied by the Germans and Italians, Robert Desnos arranged to have Artaud transferred to the psychiatric hospital in Rodez, well inside Vichy territory, where he was put under the charge of Dr. Gaston Ferdière.^[

At Rodez Artaud underwent therapy including electroshock treatments and art therapy.

 The doctor believed that Artaud's habits of crafting magic spells, creating astrology charts, and drawing disturbing images were symptoms of mental illness.

 Artaud, at his peak began lashing out at others.

 Artaud denounced the electroshock treatments and consistently pleaded to have them suspended, while also ascribing to them "the benefit of having returned him to his name and to his self mastery".

 Scholar Alexandra Lukes points out that "the 'recovery' of his name" might have been "a gesture to appease his doctors" conception of what constitutes health".

 It was during this time that Artaud began writing and drawing again, after a long dormant period.

In 1946, Ferdière released Artaud to his friends, who placed him in the psychiatric clinic at Ivry-sur-Seine.

Federico García Lorca

 

Frederico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca, was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. 

García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27, a group consisting mostly of poets who introduced the tenets of European movements (such as symbolism, futurism, and surrealism) into Spanish literature.

García Lorca was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. 

His remains have never been found, and the motive remains in dispute; some theorize he was targeted for being gay, a socialist, or both, while others view a personal dispute as the more likely cause.

Harry Crosby

 

Harry Crosby (June 4, 1898 – December 10, 1929) was an American heir, World War I veteran, bon vivant, poet, and publisher who for some epitomized the Lost Generation in American literature.

 He was the son of one of the richest banking families in New England, a Boston Brahmin, and the nephew of Jane Norton Grew, the wife of financier J. P. Morgan, Jr. 

Profoundly affected by his experience in World War I, Crosby vowed to live life on his own terms and abandoned all pretense of living the expected life of a privileged Bostonian

Crosby wrote and published poetry that dwelled on the symbolism of the sun and explored themes of death and suicide.

Crosby's life in Paris was at the crossroads of early 20th-century Paris literary and cultural life. He numbered among his friends some of the most famous individuals of the early 20th century, including Salvador Dalí, Ernest Hemingway, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

 Crosby  founded the Black Sun Press.

 It was the first to publish works by a number of struggling authors who later became famous, including James Joyce, Kay Boyle, Ernest Hemingway, Hart Crane, D. H. Lawrence, and René Crevel.

 Crosby died scandalously in his 31st year as part of a murder–suicide or suicide pact.

Crosby developed an obsessive fascination with imagery centering on the sun. 

His poetry and journals often focused on the sun, a symbol to him of perfection, enthusiasm, freedom, heat, and destruction. Crosby claimed to be a "sun worshiper in love with death."

 He often added a doodle of a "black sun" to his signature which also included an arrow, jutting upward from the "y" in Crosby's last name and aiming toward the center of the sun's circle: "a phallic thrust received by a welcoming erogenous zone."

Sylvia Plath

 

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American writer. 

She was most well known for her poetry, but she also wrote novels, children's books, short stories, book reviews, and newspaper articles. 

Her most well-known novel is The Bell Jar, which was partly based on her life. 

She married another famous poet, Ted Hughes. 

In 1963, Plath died by suicide at her London home. 

She sealed the room she was in with wet towels, turned the gas oven on and put her head inside the oven.

She died because she was poisoned by carbon monoxide gas.

 Some people think that she did not mean to kill herself

Dostoevsky

 

Dostoevsky claims to have considered himself a devout Orthodox Christian, but through his writing he shows that there may not be any real way to ultimately recompense the suffering of mankind. 

By leaving the question unanswered, he emphasizes the fact that suffering is a mystery that may not be cosmically resolved.

Dostoevsky's books are glimpses of such truth. 

They awaken the reader's desire for any concrete evidence that hope is not madness. 

No one has ever shown better how far our acts transcend our little conscious lives, how vital it is to live them lucidly, with clear eyes.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is one of the heavyweights of Russian Literature. 

The first reader of Dostoyevsky's deep tome will encounter many difficulties.

 But if you push through and overcome those difficulties, you will be endlessly rewarded.