Ceiling Gig And Nelson Algren

Seems like all the travelling Graham Elderson has done on London transport with his drums has started to pay off. I got a mail today announcing a gig in the salubrious surroundings of the Grey Horse Pub in Kingston Upon Thames on 20th June.

If anyone's in Kingston on June 20 - get in there and send me a report.

Nelson Algren

Been reading Nelson Algren's Who Lost An American? Dedicated to Simone De Beauvoir, it's made up of pieces originally published in Harlequin, Rogue, The Kenyon Review, Playboy, Atlantic Monthly, Contact, Nugget and Cavalier magazines. The pieces would have made a great blog.

"I must in all modesty point out that the quarter of a century that I've been writing I've learned a few tricks of the trade myself; such as making a dot over the i and adding an s when you want to show there's more than one of something.I was born in the same week that Stanley Ketchel fought Philadelphia Jack O'Brien and to this very day no one knows which one won.
I stood up and looked over at the next roof to see why the woman over there had stopped singing but she had just gone inside to cook something. It smelled like chicken with rice. I looked around for the rooster and he was gone. He should have stayed on his own roof."
The Bride Below the Black Coiffure - Rogue magazine 1961.

The Ketchel - O'Brien fight was on March 26 1909.

I started hunting down my copy of The Man With The Golden Arm but have only come up with Never Come Morning so I guess that'll have to do for the moment. I did find The Revolt Of Gunner Asch by Hans Hellmut Kirst and that was a bonus because I thought I'd re-read all the Kirst novels. Most of them are out of print now. If anyone's got a copy of Party Games ....