Author Archives: olivercraner

In the forward to his revised edition of The Greek Myths, written in Deya, Majorca, in 1960, Robert Graves sketched a theory:  I have had second thoughts about the drunken god Dionysus, about the Centaurs with their contradictory reputation for wisdom … Continue reading →

Outside history man is nothing. Benito Mussolini I In 1970 Bernardo Bertolucci filmed Alberto Moravia’s novel The Conformist and in the process sparked a row with his friend and mentor Jean-Luc Godard. Bertolucci had simultaneously preempted and stoked a hostile … Continue reading →

And he would shake his head, with the expression of someone who, should they wish to, could even understand such subtleties and complications, but who is just not minded to. Such tiny fine discriminations, intriguing and engaging as they might … Continue reading →

I want to go on fighting. Canto 72 In 1948, the year James Laughlin published The Pisan Cantos, Ezra Pound remained incarcerated in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a Federal Government asylum in Washington, having been found mentally unfit to stand trial … Continue reading →

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The European song contest is a big and beautiful holiday for some people but for others an occasion to organise political provocation. One must be prepared. Mehriban Aliyeva, First Lady of Azerbaijan. So, they built the Baku Crystal Hall on time. … Continue reading →

Judges, in general, are fuckers. Leonid Kuchma, President of Ukraine 1994 – January 2005. I: The Trial The trial of Yulia Tymoshenko reached a plateau with her arrest for contempt of court in early August. This had been a long time … Continue reading →

I: The House of Guli Guli Collections provided a minor if exotic diversion from the Donna Karan and Calvin Klein Spring Collections at New York Fashion Week last autumn. Gulnara Karimova piqued curiosity with a relaxed spin on ethnic tradition … Continue reading →

I: The Attack at Ashraf At the beginning of April, as popular uprisings ripped through the cities of Yemen and Syria and NATO missiles pounded Gaddafi strongholds in Libya, a specially protected refugee camp was attacked by government troops in … Continue reading →