oh-you-better-run:

so, for everyone following postcards-from-no-man’s-land: policy change!

i’ve had conversations with some of you lovely people saying i wanted to produce all the content of this page myself, because i’d like to work in publishing media but all of my online presence is heavily linked to original content produced by other people

but i’ve been thinking about it for the past few weeks (which is one of the reasons why there’s been no content yet) and i’ve decided to change the policy, because let’s be honest, this is basically an online magazine in tumblr form and i’m essentially the ‘editor’ and insisting that i be the only writer is, frankly, a bit ridiculous

so! you can submit posts, provided:

• you provide reputable sources (i.e. if all of your info comes from perez hilton, we’ll have to have a talk)
• it falls vaguely within the purview of this blog, i.e. news stories, arts & literature masterposts, and personal essays (more on this later)
• you are okay with it maybe not getting posted, because i don’t want to post anything i don’t feel 100% comfortable is accurate and well-sourced

i’m so sorry for the confusion, and if i’ve told you that you couldn’t submit something: i’m an idiot, get on that shit

i think these reblogs should give a good idea, but— i haven’t made a lot of meticulously sourced current affairs posts over on oh-you-better-run, but i intend to here, so news story stuff is also encouraged!

your future dream is a shopping scheme: an introduction to punk

oh-you-better-run:

your future dream is a shopping scheme, or, postcard’s punk playlist part 1: the basics

punk rock: a form of hard-driving rock ‘n’ roll originating in the 1970s, or, rock music with deliberately offensive lyrics expressing anger and social alienation 

what’s cooler than punk? pretty much nothing, even though it’s been more than seventy years since the release of never mind the bollocks. and who doesn’t want to be cool?

so here’s my intro course to punk, with a top ten from the first wave of punk and a couple of surprises along the way. (more to come. i swear by my battered biker jacket, this is a party far from over!)

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he’s a god, he’s a man, he’s a ghost, he’s a guru: the nick cave starter post

oh-you-better-run:

he’s a god, he’s a man, he’s a ghost, he’s a guru: the nick cave starter post

nick cave is an old west preacher reincarnated in an scary-skinny australian man with a face like a knifeblade and a gift for murderballads, among other things. lots of other things. nick cave is a musician, a (published and acclaimed) novelist, a screenwriter, film score composer, and, occasionally, an actor.

not enough people know about this hellfire-breathing polymath, so let’s fix that, shall we?

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“There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible”

oh-you-better-run:

alexds1:

Disclaimer: this rant is written for a specific group of people. If you don’t belong to it, you already know that you don’t, congratulations, great shall be your reward in the afterlife.

DEAR [PEOPLE WHO DEBATE ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES’ SEXUALITY],

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Hi there! I don’t know who “specific group of people” refers to, but I have a suspicion, based on the contents of this post, that it’s “people who will not call me out on my massive douchebaggery”. Hey, guess what? You’re shit out of luck on that one!

Honestly, there was so much offensiveness here that I had to pick one thing to focus on, so I decided to move past the whole “no one else counts except for me!!11!11!” part of it, because my dear and lovely favourite gyzym has done that here, and focus on your incredibly problematic opinions about the queering of literature. But first, let’s see some evidence, of which you seem so fond, yeah?

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there are many names in history, and all of them are ours: history, and why it’s for you

oh-you-better-run:

Hey, guys. This is the post that I promised to make about history, partly as a considered response to this, but as a note of warning: I am not a professional. I am a master’s student of the history of literature, film, and culture, that is true, but I am a long, long way from from being an academic. This is a personal essay; an essay about why I love history, because history shouldn’t be oppressive, even though it often has been. This post explicitly talks about almost all forms of historical oppression, so if that is something that triggers you, please don’t read this. Please let me know, too, if I have said something problematic, I am more than willing to admit that I, too, always have room to learn. (Lots of it, as it happens.) I am considering making a post as a sequel to this about people who do not like facing the realities of history, especially when represented in media, but, well. We’ll see. On with the show.

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oh-you-better-run:

but london is a glorious mess: the psychogeography reclist

first of all, because you’re probably asking this question already: what is psychogeogprahy? 

guy debord defined it as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.” i, personally, tend more towards this definition: that the city (or place) is, quite literally, alive. that, as peter ackroyd claims, “i truly believe that there are certain people to whom or through whom the territory, the place, the past speaks.” psychogeography is, at times, more a feeling that anything else— i always find that the easiest way to explain it is to ask people to watch this.

it is, as you might have guessed, one of my primary academic interests, and, as such, i have made a list of ten introductory texts that i think are accessible to everyone, or at least or interesting. they aren’t texts, necessarily, that were written after pyschogeography the “term” was invented, and many of them are texts that you may have read before. the tyranny of place is merely another window; a mirror to hold up to these texts and wait.

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