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Chemical Generation
The Chemical Generation refers to a collection of writers in the 1990s who created work responding to the hedonistic ecstasy culture of the 1990 era of ecstasy and rave culture. Irvine Welsh's book ''Trainspotting'' is often described as inciting the movement. The Chemical Generation created a large body of DJ-led literature, where the key aspiration was authenticity. Stylistically, texts leaned into recreating the affective characteristic of rave music, with Welsh stating that he wrote in Scottish vernacular because he "...just liked the beat, the 4/4 beat. The English language is weights and measures - controlling, imperialistic - and I don't want to be controlled". Notable writers in the genre include Welsh, Roddy Doyle, Alan Warner, John King, Jeff Noon, Nicholas Blincoe, Gordon Legge and Laura Hird - all of whom participated in the survey of the scene carried by Steve Redhead for the publishers of Rebel Inc., Canongate, in his book ''Repetitive Beat Generation'',. The book's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hedonistic
Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. ''Psychological'' or ''motivational hedonism'' claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decrease pain. ''Normative'' or ''ethical hedonism'', on the other hand, is not about how we actually act but how we ought to act: we should pursue pleasure and avoid pain. ''Axiological hedonism'', which is sometimes treated as a part of ethical hedonism, is the thesis that only pleasure has intrinsic value. Applied to well-being or what is good for someone, it is the thesis that pleasure and suffering are the only components of well-being. These technical definitions of hedonism within philosophy, which are usually seen as respectable schools of thought, have to be distinguished from how the term is used in everyday language, sometimes referred to as "folk hedonism". In this sense, it has a negative connotation, linked to the egoistic pursuit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Champion (journalist)
Sarah Champion (born 1970 in Manchester) is an English music journalist and author. She has documented the 24 Hour Party People era and edited several collections of chemical fiction, including ''Disco Biscuits'' in 1997. Career Champion started publishing while still going to school in Chorlton, Manchester, producing the fanzine ''Alarm'' as a fourteen-year-old on a photocopier. ''Alarm'' sold well and was reviewed in other Manchester fanzines like ''Debris'' and ''Blackpool Rox''. Before long, Champion started writing for ''Debris''. Leaving school and moving to London for a while, Champion wrote for '' New Musical Express'' but then returned to Manchester to become a freelance writer. She went on to contribute a weekly column in the ''Manchester Evening News''. At the same time, she ran her own indie record label and public relations company, and wrote ''And God Created Manchester'', a book about Manchester's music scene. Champion then became involved in London's electronic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Milward
Richard Milward (born 26 October 1984 in Middlesbrough) is an English novelist. His debut novel ''Apples'' was published by Faber in 2007. He has also written ''Ten Storey Love Song'' and most recently ''Kimberly's Capital Punishment''. Raised in Guisborough, Redcar and Cleveland, he attended Laurence Jackson School and Prior Pursglove College, then studied fine art at Byam Shaw School of Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. He cites ''Trainspotting'' by Irvine Welsh as the book that made him want to write and Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan and Hunter S. Thompson as influences. He joined fellow Teessider Michael Smith in writing a column for '' Dazed & Confused'' magazine. Apples Milward's debut novel is an account of teenage life on a Middlesbrough housing estate. It is narrated in the first person by several characters (including a butterfly), but mainly by Adam and Eve, two school students. Adam is a shy, ungainly youth with obsessive compu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Puritans
The New Puritans was a literary movement ascribed to the contributors to a 2000 anthology of short stories entitled ''All Hail the New Puritans'', edited by Nicholas Blincoe and Matt Thorne. The project is said to have been inspired by the Dogme 95 manifesto for cinematic minimalism and authenticity. The young writers in the anthology deliberately eschewed many of the devices favoured by the pre-eminent British literary generation exemplified by Julian Barnes, Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie. Manifesto The 10-point manifesto reads: # Primarily storytellers, we are dedicated to the narrative form. # We are prose writers and recognise that prose is the dominant form of expression. For this reason we shun poetry and poetic licence in all its forms. # While acknowledging the value of genre fiction, whether classical or modern, we will always move towards new openings, rupturing existing genre expectations. # We believe in textual simplicity and vow to avoid all devices of voice: rhet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson helped publicize Discordianism through his writings and interviews. Wilson described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth". His goal was "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything." In addition to writing several science-fiction novels, Wilson also wrote non-fiction books on extrasensory perception, mental telepathy, metaphysics, paranormal experiences, conspiracy theory, sex, drugs and what Wilson called " quantum psychology". Following a career in journalism and as an editor, notably for ''Playboy'', Wilso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poppy Z
A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colourful flowers. One species of poppy, ''Papaver somniferum'', is the source of the narcotic drug opium which contains powerful medicinal alkaloids such as morphine and has been used since ancient times as an analgesic and narcotic medicinal and recreational drug. It also produces edible seeds. Following the trench warfare in the poppy fields of Flanders, Belgium during World War I, poppies have become a symbol of remembrance of soldiers who have died during wartime, especially in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth realms. Description Poppies are herbaceous annual, biennial or short-lived perennial plants. Some species are monocarpic, dying after flowering. Poppies can be over a metre tall with flowers up to 15 centimetres across. Flowers of species (not cultivars) have 4 or 6 petals, many stamens forming a co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, and baroque. Stephenson's work explores mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as ''Wired''. He has written novels with his uncle, George Jewsbury ("J. Frederick George"), under the collective pseudonym Stephen Bury. Stephenson has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (founded by Jeff Bezos) developing a spacecraft and a space launch system, and is also a cofounder of Subutai Corporation, whose first offering is the interactive fiction project ''The Mongoliad''. He was Magic Leap's Chief Futurist from 2014 to 2020. Early life Born on October 31, 1959, in Fort Meade, Maryland, Stephenson came from a family of engineers and scient ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland (born 30 December 1961) is a Canadian novelist, designer, and visual artist. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller '' Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture'', popularized the terms ''Generation X'' and ''McJob''. He has published thirteen novels, two collections of short stories, seven non-fiction books, and a number of dramatic works and screenplays for film and television. He is a columnist for the ''Financial Times'' and a frequent contributor to ''The New York Times'', '' e-flux journal'', ''DIS Magazine'', and ''Vice''. His art exhibits include ''Everywhere Is Anywhere Is Anything Is Everything'' which was exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Royal Ontario Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, (now the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto) and ''Bit Rot'' at Rotterdam's Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and the Villa Stuck. Coupland is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a member of the Order of Britis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esther Freud
Esther Freud (born 2 May 1963) is a British novelist. Early life and training Born in London, Freud is the daughter of Bernardine Coverley and painter Lucian Freud. She is also a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and niece of Clement Freud. She travelled extensively with her mother as a child, returning to London at 16 to train as an actress at The Drama Centre. Career She has worked in television and theatre as both actress and writer. Her first credited television appearance was as a terrified diner in ''The Bill'' in 1984, running frantically out of a Chinese restaurant after it had received a bomb scare. A year later she appeared as an alien in the ''Doctor Who'' serial '' Attack of the Cybermen''. Her novels include the semi-autobiographical ''Hideous Kinky'', which was adapted into a film starring Kate Winslet. She is also the author of ''The Wild'', ''Gaglow'', and ''The Sea House''. She also wrote the foreword for '' The Summer Book'' by Tove Jansson. Freud was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison, MBE (born 31 January 1960) is a Scottish comic book writer, screenwriter, and producer. Their work is known for its nonlinear narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller (ge ...s, humanist philosophy and counterculture, countercultural leanings. Morrison has written extensively for the American comic book publisher DC Comics, penning lengthy runs on ''Animal Man (comic book), Animal Man'', ''Doom Patrol'', ''JLA (comic book), JLA'', ''Action Comics'', and ''The Green Lantern'' as well as the graphic novels ''Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Arkham Asylum'' and ''Wonder Woman: Earth One'', the meta-series ''Seven Soldiers'' and ''The Multiversity'', the mini-series ''DC One Million'' and ''Final Crisis'', both of which served as centrepieces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Will Self
William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English author, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written 11 novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and nine collections of non-fiction writing. Self is currently Professor of Modern Thought at Brunel University London, where he teaches psychogeography. His 2002 novel ''Dorian, an Imitation'' was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and his 2012 novel ''Umbrella'' was shortlisted. His fiction is known for being satirical, grotesque and fantastical, and is predominantly set within his home city of London. His writing often explores mental illness, drug abuse and psychiatry. Self is a regular contributor to publications including ''The Guardian'', '' Harper's Magazine'', ''The New York Times'' and the '' London Review of Books''. He currently writes a column for the ''New Statesman'', and he has been a columnist for the ''Observer'', ''The Times'', and the ''Evening Standard''. His col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Drummond
William Ernest Drummond (born 29 April 1953) is a Scottish artist, musician, writer, and record producer. He was a co-founder of the late-1980s avant-garde pop group the KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with which he famously burned £1 million in 1994. More recent art activities, carried out under Drummond's banner of Penkiln Burn, include making and distributing cakes, soup, flowers, beds, and shoe-shines. More recent music projects include No Music Day and the international tour of a choir called The17. Drummond is the author of several books about art and music. Background William Ernest Drummond was born in Butterworth, South Africa, where his father was a minister for the Church of Scotland. His family moved back to Scotland when he was 18 months old, and his early years were spent in the town of Newton Stewart. He moved to Corby, Northamptonshire at the age of 11. It was here that he first became involved in performing as a musician, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
