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I do love 1970's US rock mags. Their pop culture take was so unlike the UK music papers I grew up devouring. eg 1977's Circus 169, where you could almost believe the UK & USA weren't so much different nations as seperate planets. Still, there were some common points of reference:
This isn't how I expected to be spending my days in lockdown. Rather than missing the sport or obsessing over the news, I'm just working my way through a pile of classics that I'd put aside for a rainy day & feared I might never get around to. Small mercies,silver linings etc etc
I've posted the photo before. Forgive me. But then, it was a snapshot from a largely forgotten day. I've always been a touch dubious of the benefits of personal diaries & mundane personal details. But 'yesterday' soon becomes 'long ago', & I'm glad for the record now, 36 yrs on
Barely any mail in weeks & then the welcome subscription copies of @empiremagazine, @SFXmagazine & @MOJOmagazine all arrive with a thump. Hurrah! It's grand to have a pile'o'mags to read. One more lockdown afternoon instantly transformed into something to look forward to.
A new ritual of ours that really helps: at 3pm, whenever possible, we stop for an episode of a classic serial together. We've just finished 1979's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - which is still wonderful - & start 1982's Smiley's People today. Alec Guinness: so breathtakingly good.
Richard Fletcher's book on the centrality of blood feuds to Anglo Saxon England makes for fascinating -& somewhat terrifying- reading. In places, hard going for general readers like m'self, but there's so much to appreciate, as here, on how boredom can keep blood feuds festering:
There doesn't seem to be anything these things have in common. But I fell in love with all of them, & I'm still just as in love with them now. So much that I thought would stay with me hasn't. But time never tarnishes Seurat & Battlestar Galactica, John Peel & David Low. (2/3)
4 panels from 1964's The Avengers #3, by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Paul Reinman, Stan Goldberg & Sam Rosen. #4panelsaven63
4 panels from 1963's The Avengers #1, by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Stan Goldberg & Sam Rosen. #4panelsaven63