Ian M. posted an article on Archipelagoes - May 18, 2009, 2:49 pm
Note: New site may not appear exactly as shown Well, I’ve finally completed a long deferred project: Archipelagoes has moved to a paid hosting provider and now has both its own domain name (www.iangarrickmason.com) and a fresh design. The new site will be my primary location on the web, though of...
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Ian M. posted an article on Archipelagoes - Apr 27, 2009, 10:18 pm
Joaquin Phoenix and Vinessa Shaw in James Gray's Two Lovers Leonard Kraditor (Joaquin Phoenix) does not on the face of it seem like the kind of man who would end up with two attractive lovers at the same time. He is in his mid-thirties and lives with his parents. He works as a delivery man for his ...
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Ian M. posted an article on Archipelagoes - Apr 25, 2009, 2:24 am
A moment of great rejoicing for human rights activists and champions of the rule of law came at the beginning of this month as former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in jail for “crimes against humanity”, having authorized murders, kidnappings, and torture as part o...
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Ian M. posted an article on Archipelagoes - Apr 2, 2009, 3:45 am
An Afghan woman and her daughter grieve after an air strike in Shindand district last summer. Photograph: Fraidoon Pooyaa/AP A very interesting article appears today in the Independent, discussing some policy concessions proposed by representatives of the Taliban who have been quietly negotiating w...
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Ian M. posted an article on Archipelagoes - Mar 24, 2009, 11:57 pm
A prominent literary editor once told me that a good reviewer did not have to like every book that he read, but that he absolutely had to have the capacity to like every book. In this spirit, I make a habit of opening a new book with the greatest optimism and eagerness, convinced that I’ll enjoy b...
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Ian M. posted an article on Archipelagoes - Mar 11, 2009, 9:21 pm
More fiddling about with themes, and as an unexpected result (since WordPress erases any custom banner images when changing theme), a new banner. This one is a detail from David Burdeny‘s “Five Icebergs, Weddell Sea, Antarctica” (2007). The Canadian photographer’s ability to capture the subl...
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Ian M. posted an article on Archipelagoes - Mar 10, 2009, 9:20 pm
The "iron-eating" sycamore of Brig o' Turk Plants, it is well known, have a remarkable ability — born, perhaps, of their immense patience and gradualism — to physically merge themselves with elements in their environment. Ivy will bind fast to brick, beans will curl around poles, and trees… w...
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Ian M. posted an article on Archipelagoes - Mar 3, 2009, 12:58 pm
Regular visitors to Archipelagoes may be surprised to find it with a whole new look. I figured that after a year and a half the place needed a bit of a repainting, and this WordPress theme offers some features that I thought you’d appreciate: the body text is darker and thus easier to read in cont...
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Ian M. posted an article on Archipelagoes - Mar 1, 2009, 10:24 pm
One hundred and forty characters is not a lot of text. It’s maybe twenty words if you write like George Orwell, maybe fifteen if like Mervyn Peake, and a good thirty or forty if you know text message shorthand. Even if you do, it’s not exactly War and Peace. As Jeet amusingly hinted, is Twitter...
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Ian M. posted an article on Archipelagoes - Feb 16, 2009, 2:46 pm
There come moments in the lives of writers when the words that they use everyday seem suddenly and wholly inadequate to the tasks to which they have been set. Moments when every turn of phrase, every carefully-planned construction, fails to capture and convey the desired meaning, leaving the writer ...
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