Paul Ishian
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Paul Ishian is a poet, photographer and architect. He currently lives in Istanbul.
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Daniel Patrick Quinn
By TNV,
It’s by not going to the next village that you speed your own time up. Novelty, or newness, for all its faults, is one great preserver of life. Go to the next village and, by the end of the year, you’ll look back on a life of two villages. It’s similar to the enlarging stomach concept – if you eat less your stomach shrinks, eat all week and your stomach becomes huge. Somewhere in this, however, you must learn to respect both your food and your stomach.
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Daniel Patrick Quinn is a musician, composer and producer. His albums include Severed From The Land and Ridin’ The Stang. With his band One More Grain he released Pigeon English and Isle Of Grain. He currently lives and works in Indonesia.
Jasper Murphy
By TNV,
Barbershop
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Jasper Murphy is the lead singer of non-existent band Whassname. He is a student, writer, filmmaker and oddjobber. His favourite colour is green.
Daniel Arsand
By TNV, June 26, 2009
Prendre ce chemin et puis cet autre et encore cet autre, ne pas aller tout de suite droit au but ( sinon on manque le but ), se foutre de ne pas arriver là où on avait projeter d’aller, prendre donc des chemins de traverse, prendre son temps, que cela prenne toute une ie, qui est courte, qui est longue, c’est l’humeur, les jours, c’est selon la vie que l’on mène. Courte est la vie, sans doute, et longs sont parfois certains voyages. De l’intensité, de la contemplation, oublier parfois que la nuit est devenu le jour et vice versa, voilà ‘important, voilà ce qui doit s’appeler “le quotidien”. De toute façon je préfère ma chambre aux voyages. Pourquoi aller là où on ne era atteint, ému qu’en surface. Je vis. Je vieillis. Je commence à me dire que la vie est courte mais pas tant que cela. Prendre ce qui vient, se tenir droit, écrire ce qu’on a à écrire, la vie devient longue quand on ne parvient plus à écrire, quand la cervelle est en apilotade, quand on s’emmerde à vivre sa vie. La vie, oui, est courte. Alors demandons aux dieux de mourir d’un coup, sans s’en endre vraiment compte, afin de n’avoir pas à regretter que la vie ait été si courte.
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Daniel Arsand is a writer and publisher. His books include La Province des ténèbres (available in English as The Land Of Darkness), Ivresses du fils and Des amants. He lives in Paris.
Lawrence Norfolk
By TNV,
Some hills are high. Others are long. Mine was a long one. I lived at the bottom of it from 1971 until 1977. Up the hill from our village were three hamlets; small collections of house and farm-buildings. All three were called Twinhoe. The first one – the lowest – was Middle Twinhoe. The next – the middle one – was Upper Twinhoe. The topmost Twinhoe was, inevitably, Lower Twinhoe. No-one, as I recall, found this arrangement odd.
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Lawrence Norfolk is a writer. His books include The Pope’s Rhinoceros and In The Shape Of A Boar.
Hugo Hamilton
By TNV, June 25, 2009
It was Kafka who started it. This obsession with identity. He must have noticed the ground shifting under his feet, the picture he had of himself and his family and his place of birth moving increasingly out of register. As though people around him had been made uncertain and suddenly had to become preoccupied by where they were from in order to prove their existence. They suddenly had to say what state they belonged to and what religion they had. Up to then, when they were asked where they were from they just didn’t understand the question. ‘I come from here,’ they said, because they had never been far away or left home very much. But then they had to find more defensive answers. Why else would Kafka have started a novel with the words: ‘Somebody must have been telling lies about Joseph K…’ Not lies so much as falsehoods, slander, misrepresentations. Better still in the original: ‘Jemand muss Joseph K. verleumdet haben…’
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Hugo Hamilton is a writer. He is the author of books including The Last Shot and The Speckled People. His most recent novel is Disguise.
Keith Ridgway
By TNV,
Green Lanes / Essex Road
… Alex Reid / 24 hour service / looking for a cinema? / Alfie Alfie / Follow diversion route / Making London Simple / Diverted Traffic ↑ / Diamond 0207 / SOLD / dbc Foodservice For A New Century / Ducati / EXIT / The Point / 36 / Mon-Sat 8AM – 6.30PM / Request Stop / towards Angel Islington or Old Street / ENTRANCE / Rider 87 / When Red Light Shows / RED LIGHT SHOWS / Wait Here / Peter’s Food Service / ℻ / ICONS Lighting, House / Fare Stage, Pass Zone 2 / Johnnie Rubbish, Rub 1 / 01222 / Mayor of LondON / Thumbelina Nursery / East Thomas Buses / Lin Pac Rotational Mouldings / CD MAX / Batten & Woodworx Floors / Property Professionals / To Let / Embassy Lodge / Off Licence OPEN TILL LATE / Ⓕ LET / Maiden / Make Economies, Not Sacrifices / Distributors of Turkish CDs / Melodi / Association / Take Away Tandoori Specialists / Andrews Ladies & Gents Tailors / Quality Butcher / Fishing Tackle / Immediate Lever / Lunch – Dinner / This Scaffold Is Electronically Protected / Peace Festival / Keys Cut Here / Green Off Licence / Keith’s Butchers / Mahesh Chemist / Service Wash / Buses on Rail Replacement Service / London Café / Kways / John Kennedy Court / Controlled Zone / Stop Look Listen / N11/30 / Complete Overhauls / FAX SERVICE / L Eastway / facelift / 1-10 Bute Walk / Simple Kid / ACE ⊖ / Cash Dispenser / Think Quality / EuroMix / PRP Architects / Essex Road / Of Evil / Look Left / No Loading / Learn to drive here / Freshly Made On The Premises / Check Your Email Here / Email’s gone street / London Bus Priority Network / SX / Sew Fantastic / Stuffed / Authorised Dealer / 109 / SOLD Bairstow Eves / London’s Waterway Partnership / Metroline / Sales. Lettings. Management. / Living Well / max 20 minutes / rider: kelly slater / NO ENTRY – GO BACK …
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Keith Ridgway is a writer. His most recent novel is Animals. He runs The Next Village website.
Mary Pepper
After the diasaster …
By TNV, June 23, 2009
As you may have noticed, The Next Village disappeared last week. This was due to an accidental technical catastrophe (I deleted it) which occurred during a complicated software upgrade procedure (I was trying to install the new version of Wordpress). You’ll be glad to hear that I was plunged into a black and terrible despair when I realised what I’d done. It took me a while to remember that all the contributions still exist, on my computer, and were not lost forever. So, fear not, The Next Village will be back.
Mindful of the current political cliché – never waste a good crisis – I’m taking this opportunity to make the site a better looking and more robust kind of thing, and to try and broaden its reach a little. By this I mean simply that I’m taking my time reposting everything, and trying to generate a wider readership by promoting it a little more than I’ve previously done.
I’m going to take a little while redesigning, and then I’ll start reposting all the contributions one by one (maybe one a day or something like that) until we’re bang up to date and rolling again with new stuff – of which there is already an exciting backlog.
Thank you for your patience, especially those of you who have contributed work to the site already.
KR