Mark Ford

in his plans, but briefly, as a cupped hand holds water, or as private and public spheres collide

and blur, overlap within his fragile, omnivorous stare. Barely awake, dazed and blinking, I was urged under

solemn oath to consider the lilies of the field who neither toil nor spin. Hallelujah, I meant to answer, selah, only

a seething, surf-like roaring in my ears seemed to engulf...

Despite their ill-rated, short-lived, acrimonious reunion in 1993, the Velvet Underground are still the coolest rock band there ever was. Nowadays, music critics and historians talk of their seminal influence on punk or grunge, and you can buy big boxed CD sets (bearing that irresistible sticker ‘Contains Previously Unreleased Material’) of out-takes and rehearsal sessions, although it seems no live recordings survive from their heyday – that is, before Lou Reed kicked John Cale out of the band, ending three years of almost symbiotic closeness.’‘

of whatever you are absorbing with your five senses is forbidden, and may provoke nausea, insomnia, loss of balance or blurred vision: it were better you retire, and then attack, hurling weapons and imprecations at the diffident foe. The world averts its gaze, and unfortunate schemers drag their woes from home to muddy fields: all roads lead to rooms, as the Irish say, and to...

The first literary appearance of the mythical figure of Prometheus (whose name means ‘foresight’) is in the writings of Hesiod. Hesiod’s Titan is something of a trickster, of ‘intricate and twisting mind’ in Richmond Lattimore’s 1959 translation, who first affronts Zeus by trying to cheat him of his sacrificial dues: Prometheus slaughters an ox, but instead of offering the meat to the father of the gods, he gives it to men, presenting Zeus only with the animal’s bones, concealed beneath a thick layer of fat. As punishment, Zeus decides to deny mankind the use of fire, but Prometheus cleverly manages to steal the sacred flame, which he smuggles down to Earth by hiding it in the hollow of a fennel stalk.‘

you would please spare me your Western logocentrism! Isn’t it clear I’m the sort who rejoices when the Queen Mother chokes on a fish-bone? I’d shine a harsh, piercing light on the damage indiscriminately wrought by the tinkling music of the spheres. Our errands merely seem average and natural: every second is underwritten by an invisible host of dubious connections; like...