Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • The not done

    The not done

    The Beastie Boys landed in the public consciousness with Licensed to Ill, an album of spoof hip-hop over cartoon metal beats that established them clearly as some kind of humorous novelty act—however, nobody thought to tell the Beastie Boys that’s what they were. Their sophomore long-player, Paul’s Boutique, was a landmark album in hip-hop, largely Read more

  • Babylon to Chorleywood in thirty-two pages

    Babylon to Chorleywood in thirty-two pages

    Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introduction series has staked out a territory for concise introductions to a bewildering variety of topics, but for brevity they are no match for a series which will be familiar to many (if they are the right age) from museum shops across the British Isles—the Shire Albums. First published in Read more

  • A parabolic parable

    A parabolic parable

    I will freely admit my ignorance on all matters bandes dessinées. My first comics were Asterix and Tintin in French (inherited from my Francophone father), so of course I’ve always been aware of Franco-Belgian comics, but my developing obsession with the medium was nourished in its early days by British and American comics (largely British), Read more

  • Warts and all

    Warts and all

    I’m on a long-term project to read all of Michael Moorcock’s classic fantasy-fiction, which comes together under the general rubric of his Eternal Champion cycle, an idea influenced by Joseph Campbell’s study of mythological archetypes, The Hero With A Thousand Faces. I’m reading it in a now-discontinued series of bind-ups, which compiled the many and Read more

  • No hubris

    No hubris

    Having loved Snow Crash a long time ago, and having decided after reading Anathem in 2012 that Neal Stephenson is among my favourite writers, I’m finally getting around to reading more of his books. Cryptonomicon was published in 1999, when Stephenson already had a reputation as a very smart science-fiction writer, but I surmise that Read more

  • I waited thirty years for this holiday

    I waited thirty years for this holiday

    I used to play tabletop role-playing games, teen nerd-punk that I was. This was the 1980s, when RPGs enjoyed a huge explosion in popularity, and in the available variety of games and publishers. My playing years were quite few, but I continued to collect games obsessively afterwards—if I’m honest, they were my preferred literary form. Read more