The writer of Psychoraag, the story of a Glasgow raga-rock DJ, picks his favourite songs
‘I Am the Walrus’: The Beatles Total psychedelia, this one came straight from the deepest belly of a dllnl'l. Yahya Shah Zafar meets a magic mushroom. An anthem of the liminal. ‘Omega’: Enrique Morente and Lagartija Nick Spanish Muslim rock for the Qtst century. Don't get fooled again; SCrew the essentialists. this is older! Gimme gimme gimme those quarter- tones.
‘Starsailor’: Tim Buckley John
Coltrane's ‘Ascension'
in voice. This is Ur- mania. and we wrll always need more. not less. insanity. Nothing is linear. Everything is real. Listen, and go off the map. A quantum, ziggurat consciousness. ‘Teenage Kicks’: The Undertones Never wanna lose those teenage kicks (I never had). A periect power pop song is a serotonin river of lust and epiphany that never runs dry. Peelsahb was right. Age disgracefully and vicariously!
‘Ando Melo Desligado’: Os Mutantes Brazilian Tropicalia magic. Borges said that censorship is the mother of metaphor. and Rita and the lads take this into the skies.
I Jackie Kay 8
Suhay/ Sad. 24 Aug.
70.30am, £7 (£5).
ALAN GARNER
Myth maker of Mercia , ,1 ; .. r. Middle England Recommended Reading:
Reconunended
ANITA RODDICK Reading: , ’ Putting water back on . I I . -. . - the political map I. ' GERMAINE GREER
Catholic atheist or saucy feminist?
EDINBURGH: A WORLD CITY OF LITERATURE
From Robert Louis to Rankin's Rebus
Edinburgh: quite good at books 2005 marks Edinburgh’s installation as the first UNESCO city of literature. Predictably, this appointment was met with its share of Scottish cringing as the naysayers argued that neighbours Dublin or London were more deserving of the award. Yet, a quick flick through Edinburgh‘s literary heritage reveals a city almost unrivalled in having influenced so many important scribes.
Most obviously, the capital boasts connections with three of Scotland‘s greatest writers. Walter Scott was an inhabitant of the city, as was Robert Burns, while Robert Louis Stevenson was inspired by Edinburgh's ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ quality, its respectable veneer undermined by a seedy underbelly. But during the late 18th century, Scotland played a leading role on the world‘s stage, with Edinburgh’s enlightenment embodied by figures such as the philosopher David Hume, economist Adam Smith and historian William Robertson. Less famously, Edinburgh has played host to and inspired such luminaries in world literature as Daniel Defoe, Percy Shelley, Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen.
In World War I, poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen recuperated and wrote at Craiglockhart Hospital. Edinburgh-born Muriel Spark set her most famous novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in the capital. While Glasgow has recently enjoyed its own literary revival, the last decade has spawned a wealth of contemporary portrayals of Edinburgh, from Ian Rankin's Rebus series to Laura Hird's short stories with lrvine Welsh poignantly charting changes in the city from Trainspotting through to Porno. (Allan Radcliffe)
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20 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE ':' . x -«
Reconnnended Reading: -
ALEX GARLAND
From writer's block to The Coma
Reconnnended Reading: "