Ian Penman
@pawboy2
Followers
7,883
Following
3,499
Media
7,251
Statuses
64,649
NEW BOOK: Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors (Fitzcarraldo + Semiotexte) | LAST BOOK: It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track | NEXT BOOK ...
"Where is North from here?"
Joined November 2011
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
#FGO
• 259558 Tweets
FELIX
• 227373 Tweets
アザラシ幼稚園
• 147594 Tweets
#ENGFAxPressConMGSBR2025
• 104126 Tweets
LINGORM OTW EP4
• 79199 Tweets
ロッキン
• 66884 Tweets
FJR IN HONGKONG WITH BUILD
• 55522 Tweets
シエル水着
• 35136 Tweets
Kanye
• 25983 Tweets
オアシス
• 24221 Tweets
#劇場版すとぷり
• 21632 Tweets
淀川花火大会
• 20986 Tweets
水着霊衣
• 20767 Tweets
パーシヴァル
• 14975 Tweets
ニキチッチ
• 13196 Tweets
TROFI 1st Fashion Show
• 13146 Tweets
シエル先輩
• 11132 Tweets
バーソロミュー
• 10400 Tweets
徐福ちゃん
• 10249 Tweets
#AZKiワンマン横浜昼
• 10117 Tweets
Trump says that carefree "English" culture has all but disappeared under grim PC clamp down at same time as Giant Orange Baby Balloon launches, a Dalek with a bad wig patrols Whitehall & Anglo Saxon epithets turn the English summertime air joyously robustly blue.
15
421
1K
• 55 attempts to mix the Babylon Sisters fade
• 46 takes for drums on title track
• Walter Becker's vrs & heavy problems
• The Second Arrangement fiasco
• Bernard Purdie
• Wendel
• Keith Jarrett
Why isn't there a 15 part Netflix drama/doc on
#Gaucho
I can watch right now?
27
109
961
Bless my cotton socks I'm in The New Yorker! On the highs and lows of Lou Reed ... |
@NewYorker
|
28
88
521
Yes, it is indeed true. Not only did I finally write my
#Fassbinder
book, but I did so *without smoking a single cigarette*. Pretty sure people have been given Pulitzers for less. Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors, out April 2023.
@FitzcarraldoEds
18
51
480
Wow. I know it's a bit 'Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?' but this is just a beautiful long-read review of the Fassbinder book (& much more besides) ... |
5
59
332
Not Faye Dunaway, amazingly, but me ... minutes after learning Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors has also just won a
#JamesTaitBlack
Prize! Photo: Nicola Roberts x
32
11
274
Absolutely blown away that Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors has been long-listed for the Royal Society of Literature/Ondaatje Prize and short-listed for the James Tait Black Prize.
19
19
261
Roeg tale: he was DP on FarFromTheMaddingCrowd. In middle of Wessex countryside he looked up & saw sublime vision: a pure white horse, perfectly posed atop a hill. Swung camera round, but it was gone. Ancient local extra eyed him beadily & said "You *weren't meant to see* that."
3
67
233
Oh... Nic Roeg. Awesome talent, but also one of the loveliest people I met in my professional life. Last time I bumped into him after decade+ & his eyes lit up & he nearly smothered me in big bear hug. (NB: this is pretty rare occurence with people I've interviewed.)
#RiP
❤️
9
54
229
Still coming down to earth from fantastic night at the
#RSLOndaatjePrize
on Tuesday. Lovely to meet the other writers +
@RSLiterature
judges, but personal highlight may have been the venerable Francis Spufford telling me he was a teenage NME reader.
#RWF
@FitzcarraldoEds
12
14
227
And maybe just pause for a moment, fill up yer glasses, & dedicate I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day to all the nurses & ambulance drivers & emergency staff & most anyone else working for
#NHS
for inadequate £ & eternal gratitude, picking up the Xmas pieces today ...
2
37
222
Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors is Book of The Week in The Observer. Very nice review from Anthony Quinn. |
4
42
220
Can't believe this! Completely knocked out.
📣The shortlist for the 2024
#RSLOndaatjePrize
is here📣🥳
From 194 entries to 14 longlisted titles, our judges
@JanCarson7280
Xiaolu Guo and Francis Spufford have selected the following shortlist:
6
56
130
22
8
193
I'm in the new issue of
@Harpers
writing about Billie Holiday. Microphones, flowers, Catholicism & "some of the happiest music ever made!" |
5
43
188
Yeah, but be fair... you might wake up one morning and find you recorded Station to Station over the weekend ...
Influencer says she was on a 'tapas and cocaine' diet to stay thin — here's why that's not healthy
1K
656
3K
3
16
172
Binge watching The Responder last night. Loads to enjoy & admire but fell apart a bit for me when I realized why Martin Freeman's car-smash Scouse alpha-male felt so eerily familiar. "I'm on pills for me nerves & sleeping in the Jag!"
7
16
164
Trek thru snow to local 24-7 corner shop for cigs rewarded with sighting - - just ahead of me in queue, buying fruit & veg - of Jeremy Corbyn. And I can hereby attest, m'lud, he was wearing neat little dark cap, not evil Russian fur hat.
#N7
#Neighbours
#Newsnight
13
36
155
"Several other figures haunt the book. Walter Benjamin is one, his puffy, bespectacled face often slipping into the reflective field of these thousands of mirrors." John Douglas Miller reviews
#RWF
in
@friezeofficial
... |
3
22
146
First feature I ever wrote/had published = The Fall. Turned up in Manchester, utterly clueless teenager. Band doing live interview on Radio Manchester &
#MES
insisted I go on with them, as if we were all one & same. *That* was "punk" - not the dogma fashion or chords or poses.
5
36
145
Maxine Peake set to explore Nico's "dark side" in upcoming project. Great news, & about bloody time. Sick of all those Nico biogs obsessing over her Ken Dodd-EP-collecting, joke-shop-mailing-list, where's-that-Morecambe-&-Wise-best-scenes-VHS-180-I-leant-you, non-dark side. 🤡
11
28
133
Nuttall resignation speech: "I've said before, the tide goes in, the tide goes out..." (Research Ed. -Can we check this is definitely true?)
9
16
129
Godbye &
#RiP
to
#HarryDeanStanton
, a great interviewee, just as lovely as you hoped & only one a) I made cry b) serenaded me in Mexican x
3
37
128
Still thinking about moment in Pointless last night when two Young People were asked to name the well-known Beatles song "L.I.B."
1st YP: "Is it... Life Is Beautiful?"
2nd YP: "Maybe... Love Is Blind?"
#BeatlesHegemony
12
3
119
BOOK OUT TODAY! FANFARE! Rain! Lovely first review!
9
19
119
"Oh, I'm just visiting." And, finally... my long-read on the stations of David Bowie
13
56
115
Oh, beautiful man...
#RiP
Robert Frank, maybe loveliest person I ever interviewed. After Q+A he & wife June took me out for looong meal which is where real talk/fun began. Signed my books then paused, & pulled out actual print for me, also signed & dedicated. Lifetime highlight.
6
8
110
Hoping you all have a Christmas that's as cool as Lee Marvin's knitwear, yet lit up like Warren Oates face...
4
14
111
One last shout before The End (of 2021)! Me on the short span & long afterlife of Jim Morrison... |
14
26
107
Well done, Blairite wonks! Everything just as was - except you've made Labour look more self-conflicted than a meat-eating Morrissey fan.
9
47
101
Sailing round the world in a dirty gondola! Me on Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson & The Band for
@CityJournal
|
6
22
104
"Levon and Robbie, whom Helm nicknamed Duke, became like brothers..." Re-posting this 2021 piece on the ups & downs of
#RobbieRobertson
, Levon Helm & The Band.
#RiP
|
5
31
107
OK. Someone local thinks that MORE fireworks is what everyone wants. I've got an actual bag of (cat) shite here looking for a face to hit.
6
39
101
Still stuck in habit of turning to ask 'What do you wanna hear, Big Guy?" (It was *always* Mingus.) High five, jazzer!
15
5
104
L van Gaal's wild celebration, like a man who fancies a boiled egg for breakfast & finds out Ah, indeed, there is an egg left in the fridge.
9
77
90
Just walked into my local
#Morrisons
and as toe crossed threshold Steely Dan's 'Only A Fool Would Say That' started playing. On a recent morning, it was The Isley Brothers 'For The Love of You'. Big love to whoever does their (excellent) playlist...
6
3
97
"I am no longer a member of the band Spandau Ballet and will not be performing with the band in future."
7
43
95
Bernard Hepton {19/10/1925 - 27/7/2018
#RiP
... So good as Toby Esterhase in both Tinker Tailor & Smiley's People, especially the latter I think. He manages to make vivid & unforgettable a character both prickly & smooth, adept at quietly merging with any given background.
7
27
91
"In Cummings view, the greatest fault of those who “chat about Lacan at dinner parties” is [an] interest in words, interpretation & critique, when they ought to be learning about numbers, probabilities & prediction." But was his Barnard Castle visit Real, Symbolic or Imaginary?
6
21
91
This completely riddled my head in mid 70s - on musical (as opposed to social) level, probably way more than Punk. Had same copy ever since but got lovely Japanese paper-sleeve CD of it today for silly £. Desert Island Disc stuff, real love.
12
6
89
Feeling a bit giddy. It's publication day for my Fassbinder book ... *IN GERMANY*! Anyone know how to say 'Blimey' in German?
#TausendeVonSpiegeln
Hurra, sie sind da: Unsere Februar-Neuerscheinungen sind ab jetzt erhältlich! Alle Bücher im Überblick gibt's hier:
1
5
39
11
5
92
@piercepenniless
I live round the corner from said "Islington" house. It's a tiny place in a grotty street catty corner to Seven Sisters Rd. Somewhere less "palatial" is hard to imagine...
#N7
#FinsburyPark
3
2
84
MORE GLAM THAN GRACE? Is that even possible? Xerox'd photo of me holding hands with Pat Phoenix aka Elsie Tanner. Now THAT is what you call a proper icon, baby...
6
6
87
Ad break just now had trailer for Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody & Ah right, OK, they've finally made a film just especially for all those people who queue outside Madame Tussauds
5
20
82
My piece on Jean Rhys for
@CityJournal
has just gone up online... and, I don't know, but somehow, one way or another, New Year's Eve feels like a very Rhys kind of date to do so. |
0
16
84
Well hey now, it seems like it might be a good time to re-post this: me from 2014 on Kate Bush, Hounds of Love, Coil (& Les Dawson) |
4
22
83
ken back in the 70s NO ONE wiz into them at school i bought lets womble to the party tonight the day before it came out ken aye bungo's ditch trilogy is pure amphetamine rock n roll man our next album is big youth alex chilton neu! shirely bassey wee bit of uncle bulgaria ken aye
12
15
83
Me in the latest
@Harpers
, on both the good and bad, the "feathers and talons" of Chuck Berry ... |
3
16
84
I'm in the new
@LRB
, on The Beatles. Also features a fabulous all-star cast, inc ... Anthony Burgess! Nic Roeg! Muriel Spark! Howard Hughes! Charlie Drake!
#aDayInMyLife
|
10
26
84
Even if you *don't* like him, you have to admit Kanye feels like 2015 where 98% of Glastonbury feels like it might just as well be 1983.
14
60
80
Just gave my name in Starbuck's as Derrida's concept of différance & the barista said "Did you say différence?" I said "Ha! The two are pronounced identically to highlight the fact that the written trace is not heard!" We've agreed to differ but I'm still waiting for my espresso.
3
22
81
For those kind souls asking how I'm doing, this self-explanatory Day 66 selfie:
9
2
76
"Here's the new recording sensation for you youngsters..." How did I never see this before? A (relatively) young & fresh faced Band play "Up On Cripple Creek" on the Ed Sullivan Show. Robbie Robertson's mustache! Garth Hudson's camera-shy smile!
7
16
76
MES was one of those people who seemed like he was born old - Les Dawson or Sid James in a cheap leather blouson. It only struck you later just how young he was (21) when he wrote stuff like this - a different creative/psychic universe from punk-by-numbers
0
23
73
Today, it is TWO MONTHS since I had last cigarette. I have saved approximately £67,003, & my lungs. (Anyone still clinging on, I recommend finding a good hypnotherapist. I was really sceptical, but...)
4
0
75
Also... in what feels like the realization of some kind of long-ago crazy dream,
#Fassbinder
Thousands of Mirrors will be published in America by ... Semiotext(e)!
@SemiotextePress
1
10
72
The peerless singer/songwriter back catalogue; the extraordinary *sui generis* experiments (Lawns, Don Juan, Mingus); the sublime re-interpretations of old songs; the no-mere-star-hobby painting; not to mention her heroic smoking... who else comes close? Really, who else?
#Joni75
7
17
73
BEST
#CHRISTMAS
GIFT (so far): ... the fact that
#ItGetsMeHome
... just went into its third printing, already. Love & appreciation to everyone who's bought it, thought of it, recommended it, written about it, enjoyed it ... x
4
0
72
Still trying to get my head around the fact that Al Green and Jacques Lacan shared a birthday. "(Do Not Imagine For A Second That It Is Not Impossible To Mend) A Broken Heart".
4
15
73
I bought The White Album on my first ever trip to NYC/USA in 1980 & it spun my world around; but recently the Joan Didion I most re-read (with a kind of professional awe) = middle period: Miami, Sentimental Journeys, The Last Thing He Wanted, Democracy. What a body of work.
#RiP
2
2
69
Thanks to
@FitzcarraldoEds
+
@BarbicanCentre
for organising a great Fassbinder night, but esp Gareth Evans & the lovely big audience who came out on a surprisingly humid night to see one of the most claustrophobic films ever made. It was - not an obvious
#RWF
word - heartwarming.
4
4
69
My interview with Nic Roeg. Big smile, hearty handshake, wonders if we might not have a little drink. "Right," he says, "this is for you, & this is for me..." > plonking down full unopened bottle of whiskey before me, & a bottle of gin for himself. *Hands of clock speed round*
2
16
63
Knocked out by some of the lovely responses to
@LRB
Prince piece... & don't forget, there's far more where that came from in *ahem* my "about to drop" collection... |
8
5
68
Twitter gets 95% of its publicity for awfulness, but when people like something you've done, or someone beloved dies, it hugs the soul.
0
15
65
Sean Penn: "You know, I've got the 9-hour cut of Tree of Life here with me-"
El Chapo: "POLICE! MARINES! ANYBODY? DRUG KINGPIN OVER HERE!"
0
49
58
A little Saturday night
#FirstDrinkSoundtrack
redux. Little Feat: Dixie Chicken (entire album). So many Lowell George songs just make me instantaneously happy + 'On Your Way Down' is one of the best cover versions ever.
5
3
65
Reasons To Be (Relatively) Lock-Down Cheerful, No 2 In An Occasional Series: Julio Cortázar & his cat named Theodor W Adorno (i) ...
2
20
62
CHRIS MORRIS: Do you feel any pride now, about that?
SIR ARTHUR STREEB-GREEBLING: I feel nothing but pride. That's all I do feel. An empty pride, a hopeless vanity, a dreadful arrogance, a stupefyingly futile conceit - but at least it's something to hang onto.
1
16
63
My friend Chris Petit sent this lovely pic from Berlin. Another dream realised: rubbing shoulders with Walter!
2
1
63
Is there a technical name for something you *love* the idea of, but each time you actually interact with it you find you're deeply disappointed? {Camembert, Calexico albums, Donald Barthelme books...
36
2
61
Some really good news about book sales today; let's just say you bibliophile fetishists don't have much time left to get a 1st edition...
8
0
60
Absolute corker on the Dominic Cummings farrago: a stone-cold-sober, nuanced, but hilarious legal parse (I said parse) of his "lawyered up" rose garden statement:
6
25
62
Reasons To Be (Relatively) Lock-Down Cheerful, No 1 In An Occasional Series: Flann O'Brien on a certain porter, from The Third Policeman: "It was manufactured in some town in the south & was known as 'The Wrastler'. If you drank 3 or 4 pints of it, it was nearly bound to win."
5
11
60
Ian's Health Tips For The Middle Aged (or Differently Young) | If you do have to walk in heatwave/heartattack weather like this, my suggestion = picture *Gregory Issacs* & think: what speed would Gregory go? And then go one slower.
4
7
60
Once again, baffled why egotists like Morrissey don't get it: being *edited well* makes you look 1000 times better & YOU get all the credit!
6
47
54
I saw 4th or 5th ever gig by New Order, in trendy club in New York. They were pale & indie & unfunky & absolutely blown away by this lot, who were in a higher dimension altogether & who I still love beyond reason.
#FirstDrinkSoundtrack
14
6
56
Finding it hard to credit that Will Self could get to age he is, in the craft he pursues & milieu he inhabits, & now have to "draw up a list" of all the "important women writers" he's never read. Then again, may explain why his work often feels so preeningly cerebral & lifeless.
7
8
55
#FirstDrinkSoundtrack
Oh, it's been too long... forgotten how much I love this. Everybody, altogether now: "SHE BRING ME WHITE JAM & I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM."
6
8
56