The white lady

At the Observer Review, some of Andrew Hussey's thoughts on art and heroin, the subject of his new documentary. This is Will Self:

"I think the relationship between heroin and cities, or cityspace, is very interesting," he says. "It has more to do with spatiality, how the inner world of the user connects with the outside word of reality. And what we're really talking about is the psychogeography of heroin. William Burroughs knew this when he wrote The Naked Lunch, the great heroin novel set in the Interzone of Tangier, and Lou Reed knew this. The first Velvet Underground album is essentially a day in the life of a heroin addict in New York City, and a map of where he goes and what he sees and what he feels. And the music sounds like heroin, with its drones and impatient feedback and stuttering words. It's the perfect soundtrack to the junkie life. There is a heroin psychogeography – where to find it, where to buy it, where you can smell it." He goes on: "The point is that heroin users occupy a certain negative space in the world, in society. Burroughs writes in The Naked Lunch how, strung out in Tangier, he could sit and look at his shoe for eight hours. Heroin users don't need to do anything or go anywhere: they just are."

On a related note, I am a huge fan of Let's Get Lost, which I saw because of my friend Phil Nugent's description of Baker in the film as a "junkie vampire".

Deus ex mutagen

Paul Krugman on Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. I was a huge Asimov fan as a child; I loved these books, and read them at a young enough age (9? 10?) that I did not really know - I mean, I knew, but I didn't understand - that psychohistory was not a "real" discipline. I imagined that when I grew older I would be able to learn such mastery myself of the complex workings of societies and the future! I like psychogeography too but it's got nothing on the appeal of psychohistory, I think....

The pod

Also at the LRB, a strange and interesting piece by Iain Sinclair about the culture of London cycling...

"It's a Raymond Chandler evening"

Catherine Corman's Daylight Noir - the website, the book (forthcoming in October - link courtesy of Richard).

Bonus link: the Robyn Hitchcock song, which I love....

The swans of North America

At Triple Canopy, Dan Torop's virtual Bowery (via The Rumpus.)

"I like the cut of your J.I.B."

At the FT, Michael Moorcock on lost Londons (site registration required).

Alternate topographies

At the LRB, Iain Sinclair walks the Thames.

The rose of Texas

Ring roads of the world (via strange maps).

Tupperware men and Melamine women

At the Independent, Will Self has a very good piece on the delights of riding a Brompton bicycle:

A folding bike! It conjured up memories of those Bickerton bikes you saw in the 1970s and Eighties, the sort of thing men who drove Robin Reliants and carried Thermos flasks and Tupperware boxes of cheese sandwiches cleave to.

But any anxieties I had were dispelled when I got my Brompton: everything the Wandsworth Road zealot had said was true – after a 10-minute tutorial I could assemble the Brompton in 30 seconds. The ride was so good that in the first month of owning one I'd done a 50-mile run in a day on it. The versatility of the machine meant that I began leaving home with it quite casually for four- and five-day mini-tours, during which I'd cycle a bit, hop on a train or bus, then cycle some more. Most of all, it liberated me from the ghastly feeling of disorientation I got when I was doing tours to promote my books, and would travel to a new town every day. Having the Brompton forced me to orient myself – to know where I was. Cities such as Birmingham that I'd been visiting for years suddenly became legible – and I was fitter, too.

During the first few years I had the Brompton it was still an object of either curiosity or risibility. In the sticks small kids would shout and run after me, while the Tupperware men – and Melamine women – would stop me for a nerdy chat. But as Brompton have sold more bikes (sales have more than doubled in the past six years), the sight of full-sized people pedalling about on tiny wheels has become less worthy of comment.