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Bryan Alistair Charles

@bryanacharles.bsky.social
292 followers 135 following 678 posts

Writer in midst of disorienting midlife free fall / Author of a novel, a memoir, and a book about Pavement written for 33 1/3 / Broken Hearts Are Blue guitarist / Amateur Proust scholar bryanalistaircharles.com

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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 15h
yes, just finished the piece & saw you mention King's nonwhite characters too. Great review!!! I like how you say all the praise and criticisms of SK are true. He remains a lifelong favorite for me, but his numerous tics make it hard for me to appreciate much of his work since circa late 90s.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 15h
This is so true!...there is also record-scratch racial stuff like Jerome Robinson's so-called "feelgood delight" voice from the Hodges books..And SK can't imo write a convincing young character now, every character no matter their age has 1950s cultural references.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I am far from an audiophile but for the first Boston LP I only want an old copy that has been played 1000 times with hiss and pops
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Ok but did you buy a used old copy or new remaster?
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I have not lived in NYC in a long time (15 years) but just for an elected official in 2026 to bring up art & fucking ARTISTS !! at all, to say nothing of the "there is money available for you" part I'm crying. I want to move back.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
This happens to me sometimes, I go to see a movie blind & I like it then come home & read bad reviews and think, huh maybe it's not good and I really didn't like it. I wish I had more critical faculties when watching movies tbh but in the theater I seem to like 99% of them the first time
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
last two books I finished: A Violent Masterpiece, Jordan Harper--kind of interesting for a bit but the prose is so overheated & ultimately too much of an Ellroy rip The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann--so much so say that I can't fit here but this book absolutely brought me to my knees
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
#lastfourwatched Primetime (2026) Harlan County USA (1976) Tropic Thunder (2008) Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979) And going to see Digger this afternoon...
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
and Mills said on Rick Beato that the ATS songs were good but suffered from weak production, a sentiment with which I also cannot agree. But you're right, they went out super strong, and have just that one unexceptional album (!!!) in 30 years. The 80s output alone was a guarantee of immortality
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
There was briefly cause for concern--Around the Sun, the only R.E.M. album that as a lifelong fan I still cannot appreciate--I wish more bands would do what they did actually, so many groups of all sizes that are still going seem like business arrangements or "brands" now
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
his book What Painting Is has long been on our shelf but I did not know he wrote novels ... so I ordered Dreams straight from Unnamed ... the page there boasts a blurb from Jacob Elordi which I must say surprised me... anyway, you have done a good thing here.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Ha, for a while I thought "a succulent Chinese meal" was just a Matt Berry/what we do in the shadows thing till I went searching for the clip and saw the video of that dude being arrested!!
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Grace Krilanovich @gracekrilanovich.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
New interview in the fall issue of BOMB! @michelletea.bsky.social and I discuss Courtney Love, silent film, and if you should try to hop an Amazon train?
bombmagazine.org
BOMB Magazine | Grace Krilanovich by Michelle Tea
Acid Green Velvet , the new novel by the author of the cult classic  The Orange Eats Creeps , brings the countercultural spirit of the 1960s into the…
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Two Dollar Radio @twodollarradio.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
What a special time it is to be alive 🤩! After 16 years of the spectacular splash of THE ORANGE EATS CREEPS the Overlord of gothic speculative horror is BACK! Grab yourself a copy of ACID GREEN VELVET TODAY!! #indiebook #indiepress #twodollarradio #indieauthor #spookyseason
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Charlotte Mandell @avecsesdoigts.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
My translation of Céline's LONDON got a starred review in PW! "With a hypnotic power generated by Mandell’s indefatigable translation, Céline’s novel wrings high art out of the bottom rungs of society, where 'how you sin determines how you die.' It’s a marvel. (Oct.)"
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
He also played Ramp of Death which features what I have always thought to be one of his most heartbreaking lines: "A mall on a weekday."
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
At Malkmus show in Santa Cruz he played Trojan Curfew which I was hoping to hear but not expecting, and I was overcome with emotion & 9/11 era memories-- Later, during Here, I looked over and a young woman maybe 22 was openly weeping, wiping flowing tears with a tissue. SM speaking to all ages
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Charlotte Mandell @avecsesdoigts.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Just finished translating a 409-word sentence by Mathias Énard (from part 2 of his memoir, called Hotel Balkan)
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David Ulin @davidulin.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
“We obliterate ourselves in each other, that is the way of things. … The threats on our freedom will flatten to nothing, it’ll be weather grazing the surface of water.” www.altaonline.com/books/fictio...
altaonline.com
West Is West
Grace Krilanovich’s Acid Green Velvet reimagines the Western through a feminist lens.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Wow yes, I had a similar experience with The Grapes of Wrath, opened it thinking it would take forever, at first found it clunky & sentimental...soon could not put it down, finished with tears in my eyes. Haven't read East yet but among the shorter ones I love The Wayward Bus. cheers !!
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Not sure if that is shorter or longer than Proust's longest, in Sodom and Gomorrah...
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Happy pub day to @gracekrilanovich.bsky.social and ACID GREEN VELVET!!! One of the best novels you will read this year. www.sevenstories.com/books/4851-a...
sevenstories.com
Acid Green Velvet
The breathtaking and consequential first novel in nearly two decades from the award-winning author of the cult sensation, The Orange Eats Creeps, in which two young vagabonds in 19th century Californi...
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Roland Bates @rolandbates.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Listening to Proust as an audiobook. IN FRENCH. I should have thought of this AGES ago. It's magical
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
The chapter "Snow" in The Magic Mountain is one of the greatest things I've ever read!! I am reading the Woods version but the other day learned of two new translations. I have the Pare translation from Oxford coming & look forward to rereading that chapter straight away!
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Ha, this is funny, one of my absolute pet peeves. When I see people backing into parking spaces I surge (irrationally?) into Costanza mode.
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Grace Krilanovich @gracekrilanovich.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
All right ACID GREEN VELVET is out in less than a week! LA launch on Tuesday, 9/8 at @skylightbooks.bsky.social with the fabulous @aimee-bender.bsky.social !!
skylightbooks.com
Grace Krilanovich w/ Aimee Bender, "Acid Green Velvet"
Independent bookstore in Los Angeles, featuring fiction, nonfiction, arts, and children's books.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I saw Pavement in July, will see Malkmus solo 9/6 in Santa Cruz, and my head is swirling with unformed thoughts about both of us aging, me seeing him first at 23, Grand Rapids MI, decades pass, now 52 & lost in sad pre- and post-9/11 memories whose soundtrack is Trojan Curfew, Deado etc.---
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Lately I have been listening to Malkmus's first solo album which will forever remind me of summer 2001 when I played it constantly including to and from my job in the World Trade Center, "Vague Space" lasted about as long as my walk from the subway to my cubicle on the 70th floor---
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Thanks! I am already on the Oxford Proust (just finished vol. 4) so I'll pick MM up now.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
!!! I just cracked the 440 page mark on the Woods translation, there is a new one in the works?
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Wild... I too was at this show!
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Grace Krilanovich @gracekrilanovich.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Patton Oswalt looking forward to my book is like Edna Lewis glancing approvingly at the bowl of macaroni salad I just set down at the potluck
kirkusreviews.com
Fall Preview 2026: Patton Oswalt | Kirkus Reviews
The actor who narrates the audiobook of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s ‘Other World Than These’ answers our questions.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I also read Proust's Lesbianism (uncensored cover flagged by Bsky as "adult content" 😂), highly recommended for those looking to go deeper with the many tangled questions raised in the roman d'Albertine. (E. Ladenson also writes the intro for Oxford Proust's forthcoming The Captive.)
PROUST'S LESBIANISM by Elisabeth Ladenson.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
In an alternate universe I would love to read a version of the Search translated entirely by Constantine and Charlotte Mandell @avecsesdoigts.bsky.social -- the latter's IN THE SHADOW OF GIRLS IN BLOSSOM is one of my favorite translations ever and maybe my favorite book.
Marcel Proust's IN THE SHADOW OF GIRLS IN BLOSSOM translated by Charlotte Mandell.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Finished the Oxford Sodom and Gomorrah. Helen Constantine's lovely translation vividly captures the novel's sexual intrigue/anxiety and exquisite society-by-the-seaside atmosphere of the narrator's return to Balbec. #Proust
Marcel Proust's SODOM AND GOMORRAH translated by Helen Constantine.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
😂I usually like him... or at least I have often liked him. But he was just so strange in this movie. Anne H gave it her all, which was cool, but I still would have liked some more nasally line readings!!
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
tv/movies don't care about US regional accents unless they are east coast/south. (Fargo maybe the lone exception.) Went to see The End of Oak Street yesterday, which takes place in my homeland of MI, and once more no MI/midwestern accents, and worse Ewan McGregor was doing some weird robot voice.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
yes, it works in reverse too! 😂
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
But this superiority would assert itself just as contemptuously, and more so ... if your recreation was to write Hamlet or even just to read it." #Proust Sodom and Gomorrah trans. Helen Constantine
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
It is of course perfectly proper for the man who writes reports, orders the accounts, replies to business letters, follows the ups and downs of the Bourse, to feel a pleasant sensation of superiority, when he says to you jeeringly: 'It's all right for you; you've got nothing better to do.'
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"No doubt he spoke like that because he was cross about not being invited [to the Verdurins], but also because of the satisfaction that 'busy' people feel--even if their work is the most futile--in 'not having time' to do whatever you are doing.
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Marcelita Swann @marcelitaswann.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
New website for Amis de Proust! @amisdeproust.bsky.social www.amisdeproust.fr
amisdeproust.fr
Accueil – Société des Amis de Marcel Proust
Depuis 1947, la Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray fait vivre l'œuvre de Marcel Proust et anime la Maison de Tante Léonie, à Illiers-Combray.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Connie leaving was a tough one and the last couple of seasons were spotty but I followed it to the end. I was only vaguely aware of Hayden's real life circs at the time, but looking back it seems like the writers wrote all her actual personal troubles into the show.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Later, at a low point, I binged it in secret, watching 3-4 episodes a day. I wanted, in that bleak period, somehow to exit my life and rematerialize in the world of the show. Dreamers, strivers, and songwriters in Music City. "Undermine" and "Telescope" are great songs. This is a sad loss.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I am very sad about Hayden Panettiere. I was obsessed with Nashville. HP was great as Juliette Barnes (though the writing soon let her down). I watched the show weekly when it aired and bought all the cd soundtracks.
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Robert de Saint-Loup @insearchofproust.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
🧵(1/x) Paintings not in #Karpeles but mentioned in the Oxford #Proust, an ongoing series. See alt-text for details. "His features were flushed with cold, bringing to mind…the ruddy cheeks Brueghel gives to his boisterous, carousing, frostbitten peasants." (The Guermantes Way, tr. Peter Bush)
Peter Brueghel the Elder, The Hunters in the Snow (1565)Peter Brueghel the Elder, Peasant Wedding (1567)
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
I was. I've written about it here and there. It's always on my mind this time of year but particularly now with the 25th anniversary.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Paintings in Proust & Baby Face... both essential works
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I should add that we both were working there at the time, Morgan Stanley, 2 WTC. I remember being annoyed that I had to go to "the office" on a Sunday. My boss was on her honeymoon in Italy on 9/11 but I was there at my desk on the 70th floor.
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Bryan Alistair Charles @bryanacharles.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
my boss had her wedding there 9/2/01
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