A charmingly offbeat; surreal comedy of knitting; penguins and Battenberg. Stitch is hitting the gay scene of Hull. Or at least dipping his toe in the water; while staying with his heavily pregnant sister Liz and her shabby sofa-loving partner Mark. But why wont Stitch let anyone into the bathroom even though Liz is dying for a pee? And who is the man in the giant penguin costume? Me; As a Penguin premiered at the Arcola Theatre; London; in 2010. This volume also features two monologues by Tom Wells; About a Goth and Notes for First Time Astronauts. a remarkable piece of writing; wry; witty and surreal mdash;WhatsOnStage thoroughly charming mdash;Time Out
#3744126 in eBooks 2014-06-01 2014-08-01File Name: B00MX4B320
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A Deeply Absorbing Study of Our Cultural BonesBy Nicholas PunerIn conception; imagination; and execution Untimely Ruins is a stunning book. Nick Yablon has thought about and synthesized a formidable range of disciplines; from journalism to painting to literature to architecture; to name just a few; to show that 19th-century America (actually the period from 1819 to 1919); having no ancient ruins of its own; found cognate ruins in the abandoned landscape; in only partially built or destroyed cities; and in the "media" of the day. Indeed; Yablon compellingly narrates the fascination of the young nation with iconic images of all kinds; belying the notion that its people were unilaterally fixed wholly on the modern; transitory moment in which they lived.Untimely Ruins is absorbing and illuminating. It enlarges our understanding of American cultural history (and historiography); a history that is not generally familiar. Yablon offers readers a fascinating window into the American ethos in a time that; while not so long ago; is ever receding. Untimely Ruins is not only an exceptional book; it is also a bravura performance.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Erudite; ambitious; and accessibleBy KeldaUntimely Ruins is organized chronologically and tells a remarkably unified story of an instinct to plan ruin at the heart of the new of as a way of establishing a timeless; but not quite millennial; worth. It is less a study of urban spaces than it is an analysis of American urban anxiety caused by the new; the fast; and the invented. American fascination/horror/obsession with the new is the obverse of its nostalgia for an invented past. Both are part of American modernism. If Yablon had demonstrated nothing else with this remarkable volume; he would have done well. Thankfully; there is much more.From pre-ruin "cities on paper" that evoke images of Dubai and Doha; to Tocquevilles prematurely ruined log cabin that suggest foreclosed houses and urban decay; to "creative destruction" that raises the specter of Steampunk; there is much in this book to encourage the active mind to excavate all modernist ideas for the footprints of ruin-scapes. Yablons astonishing debut monograph delivers on very nearly all levels.
