Niall O'Sullivan

@rustyniall.bsky.social

381 Followers 192 Following

(in no particular order…) poet, essayist, lecturer, gamer, dad buttondown.com/niall niall.garden

Andy Serkis intensely speaking into a microphone during the "One Way Out" prison break episode of Andor.
Oil painting of an apple on a table by Giacommetti. Mainly rusty brown colours with black lines.
text: The ‘page/stage divide’ is a familiar device for examining the difference between literary poetry and performance poetry. Poems that entrance audiences in performance are judged not to work ‘on the page’. Similarly, muted readings at literary festivals are often compared unfavourably with dynamic performances at Poetry Slams and Spoken Word nights. This chapter proposes that the defining difference between spoken word/performance poetry and literary poetry is not simply related to differences between the mediums of printed page and spoken word. It proposes that there are a number of different critical approaches that can appraise literary and performance poetry in either medium. These critical approaches can be pared down to the contrast between the social experience of the poem and the private experience of the poem. Contrary to the assumptions noted above regarding page and stage, these private and social aspects of a poem are not exclusive to either medium. The private experience of a poem can be recreated in a live setting, the social experience of a poem can be recreated through solitary reading and vice versa.
Screen grab from Netflix addressing me as Daddy
New design for club bars, brown and green packaging
Balding man with glasses with a big 50 balloon obscuring his face. Text below reads: Not one to normally share birthday related stuff online but today's a bit of a biggie. If you'd asked me 5 years ago I would have been all about having a big gig or something extravagant but today will be a posh cinema visit with Mrs O'Sullivan and my favourite Italian to restaurant with my little family tonight. To any friends that see this, I probably owe you a reply text or email, possibly from about five years ago or longer. I've not been very good at that kind of thing of late but I'll see if I can work through that backlog soon. Much love to everyone that's helped make the first half century something worth smiling about. Much love, Niall X
POEM (Dwayne Johnson has lost 60lbs) –⁠ after Frank O'Hara I was contemplating the subtle late August/early September shift as I counted four squished slugs on the narrow path to the big Sainsburys –⁠ how I couldn’t quite pin that shift down, whether it was a quality of the light or a thinness in the air or whether it was actually me as I shifted into the Autumn of my life; how my recent embrace of the term’ “late summer” was a sign of me being in denial? But then I saw a headline in an algorithmic feed –⁠ DWAYNE JOHNSON HAS LOST 60LBS! The melange of influencers, the celebrity commentariat and wrestling dirt sheets was ablaze with takes: He’s going for serious roles now! He did it for Scorcese! A man in his fifties can’t carry that much muscle, it’s a burden that the heart cannot bear! I just wondered where that 60lbs of Dwayne Johnson had gone. Is Dwayne Johnson a variation of the ship of Theseus where a plank is shed at every port and never replaced? Maybe a tiny, 60lb Dwayne Johnson will show up and declare that he is actually the true, essential Dwayne Johnson and the bigger Dwayne Johnson is actually the shell that he cast aside? You might say that Dwayne’s brain could only live in one vessel but what if his hemispheres were also split during the great shedding? But if that was the case, only one of them would have the gift/curse of language and the only way to truly tell them apart would be to place them in opposing kitchens and smell what they are cooking. I can’t even recognise my own authentic selfhood, let alone choose from two from a fractal of voices and vantages that claim to be the essential Niall. I once dropped my phone in the toilet but I never managed to drop 60lbs. Oh Dwaynes, we love you, pair up!
Two images of Eric Barone's desk setup. The present day one on the left looks unremarkable enough but the one on the right is from when he made Stardew Valley and is a massive disasterpiece. It appears to be an improvised standing desk with the monitor perched at the top of a long, narrow cardboard box. The keyboard is resting atop the speakers.
Cover of the poetry book by Joan Margarit, entitled "Tugs in the Fog"
Text from the end of my essay that says: More than that, I like how the long sentence challenges the necessities of function and understanding: stacking up colons, semi-colons, dashes, parentheses, clauses and sub-clauses to a point where the whole thing threatens to tip over in a sudden calamity that slows down the reader’s comprehension (in the same way that all those lost golden rings slowed down the frame rate of the Sega Megadrive console) –⁠ losing itself as it grinds onwards and becomes more of a thing in itself; an aesthetic monstrosity that, in its audaciousness, opens up new avenues for understanding, communication and (above all) fun. Or something.
TFL information page saying that the cable car service is suspended.