Andrew Clarke

@andclarke.bsky.social

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PhD researcher in Maynooth University exploring hybridity, ambiguity and uncertainty in Teju Cole's intermedial body of work

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We need to find ways of gaming the algorithm to make Spotify recommendations and playlists more interesting. Like, convince it that people who love Taylor Swift will also really enjoy Fela Kuti, Maria Callas, Megadeth, and Bolivian reggae.

One way I think companies like Spotify have poisoned the world is that now no matter where I travel — México City, Glasgow, Buenos Aires, Bangkok — all the bars and restaurants are playing the same music playlists. Hmph. Adult contemporary is a tool of empire! We must rebel, comrades!

Like a lot of people, I’ve ended up back on Xhitter through a mix of bad habits, lack of engagement here, and sheer masochism. But it really unspeakably shit there, and getting worse. One more try in this place.

This is an outrageous sentence. There’s absolutely no need for the comma.

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Today the Irish Examiner published my piece about the hellscape of platform manipulation and spam that is the modern web. In it, I highlighted that such actions materially benefit Twitter. Now, for the first time in 14 years, I've been suspended by Twitter. For "platform manipulation and spam".

I’ll level with you all and admit that I’ve never used Wunderkammer in conversation, but the excitement of reviewing a book as Wunderful as Spent Light got the better of me. Link is subscriber-only, so here’s a shot. Buy Lara’s book for the best people in your life.

"Spent Light coalesces into a Wunderkammer of treasures, memories and mundanities that the reader is invited to view – sometimes repellent, often alluring, always resonant and compelling." Thank YOU Andrew Clarke @IrishTimes for this very thoughtful & generous review.

Spent Light by Lara Pawson: An innovative hybrid of fiction and autobiographywww.irishtimes.com Sometimes repellent, often alluring, always resonant and compelling

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Diversity in Creative Industries conference at Maynooth University. CFP closes soon so get your abstracts in intersectionalhuma.wixsite.com/ihss

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intersectionalhuma.wixsite.com/newmateriali... come along to our conference! @andclarke.bsky.social #creativeindustries #feminism #diversity

After yesterday’s delivery from @imbibecoffee.bsky.social I realised I have ten different coffees to choose from. Am I running a backstreet barista course? I am not.

Picked this gem by the peerless Margo Jefferson up in a second hand bookshop earlier. Getting funny looks for reading it on the train.

Knocked back for something I’d have been great at. Half hour sulk, big sandwich and crisps, on with the day.* *watching TV and muttering darkly to myself

I try to take fewer photos of him but he’s being ridiculously handsome today

Seeing lots of people delighted to be leaving Xhitter to the bastard who runs it for the bastard who runs Threads makes me realise I don’t even know which bastard runs this place

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all my absolute top tier apes gone

Took the plunge and deactivated my Xhitter account yesterday. I’ll no doubt go running back to it when some horrible/scandalous local event happens, because this place has me in some weird London/NY liminal space that doesn’t feel like anywhere. But, for now, it’s good to be rid of it.

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Chuffed to be invited to review Let Me Go On by Paul Griffiths @HenninghamPress for @GuardianBooks – an exquisite experiment. www.theguardian.com/books/2023/d...

Let Me Go On by Paul Griffiths review – an exquisite experimentwww.theguardian.com Ophelia journeys beyond the grave, in a clever and affecting sequel using just the 481 words spoken by Shakespeare’s character

Picked this off the bookshelf last night, just intending to read a little before I went to sleep. I did not stop until I’d read all 105 perfect pages. Keegan always makes every sentence count, and so many of them are devastating.

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This new text by Prof. Ariella Azoulay is essential reading. I can’t urge you enough to give it the honor and joy of your attention.

Seeing Genocide - Boston Reviewwww.bostonreview.net Israel’s weaponization of images since October 7 obfuscates its genocidal campaign against Palestinians.

Have there been any decent documentaries made by the big streaming platforms in the last few years? Any at all? They’re all extended celebrity branding promos, ethically fucked true crime exploitation, or some vaguely interesting whimsy dragged out over four hours or more.

The pattern of migration from Xhitter to here really seems to have slowed in the past couple of months. It’s an uncomfortable fact that people like Musk stand to gain enormously from violent conflicts.

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One of the things that's frequently striking when I interview people in terrible circumstances is their capacity to worry about other people.

Myself and Jack Power wrote this about the concentration of homeless accomodation on Gardiner Street in Dublin's city centre and what it means for people to live in that scenario www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

‘They’ve stuck all the homeless people on Gardiner Street’www.irishtimes.com Our reporters investigate support workers’ concerns about the huge concentration of homeless accommodation on Dublin’s Gardiner Street, with fears the area will be ‘ghettoised’

When Teju Cole published Tremor in October it was his fourth new book since I conceived of my thesis, and third since I’d actually started it. I swore it’d be the last one I’d try to cover. But he has a collection of short stories out in February, of course. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

“Incoming,” by Teju Colewww.newyorker.com Some of us would be captured. Some might even be killed. But not all of us could be captured or killed.

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Like last year and the year before that and the year before… We won’t be partaking in Black Friday. As a business we wish to be the complete opposite of Amazon. From midnight Thursday we’ll be increasing the usual 1% of all web sales we give to Women’s Aid to 10% until midnight Sunday.

The worst thing about getting older is the involuntary grunting.

Saltburn is great batshit craic, the best use I’ve seen yet of Barry Keoghan’s very particular set of skills

When the boys want to party on Friday but you’ve something to submit by midnight

My most bougie friends like to casually boast about their home improvements like their streamlined jacuzzi upgrade or their Camembert pantry extension or whatever. In the same vein, I’d like you all to know that you can’t smell the dead rat under my bathroom floorboards any longer.

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For anyone knocking about Maynooth next week - or on Zoom - I’m giving a talk on free speech in a world of noise as part of the Intersectional Humanities series organised by Anna Catherine Hickey-Moody and Tapasya Narang

I’m into a 2nd hour of ABBA documentaries on BBC4

This, I already understand, was very flawed thinking.

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A group of Irish writers and Irish Artists for Palestine have organised four events - in Dublin, Belfast, Galway and Cork - with readings and music to raise money for Medical Aid for Palestine. Tickets for three shows (Cork is sold out) on sale Monday,10am. Details here: linktr.ee/writersforpa...