Rusty Niall
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Poem: Just You Wait Til I Get You Home
$ · May 6, 2024
Once I week, I’ll be posting a poem (or some other unspecified genre of my creative writing) for my paid subscribers. If you would like access then hit the...
Why I'm not done with London (though London might be done with me)
May 5, 2024
When thinking about London I often remember Peter Ackroyd doing the rounds at the turn of the century to promote his book, "London:The Biography". When...
On the Poetry of Shogun
April 28, 2024
This essay contains spoilers for the 2024 television adaptation of Shogun and also features descriptions of the Japanese ritual of seppuku. A lot has already...
Art and Labour, Part 3: Video Games
April 21, 2024
Art and Labour, Part 3: Video Games A pink bear plods along a beachfront just after dawn. She is singing a little song to herself. She has no memory of the...
Art and Labour, Part Two: Poetry
April 14, 2024
Last week I wrote about cinema and labour after watching Wim Wender's Perfect Days and feeling conflicted with respect to how the film portrays the value and...
Art and Labour, Part One: Cinema
April 5, 2024
This week, I got round to watching the new Wim Wenders film, Perfect Days and it left me feeling thoroughly moved and inspired but conflicted at the same...
What did Transcendence (2014) Get Right About AI and Freedom?
March 29, 2024
This essay contains plot spoilers for the 2014 science fiction film, Transcendence, as well as discussion of the final shot of Christopher Nolan's Inception....
A False Universe of Pure Imagery
March 22, 2024
2012 was the year I became a father, the year of the London Olympics and my first year of teaching an undergraduate module on Poetry and Performance. I had...
Frank (2014): Papier-mâché Heads and Grass Shoes
March 15, 2024
This essay contains major plot spoilers for the 2014 film, Frank. My analysis of the film runs from the second paragraph onwards. I wrote an essay a couple...
Does Dune Part 2 Have a Post Credit Scene? (Or, how you can't capitalism your way out of a situation you weren't willingly capitalismed into)
March 8, 2024
I'm part of the problem. I know that I am one of billions who find themselves idly scrolling during moments of boredom and restlessness, when I can't just...
What is Spoken Word in 2024?
March 1, 2024
I have fallen out of touch with the Spoken Word and live literature scenes in the city I live in (and all the cities and towns beyond it). This is sad...
Deconstructing an AI Sonnet
February 23, 2024
(Rusty Niall is now hosted on Buttondown instead of Substack) About a week before Open AI stunned the world, and by the world I mean tech vloggers, with its...
On Earplugs and Eyescreens
February 16, 2024
Now everybody can have a moon at their window! Rusty Niall is now hosted on Buttondown instead of Substack. If you had asked me for something that aided my...
Perfect Little Jumps – Super Mario Bros 1-1 and Basho's Frog
February 9, 2024
Yes, I know that Frog Mario is Super Mario Bros 3 Before the most famous video game character went by the name of Mario, he was known in Japan as Jumpman....
The Morass of Mid Career: Inside Llewyn Davis and Me
January 31, 2024
Llewyn and Ulysses Rusty Niall is now hosted on Buttondown instead of Substack. This essay also contains plot spoilers for the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn...
Orange Cassidy: The wrestler that rescues Romanticism from Irony
January 16, 2024
bn Orange Cassidy (Author's Note: Just in case you were curious about the change in platform, my newsletter is now hosted by Buttondown rather than Substack....
Rusty Niall is Migrating from Substack to Buttondown
January 8, 2024
Why I have to leave this platform
Football at Shatner's or Diner from Heat?
November 12, 2023
The ideology of non-ideological spaces
Notes on the niche pastime of thinking about death
October 1, 2023
A lyric essay about a lifetime spent pondering the imponderable
Don't Get Clever With Me, Son...
August 31, 2023
The only thing that will displace an audience’s prejudiced image of you is your humanity.
Why you're probably wrong about Instapoetry
June 24, 2023
What defenders and detractors don't understand about Kaur-core
How playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (sorta) helped me to procrastinate less
May 27, 2023
...and why all tools must eventually break
Where are all the happy poems, when is Poetry Unplugged returning (?) and my future plans for this long neglected substack.
May 18, 2023
Well, hello there...
Beyond the Page and Person paywalls
January 26, 2023
Some thoughts about the past, present and future of poetry on the internet
A bad workman always fetishises his tools
December 8, 2022
Do good writers need to hate the act of writing?
Who do I think I'm fooling?
November 30, 2022
Misadventures in digital voice cloning.
Mastodon is my mood board rather than my echo chamber
November 13, 2022
A note of hope, a note of caution and the return of my clock card poems
It Follows and the Negative Space of Horror Films
November 5, 2022
Oh look, the post I would have shared on Halloween if I had finished it on time.
The Last Time Social Media Sparked Pure, Unbridled Joy
October 30, 2022
Twitter again. Yeah, I know…
A Window Cleaner Discovers a Korok Seed at the Tip of an Unnamed Skyscraper
October 22, 2022
A yarn inspired by my last blog
Oversized Desk Toys and Korok Seeds
October 20, 2022
On accessible open worlds and inaccessible cities
autumn=happens | poet=gets feels
October 14, 2022
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedit proper chucked it down last night & i appear to be less preoccupied with the...
The Two Faces of the Dying Monarch
October 12, 2022
On how stories of monarchy are often more effective than stories of healthy democracy
Two Killer Zens on the Subject of Notability
October 8, 2022
The second poem’s better but you should read the first one anyway
Violence in Poetry
October 7, 2022
Can poetry use violence in similar ways to other media?
Tiaras. Tar. Ta-ta.
September 30, 2022
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedcannons fire in the royal parks — approaching autumn I watched the funeral with the...
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Other Peoples’ Dreams
September 29, 2022
You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your...
two hopeful poems
September 23, 2022
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedpeople i love how they for get where they are for a mo ment or how they quickly an...
I made a film
September 21, 2022
It might not be that obvious but I’ve been shifting my methods of creating and sharing these days. I have become more of a private person in my middle years...
the tap
September 17, 2022
A poem written in the Killer Zen style of Todd Moore
Molluscophobia (a haibun)
$ · September 14, 2022
My youngest is terrified of snails and slugs so if we walk to school on a rainy morning I often have to scout ahead. I always venture the same arguments —...
Rain: Live Blog
September 9, 2022
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe real story, of course, is the rain. Its shift from catharsis to ordeal. The lawns...
Rusty Niall Podcast #1
September 3, 2022
Hello, this is episode number 1 of a monthly podcast series where I read out and talk about my personal highlights from the posts and poems from the previous...
Holiday Blues (or The Death of Melancholy)
September 1, 2022
On the first morning that I dropped my youngest off at nursery, I returned to the silence of an empty living room and sobbed uncontrollably. I still don’t...
Notes from an English Seaside Break
August 29, 2022
Class treachery, sewage, Mulhern.
The Angel’s Nose
August 25, 2022
I Two stories about Michelangelo. In the first he’s chipping away at a lump of rock. A child asks him what he’s doing and he replies, “Releasing an angel.”...
On quitting Twitter to write my opinions in a weighty, leather tome.
August 22, 2022
A silly story, not a blog
on replacing the angel and devil on my shoulders with a gargoyle and butterfly
August 19, 2022
No matter how often you find yourself feeling at one with the fabric of the cosmos, you’ll still end up nuts-deep in a dichotomy a few hours later. So I...
Ruskin Park Monoku
August 13, 2022
It’s a well worn opinion that writing poetry is not always good for your mental wellbeing. That may be the case but writing haiku has always been a boon to...
No, you are not an inconsequential blip within the vast fabric of the cosmos
August 8, 2022
You have no doubt already seen the first high-res shots of the universe taken by the the James Webb Space Telescope. The universe is so incomprehensively...
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