Mark Doyle

@markdoyle

Historian & writer. Britain, Ireland, empire, music. Latest book is on John Cale's Paris 1919 for 33 1/3. Next: histories of African people/music in Ireland. “Pipe-sucking radical” --Mail on Sunday. Views here are my own: my employer has no views.

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Mark Doyle@markdoyle· 10d

A plush Charles Dickens with orange bird sitting in a crystal bowl. In the background is a table heaving with cakes and fruit.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· 11d

How I spent my birthday week.

Sign welcoming attendees to the Dickens Universe at the University of California Santa Cruz. Behind the sign are a bunch of very tall redwoods.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· 24d

Sometimes you come up with a really good title, and the rest of the book writes itself.

A yellow book in a store in East Tennessee titled Yellow Jackets! (and why I hate them), by Arthur J. Stewart

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· 26d

I performed parts of this in high school, which led me to more Beckett, which led me to Joyce, which led me to study in Dublin, which led me to get a PhD in Irish history, which... etc And the thing about starting out with Godot is that I've never shaken the feeling that all of the above is futile.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Jul 13

Spotted in a Nashville recording studio.

A wall in a Nashville recording studio with a yellow telephone attached to it and the words "For a good time call Jenny 867-5309" written beside it.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Jul 8

Fellow authors: without any (or very much) context, what's the first line of your current WIP?

The Last Symphony of Nicodemo Nash
Cantus Firmus: Sir Nicodemo Nash, day 17 of his confinement, morning

I’d be happier if there were a window in here.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· May 19

33 1/3 books are currently 30% off (not 33.33%, sadly). Pick up one or two (or 33), if you're so minded. For example: www.bloomsbury.com/us/john-cale...

Product page for my book on John Cale's Paris 1919. Current paperback price is $10.46

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· May 15

Catch BPB in a tiny divey club if ever you get the chance.

Will Oldham and his band on stage at The End in Nashville, Tennessee.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· May 11

Anyone want some strawberries? We got a little carried away.

A box containing roughly 10 pounds of strawberries.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Apr 26

The teen had a birthday today.

A cake with a printed frosting design showing My Chemical Romance in their Black Parade era wearing festive conical party hats.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Apr 24

The theme of the night was polka dots.

Robyn Hitchcock with a polka-dotted guitar named the Tubbycaster. Emma Swift in a polka-dotted dress.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Apr 23

This is how it starts, btw.

People talk about that summer before the war like it was a kitten, like there never was anything so sweet and purring and gay. Larks singing in hedgerows, clematis creeping across windowsills, pale young women yawning on velvet lawns—I suppose there must have been those things. Must have been tennis whites by day, yes, and the heavy scent of hawthorn at night—must have been dancing, must have been cake—must have been, must have been. Only I never saw any of it.

What people forget, even people down this way who ought to know better, is all the dust and noise of that summer. And the heat. Hot as a Turkish bath on Saturday, it was. All over England it was hot, not just here. But people seemed to think the coast would be cooler than the rest of the country so they came down here in droves, chittering and dust-coughing and waving little fans that stirred up more dust.

But I don’t want to talk about dust. I want to talk about noise.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Apr 16

Just another Wednesday evening and I'm finding myself enchanted by this 1738 statue of Handel trying to work from home while daycare's closed. collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O34256/...

From the V&A description: Statue, marble. Handel is seated cross-legged and leaning to his right, playing a lyre. His left elbow rests on a pile of bound scores of his works, titled ALEX FEAST, OPERAS, ORAS and LESSONS. He wears informal contemporary dress, a soft cap, a long shirt open at the neck and buttoned to below the waist, loose breeches, stockings and slippers, one of which has been discarded and lies beneath his right foot. He has also a full loose gown, covering the seat and falling to the ground on either side of his legs. At his feet on his left is seated a putto, who is inscribing the notes Handel plays on paper propped against a viol, while to the left on the base are a flute and an oboe.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Mar 22

After years of fruitless luring, we finally have bluebirds in the yard.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Mar 19

One Tweetle Beetle Bottle Puddle Paddle Battle After Another

Illustration from Fox in Sox, by Doctor Seuss, showing four tweetle beetles bettling one another with paddles in a puddle in a bottle.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Mar 15

Qutb Minar with airplane, a few days ago

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Mar 15

Lodhi Gardens, Delhi, yesterday morning

A domed 15th/16th-century structure built by the Lodhi Sultanate in Delhi. It's misty and there are yellow flowers and a boy playing cricket.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Mar 15

Spring Break was a little different this year.

A tuk-tuk driving along Janpath in New Delhi, the dome of the Rashtaprati Bhavan (presidential palace) can be seen in the distance.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Feb 20

Spent the week immersed in @stuhennigan.bsky.social's crackling fizzling merry-walloping novel Keshed and holy moses, if you like a book that grabs you by the arm & spins you around & boots you down the stairs & chases you down the street (in a good way!) you really must read this. It's tremendous.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Feb 13

Liverpool, 1865 - It's getting so you can't even steal a sword from a Fenian and show passersby how to use it without being fined 5 shillings and costs. --Liverpool Mercury, December 7 1865

A FENIAN'S SWORD.--A man named William Hobbs, described as a "loafer," was brought up on the charge of being drunk and disorderly in Great Homer-street on the previous evening. He was brandishing a naked sword from a Fenian for the purpose of preventing him doing any harm with it. He (the prisoner) was only showing the people in the street the way to use a sword, and was going through "the sword exercise." He did not intend to hurt any one. He now made a similar statement, and was fined 5 shillings and costs for being drunk.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Feb 7

This. Interesting (& timely) study of design in the service of totalitarianism.

Stalin's Architect: Power and Survival in Moscow, by Deyan Sujuc

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Jan 29

Now's a good time to cancel that Prime membership. www.immigrantdefenseproject.org/wp-content/u...

Amazon: Stop Powering ICE’s Deportation Machine
Amazon Web Services is a prime driver of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) incarceration and deportation
regime by providing ICE with a host of data storage services. Along with other major tech corporations, Amazon has built a
revolving door with the US government to entrench Silicon Valley's role in expanding the acceleration of ICE's surveillance,
data accumulation, arrest, imprisonment, and deportation of immigrants. ICE cannot wage its war against immigrants
without the critical infrastructure support provided by tech corporations like Amazon.

Mark Doyle@markdoyle· Jan 29

I've been told by a few people that bought this album in 1973 that my book about it did not ruin the album for them. www.bloomsbury.com/us/john-cale...