BBC News: Alasdair Gray murals secure listed status for restaurant
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgqkyq83q21o
alasdairgray
The Oxfam bookshop on Glasgow’s Byres Road moved, recently, to a new location further down the hill – but I’m very pleased that they managed to take Alasdair Gray’s mural with them! I think he did this when on a break from painting the ceiling in Òran Mór …
#Scottish #literature #Glasgow #AlasdairGray #Murals #VisualArt
Alasdair Gray’s “The Great Bear Cult” is a script for a (rejected) documentary on the movement which briefly swept Britain in the 1930s. Although mention of the Cult is still suppressed, @canongatebooks includes the script in UNLIKELY STORIES, MOSTLY
Today, 7 November, is Hug A Bear Day 🧸
@bookstodon
![broadcast and displayed, surely the BBC would be interested? It was not. I discovered that although Lord Reith's restrictions upon clothing, drink and sexual conduct had for years been matter for jest in the corridors of Broadcasting House and the Television Centre, his tabu upon all reference to the cult after Ramsay McDonald's famous broadcast to the nation was still in force. The BBC rejected my documentary drama. I offer it here, hoping readers will not be afraid to view it upon the television screen of their minds.
[ILLUSTRATION: In the centre is Rupert the Bear's smiling face, a tartan scarf around his neck; on either side, between 2 tall bearskin hats as worn by British guardsmen on parade, stand 2 portly, Winnie-the-Pooh-like figures, facing inwards, heads tilted proudly skywards. Each has their right arm raised in a fascist salute.]
1 STUDIO INTRODUCTION
To a recording of The Teddy Bears' Picnic the camera advances upon a commentator leaning casually against a table on which is displayed: a fancy-dress bear costume, a toy teddy bear, a Buckingham Palace sentry's bearskin helmet, a Daily Express Rupert Bear cartoon annual, and a copy of The House at Pooh Corner.
RECORDING: If you go down to the woods today
you're sure of a big surprise!
If you go down to the woods today
you'd better go in disguise!
For every bear that ever there was
Has gathered there for certain because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic!
COMMENTATOR: If you go down to the woods](/proxy/post_attachment/899662/7f585ffe8a.jpg "broadcast and displayed, surely the BBC would be interested? It was not. I discovered that although Lord Reith's restrictions upon clothing, drink and sexual conduct had for years been matter for jest in the corridors of Broadcasting House and the Television Centre, his tabu upon all reference to the cult after Ramsay McDonald's famous broadcast to the nation was still in force. The BBC rejected my documentary drama. I offer it here, hoping readers will not be afraid to view it upon the television screen of their minds.
[ILLUSTRATION: In the centre is Rupert the Bear's smiling face, a tartan scarf around his neck; on either side, between 2 tall bearskin hats as worn by British guardsmen on parade, stand 2 portly, Winnie-the-Pooh-like figures, facing inwards, heads tilted proudly skywards. Each has their right arm raised in a fascist salute.]
1 STUDIO INTRODUCTION
To a recording of The Teddy Bears' Picnic the camera advances upon a commentator leaning casually against a table on which is displayed: a fancy-dress bear costume, a toy teddy bear, a Buckingham Palace sentry's bearskin helmet, a Daily Express Rupert Bear cartoon annual, and a copy of The House at Pooh Corner.
RECORDING: If you go down to the woods today
you're sure of a big surprise!
If you go down to the woods today
you'd better go in disguise!
For every bear that ever there was
Has gathered there for certain because
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic!
COMMENTATOR: If you go down to the woods")
A Kick Up the Arts
Gray Day on 25 February celebrates the 45th anniversary of Lanark. Curated by Sorcha Dallas, custodian of the Alasdair Gray Archive, the event will be hosted by writer & comedian Josie Long & will feature a new short story by Rachelle Atalla inspired by Gray’s work.
A Kick Up the Arts host Nicola Meighan visits the archive & speaks to Sorcha, Josie & Rachelle about the upcoming celebration
Translating Alasdair Gray
Recorded at the Alasdair Gray Archive on 23 May: a conversation between Professor Enrico Terrinoni (translator of Gray’s work in Italian) & Dr Rodge Glass (Gray’s biographer).
https://youtu.be/fXaiJeJE33k?si=0UG58FFH5DiiMgAP
#Scottish #literature #AlasdairGray #translation #literarytranslation #Italian
The Long Shadow of Scottish Gothic
31 July, Glasgow
Tickets £13.44
From ‘Tam o Shanter’ through Jekyll & Hyde to Alasdair Gray & Muriel Spark, the Gothic has a vicelike grip on the Scottish imagination. Dr Valentina Bold & Prof Liam McIlvanney discuss Liam’s new psychological thriller THE GOOD FATHER, the enduring appeal of Scottish Gothic, & our fascination with the dark side
https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/the-long-shadow-of-scottish-gothic-liam-mcilvanney
#Scottish #literature #gothic #RobertBurns #RobertLouisStevenson #AlasdairGray #MurielSpark
Edited 310d ago
Today, 20 July, is World Chess Day
Episode 2 of the Alasdair Gray Archive’s UNLIKELY OBJECTS MOSTLY looks at Alasdair’s chessboard & the part chess played in his practice, uncovering the game’s pivotal role in the making of his Hillhead Subway mural & the novel POOR THINGS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vbB7OeYkeo
#Scottish #literature #AlasdairGray #PoorThings #mural #murals #publicart #Glasgow #Chess #WorldChessDay
“Novels like LANARK do what all the best art does: awaken your imaginative capacities without swallowing them whole. It does not give you answers, but it does give you the right questions.”
—Stephen Durkan: “LANARK: an escape to reality”
https://stephendurkan.wordpress.com/2021/02/25/lanark-an-escape-to-reality/
#Scottish #literature #AlasdairGray #GrayDay #Lanark #fantasy
INTERVIEWER: When somebody asks you to describe your book LANARK, what do you say to them?
ALASDAIR GRAY: I say it is a Scottish petit bourgeois model of the universe.
I: Just like that?
AG: Yes, I’ve rehearsed it & honed it down to as few words as possible.
It’s #GrayDay! Alasdair Gray’s LANARK was first published on 25 Feb 1981
@bookstodon
🧵
preface/
🎨 Screenprint of the title page to LANARK, by Gray & Murray Robertson
“LANARK, in common with all great books, is still, and always will be, an act of resistance. It is part of the system of whispers and sedition and direct communion, one voice to another, we call literature.”
—Janice Galloway, writing in 2002
@bookstodon
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/oct/12/fiction.alasdairgray
“LANARK is a strange, experimental book that immediately thrusts the reader into a weird world with glimmers of familiarity”
—author Rodge Glass & the International Anthony Burgess Foundation discuss Alasdair Gray’s LANARK
https://www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/ninety-nine-novels-lanark-by-alasdair-gray/
#Scottish #literature #AlasdairGray #GrayDay #Lanark #AnthonyBurgess
Bookclub: Alan Cumming on Alasdair Gray’s LANARK
Currently available on BBC Sounds.
Recorded at the at the 2026 Pitlochry Winter Words Festival, this special episode of Bookclub celebrates Alasdair Gray’s 1981 masterpiece, LANARK, with the actor Alan Cumming, who is the voice of the new audiobook recently released by @canongatebooks
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002s2yx
#Scottish #literature #Lanark #novel #AlasdairGray #AlanCumming
Responding to Alasdair Gray’s LANARK
15 April, University of Glasgow – free, ticketed
Rachelle Atalla in conversation with Rodge Glass, presented by The Alasdair Gray Archive. Rachelle Atalla will read from her newly commissioned short story, “Waste Management”, which delves into Glasgow’s hidden subterranean layers, drawing inspiration from LANARK & the city’s sanitation infrastructure
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/responding-to-alasdair-grays-lanark-tickets-1984371725248