Category Archives: Death

It’s TERMINAL

August 23, 2024Books, Death, Fictionsincere corkscrew, Terminalricky

Finally, an explanation for why things have been quiet on this blog in recent times!

argonaut books x sincere corkscrew present Ricky Monhan Brown's TERMINAL book launch. September 20th, 7-9pm, 15-17 Leith Walk

My new book of short stories, TERMINAL, drops in the UK on 20 September, and is available for preorder from sincere corkscrew press NOW. As well as the Leith launch, we’re planning events in Glasgow and hopefully elsewhere in Scotland.

We’re looking to arrange some U.S. launch events and outlets, too, so please do stay tuned if you’re from that side of the Atlantic.

in the meantime, I’ll also be dropping additional content and drip feeding some snippets from the book here.

BUT FIRST, check out the early notices:

From visionary writer Ricky Monahan Brown comes Terminal: fourteen tales of ‘the end’. From the neo-Gothic to sci-fi, Leith to Brooklyn, this is vibrant short fiction which will shock, humour and astound in equal heady measure.

“Smart, trippy and irreverent”

"Terminal lives up to its titular promise of hurtling towards many different senses of ‘end’. Smart, trippy and irreverent, Monahan Brown’s narrative style is just as confident crawling under the bonnet of sci-fi as it is doing Celtic realism, moshing or luring us, fable-like, close to the wood wide web. What use is there for existentialism in an accelerated world of sex dolls, conceptual thanatos and perpetual technical difficulty? Drift on to find out" – Maria Sledmere, author of Midsummer Song

“Summons the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson and Poe”

“Tense, funny and original”

PRE-ORDER FOR U.K. DELIVERY HERE

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Mr Death

July 15, 2024Death, Pop MusicBill & Ted, death, Scott Walker, The Seventh Sealricky

Just as I typed that title, I heard Bill & Ted talking to the very man on the telly in the next room.

The character of Death in the Bill & Ted movies with his arm around the titular duo — Gets everywhere, doesn’t he?

I’m sure that Death must have been a regular spectre looming over the posts on this blog, and he seems particularly present as I return to it after another long absence.

Read on to find out why, and whether it might have anything to do with my next book.

Continue reading →

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Life’s What You Make It

February 26, 2019Brexit, Composed Music, Death, Interrobang, Parenting, Pop Music, StrokeLCD Soundsystem, Mark Hollis, Pavement, Samuel Beckett, Talk Talk, The Cure, Threadsricky

Earlier this week, a friend who makes a brief cameo appearance in my survival memoir, Stroke: A 5% chance of survival, sent me a link to this recent article celebrating the original release of Pavement’s album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Here’s the tl;dr take:

C'mon, man. The kids are really... nice. — I was there, kid. That’s not how it went down.

I mean, I was there. Not James Murphy. Though he probably was, too. I saw Pavement touring their first album, the epochal Slanted and Enchanted, at Edinburgh’s late and legendary venue, The, er, Venue.

That’s quite enough sub-muso-journo dross from me. Get to the human reflection below.
And in the Apoplectic Tiny Letter.

Continue reading →

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Treasure Islands

November 13, 2018Books, Comics, Death, Great British Strokes, StrokeArcher, Jekyll and Hyde, Jorge Luis Borges, RLS Day, Robert Louis Stevenson, Stan Lee, Strokericky

Happy RLS Day! Robert Louis Stevenson is 168 today.

Hoping flattery will get me everywhere — Don’t worry, Bob. You don’t look a day over 43.

He really doesn’t though, does he? Look at the light in those wee eyes! To look at him, you wouldn’t believe that he would be dead by the end of the next year.

[For more personal and whimsical reflections, check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter.] Continue reading Treasure Islands →

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Gold Strikes

May 22, 2018Art, Death, Design, MoviesBen Elton, Bill Gold, Cud, Hair, Jaws, Le Corbusier, Milton Glaser, PechaKucha, Rod Stewart, T-shirts, The Exorcist, Vetementsricky

I finished that bit on Le Corbusier, the godfather of Modernist architecture. When I said the bit would be more serious and more absurd than last week’s post, I was half-right.

Le Corbusier: Stealth Scot — “Absurd? I’ll take ma open haun off yer face, Sonny Jim.”

Sure, some nuggets of truth are hidden among the 6m 40s of A Story Is A Machine For Living In, but there are plenty of nuggets of sweet absurdity to keep folks engaged.

This got me to thinking about how, sometimes, the medium is the message.

[Talking about absurdity, check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter] Continue reading Gold Strikes →

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The Spectre

March 28, 2018Aneurysms, Classical Music, Comics, Current Affairs, Death, Movies, UncategorizedBoris Johnson, Kingdom Come, The Devil's Advocatericky

I’m starting to think in more detail about what I’m going to do for Death Awareness Week this year.

Man, I have *got* to fix my post-1981 Disney blind spot — Everyone’s at it, you know.

I was originally turned on to Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief‘s work when Mrs Stroke Bloke and I attended a Death Café back in 2013.

[Pass the minutes before death below. And if you’re still waiting,
check out the apoplexy newsletter.]

Continue reading The Spectre →

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Life Is Life

March 13, 2018Books, Current Affairs, Death, PoliticsBBC, Bill and Ted, Blake Morrison, Bradley Wiggins, Sergei Skripalricky

So, in last week’s post I had a little laugh at the expense of Sir Bradley Marc Wiggins, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

"That's quite lovely!" — “Dude! We’re in charge of naming British titles!”

Then I learned some new stuff. It’s good to learn new stuff. So, why not read on?

[And “Learn” “New” “Stuff” at the Apoplexy Newsletter!]

Continue reading Life Is Life →

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Dragons

February 6, 2018Books, Death, Pop Music, Sci-fiAlbert Camus, David Bowie, Mark E Smith, T2: Trainspotting, The Fall, Ursula K. Le Guin, Val McDermidricky

They say, You’re never too old to learn. And I’m worried that I may have to cast aside one of the touchstones by which I live my live.

My 🙅‍♂️🐉 No #Dragon policy means that I don’t even imagine what #GameofThrones might look like. https://t.co/gVkJi6D8KJ

— Ricky Monahan Brown (@ricky_ballboy) January 2, 2018

Not that I’ve got anything against dragons, you understand. Just everything they stand for.

[Boycotting this post due to a love of dragons? Check out the Apoplexy Newsletter instead.] Continue reading Dragons →

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Immortality

January 30, 2018Death, Pop MusicMark E Smith, Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan, Stewart Lee, The Fallricky

It occurred to me this morning that, maybe, this blog is about death. A near death experience will do that to a person.

Or maybe, I just haven’t recovered from watching The Thing last week. Or maybe Mrs Stroke Bloke and I just went a little hard on our binge watching of The Good Place.

You're basic, byrraway — Off: Middle-aged Scotsman tries to figure out how to pull off his new jam

Except of course, The Good Place isn’t about death, really. It’s about life.

And the tsunami of famous deaths since Bowie kicked off the craze in early 2016 just keeps rolling with the death last week of Mark E Smith of The Fall…

[Have a wee apoplectic aperitif over at the Apoplexy Tiny Letter, or read on…] Continue reading Immortality →

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Resolve

January 2, 2018Death, Dr. Who, Healthcare, Mindfulness, StrokeAntonio Gramsci, living wills, Theresa Mayricky

Phew! Between a dose of the Dreaded Lurgy, travel, and the end-of-year festivities, things got away from me a bit for a couple of weeks there.

Could say the same thing about the Twelfth Doctor, really — “Started well, that year.”

So it’s thank goodness for the New Year.

Or, is it? Alongside the usual end-of-year reviews and goals for 2018 that I’ve been seeing on my soshul meeds, there’s also been a bit of sniffiness about New Year and New Year’s resolutions. But perhaps nothing quite as scornful as this 1916 column from Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci:

“I hate these New Year’s that fall like fixed maturities, which turn life and human spirit into a commercial concern with its neat final balance, its outstanding amounts, its budget for the new management.” — Antonio Gramsci, January 1st, 1916 https://t.co/6HB8zJo4Le

— Viewpoint Magazine (@viewpointmag) January 1, 2018

[Be sure to catch more lighthearted japes in the Apoplexy Tiny Letter!
Oh, and there’s some actual stroke stuff if you read on!]

Continue reading Resolve →

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Apoplectic Me

the scribblings of a bloke who had a stroke…

Category Archives: Death

It’s TERMINAL

Mr Death

Life’s What You Make It

Treasure Islands

Gold Strikes

The Spectre

Life Is Life

Dragons

Immortality

Resolve