The Beginning.

So I guess a new weblog demands an introduction of some kind.

My name is Ben. I having been ‘blogging’ over on Stereo Sanctity for the best part of five years. Throughout that time, that site has been dedicated almost exclusively to writing about music, with only the occasional post about movies, books, politics and other such things.

Now, for no particular reason, I’ve got myself a yen to open up a second blog as an outlet for stuff relating to movies, books, comic books, general weirdness, history, wider culture and so forth. This one. Which is not to say I won’t be posting music-related content over here from time to time (scans of unusual record covers, movie soundtracks, that sort of thing), or that I won’t reserve the right to post non-music stuff over on Stereo Sanctity should I feel like it.

My plan though is to use Breakfast In The Ruins to focus more on pictorial content – scans of interesting old book and record covers, comics, fanzines, posters etc. from my, er, ‘collection’, with only sporadic pieces of original writing (movie/book reviews and the like), which should make it easier to keep posts turning over regularly on both blogs.

‘Breakfast In The Ruins’ been my email address and sometime internet alias for quite a while now, but I thought it would suit the intentions of my new venture a lot better than any of the other contenders that were floating around my brain, so decided well go with it. The name is taken of course from a Michael Moorcock book, in which Karl Glogaeur (protagonist of Moorcock’s earlier crucifixion time travel caper, ‘Behold The Man’) is picked up by a muscular African man in Derry & Tom’s Roof Garden in London, and they proceed to spend the rest of the novel having rough sex, interspersed with disturbing visions of assorted alternate world apocalyptic scenarios. Truth be told, I didn’t enjoy the book all that much, but it was certainly a characteristically daring bit of experimental fiction from Moorcock, and I did enjoy imagining the reaction of all the straight-laced Elric fans who must have picked it up by accident. But if nothing else, it's certainly a damn good title, reflecting both my interest in the forgotten, marginal aspects of our slowly collapsing culture, and also my fondness for a good breakfast.

So that’s that. Stereo Sanctity will continue to be bright and sharp and to chronicle my high livin’ adventures in the world of indie-rock (ha!), Breakfast In The Ruins will be dark and geeky and candlelit and unhealthily fixated with feasting morbidly upon the weird detritus of yesteryear. I hope you’ll join me in digging in.

The Illustration I’ve used on the title bar, by the way, is by Maurice Sendek, a wonderful illustrator best known for ‘Where The Wild Things Are’. I wish I could tell you which book of his it was taken from – I wish I had a copy! – but no such luck; I cut it out of a Sunday supplement years ago.

Oh, and as to the ‘Tombstone Head, Graveyard Mind’ tagline, let’s just say that I’d like you to imagine the following playing continuously as you browse this site:



And, hell, why not add some of this too:



A touch of this:



Some of this for good measure:



And, damn it, I’m talking about music already.