Comments for Harry Whitehead

Comment on Black Amex and Chop by louie lilac

louie lilac — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:55:04 +0000

Harry , loved the story and your writing ! hope evrythings going well good luck good to see you the other day Dennis

Comment on Ringtone by gameboys 2007

gameboys 2007 — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 12:08:42 +0000

gameboys 2007

Ringtone « Harry Whitehead

Comment on Ringtone by 2 serie cesaroni

2 serie cesaroni — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 17:21:19 +0000

2 serie cesaroni

Ringtone « Harry Whitehead

Comment on Sharp by niki

niki — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:09:17 +0000

I agree with a lot with the previous comments – Harry does indeed have an urgent novel waiting to come out, except I think the erotic genre only covers some of his bigger themes. This story in particular – a delicious tale of voyearism with Talia’s desires spread-eagled before the readers; demonstrates not only the beauty of his prose but Harry’s ease with the Big questions that literary fiction wrestles with.

Sharp is wrapped up in the contemporary wrapper of youth, tattoos and genital piercings, but the main protag in this coming of age tale struggles with issues of sexual identity and emancipation that many of us can identify with – even without the ink work and studs to prove it. This pulls it out of the genre of porn and the world of specialised eroticism and fetishes, and propels it into a wider space. With all that being said, it wouldn’t be Harry without the wit, the fliration and fun, danger and contemprary edginess; his whole keyhole approach of telling a story, which makes it all feel just a bit naughty.

Comment on Dust by niki

niki — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:27:45 +0000

This is lovely Harry. Really lovely. The imagery and symbolism of Dust is wonderful. I love it.

ps: your email doesn’t work.

Comment on Sharp by Kali Deva

Kali Deva — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:37:53 +0000

I enjoyed Harry’s story ‘Sharp’. I found it more interesting then ‘Ringtone’ which had loosely drawn characters in an archetypal moment that did not culminate in any insight on the part of the characters. I like to feel elated when I leave the theater. It helps me digest the butter popcorn. ‘Sharp’ took me into the world of the main character Talia. I felt satisfied to be introduced to her perspectives and motivations. In ‘Ringtone’ I felt parched for embellishment and ‘Big Picture’ images, which I made up for in my commentary. But here, in the world of ‘Sharp’ we have many tastes and images to savor.
The use of accents the characters used in conversing brought an immediacy to the story. I have been told that there is not a ‘British accent’, that Americans speak English with an accent. I once visited a college cafeteria in Northern England. Whatever it was they were speaking, I couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
I love the subject of body alteration and am a big fan of tattoos and piercings. I like the idea of reinventing the body. It is as old as we are a species. Tongue studs are a wonderfully shameless exhibition of the love of oral sex. I guess clit rings are for pocket rockets. Nicolas Cage was asked once what the first thing he would do if he could be a female. He replied, “masturbate”. I think Harry has a porn novel hidden deep in his brain pan waiting to come out. I am sure it would be a very graphic , twisted tale, void of cleverness for cleverness sake. A contemporary ‘Story of O’ with soul perhaps. Such novels have lost their appeal as a genre. I believe Harry could breath life back into the ‘forbidden’ novel genre.
William Burroughs said after visiting a Gay porn theater that the film he saw made his novels into “an extinct commentary on the forbidden”. ‘Sharp’ wants to take us back to the taboo we can all partake in for the price of a needle and a skilled puncture master. The young life of a teenage girl ends up with her on her back, legs in the air, in a dingy back room, waiting for her genitals to be pierced. This is not a circumcision ritual or is it? Harry puts a fly in the ointment by Talia wishing for it to be sharp, painful. Some people require pain to attain an orgasm. One wonders more about Harry’s motivation then Talia’s. Is he secretly The Beard character?
There was a time when some women were ashamed of their genitals, considering them ugly. These days the popularity of adorning them with tattoos and piercings is on the raise.It is a good topic to write about and Harry has taken the needle in hand to wet our appetites for more screaming, splitting exposures of human extremity. Well done.

Comment on Ringtone by Kali Deva

Kali Deva — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:54:10 +0000

Anouar Brahem composed the tempo of the music ‘Le pas du chat noir’ from watching a tree’s movements from his bedroom window. From where do the interconnections come from that compose our sense of connectedness? If reincarnation exists, do we get to choose, from all the character’s we have been, which one we want to be in the afterlife? Do they morph through our remembrance of existence like masks we’ve worn in a Mid Summer Night’s tale. We all have been the Jerry Springer director of commercials, passed out on the street from an overdose of meaninglessness. Someone once told us there was money to be made from stuffing a hippo in an elevator. We considered how that could be accomplished. Why, because that keeps the girlfriend in aroma therapy oils for her nightly bath. It keeps our reputation intact in the business of making the unbelievable believably viable. We have all been the Magician of the Absurd.
We have all been the hooker whose only asset is the configuration of flesh they were born with in this life. We have also been the pimp who prays upon the desperation of the weak. These lonely characters attract each other in this stories moment in time. They share a common need to survive the disconnection they mutual suffering. They are like drowning ants that desperately entwine their legs as they sink down into another passing night in London town. Each close to death, each defenseless in their attempt to retain an identity they despise. They are interconnected like the composer, the wind and the tree. They dance for the cameras that record their one act play, to be reviewed later in a Soviet style Central Observation Department, in an abandoned tube station marked ‘Top Secret’.
In the end, they all go home; none the richer, for their assets are already spent. The director has only his misfortune to weave into another unsaleable script, the hooker must forfeit her earnings to her protector and he owes everyone to ply his trade. The art of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, has been recorded so many times the reviewers do not even register on the encounter. No one was killed, no violence, it will not sell. It all passes into the memories of the players as an interconnection of random notes, composed to the tempo of all that surrounded them. All the witnesses that looked on in disinterest, through the sodium lights of the city.

Comment on Dr Pershing Becomes a Dinosaur by Antibush

Antibush — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:00:54 +0000

Bush and the Republicans were not protecting us on 9-11, and we aren’t a lot safer now. We may be more afraid due to george bush, but are we safer? Being fearful does not necessarily make one safer. Fear can cause people to hide and cower. What do you think? Why has bush turned our country from a country of hope and prosperity to a country of belligerence and fear.
If ever there was ever a time in our nation’s history that called for a change, this is it!
We have lost friends and influenced no one. No wonder most of the world thinks we suck. Thanks to what george bush has done to our country during the past three years, we do!

Comment on Dr Pershing Becomes a Dinosaur by Kali Deva

Kali Deva — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 07:21:09 +0000

Our sense of horror manifests in the usurping of our control by the intentions of unknown forces that hold power over us. For ordinary people, nothing represents that dilemma more then being at the mercy of medical experts in the karmic black hole of a hospital examination room. Suddenly you are a ‘thing’ on a slab that requires treatment by someone looking to make a name for them selves by inventing a new procedure that will ‘cure’ what they tell you is ‘your’ problem. Everything comes to a complete stop and the life you took for granted is now in the hands of someone handing you a ‘waiver of responsibility’ form for you to sign, if you want to get better.
This nightmare mood is captured in the opening of Harry’s story. The clinically impersonal dissection of a victim of the exploitation of our most prized resource. These ‘workers’ find security in the celebration of polluting them selves with the discovery of more profits for their masters. This undiagnosable madness crystallizes into a genetic anomaly that transposes those who come in contact with it to a regressive POV state of a dinosaur battling for it’s survival. I have enjoyed the story so far with this juxtaposition of extremes. I always felt the Olaf Stapleton concept of viewing the world through the eyes of a dog was a brilliant idea. So, over all, the large concepts Harry is dealing with merge well. The good doctor feels very confident he has come upon something that will make him famous, even if it happens to be the unexpected. (But, do I care in the least for what happens to this character? He seems like a slug.)
He returns from his dinosaur ‘trip’ and already he’s addicted. Consequently,like any stoned out tripper of the light fantastic, he starts pacing his room concocting a ‘plan’ concerning how he can indulge his habit without loosing his personal identity, that will shortly be receiving copious amounts of praise from his peers. So far, so good.
What happens next is like ‘Mission Impossible’ on bad acid. I am thrown into a convoluted construct of a wooden bird timed to ejaculate from a Swiss contraption to disrupt a diamond balanced upon swirling toothpaste. I know we are faced with a proximity problem, but the characters solution seems rather out of his normal rational box. Perhaps, the diamond has side effects, other then the sensation of scales, that promotes the ability to function in a non linear creative mode. It left me thinking that perhaps, Harry had dipped into his own stash late at night while the girlfriend uttered unintelligible desires for attention from the bedroom.
I was sad the boy died at the end, like a dead trout. I wanted him to suddenly appear at the docs country home, really pissed off, with a shovel in his hand screaming, “Where’s my diamond you upper class, over educated, rich bastard, soon to be decapitated.” If you thought nasty rafters were scary, imagine a Azerbaijan coming to reclaim a piece of his brain. I was left with a unfulfilled desire to know more about the wife. Was she having an affair now the good doctor had lost interest in the old in and out. What was her drug of preference? Anyway, I hope she got the diamond. She deserved something from that slug of a dinosaur husband. Sounds to me like he needed to mix 500 mg. of Viagra with the diamond. Doctors, kill them all and let god sort it out.
Nice one Harry, the day job, healthy. Just pulling your chain. To extreme writing sports.