Dougal McNeill
@dougalmcneill.bsky.social
Literary critic & historian; socialist; education trade unionist; sinner who has fallen short (the throat an opened grave!); listener for the murmur of underground streams, looker for a limestone landscape.
Walked past a line of golfing gear in the Kichijōji Tokyu today all carrying the slogan "Postmodernism changed my life".
December 1, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Walked past a line of golfing gear in the Kichijōji Tokyu today all carrying the slogan "Postmodernism changed my life".
Found this handsome hardback at 北沢書店 in 神田 today, on the same shelf I found About the House many years ago. These late, late poems doing all sorts of amazing things: “None of us are as young / as we were. So what? / Friendship never ages.”
November 14, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Found this handsome hardback at 北沢書店 in 神田 today, on the same shelf I found About the House many years ago. These late, late poems doing all sorts of amazing things: “None of us are as young / as we were. So what? / Friendship never ages.”
Charming (& tiny) exhibition of Moriwaki Masumi’s “cool boys and tough girls” in Kichijōji.
November 8, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Charming (& tiny) exhibition of Moriwaki Masumi’s “cool boys and tough girls” in Kichijōji.
Gender-affirming crockery.
October 30, 2025 at 5:13 AM
Gender-affirming crockery.
It was one of their main campaigning points around here just after the election.
October 30, 2025 at 2:34 AM
It was one of their main campaigning points around here just after the election.
“If war is the test of reality, then all poetry is unreal; but in that case unreality is a virtue.” I found this beautiful, wise & extraordinarily careful & caring book quite by accident in the stacks yesterday. I wish I’d known it years ago.
October 9, 2025 at 11:58 PM
“If war is the test of reality, then all poetry is unreal; but in that case unreality is a virtue.” I found this beautiful, wise & extraordinarily careful & caring book quite by accident in the stacks yesterday. I wish I’d known it years ago.
When these started going up over the summer I was struck by how the message was both formally totally uncontroversial and honourably liberal and also of course, at the same time, totally marginal.
October 4, 2025 at 12:26 PM
When these started going up over the summer I was struck by how the message was both formally totally uncontroversial and honourably liberal and also of course, at the same time, totally marginal.
Our book gets launched in Wellington in a few weeks and youse are all welcome. The Tokyo launch is in November!
October 1, 2025 at 10:59 PM
Our book gets launched in Wellington in a few weeks and youse are all welcome. The Tokyo launch is in November!
Stylistic NEW YORKER quirk: macron for rongoā but not for Māori.
September 27, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Stylistic NEW YORKER quirk: macron for rongoā but not for Māori.
The Communists are putting up a new round of these rather fetching campaign posters against anti-migrant デマ (a nice loan word for demagoguery). “There’s no such thing as fist-class or second-class humans.”
September 24, 2025 at 5:31 AM
The Communists are putting up a new round of these rather fetching campaign posters against anti-migrant デマ (a nice loan word for demagoguery). “There’s no such thing as fist-class or second-class humans.”