Jenny Kenyon
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jennykenyon.bsky.social
Jenny Kenyon
@jennykenyon.bsky.social
430 followers 570 following 110 posts
20th century literature & sound | SWW DTP funded PhD @bristoluni.bsky.social & @exeter.ac.uk | PG rep @modernistudies.bsky.social | Patrick Hamilton appreciation society
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jennykenyon.bsky.social
today's #ModWrite is another Ann Quin day, on the weirdness of telephone booths, tape recordings, radios, and unreliable sonic connections (and obsessing over the gloriously weird wig Richard E. Grant wore to play Quin's Berg in the 1989 film 'Killing Dad')
A still from 'Killing Dad', the 1989 film adaptation of Ann Quin's novel Berg. In the foreground, Denholm Elliott clutches a budgie in his fist. Richard E. Grant creeps behind Elliott's shoulder, wearing a short, dark wig, with the kind of fringe that makes his forehead look massive.
November 17, 2025 at 3:29 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
today's #ModWrite is appropriately aqueous, as I write a paper about the waves crashing on the shore and over the self in Ann Quin's novel Berg, ready for the @bristolcms.bsky.social Brat Symposium 🎶 Quin's my favourite reference baby 🎶
A black and white photo of Ann Quin seated in a wicker chair, holding up sheets of paper and intently reading them. She has dark bobbed hair, and is wearing a dark shirt. The kettle and stacked dishes in the background suggest the photo was taken in her bedsit (or at least cramped kitchen).
November 10, 2025 at 4:40 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
in a world that gets more cruel, more uncertain, more divided by the day, there is much to be said for the hope and catharsis of standing in a crowd of people screaming along to a band and a song you all love (i’m too old for this and in dire need of replacement knees today)
November 6, 2025 at 1:33 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
incompetently, no photos were taken, so please accept this novelty skeleton from Boston instead
skeleton, mouth agape, perched on top of a shiny red sculpture of a cat. the skeleton is clutching a can of something mysterious, perhaps a witchy brew.
October 20, 2025 at 1:57 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
today's #ModWrite I'm writing about illustrator Eric Fraser & his depiction of telephone trauma for Hamilton's radio play Money with Menaces. Fraser also invented 'Mr Therm' for British Gas: maybe the ultimate example of cute mascot & terrifying tagline?
www.modernillustration.org/archive/mrth...
A British Gas advert from the 1950s. Mr Therm is a smiling red character, his head (or hair) is made to look like flames. The tag line reads: Mr Therm burns to serve you
September 29, 2025 at 3:19 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
joyous week 1 Austin - not pictured, my new friend Lester the trumpet player, and the huge cache of fascinating Hamilton materials at the Ransom Center
the outside of the Harry Ransom Center archive, a sandstone and glass building with dappled sunlight a spray-painted mural of ‘Stephen F. Austin’, a curly-haired man holding armadillos, and wearing a bright blue suit that merges with the blue sky behind him. on his chest is an illustration, part-watermelon, part-human heart, bearing the legend “The Art of Texas”. He’s surrounded by famous Austin landmarks and objects. a small black bird with one piercing eye, looking at you while you eat lunch. he’s a “Great-Tailed Grackle” a skyline view of a glowing orange austin sunset, with the colorado river snaking through the buildings and trees below
September 18, 2025 at 7:07 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
at the stage of writing where my brain simultaneously flies off on tangents, and cannot think of how to express a simple concept - so i send myself ominous emails from my bed as i try to get to sleep.
a screenshot of my phone’s lock screen in ominous ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode, with an email notification sent by me, to me, titled ‘avid consumer’.
August 7, 2025 at 11:40 AM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
wonderful lunch of squares (galettes) with the wonderful @becimay.bsky.social, also featuring this tantalising box… choosing to read ‘fire’ as inspirational and mind-blowing, and hoping to find the key.
innocuous wooden bench with notebook, plant pot and laptop, overshadowed by a giant red box mounted on the wall, labelled “Fire Documents”
August 1, 2025 at 2:54 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
1/10 for the British Library cup, sorry guys, but why so small? why so conical? why does the dispenser always give you 3 at once?
my hand holding a tiny, crushed, paper cup (cone shaped)
July 25, 2025 at 12:03 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
thinking about starting a photo diary of archive water cups - today’s BBC chalice scores a 7/10 for volume and durability
my hand holding a recyclable water cup, with a letter pitching the idea for Desert Island Discs out of focus in the background
July 2, 2025 at 5:02 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
back to life, back to…
a jetty with a little white and red boat moored to it, called “Reality”
March 27, 2025 at 3:21 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
i turned my disintegrating copy over as i finished this re-read to discover i paid a paltry 5 euros for it (in a second-hand bookshop in bordeaux because it was the only thing in english, as if auster himself made it happen). paul, i would give you all of the euros in the world for this book.
front cover of a very tattered copy of paul auster’s the book of illusions. the cover image is an ominous single eye in black and white, and the cover itself is coming away from the binding.
February 18, 2025 at 7:28 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
“the world was full of holes, tiny apertures of meaninglessness, microscopic rifts that the mind could walk through, and once you were on the other side of one of those holes, you were free of yourself, free of your life, free of your death, free of everything that belonged to you.” dammit auster
a passage from paul auster’s the book of illusions. it reads “the world was full of holes, tiny apertures of meaninglessness, microscopic rifts that the mind could walk through, and once you were on the other side of one of those holes, you were free of yourself, free of your life, free of your death, free of everything that belonged to you.” my fingertips are pressing the book open because it’s a crazy binding, my nails are painted black with silver flames and a tree on them, because why not.
February 18, 2025 at 7:28 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
it’s #WorldRadioDay, so the perfect time to embody the bombast of this 1938 recording of ‘Gang Busters’, and sign the @writersguildgb.bsky.social petition against radio drama cuts 👇

www.change.org/p/save-audio...

#SADattheBBC
actors, producers and sound engineers are gathered around microphones and a mixing desk. two men hold a total of three prop guns aloft to provide sound effects, while a group of actors stand around a microphone with scripts in hand.
February 13, 2025 at 7:05 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
in today’s #ModWrite, new daffodils cast a shadow (hopeful? ominous?) over the Vesalius skeleton in the Origins of Neuroscience
some newly blooming daffodils cast shadows over an open book, ‘Origins of Neuroscience’. the shadows fall on an illustration from Vesalius of a standing skeleton pondering another skeleton’s skull.
February 10, 2025 at 4:16 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
i’m very late to the Severance party but immediately realising that in my past life i was a fully paid-up member of the Optics & Design department - would anyone like a new tote bag?
a gif from the tv show Severance - burt g is shaking hands with irving in the corridors of Lumon. the text reads “thanks, O & D” a pantone colour chart for the Optics & Design Department - the top row pairs putrid puce with menacing burgundy, the middle row is lime green and threatening green, and the bottom row combines hospital signage light blue with paranoid ultramarine.
February 7, 2025 at 3:30 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
forcibly removing myself from East Bristol Books before buying everything in sight but 💙🧡
two new books on my desk - pond by claire-louise bennett, in beautiful fitzcarraldo blue, and self-portrait as othello by jason allen-paisant
February 5, 2025 at 3:21 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
is there a greater feeling than recommending a novel to a dear friend, they love it, then you get to re-read it with them and delight in it all over again
a close up photo of a dog-eared copy of a novel, The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
February 2, 2025 at 4:54 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
the competition for the best record shop sign is now closed
photo of a wooden sign in a record store window - it’s one of those signs for attendance that have an ‘in’ and ‘out’ option with a sliding panel. the sign reads ‘fleetwood mac rumours is in’.
January 29, 2025 at 2:32 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
when physically you sound like you’ve got consumption, but hysteria studies fights back with unexpected, purple, Wildean opulence 💅
my hand clutching a copy of Ilza Veith’s book, Hysteria: The History of a Disease. the book is bound in an almost luminous deep purple.
January 23, 2025 at 4:29 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
today’s #modwrite is another chapter in my accidental history of tonic wines - this Sanatogen ad pairing perfectly with the ‘nervy’ days and nights in Patrick Hamilton’s Rope
a 1930s advert for Sanatogen Tonic Wine, with an illustration of a bottle of wine strangled by a rope noose. The text reads: ‘At the end of your tether? These are “nervy” days, and the tension, far from slackening, tends to tighten. No wonder so many feel near the end of their tether, with nerves on edge. ‘Sanatogen’ Tonic Wine is an admirable restorative, for it combines the "pick-me-up" qualities of a rich, full-bodied wine with the active tonic properties of ‘Sanatogen’ Nerve Tonic Food.
January 13, 2025 at 4:34 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
singing the crane electric
a photograph of 3 electric cranes in Bristol’s wharf, backlit against a cloudy sunset sky
January 7, 2025 at 4:40 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
first #modwrite of the year ft. actual footage of me lugging 8 books back to the library, before some paddling about in the history of neuroscience (related: who owns the phrenology bust George Eliot got cast of her own brain and can i buy it from you?)
January 6, 2025 at 4:01 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
yes! now i’m also imagining Gielgud as the creepy moon face in A Trip to the Moon…
January 4, 2025 at 3:38 PM
jennykenyon.bsky.social
the Pirandello adaptation was broadcast in 1930, and also used a checkerboard to move between scenes. equally glorious, equally camp.
A black and white production still from the 1930 TV adaptation ‘A Man with the Flower in His Mouth’. A checkerboard on a wooden frame is being slid in front of a group of actors.
January 4, 2025 at 2:45 PM