SA4QE - Spreading the Word of Russell Hoban

Four regular 4qaters visited Waterford, Ireland last November to see a rare theatrical production of Russell Hoban's masterpiece Riddley Walker. Hobanites who missed this excellent and unusual play will be pleased to hear that two performances in the short production run were filmed, and the resulting film of the entire play is now available to buy from www.thoughtcat.com for 25 euros, which includes p&p to anywhere in the world. The 2-DVD sets are in limited supply so snap one up now!

In addition to the updates mentioned below, there is now a new page listing SA4QE's vital statistics including the number of quotes dropped since 2002 and the quotes and books most frequently chosen by participants. There is also now a random page facility to enable objective and arbitrary browsage of the site; a Facebook group for 4qaters has been created and is joinable by 4qating Facebookers; and thanks to the continuing graphical support of the mighty Olaf Schneider, SA4QE now has its very own favicon to enable the rapid identification of the site in your browser's favourites menu.

For the seventh consecutive year, Russell Hoban fans around the world celebrated his birthday last 4th February by leaving their favourite Hoban quotes in public places. Check out the list of participants marked 'updated' and 'new' in the menu to see this year's quotes.

The website has unfortunately suffered some technical problems meaning that it's had to be restored to a distinctly un-Web 2.0 frames version. There shouldn't be many people left using browsers that don't support frames, but if you can't see the left-hand frame listing the participants and other site links please open the whole site in a new window.

All external links in this website now open in a new browser window/tab. This is sometimes considered controversial but the reason for it is that the vast majority of these links are included to illustrate or expand on something in a page, so whereas you can always close the new browser windows after you've looked at them, if the link opened in the same page the flow of the text would be lost.

The random images feature that used to be on this home page has been improved and now has a page of its own.

Apologies if this news section seems to repeat itself a bit as it goes down. It's a sort of blog (with the latest items at the top), except the webmaster forgot to date anything. Ironically, there is actually an SA4QE blog at http://sa4qe.blogspot.com although the webmaster has only updated it once a year since creating it. Future news items and other updates may appear on the blog, and then again may not.

The next SA4QE will take place around the world on Monday 4th February 2008. For details of how to take part, read the FAQ. Everyone else, keep your eyes peeled for sheets of paper with profound inscribings appearing in a public place near you...

Russell Hoban's new novel My Tango with Barbara Strozzi is now available in shops and online. London's famous Foyles bookshop deserves a special mention as their web page for the book features this note: "Promotional: GUARANTEED HOBAN FAN MARKET: There has been an international 'Russell Hoban Some-Poasyum', and dedicated fans celebrate his birthday by leaving their favourite quotes from his books in public places [yes, that's SA4QE, folks!]. For fans of films with a twist of the fantastical such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep and Amelie. LONDON ANGLE: A perfect book to carry on the tube, with its many references to the hidden corners of the capital."

SAwhatQE??

Try the FAQ.

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Riddley Walker fans take note that from 10th to 17th November 2007 there is a very rare production of the play in Waterford, Ireland. Tickets are still available for Red Kettle's big-top production of Russell Hoban's own script of his 1980 novel. There is more background in this Irish Times interview, while booking and venue details can be found on the Red Kettle site.

Russell Hoban was the featured writer in the Guardian Review's Writers' Rooms series on Saturday 10th November 2007. Hoban's 'exobrain' is pictured in all its famously chaotic glory, although fans lucky enough to have visited the room reflect that the photo is a very literal portrait and that it's a lot more welcoming in real life... like this website, the exobrain is best viewed at three o'clock in the morning. For a mellower view, check out these photos from the Some-Poasyum site.

Russell Hoban appeared on BBC Radio 3's The Verb arts programme on 2nd November 2007 talking about his 'fly by the seat of my pants' writing technique and reading from his new novel, My Tango with Barbara Strozzi. More information as blogged by SA4QE regular Chris Bell can be found here.

Some bookmarks are still pointing SA4QE visitors to the old address, www.thoughtcat.com/sa4qe. If you have come here via that address some images won't load, so please go to the main domain www.sa4qe.com now!

Once again, Hoban fans around the world dropped their yellow paper quotes in public places on 4th February 2007 - which was also SA4QE's 5th birthday! See the participants marked 'new' and 'updated' for details of this year's activities.

Russell Hoban's latest novel Linger Awhile is now out in paperback. On 27/1/07 Isabel Montgomery in the Guardian writes: "The absurdities and one-liners will no doubt charm Hoban's fans and give them more favourite phrases to post around the Soho settings to mark their author's 82nd birthday."

This is further to Alex Larman's review in the same paper on 14/1/07: "Although he is now an octogenarian, Russell Hoban's witty, intelligent and energetic writing is still putting novelists a quarter of his age to shame... A small masterpiece."

The search function has now been fixed properly and also re-indexed, so 4qations since 2005 now appear in the results :-)

The search function has now been fixed. The results point to a different url, but due to a Hobanesque web anomaly these pages now accidentally exist again...

Apologies that the search function is currently not working properly. You can search, and the results will come up, but the links provided go to the respective pages on the old (now non-existent) site. While this is being fixed however the search function does still show the name of the contributor, so you can still navigate manually to their page from the left-hand menu and find your search term that way.

No 2 ways about it... this site looks much better at three o'clock in the morning

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Russell Hoban fans around the world celebrated the fifth SA4QE Day on 4th February 2006 in the time-honoured fashion of leaving favourite quotes from Hoban books in public places. See the UPDATED and NEW participants in the menu for more details.

SA4QE is mentioned in all but name in an interview with Russell Hoban in the Independent on Sunday, 22/01/06.

Russell Hoban's new novel Linger Awhile is published by Bloomsbury on 02/01/06.

Stocks are still available of The Russell Hoban Some-Poasyum Celebratory Book, published to coincide with the 2005 Hoban convention and featuring exclusive contributions from David Mitchell, Glenda Jackson, Harrison Birtwistle, Quentin Blake and many more - but hurry! Limited stocks only, and a snip at sick squid (£6).

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