This blog is the final ONE on Yayoi Kusama and relates to the catalogue of the exhibition at Factory International Manchester Aviva Studios, which I visited on Tuesday 4th July at 11.15 a.m., as part of a selection of the items from the Manchester International Festival. The catalogue is beautiful and the photography stunning but … More This blog is the final ONE on Yayoi Kusama. The catalogue is beautiful, one essay is fascinating: Phoebe Greenwood (ed. 2023.) ‘Yayoi Kusama: You, Me and the Balloons’.

‘ ‘“Tell me a story.” … / “I cannot,” I whisper. I hide my face in your shoulder. I cry. “I cannot lose you.” I pull you closer to me, I cannot lose you after all of our stories. My life is tangled into yours and I fear pieces of me will die with you. … More This blog looks at Ahmad Danny Ramadan (2019) ‘The Clothesline Swing’ and wonders about the therapeutic in the act of storytelling. Info. to @TheDannyRamadan

In an interview in Wired with Christopher Nolan prior to the release of his and Emma Thomas’s film Oppenheimer, Maria Streshinsky cited Nolan speaking in the December 2014 issue of WIRED which the film-director himself guest-edited, this statement: “The relationship between storytelling and the scientific method fascinates me. It wasn’t really about an intellectual understanding. … More Christopher Nolan once said: “The relationship between storytelling and the scientific method fascinates me. It wasn’t really about an intellectual understanding. It was a feeling of grasping something”. This blog examines ‘Oppenheimer’ seen on Friday 21st July (release day).

There are some novels that tackle queer life performance head on without reducing it to the absurdity our enemies see in us. The Foghorn Echoes is one such novel which combines a take of the global sources of the traumatic experience of its characters; the product of civil and religious wars, decayed institutions, even those … More There are some novels that tackle queer life performance head on without reducing it to the absurdity our enemies see in us. This blog is a review of Danny Ramadan (2023) ‘The Foghorn Echoes’. Info @TheDannyRamadan

‘I feel myself at some undefined point, insane for my own safety and wanting to hide’.[1] Love, Leda (written probably in 1965 but only just published) is a not a novel about the repression of gay male identity in the 1960s and its consequences in anomie, mental ill health, and suicide, though, of course, it … More ‘I feel myself at some undefined point, insane for my own safety and wanting to hide’. ‘Love, Leda’ by Mark Hyatt (written probably in 1965 but only just published) is a not a novel about the repression of gay male identity in the 1960s and its consequences in anomie, mental ill health, and suicide, though, of course, it is that too. At its heart is the concept of the ‘truest non-loving lover’; because it is a term impossible to define outside of those questions.

‘Books are difficult to tidy. … They resist’.[1] In this blog I say that in his latest book, Ian McEwan returns to form by asking as directly as a novel can how significant art might be attained out of the mess of the politics, ethics and socio-cultural and individual lives of generations of people of … More ‘Books are difficult to tidy. … They resist’. Ian McEwan returns to form by asking as directly as a novel can how significant art might be attained out of the mess of the politics, ethics and socio-cultural and individual lives of generations of people of our current time and age. This is a blog on Ian McEwan (2022) ‘Lessons’ as, perhaps, a new ‘spirit of the Age’[2].

Source: By http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/rarebook/exhibitions/images/penandpress/large/15c_bta.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19429923 In Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_the_Acts), the crisis of the life of Miss La Trobe, the creator of a pageant of English life that ends by turning a literal mirror of their life takes place in reflection afterwards in the village pub of the events in and between … More Between the Blogs