Category: Education, Art & Writing

If I use the verb ‘to write’, do I really mean that what I write must or should endure

August 17, 2025

The best known quatrain of Persian Poetry, in stolid Victorian translation is that from what The Poetry Foundation calls the ‘Rubáiyát, his collection of hundreds of quatrains (or rubais), was first translated from Farsi into English in 1859 by Edward Fitzgerald’, attributed to Omar Khayyam. There are versions on versions of the quatrains translated, not least by Fitzgerald . … More If I use the verb ‘to write’, do I really mean that what I write must or should endure

This is a blog on the role of endings in the modern metafictional novel and the light shed on that role by Maria Reva (2025) ‘Endling’ London, Virago Press.

August 15, 2025

‘She felt a small pang of resentment: the endling’s last moments on Earth, and it pined over not getting laid. Of course this was normal. If anything, endlings should pine all the louder for the end of their species. … // At least gastropods yearned in silence, …’.[1] This is a blog on the role … More This is a blog on the role of endings in the modern metafictional novel and the light shed on that role by Maria Reva (2025) ‘Endling’ London, Virago Press.

This is a blog on  Benjamin Wood (2025) ‘Seascraper’.

August 14, 2025

‘Edgar’s almost shrouded by the white swell of the fog. … All of Longferry – the tall spires of the churches and the chimney-tops of the terraces receding to the lights of other towns – has been snuffed out’. I think no other modern novel I know about has such a sense of being near … More This is a blog on  Benjamin Wood (2025) ‘Seascraper’.

Look not for ‘beauty’ but ‘precarity, structural fragmentation or decay, fragility  and ephemerality’. This blog is based on a visit to the National Galleries of Scotland’s exhibition ‘Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years’ on the 11th August 2025.

August 13, 2025

It is almost compulsory to describe the effect of art as achieved ‘beauty’. We use ‘beauty’ too often in this respect. The words that come to me as I reflect on an attempt to reconnect with the art of Andy Goldsworthy are precarity, structural fragmentation or decay, fragility  and ephemerality, so how has his lasted … More Look not for ‘beauty’ but ‘precarity, structural fragmentation or decay, fragility  and ephemerality’. This blog is based on a visit to the National Galleries of Scotland’s exhibition ‘Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years’ on the 11th August 2025.

James VI & James I: Why curators undermine the case for a ‘homosexual’ King James. Visiting the exhibition at the Scottish Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, on the 10th of August, 10 a.m.

August 12, 2025

James VI & James I: Why curators undermine the case for a ‘homosexual‘ King James. Visiting the exhibition at the Scottish Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, on the 10th of August, 10 a.m. On the 9th August my evening ending at 9.15 and I walked from the venue of the Book Festival (The Futures Institute of the … More James VI & James I: Why curators undermine the case for a ‘homosexual’ King James. Visiting the exhibition at the Scottish Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, on the 10th of August, 10 a.m.

On the Edinburgh book festival: why I still go and on whether I should keep going.                  

August 11, 2025

The Edinburgh Book Festival may be anybody’s kicking post for at least some of the time. For years, it was supported financially by Baillie Gifford with known assets in some very illiberal regimes and ethically if not legally (as far as we know) shady practices. That tie now severed, the right wing press led by … More On the Edinburgh book festival: why I still go and on whether I should keep going.                  

James Graham’s ‘Make It Happen’ at The Festival Theatre Edinburgh on the 9 August 2025, 2.30 p.m.

August 10, 2025

This is my response to seeing in the flesha play in which I had shown some curiosity in an earlier blog; (https://livesteven.com/2025/08/01/being-curious-about-questions-you-never-thought-youd-ask-a-way-of-preparing-to-see-a-new-play-seeing-james-grahams-make-it-happen-at-the-festival-theatre-edinburgh-on-the-9-august-202/ ). Of course, Brian Cox received the warmth of the audience in this play, and it was well deserved. What I had not realised was, that in the play, he first appears as … More James Graham’s ‘Make It Happen’ at The Festival Theatre Edinburgh on the 9 August 2025, 2.30 p.m.

The last two deadly sins ought to be called (1) ‘defending my right to positivity’, and (2) ‘colonising the world with this replacement for ethical action’.

August 9, 2025

I should have worn out my dislike of “positive psychology” by now, but for me, it reeks of everything that is wrong with the core belief  of the capitalist global North and West in ‘His Majesty the Ego’, as Freud calls the object of the narcissistically derived self, that central ‘I’ that feels itself the … More The last two deadly sins ought to be called (1) ‘defending my right to positivity’, and (2) ‘colonising the world with this replacement for ethical action’.

This is a blog on Natasha Brown (2025) ‘Universality’.

August 8, 2025

“Working families, small communities, traditional British industries and jobs. We used to value these things”.[1]Sometimes we wonder if this was said by a fictional columnist or own present prime Minister (and I won’t answer ‘whether I have a problem with our prime minister’: Natasha Brown meant Rishi Sunak; I, of course, mean Sir Keir Starmer’s … More This is a blog on Natasha Brown (2025) ‘Universality’.

To carry is a moral task (not least because it demands nuanced and mature ethical grasp). Let’s hope I can be worthy of it in my remaining years.

August 6, 2025

The word ‘carry’ derives originally from the idea not on the personal capacity to bear something along with you on a journey but on the use of a ‘vehicle’ (‘from Latin “carrum” originally “two-wheeled Celtic war chariot), although the Celtic use itself bears the more difficult to reconcile association of “run”. Maybe the later etymology makes it … More To carry is a moral task (not least because it demands nuanced and mature ethical grasp). Let’s hope I can be worthy of it in my remaining years.