Félix Vallotton Le Coup de Vent 1894 A coup in French is literally a ‘blow’ or ‘gust’ but, of course, we know it best in the term ‘Le Coup d’État‘, such as that event on 18 Brumaire where Napoleon took control of French revolutionary forces and thus the state. it has been forever after the … More Today was a typical day: a gust of wind sort of upset everything.
What foods would you like to make? To sustain the body, we need to feed it, and in order to sustain it optimally, we need to select and pace the amount, degree, and type of food we use to feed it. So far everyone will agree! However, the excerpt from the Alice books of Lewis … More If only I could make food that feeds the inner mechanisms that validate the role of feelings as well as thought in evaluating the world we live in.
Let’s answer this prompt as if Thomas Mann were justifying his last novel: the ultimate ‘game’ – of confidence tricks and roleplay. In a diary entry from 25th November 1950, Thomas Mann calls his final and unfinished picaresque novel Felix Krull ‘my homosexual novel’. Yet the case for seeing it as that perhaps reduces to … More Let’s answer this prompt as if Thomas Mann were justifying his last novel: the ultimate game – of confidence tricks and roleplay. This blog holds my thoughts on Thomas Mann (trans. Denver Lindley) [1997 Minerva Paperback from ed. of 1954] ‘Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: Memoirs Part 1’.
Do poets revel in the ways and means of attaining health? The Royal College of Surgeons’ Sarah Gillam, in a piece published in 2019 points us to the fact that Keats spent his years as a student rather dissolutely and ‘unhealthily’ by the standards of maintaining optimal lasting health, even then: Keats apparently enjoyed his … More ‘The pursuit of health is a symptom of unhealth’, don’t you think?
If we assume that ‘work’ is something we can do whilst our attention is divided in listening to something quite unrelated to it, what really is the value of our work? This blog reflects on the exhibition ‘With These Hands’ at the Laing Gallery Newcastle seen on 15th July 2025. Raing at the Laing yesterday … More If we assume that ‘work’ is something we can do whilst our attention is divided in listening to something quite unrelated to it, what really is the value of our work? This blog reflects on the exhibition ‘With These Hands’ at the Laing Gallery Newcastle seen on 15th July 2025.
Future plans are a kind of ‘bridging project’ for possible migrations. This blog is about naming the space we travel through in the art of Do Ho Suh. It reflects on visiting the exemplary exhibition at Tate Modern, London Bankside, on 9th July 2025. “But what exactly do you mean by space?” I remember the … More Future plans are a kind of ‘bridging project’ for possible migrations. It reflects on visiting the exemplary exhibition at Tate Modern, London Bankside, on 9th July 2025.
Perhaps poetry has it both ways. The Golden Lads of Peter Forster, a Queer Engraver in Wood, seek adventure: Byron like Batman as we shall see. They do so though only in the ‘security’ that the poem that embodies them will last against wear and other thefts of time. Forster’s Golden lads haunt The Folio … More Perhaps poetry has it both ways. The Golden Lads of Peter Forster, a Queer Engraver in Wood, seek adventure: Byron like Batman as we shall see. They do so though only in the ‘security’ that the poem that embodies them will last against wear and other thefts of time.
A great novel always takes the trouble to ‘bother me’. The example of Colum McCann (2025) ‘Twist’. In it the narrator talks about his own ‘bother’ about his writing and trying to keep it focused. ‘Tell me about a complicated man, how he wandered and was lost. The story would drift away from repair, which … More A great novel always takes the trouble to ‘bother me’. The example of Colum McCann (2025) ‘Twist’.
“It’s a poetic way of thinking about history, where materials themselves tell the story of power, fragility, and change”. Ali Cherri speaks of his art as ‘speaking through materiality’ in order to ‘reclaim the space of storytelling’. [1] Losing ‘track of time’ is really a phrase we use when we track time not by the … More “It’s a poetic way of thinking about history, where materials themselves tell the story of power, fragility, and change”. Ali Cherri speaks of his art as ‘speaking through materiality’ in order to ‘reclaim the space of storytelling’. Losing ‘track of time’ is really a phrase we use when we track time not by the clock but by the qualitative meaure of its process in the way we tell stories, even hi-story.
The illustration – by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff – is from the Harvard Gazette article cited below, but to give up a book because it makes you uncomfortable may not be to ‘bin’ it but just re-shelve it in your mind (source: https://content.news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/10/when-to-quit-a-book/ ). After all the bin in the illustration has a l;ong shadow – … More Is giving up on a challenge a strategy that ever brings comfort? An example from my reading.
To be an icon of sexual attraction to men can never have been easy, and now even queer men find themselves fighting to fit into that category of being. Witness Elizabeth Taylor standing on the ‘burnish’d gold’ of her barge as Cleopatra, dressed and made-up to the nines but still clearly a woman of some … More Even positive psychology cannot ignore the truths of the ‘inverted U’ curve that do not go away.
Have you ever had surgery? What for? The Extraction of the Stone of Madness (The Cure of Folly) by Hieronymous Bosch Let’s as usual start with the history of the word ‘surgery’ for it contains an important fiction. Here is that history, as usual from the invaluable etymonline.com: surgery (n.): c. 1300, sirgirie, “the work of a … More ‘Surgery’. The vindication of the use of tools of violent healing.
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