Tag: writing

Is being productive the issue? Producing art or understanding thereof is more often about the analysis of the unproductive or listless: in Russian, the state of ‘khandra’. This blog is a case study based on preparions for seeing The Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ streamed to Durham Gala on the 6th June.

April 28, 2026

Tchaikovsky could only mount the story of Eugene Onegin according to the strict material limits of the nineteenth century opera and its conventions. There must be three Acts. What must have been clear to him that these acts needed each to revolve around a central dramatic encounter – of course three such were obvious. And … More Is being productive the issue? Producing art or understanding thereof is more often about the analysis of the unproductive or listless: in Russian, the state of ‘khandra’. This blog is a case study based on preparions for seeing The Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ streamed to Durham Gala on the 6th June.

Should we ever regret taking the risk of giving a straight answer to a queer question? In her new novel, ‘My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: a fiction’, Deborah Levy examines, amongst other things why: ‘Stein had put so much in the way. In the way of understanding. She did not believe in it’. The narrator of the novel continually asks: ‘What is it?’ of numerous ‘its’ that are so often getting lost to good, ill or mixed ends. What’s wrong with being always understood?

April 26, 2026

Should we ever regret taking the risk of not giving a straight answer to a queer question? In My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: a fiction, Deborah Levy examines, amongst other things why: ‘Stein had put so much in the way. In the way of understanding. She did not believe in it’. [1] The … More Should we ever regret taking the risk of giving a straight answer to a queer question? In her new novel, ‘My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: a fiction’, Deborah Levy examines, amongst other things why: ‘Stein had put so much in the way. In the way of understanding. She did not believe in it’. The narrator of the novel continually asks: ‘What is it?’ of numerous ‘its’ that are so often getting lost to good, ill or mixed ends. What’s wrong with being always understood?

‘The world was all before them, where to choose?’ or ‘The earth is all before me … I cannot miss my way’. Looking for direction: how to use a quotation about using a quotation for guidance, and the perils of the freedom to choose!

April 22, 2026

In the seventeenth century educated persons kept commonplace books where things they heard or read could be stored for use or as a momento of the use they had already served, and might, if remembered in this way, serve again. Sometimes they consisted of practical guides to a task, like a recipe, although it was … More ‘The world was all before them, where to choose?’ or ‘The earth is all before me … I cannot miss my way’. Looking for direction: how to use a quotation about using a quotation for guidance, and the perils of the freedom to choose!

Making you the man of nerve or nerves you are: from hard resilience to soft and fearful retreat. A case study based on Nicholas Boggs (2026) ‘Baldwin: A  Love Story’ and the import he detects in Baldwin’s role as director of ‘Düşenin Dostu’ (‘Friend of the Fallen’ in English), the Turkish version of John Herbert’s ‘Fortune and Men’s Eyes’ in Istanbul.

April 21, 2026

Making you the man of nerve you are: from hard resilience to soft retreat. A case study based on Nicholas Boggs (2026) Baldwin: A  Love Story and the import he detects in Baldwin’s role as director of Düşenin Dostu (Friend of the Fallen in English), the Turkish version with its tellingly moralistic new Turkish title, of … More Making you the man of nerve or nerves you are: from hard resilience to soft and fearful retreat. A case study based on Nicholas Boggs (2026) ‘Baldwin: A  Love Story’ and the import he detects in Baldwin’s role as director of ‘Düşenin Dostu’ (‘Friend of the Fallen’ in English), the Turkish version of John Herbert’s ‘Fortune and Men’s Eyes’ in Istanbul.

Cashing in on ‘Thy sweet love remembered’:Some preliminary thoughts on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 before some historical reflection on its use in queer literary culture in the twentieth century

April 19, 2026

Sonnet 29 is used to provide the title, and is quoted in full as its message, by a non-binary character in prison named by inmates as ‘Mona’ (after Mona Lisa), of John Herbert’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes, an important if not a very good queer play, and in 1971 a minor film, no longer easily … More Cashing in on ‘Thy sweet love remembered’:Some preliminary thoughts on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 before some historical reflection on its use in queer literary culture in the twentieth century

‘Man measured his words like food and decided what was worth opening his mouth for’. Words and food in Derek Owusu (2026) ‘Hunger Pains’ for The Reading Agency Quick Reads.

April 18, 2026

‘Man measured his words like food and decided what was worth opening his mouth for’.[1] No-one measures his words like Derek Owusu, and no writer has pursued the link between food and the ‘matter’ that is, as in Hamlet (Act 2, Scene 2, 204ff.), ‘Words, words, words’, (whether spoken or written) like him since Shakespeare. … More ‘Man measured his words like food and decided what was worth opening his mouth for’. Words and food in Derek Owusu (2026) ‘Hunger Pains’ for The Reading Agency Quick Reads.

‘You’re in Denial!’… ‘I’m not!’ … ‘Now you’re denying you’re in Denial!’ With apologies to ‘The Golden Girls’ from which this exchange comes, let’s think about the struggle involved in learning always to ‘know’ things one ought to know.

April 11, 2026

You’re in Denial!’… ‘I’m not!’ … ‘Now you’re denying you’re in Denial!’ With apologies to ‘The Golden Girls‘ from which this exchange comes, let’s think about the struggle involved in learning always to ‘know’; things one ought to know. And make the decision I did: ‘Do not always trust denials, but do not always disbelieve … More ‘You’re in Denial!’… ‘I’m not!’ … ‘Now you’re denying you’re in Denial!’ With apologies to ‘The Golden Girls’ from which this exchange comes, let’s think about the struggle involved in learning always to ‘know’ things one ought to know.

If a work of art in words is worth reading, you will have never finally or completely read it – you will always be reading it. Deciding to continue reading ‘All My Sons’ by Arthur Miller in preparation for seeing Ivo Van Hove’s version of it live-streamed on 16th April 2026.

April 5, 2026

If a work of art in words is worth reading, you will have never finally or completely read it – you will always be reading it. Deciding to continue reading ‘All My Sons’ by Arthur Miller in preparation for seeing Ivo Van Hove’s version of it live-streamed on 16th April 2026. The reason I am … More If a work of art in words is worth reading, you will have never finally or completely read it – you will always be reading it. Deciding to continue reading ‘All My Sons’ by Arthur Miller in preparation for seeing Ivo Van Hove’s version of it live-streamed on 16th April 2026.

‘… but that was in another country; / And besides the wench is dead.’ Let’s make our diversity our common unity and not ‘other’ those of ‘another country’, if that was ever possible. An answer based on a case study reading of the novel by James Baldwin, ‘Another Country’.

April 3, 2026

… but that was in another country; / And besides the wench is dead.’ Let’s make our diversity our common unity and not ‘other’ those of ‘another country’, if that was ever possible. An answer based on a case study reading of the novel by James Baldwin, Another Country. This will turn into an answer … More ‘… but that was in another country; / And besides the wench is dead.’ Let’s make our diversity our common unity and not ‘other’ those of ‘another country’, if that was ever possible. An answer based on a case study reading of the novel by James Baldwin, ‘Another Country’.

The institutionalisation of social-distancing! Does it make a difference to the kind, quality or measurement of social distance?

April 1, 2026

The two terms in my title are near enough in appearance. However Wikipedia defines and discusses them separately. Social distancing is the name given to a public health measure, called for by government or other authority to prevent the spread of air-borne communicable diseases, practiced widely during the Covid-19 pandemic. Social distance is a descriptive … More The institutionalisation of social-distancing! Does it make a difference to the kind, quality or measurement of social distance?

From rituals to being an effective person in following Rodin’s advice to Rilke: ‘You Must Change Your Life!’?

March 29, 2026

Wikipedia is a good beginning for this prompt question, which specifically asks for a description of ‘my’ morning rituals’. Ritual is, in my selective understanding at least, primarily a social phenomenon that enacts a prescribed means, sometimes to the minutest detail, of expressing the invisible and numinous in a process. It manifests the ways in … More From rituals to being an effective person in following Rodin’s advice to Rilke: ‘You Must Change Your Life!’?

At five, I still wanted to know that I would grow up, period. And not come to a full stop.

March 28, 2026

Whilst we like to think children have no conception of death, the evidence seems to be that from the age of 5 upwards, children begin to develop an idea of death as and end, of worldly life at least, though their views of this still contain elements of magical thinking as to cause of death … More At five, I still wanted to know that I would grow up, period. And not come to a full stop.