We Lie after Holly McNish My one remaining friend, now I’ve plugged out my Mum, is in my pretend life because he’s willing to not notice what I metaphorically call things. Like the fact that I carry about with me, smiling up out of my man-bag, a two day dead pike that looks like it … Read more
I was briefly a Professor of Law and International Relations at the Anglo-American University in Prague, near where the Jewish, German-speaking Kafka was born and raised. Before arriving, I had acquired a superficial knowledge of the main sights, which are somewhat deceptive and largely unrewarding in that rich tapestry of a city – of which … Read more
THE YELTSIN-CLINTON ERA, CENTRAL TIME ZONE The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one’s life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, … Read more
When a respected and much-loved member of the Irish jazz scene suffered a major illness, the jazz community rallied round to support him in the best way they know – a gala fundraising concert, streaming to audiences all over the globe this Sunday. Phil Ware is one of the Irish jazz’s most celebrated musicians, a … Read more
Covid-19 has perhaps spelt a temporary death for, amongst many other things, flaneurship – that is, the practise of being able to wander throughout a city freely and unobstructed, making observations as one goes. Peter O’ Neill’s latest collection addresses the flaneur directly. With a background in translation, academia and his long- avowed admiration of … Read more
They’ve been protesting now for three weeks outside the closed factory. I have to walk past them every day on my way into town. I know they think I’ve betrayed them by not joining them, but I can’t relate to my former coworkers’ problems. Our natures are just inalienably opposed. I can’t bring myself to … Read more
Marc di Saverio hails from Hamilton, Canada. His poems and translations have appeared internationally. In Issue 92 of Canadian Notes and Queries Magazine, di Saverio’s Sanatorium Songs (2013) was hailed as “the greatest poetry debut from the past 25 years.” In 2016 he received the City of Hamilton Arts Award for Best Emerging Writer. In … Read more
Does an age of frenetic online activity afford time for literary masterpieces, especially Outsider Novels, transcending what is considered ‘normal’? He whose vision cannot cover History’s three thousand years Must in outer darkness hover Live within the day’s frontiers. The above stanza is from a twelve-book, poetry collection by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which was … Read more
L’histoire naturelle, ce n’est rien autre que la nomination du visible. Michel Foucault – Les mots et les choses Walking with my dog this morning, I was struck by the various rewilding projects which certain aspects of my local community have been embracing. For example my twelve-year-old daughter’s primary school, in its wisdom, has decided … Read more
In Blood, Sex and Death, I Found Her Janet is pregnant and alone. Her boyfriend is god knows where and her dad is having none of it and wants to marry her off to a man of his choosing. She’s having none of that, and wants an abortion. And she’s damned if any man will … Read more