“Simone was tall and lovely. She was usually very natural; there was nothing heartbreaking in her eyes or her voice. But on a sensual level, she so bluntly craved any upheaval that the faintest call from the senses gave her a look directly suggestive of all things linked to deep sexuality, such as blood, suffocation,… Continue reading On Marina Abramović and Pornography
Category: literature
On ‘Paradise Lost’
“Farewell, happy fieldsWhere joy forever dwells: hail horrors, hail Infernal world, and thou profoundest hell Receive thy new possessor: one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time.The mind is its own place, and in itselfCan make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” John Milton, Paradise Lost (1674) Poster for Paradise Lost… Continue reading On ‘Paradise Lost’
On Pervy Old Men
“But the picture of the Madonna went with him. Continually, even as he sat in his small hard narrow room or knelt in the cool churches, it stood before his outraged soul with its sultry, dark-rimmed eyes, with a mysterious smile on its lips, naked and beautiful. And no prayer could exorcise it.” Thomas Mann,… Continue reading On Pervy Old Men
On Bacchus and the Beast
“ 'All present, Cap'n!' responded the mate Opheltes, leading along the shore what he thought was a prize he had won in a lonely meadow, a boy with a beautiful face like a girl's. Their captive appeared to be staggering and struggling behind a drowsy, drunken stupor. I looked at his dress, his face and… Continue reading On Bacchus and the Beast
On ‘Chroma’
"Blue of the bugloss, and self-sown cornflower; Blue of the sage and winter hyacinth; Pink and white roses blooming in June; And the scarlet rosehips, fiery in winter; The bitter sloes to make sweet gin. Brambles in the autumn, And gorse in spring."Derek Jarman, Chroma: A Book of Colour - June 1993 (1993) This is… Continue reading On ‘Chroma’
On Decisions
"In passing from history to nature, myth acts economically: it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences ... it organises a world which is without contradictions because it is without depth, a world wide open and wallowing in the evident, it establishes a blissful clarity. Things appear to mean… Continue reading On Decisions
On ‘The Imaginary’
I started reading The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination by Jean Paul Sartre (1940) on Monday 23rd March, on the train back home to Glasgow where I would be staying until this whole pandemic thing blew over. I just finished it as lockdown is slowly lifting. It's a book deconstructing the imagination: such as… Continue reading On ‘The Imaginary’
On Saint Sebastian
Detail of 'St. Sebastian' by Sandro Botticelli, 1474 Forbearance in the face of fate, beauty constantly under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph; and the figure of Sebastian is the most beautiful symbol, if not of art as a whole, yet certainly of the art we speak of… Continue reading On Saint Sebastian
On Esmeralda
During quarantine, we've been drinking a lot of vodka and watching Disney films, which has been cathartic as I cry every time (a good way of releasing pent-up emotions). Even though I regularly watch my favourite Disney flick The Hunchback of Notre Dame, (mostly when very hungover) I have more clearly realised how fabulous the… Continue reading On Esmeralda
On Confessions
“The confession has spread its effects far and wide. It plays a part in justice, medicine, education, family relationships, and love relations, in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life, and in the most solemn rites; one confesses one's crimes, one's sins, one's thoughts and desires, one's illnesses and troubles; one goes about telling, with… Continue reading On Confessions
Sertraline Dreams 