Important
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Tragedy & farce in climate commentary
published in
« We are fucked » vs. « It’s not too late ». The Club of Rome’s Earth for All offers a burst of stubborn optimism. But when does stubborn optimism become cruel optimism?
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An archeology of the air
published in
On Havelok the Dane, medieval air & the world’s largest wind farm
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The invention of austerity
published in
Dramatic economic inflations have punctuated twentieth-century political history. Is austerity a class strategy?
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No man’s land
published in
On Edda Mussolini & fashionable fascism. Can a woman be dangerous yet powerless?
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The inborn germ
published in
Why death? Who or what dies? Philosophers tend not to explain, but to justify. When do such questions become biological questions? Does it help?
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No money off a dead woman’s body (& other poems)
published in
« I like my tyrants like I like my heroes. That is, crushed by a giant chandelier. »
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When the world makes rags of us
published in
He spoke of painting like a starving man speaks of food. On Józef Czapski, Memories of Starobielsk and the art of observation.
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Coagulated soy juice
published in
〖 A killed darling. 〗 Lucia Berlin belonged to a less sanctimonious age than ours.
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Flags & bones
published in
On Curzio Malaparte’s Europe — and ours. The midcentury novelist read anew, on war’s aftermath and transatlantic romance. What was, or is, « postwar Europe », anyway?
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« When I was silent… » — Interview with Sulaiman Addonia
published in
Stop! I am doing what they all do: presenting writer Sulaiman Addonia as one-who-has-suffered, because he grew up as a refugee. It is a problem of genre. Suffering has become an interviewer’s crutch.
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Of human children & language children
published in
The first word I ever wrote was stsikukha: « pisser ». This is how my nanny Frosya called me to my face. On poetry and pathos in a bastard tongue.