Not a Fairytale
There are lots of things I could tell you about Tom but the only one that really matters is that he jumped off the bridge when he was twelve. Because he wasn’t scared, you see. He’s never been scared of anything, not as long as I’ve known him, which is just about forever. Things that […
‘Sciamachy’ by John Fuller
I Whoever from the stinking village calls One quick accusing word, Or stiffens, circling like a bird About the empty air, or who has heard Some wall beneath a finger hiss, he falls. This knowledge is not good. We must invent The sparkling education Of the Dog, condone the bun Crammed in its gob: our
Renaissance Porn
In 1527 Pietro Aretino published I Modi, a collection of sixteen sexually explicit engravings originally by Marcantonio Raimondi. The Italian Renaissance had just created the world’s first hard-core porn magazine. The engravings in I Modi are remarkable on account of their sheer openness. The subj
Attack of the Drones: The Ethics of Modern Warfare
In the good old days, going to war meant travelling to where the war was. Pack your bags, don’t forget your toothbrush, say goodbye. For about five hundred US Air Force pilots, that inconvenience no longer exists. Their war is sedentary, carried out in rooms at Offutt Air Force Base on the line be
The Grandness
The Sunday Gazette January 17th 1995 PAGE 1, REASONS TO TRAVEL LATE AT NIGHT You like being in public when the public aren’t in. A rare certainty in this life is that when other people come in, they will close the accordion you had opened of yourself shut again. Train times to avoid: lunchtime, po
Budapest, Autumn
You’ve seen me, love, tapping Morse code on the pavement, breaking all this peace with both my feet. I’ve been walking home, in the dusk where the concrete settles, thinking “this scene tears my heart — someone should write it down.” With the light on the water, and the day
‘THE TALE OF HAMKIN’ OR ‘THE LITTLE SAUSAGE BOY’
Anon. – Translation from the Middle Dutch by Joshua James I am now going to recount to you the very unfortunate tale of Hamkin, who was a young boy made all of sausages and meat products. I have heard the tale told many times before by tellers various in skill and apprehension, some telling it
“If they see you, they shoot”: An Interview with a North Korean Defector
‘If they see you, they shoot’. Jung tells me about the soldiers stationed every 60 metres along the border he crossed to leave North Korea. ‘My mother was very afraid to leave’ he says, and it is not hard to see why. I meet Jung in a coffee shop in the heart of Seoul, just […]