A Leap of Faith: Don Justo’s Self-Made Cathedral
Gusto Gallego Martínez rarely sits. A former monk at Trappist order Santa María de Huerta, the eighty-six year old Don Justo, as he is known, has spent his life building, virtually unaided, the unfinished Catedral de la Fe – the Cathedral of faith – which looms brilliantly and bizarrely over t
The ISIS Short Essay Competition: ‘If this was the last piece of paper in the world, what would you write on it?’
“Ask the Microvac,” wailed Jerrodette I. “Ask him how to turn the stars on again.” (The Last Question, Isaac Asimov) There are more than fifty-five thousand museums in the world today. New York alone has more than eighty of them. Each year, millions of people flock to these spaces, populated
The ISIS Short Essay Competition: “O tell me the truth about love” (W.H. Auden).
Love cannot be just another Holocaust story! Or so my readers will surely exclaim in disbelief when I reveal that I wear love on my index finger. The ring is a symbol, I suppose, a small token of remembrance; it is a silver band which encloses a Star of David, purchased in the Jewish quarter [&helli
Descartes
Descartes thought the sky was made of spirals, spangled whirlwind scrawls, a tide of starlight, oily brushstrokes crowding in the midnight, currents sweeping past the moon. His rival, a Mr Newton, won; the Lumières jeered, and though the sciences were an art those days, the pictures Descartes saw w
Out of the Knesset and into the Wild West: Making light in Israeli Cinema
A man stands in a vast, dusty desert set against a sparsely clouded blue sky. He raises his eyes from beneath his hat. “Howdy,” he calls. “Howdy,” responds another man approaching. The director is unafraid of tense eye-level close-ups as the two stand opposite one another in strong stance.
Beyond College Families: Student parents at Oxford and Cambridge
Oh… actual parenthood. Not college parents.” There is some confusion when I first speak to Geraint Kiff, a third-year undergraduate at St Peter’s College, Oxford. Geraint studies languages, occasionally dresses as his college mascot (a squirrel), and is the father of an 18-month-old girl. He l
Sally Snake Eyes
And after it happened, I went to Sally Snake Eyes, & she sat me down, and said, Babe, it’s okay, it’s a natural thing, & she held me in her bed feeding me spoonfuls of milk. She kissed each barren follicle on my head, and I felt the hair begin to grow back. When she […]
The ISIS Short Essay Competition: “O tell me the truth about love” (W.H. Auden).
At the end of the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice, Lizzie and Darcy finally kiss. They’re in a carriage so the approach is somewhat unstable, but the music swells and their lips finally meet and the series ends on a still of their faces that fit together like puzzle pieces. The perfect end to a
Paper Cuts
I spent my time at school learning the art of getting by, and how to fold myself into smaller pieces. I was crafty with my hands: I folded tiny origami statues, and I folded myself into a sharp-edged sculpture, smaller and smaller until even the skin on my sides inched between my ribs to [&he