Coleridge Called from Venus [Last Night’s Dream]
The yellowblue was chanting loud, And sulphurbubbled steam did scream Through all the shifting waves of mist Above an algid stream. Both dank and ocean claimed the land, When, coiling through the acrid sludge And beaming through the sullen soil Mr Worm did trudge. A SWAN came in with p
Porn from the Inside: In conversation with Stoya
For some, the word “pornstar” now reeks of ‘70s tack, evoking fake tan, muzak and pizza delivery boys turning up at Californian poolsides. Everything, from the colours to the body parts, is enhanced to the point of hyperreality. Stoya is a pornstar. But she is a pornstar unlike any other. Even
Haunted by Kindness: Dinner with an Armenian Ultranationalist
My friend and I met our host on a street corner in Gyumri, a dour and dusty city in western Armenia. He was beefy and broad-shouldered, with watery eyes and sharp features rounded slightly by fat. He strode over to introduce himself, and though he did not speak English, succeeded in inviting us back
The Third Culture: Artistic science and scientific art
In the 1920s, the physicist Neils Bohr was redefining the atom. The classical model depicted the atom’s inner space as a nanoscale solar system, with electrons orbiting the nucleus. Yet this metaphor could not explain all the data. Puzzled by his results, Bohr found inspiration in an unlikely plac
“I’ll Show You What a Woman Can Do”: The rise, fall and revival of an ‘Old Master’
In January 2014, an important self-portrait by the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi came up for sale at Christie’s New York. The canvas was the star lot of the auction, with an estimated price of three to five million dollars. Gentileschi was one of the leading artists of the Italian Baroque.
“What Spring?”: Conversations in a Jordanian public hospital
A dreary winter fog envelopes Jordan’s capital, Amman, throughout December, though slivers of sunlight shed light on the city’s worn and damaged roads. The strain of unrest in the region is discernible to any visitor: heavy traffic, once an enemy to be conquered by Jordanians through strategic t
The White Elephant in the Room: Argentina’s “Hidden City”
For most, the Argentine Spanish word for slum, ‘villa‘, evokes images of white roofs and white sand. The reality is a labyrinthine network of passageways, carpeted by potholes and framed by drooping electrical wires. There are more dogs than adults and more children than dogs. Men peer
Art on the Seam: Jerusalem’s street art movement
“Art has a very significant role in changing the reality in Israel. We need a much more creative atmosphere to find a creative solution for the problems here”. Matan Israeli, a 35-year-old Jerusalemite is the founder and artistic director of the Muslala project, which was set up in Jerusalem, in