The Woman of the Perfume Ad
The woman of the perfume ad is a complex construct. The advertisers who create her are geniuses of manufacturing desire, of finely chiselling models into shape with slogan and sign. Perfume ads come with tropes: her armpits are hairless; no blemish taints her skin; her hair is slicked back with seaw
Three environmental poems
When the world dies in fiction, it’s palatable because it is removed from the truth. When the world is dying in reality, perhaps it is too difficult to digest into verse. As the dry seasons lengthen and fragile climate treaties dissipate into smog, the landslide into apocalypse feels more imminent
Photo Essay
Jordan has long been a place of transit. A land of nomadic peoples. Nabateans, Romans, Sasanians, Byzantines. Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis, Egyptians. But despite what feels like the constant movement of its peoples, the landscape itself is beautifully still. You can’t help but breathe slower, as
Nebuchadnezzar
Ah, so you want to dream better! I’m your man, I’m the one to ask, for dreaming is all about asking the right questions without knowing that one oneself questions! The point of the exercise, excuse me, sir, is stop that thinking, which you, learned sir! do so much of. Instead you must wor
The Art of Conversation
This table is heavy, laden with your pithy thoughts. You gurgle your Pinot Grigio as you laugh, apple crumble sliding down, easy does it, two halves each one ought to leave at nine it does not do in this place to overstay one’s welcome and you’ll have waxed your lyrical on p
Did We Get Marie Kondo Wrong?
That manky old jumper doesn’t spark joy anymore? Bin it. What about those trousers you never wore? Chuck them. Those books you meant to read but never did? That essay that made everyone in the tutorial cry in a moment of collective mourning for your failed intellectual potential? What about your a
Art
Où est le poulet is the story of a chicken that disappears. Taking influence from France, its language and culture, the film exists as a romanticised yet absurd retelling of a mundane event. It speaks about existentialism, asking what it means to be free and happy. ∎ Words and Artw
A Female DJ’s health and history
H: How did you get into DJing? E: I was living at home with my parents and my two sisters who are much older than me and when my parents would go on holiday they’d throw these ridiculous parties. They were a lot of fun and their boyfriends at the time would bring decks round […]
Katie Hopkins at The Oxford Union
Well, here we go again. The sense of déjà vu was strong this week, as the Oxford Union belched up its freshest controversy by inviting Katie Hopkins to speak. Hopkins is the latest fascist du jour to be invited, goose-stepping into the footsteps of Steve Bannon and Marion Marechal-Le Pen, both of