Shanghai Bitter
Bottled by a Transylvanian Hungarian in English She stood with a half-emptied glass in one hand and an almost full glass in the other. A composed Chinese gentleman stepped in. He stepped out on the first floor. Ten minutes to eight and there she was, gin-and-tonicked and in love in the lobby, waiting for Zelda […]
Shanghai Bitter
Bottled by a Transylvanian Hungarian in English She stood with a half-emptied glass in one hand and an almost full glass in the other. A composed Chinese gentleman stepped in. He stepped out on the first floor. Ten minutes to eight and there she was, gin-and-tonicked and in love in the lobby, waiting for Zelda […]
Love Money
Let me tell you about the first time I experienced love. She had red hair, black eyes, wore striped socks, and one of those shapeless, Little House on the Prairie-type dresses. Her name was Ann. She smelled like yarn and clean fabric. When I lifted Ann’s dress for the first time, I saw something else […]
Love Money
Let me tell you about the first time I experienced love. She had red hair, black eyes, wore striped socks, and one of those shapeless, Little House on the Prairie-type dresses. Her name was Ann. She smelled like yarn and clean fabric. When I lifted Ann’s dress for the first time, I saw something else […]
Two in the midst
All of time’s layers are in motion //claims upon light and dark Are rising//their splendid heads and hair (silk) Mouths in moist recesses //whatever else they may enjoy In this time of absolute pride. Pale cross on the brow // near to zero and infinity (one day you’re everything for him next day you’re […]
Two in the midst
All of time’s layers are in motion //claims upon light and dark Are rising//their splendid heads and hair (silk) Mouths in moist recesses //whatever else they may enjoy In this time of absolute pride. Pale cross on the brow // near to zero and infinity (one day you’re everything for him next day you’re […]
Skin is as unique as fingerprints
At first I didn’t exactly understand what this meant since after all, we are all people of some color. Furthermore, I wondered how I could begin to approach this tricky question without leaving myself vulnerable to attacks on innumerable fronts. There are shades of skin that are lighter and others that are darker, and […]
Skin is as unique as fingerprints
At first I didn’t exactly understand what this meant since after all, we are all people of some color. Furthermore, I wondered how I could begin to approach this tricky question without leaving myself vulnerable to attacks on innumerable fronts. There are shades of skin that are lighter and others that are darker, and […]
Kodak, one of the most familiar names on the market in the world of photography, launched research into ways in which to produce darker tones simply in response to interest from chocolate producers and furniture factories, that were increasingly impatient to have photographs that captured a diversity of shades. At the beginning of the […]
It has no single form. And that’s the point! Can we trust in that which constantly changes its appearance? In Blind Hope? It could be a beggar on the street corner, or a young woman, servant to a house, marched off to Auschwitz together with her masters, to the Danube Delta or Vorkuta where she […]
Seven years ago, as fate would have it, I arrived in Indonesia for the first time in my life, on Vesak. Vesak is the celebration of the birth, enlightenment, and departure from earthly existence—or Parinirvāna—of Gautama Buddha. Parinirvāna cannot really be called death, much like the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. From the perspective […]
Crave
Everyone in the world has at some point felt an insatiable desire for something or someone. Craving is a heightened state of longing, which always carries with it a sense of hopelessness, of the impossibility of fulfilment. The object of our longing can take many different forms. Perhaps we crave true love, or maybe just a cigarette on which we can puff while we gaze on the hills or valleys or plains of our homeland. Perhaps from time to time we even crave death. Cravings are complex, as they can be physical, mental, even spiritual.
In the intimacy of stripped-bare sounds I cannot remember any voice My hearing is failing my memory of sound or there is a rift so acute and deep that it escapes comprehension. I step on the fragile November ice no it’s nothing unsafe // only tread inspired by water on the field path and […]
Reflections on Cz.K. Sebő’s New Album Listen with me to Cz.K. Sebő’s How could I show you the beauty of a life in vain?, my favorite album of 2021. This is not a record review. Instead, I hope to take you with me as I explore the questions: What does it mean to crave the […]
I was reading Thomas Lynch’s The Undertaking recently. It’s a good book. First published in 1997, it came out at a time when, let’s be honest, most white Americans—like me—thought “race relations” were in a better place than most white Americans think they are now. Americans of color were, as ever, not fooled. They also […]
I’m wondering how far one’s desires can be from another’s. Aren’t you interested, mister? You just laugh, oblivious to the distance to Magadan. What if we had gone anyway? I would be watching the ice, you’d be watching the endlessness, this is how we would be mirrored in that flat-frozen Siberia. Isn’t it how […]