The Big Cats, Part XII
On Dreams and Dreamers
The platelets of love clog / the arteries of sense...
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Masking and Visibility
Performing the pandemic
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In his Autumn 2019 collection, Alessandro Michele, creative director of Gucci, sent his models out on the runway covered in clothing and layers of protective gear. He also used many different forms of face coverings and masks (not mouth coverings). He was inspired by Hannah Arendt’s writings on totalitarianism and ...
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Broom Swept
Failure tells a tale about capitalism too
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What closes and then darkness, what opens and then bright?Before the horn has risen,where hides the lord of light? —Tian Wen, A Chinese Book of Origins
How you frame something is a moral decision. —Babette Mangolte
On Mercer Street, on the island of Manhattan, and just before the city paused, walking in a southerly direction ...
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What We Really Wear
The connection between fashion and self
I was only 5 years old the first time I wondered about why we wear what we wear. I used to sit in a corner of our living-room so I could observe my parents and their friends. Why did they wear what they wore, and how did their clothes connect ...
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Cis Lit and the Trans Writer
On Torrey Peters and the possibilities for trans girl fiction
What would happen if we took seriously the perspectives of trans people, and allowed them to potentially transform how we see the whole of gender? Detransition, Baby is a book about what cis and trans women might have to say to each other. It does allow a certain amount of cis tourism ...
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Creatures of Habit
From Our First Zombie President to Ling Ma’s Severance
The main problem with zombies is that they lack self-awareness. The opening words of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals— “We are unknown to ourselves”—could serve as a zombie manifesto. Driven by little more than the impulse to consume, zombies shamble along from meal to meal without ever pausing to ...
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The Big Cats, Part XI
On bones and bonfires
November bonfires roast / the marrow of the lost...
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Poetry to Vote By
Reading Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic on the eve of the election
How many of us are brave enough for art?
At the bakery down the block, polling shows Trump surging ahead. Each purchase of an election-themed cookie—Biden or Trump, with red, white, and blue sprinkles—is tallied by the bakers as a vote in favor for the relevant candidate. “Our forecast is never ...
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Fall Fashion
Could the collapse of consumption point to a better future for the fashion industry?
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Outside the window, it should have been autumn season. With the arrival of more crisp weather, a section of the wardrobe opens for the new possibilities, colors, and textures: jackets and closed shoes, knits and tweed. And layers. Layers force the wearer to think in more complex combinations. With a ...
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Will Covid-19 Be My Fashion Therapist?
Reexamining the vastness of fashion in the confined pandemic habitiation
We are the beginners of a new life
All we know is reforming
--Cemal Sureya
As soon as the Covid-19 pandemic started, survivability became one of our biggest concerns. We had to welcome all ideas on how to strengthen our immunity, concerning what we had and what "things" might do to us. Covid-19, ...
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Elena Ferrante Returns to Naples
A new novel delights, but reveals decay
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The four novels in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan saga were a literary sensation when they appeared between 2011 and 2015. Now she’s back with a new novel in seven parts, The Lying Life of Adults, with a translation by Ann Goldstein. Though no less compelling than her blockbuster series, the smaller ...
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Can We Talk About Sex? Please?
A review of Jennifer Hirsch’s and Shamus Khan’s Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus
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A decade ago, I was a resident adviser in a residential college at a highly selective university. My colleagues and I used to roll our eyes at the highly legalistic "affirmative consent" model of sexual education that we were asked to teach first-year students. Focused on the idea that sexual ...
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