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What a remarkable work Glory is. A brilliant satrical novel about post-colonial struggles, the way that the hopes and dreams of liberation struggles can be diverted and destroyed, and how that despair can turn into revolution. But perhaps most remarkable is how NoViolet Bulawayo tells the story.George Orwell's famous political satire on the Russian Revolution, Animal Farm, tells the story using

The rationale of Laura D’Olimpio’s manifesto (as she calls it) for the compulsory aesthetic education for all school-aged students at all levels of education is simple and straightforward: “Aesthetic education is necessary due to its distinctive ability to offer, invite and invoke aesthetic experience. Such meaningful experiences, of flow, harmony, beauty, the sublime, shock, awe, wonder, etc., are integral to a flourishing life and, therefore, educators have a responsibility to …

Conferences can be hit-and-miss. It’s easy to go through the motions on autopilot and find the experience lacklustre. Earlier on this summer, I attended one that started out lacklustre, but then became memorable, and I realized there’s a lot one can do to influence the outcome. Adam, the lurking third autodidact, has spent a good portion of the last six years going to lots of conferences, and has made something …

Summer over in a flash, autumn wind and rain outside – perhaps cosy evenings will speed up both my reading and review-posting. I just finished AI Snake Oil by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, having long been a fan of the blog of the same name. The book is a really useful guide through the current hype. It distinguishes 3 kinds of AI: generative, predictive and content moderation AI – …

Wildsmith was one of the classic British quality men’s shoe brands, started already in 1847, but it was a long time since it had a prime. The original company was liquidated in the early 2000’s, and after two unsuccessful resurrections it’s now time for the third attempt. Wildsmith is a brand that was highly recognised in the first half of the 1900’s, and made really nice bespoke and RTW shoes. …

Thanks to help from a few people, the origin of these planes has been clarified, although perhaps not the name. The manufacturer can clearly be identified from the label of the box a No.2A came in. They were manufactured by The Thomas Machine Co. Ltd., in South Wales. They were then distributed by Welsh Industries (Bridgend) Ltd. in Glamorgan, also in South Wales. The markings on a plane box An …

I fell in love with Grimsby and Cleethorpes back in 2018 when I visited for Chasetown’s match at Clee Town – and I have returned every year since. The people, the chippy, the bottle shop, the brewery, the live music venues…what’s not to love? That said, I was concerned that my visits were becoming a bit samey – so this time I made it my mission to explore a bit …

Via https://www.tumblr.com/virtual-hades/758596370979536896

ALTA preliminary study for a paperback cover by Jack Gaughan for Ace, c. 1960s-70s.

When a starving student falls in love with an heiress, her social climbing father is quick to object and send him packing. Undeterred, the student decides that the matter will be solved in the modern way: form a company to underwrite his marriage. Home Media Availability: Stream courtesy of the Danish Film Institute. The Business […]

This is some positively amazing reporting from an organization called Forensic Architecture: In 2020, a 60-year old woman named June Knightly was shot with five other female traffic safety volunteers by a right-wing extremist. They were preparing to protect a peaceful protest march in Portland, which was happening blocks away, when the man approached them and began a confrontation. The events leading up to the shooting, her death, and the …

I have this sort of pop primal scene to do with seeing T. Rex on T. Vee. A personal creation-myth based on Marc Bolan's audio-visual impact on my fragile eggshell child-mind. I first referred to this memory scar as early as the introduction to Blissed Out - where it is described as an early encounter with the Pop Sublime, a sensation that scared and spooked me as much as astonished …

I’ve put up a new Austin Philips story over on Dark Tales Sleuth: “A Dead Letter” is a ghost story about a moaning ghost—and a ghost envelope! On the way, the reader learns a little British Post Office history, too. It’s also set on Christmas Eve, so this story may make a return at Winter Tales season. But in the meantime, enjoy!

IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETICS a contrast is sometimes made between the Dionysian and the Apollonian. Made famous by Nietzsche, this schema was first used to describe the thought and art of Ancient Greece. On the Apollonian end we have all that is rational, intentional, structured, abstract, or well ordered; on the Dionysian side we find all that is passionate, instinctual, chaotic, sensual or protean. The Apollonian strain of western …