October 10th to 12th was the London (Autumn) Pen Show. This is like any trade show: you have vendors who like to sell you things, customers who want deals on those things, and a few onlookers trying to build brands, follow next year's marketing trends, make relationships with mutually beneficial businesses… or who just want to hold the bags of somebody they love, looking for a place to sit. I went for the Sunday as a customer.
I Can Fix The House Of Lords
Britain's House of Lords is a second chamber made of compromise. We as a nation understand the value of a second chamber: it is essential for governmental checks and balances, for debate, and so that the government of the country cannot be swayed by current moods in electoral politics blinding us to widespread issues or... Continue Reading →
Love Songs In Middle-Age
I am 31 and fully dead. Lloyd Cole says the first song he ever wrote about being middle-aged was Hey Rusty. Anybody listening to his 1987 album 'Mainstream' can tell he's having a bit of an identity crisis: songs like Sean Penn Blues and My Bag are sharp satires of a world Cole doesn't seem... Continue Reading →
sometimes I feel like societal collapse.
we live in a society. Today I cycled to the library in a miniskirt. It's not a noteworthy thing for me to do; in fact, I probably wear more clothes than most of the people I see on my commute in the balmy final days of summer. It is not remarkable to see a lady's... Continue Reading →
Quentin’s Study
Reddish-brown leather, silver studs, darkened to gunmetal by time and mottled besides. High wing back and buttons in the quilting that look just like the speakers on the wall. I see you, with glasses on your nose looking up something in Halliwell's. I see you, eyes closed, record on loud, dead to the world, happiest... Continue Reading →
How To Skip The Reading
Happy start of term to undergrads. Listen up, fuckers. I work in both a high school and university, and have done both concurrently for about ten years now*. Trust, I know when you have not done the reading. I was a giant nerd in my own undergraduate days, the kind of person people asked to... Continue Reading →
Piss Alley
A man took me home once who took a slash against a wall in Green Lanes; I was aghast. (Dear Reader: we still fucked.) And now when I am walking down some snicket where men piss I think of him. This short poem was written as part of the 'Alphabet Superset' programme: it is quick... Continue Reading →
Expand Your Sad Girl Autumn Horizons
The season of mist and mellow fruitfulness is upon us, and we must acknowledge that the mellowest of all fruits is the pumpkin. It it time, then, to grab a PSL and transition, as the leaves are, into new versions of ourselves with appropriate reading, listening, and pastimes. Here are some tips, fresh from the... Continue Reading →
from Nebraska
A poem in the voice of Rosalita. Read More. It's my hips you look at It's my hair you look at It's my friends, my trends, my dance You look at I see a dead-eyed stare, I see eyes turn green, I see sidelong glances from the mirror My face in your pocket on your... Continue Reading →
Janis Ian, Anna Karenina, and Sadness
It cannot be said that Tolstoy understood women, yet his famous introduction to Anna Karenina can just as well be applied to women as families: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Are women not the head of the household? This is a complicated statement, but even in... Continue Reading →
Late Romantic 