or, the power of the narrative you want to believe. It was reading New York Magazine's interpretation of Patient Zero that really hammered home to me how much people have the blinkers on about Taylor Swift. To me, this song was an obvious homage to a friend [1] who is "sick of him" but still... Continue Reading →
Five ways to build community as an introvert.
The club sucks but so does staying in forever. As a teenager, one of my friends threw a murder mystery party annually for her birthday. We’d be assigned characters and all get together in costume, eat food, and play pretend. Those days were always delightful, and I’m gratified to see that halfway across the world... Continue Reading →
Fandom is the reason I can’t give up the internet
I can't be the only one stuck in this loop... Oh god, do I want off the internet. The list of things I need a phone to do is so small that I am seriously considering going back to a 2013 Blackberry. My ability and desire to read, write, and communicate have been improved by... Continue Reading →
“What Are My Words Worth”: the role of academia’s ivory tower in cultural transmission
my talk given at the Creative Industries Festival 2026 “What is left, what is remembered and what is still fit for use in the heritage of classical bourgeois culture?” It is with these words that Eric Hobsbawm opens his 2012 essay ‘Heritage’. Hobsbawm, a historian in his 95th year when this was written, is concerned... Continue Reading →
I don’t care about canon.
Or: Fanfic in opposition to auteurship.
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 →
