‘Culture’ serves us here as a bit of a cheat term for all the other arts. Below, you’ll find collected essays on films, books, TV, theatre, a couple art installations, and some other miscellaneous little bits. See how you get on.
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Helplessness in Kafka
At university one of the books I studied was Don DeLillo’s White Noise, a horrid, hollow little book about the emptiness at the heart of American culture. White Noise follows Jack Gladney, a university professor who works in Hitler Studies…
Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation is Ass
Ways of Seeing is a 1972 art documentary by the maverick art theorist John Berger. A four-part series broadcasted by the BBC, Berger’s Ways of Seeing was one of the earliest articulations of the concept of the male gaze, and…
On Piss in Paradise Rot
Having talked about medical dramas, autism, and the hellscape depths of capitalism, we turn now to a simpler question: is there a piss kink in Paradise Rot? Paradise Rot is a 2009 short novel by Norweigan musician and novelist Jenny…
Encounters with Autism
Note: ‘Encounters with Autism’ is an essay that’s been sitting in my drawer for a couple of years. It’s formatted and styled slightly different to my normal practice here, but it seemed relevant to – you know – recent events.…
On Labour in The Pitt
Content note – discussion of suicide, drug use, workplace violence, mass shootings, probably some other grim emergency room material The Pitt is a 2025 TV medical drama set in a fictional ER in Pittsburgh. It won three Emmys the other…
Writing and the Public Sphere
It’s funny to look back, ten years on, and realise I’m still just doing the stuff I was trained to do at university. It’s essentially just close reading – I like to pick up a game and look at one…
Post-Theory and Reading for Vibes
There’s a recent series of author biographies by Wiley called ‘The Life of the Author’. They’ve got eight volumes out so far, with another on F. Scott Fitzgerald coming in December this year, and lately I’ve been reading their volume…
P Is For Paradise, Pilgrims
I feel like I always start to get a little uneasy this time of year. Winter’s setting in, and I’m not really motivated to do anything. I have a few little things floating around, essays I could write – there’s…
The Problem with G.K. Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton is an early 20th century journalist and writer. He was a Catholic with a newspaper column that he ran for thirty years, and – he’s also very annoying. Back in March I wrote a piece about Elden Ring…
The Bar Is In Hell: On Money and Art
The thing about classic literature is that it’s mostly written by people with money. Chaucer was a civil servant and MP. Milton served in Oliver Cromwell’s government, Lord Byron was obviously a member of the House of Lords (inheriting that…
Discovery and the Internet
In The River in the Sky, a book-length poem published shortly before his death, Clive James makes reference to “YouTube’s vast cosmopolis”. Like many people from his generation, his reaction to the internet is characterised by a sort of awe…
Brooke Fraser’s Final Album
Last week we talked about the portrayal of the Christian woman in What To Do With Daylight, the first album by New Zealand artist Brooke Fraser. Today is really a sort of part two, looking at the arc of her…
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Death is a Whale 