Harry Angstrom — better known by his nickname, Rabbit — has the typical problem of a 26-year-old Western man. He feels trapped. Trapped by the small apartment he rents, and trapped by his job demonstrating kitchen gadgets in a department …
Walt Whitman: the original Substacker
I can remember exactly where I was when I first read Walt Whitman. Lying on the bed in my girlfriend’s dorm room in college, I started reading “Song of Myself” from Leaves of Grass out loud and, much to my …
The torture of an unphilosophical life
Even if you haven’t read Robert Musil’s unfinished modernist masterpiece, The Man Without Qualities, you probably agree that it has a great title. If you have read it, I’m sure you agree, because the novel returns obsessively to the theme …
The mean girls conquering pop
Sabrina’s got that boy wrapped round her finger. Olivia knows she might sound crazy but she doesn’t care. Chappell is having a sexually explicit kinda love affair with a closeted woman. Billie is going to eat that girl for lunch, …
Donald Trump’s cultural renaissance
It is certainly possible to hope that the inauguration of Donald J. Trump will be greeted by a resurgence of the American spirit, from new inventions to a revival of entrepreneurial drive and the renewal of American industry and crafts. …
The Leopard holds a warning for Europe
The great unification processes of the late 19th century inspired some of the world’s most famous authors. In 1886, Henry James explored the triangular relationship between a Confederate War veteran from Mississippi and two New England feminist abolitionists in The …
Why Irish mumming endures
Winter now. All the old sounds again. Mist beading on the bough and tap tap tapping to the ground. The Velcro scratch of dead leaves. Bleurgh, says the sodden bird. Wind lurches off the Atlantic and trips on this little …
Colombia is doomed by corruption
I owe my functioning right hand to the business acumen of Pablo Escobar.
That claim might — indirectly — almost be true. Seven years ago, during a paddle in a jungle pool in the province of Guaviare in Colombia, I …
How the internet perverts desire
Romantic love, one of the great organising forces in Western societies, is in crisis. Just look at the low fertility rates, and correspondingly high rates of singleness and sexlessness, in the contemporary West.
Or take divorce. Even high-profile advocates for …
Let’s talk about Ariana Grande’s body
Let’s talk about Ariana Grande’s body. It’s difficult, not least because Ariana, 31, would rather you didn’t. She released a three-minute TikTok last year addressed to fans who were concerned that she was “too thin”. “I think we should be …
Luigi Mangione is America’s Everyman
The assassination of a prominent figure in America always ends up being a riddle on the order of the enigma the Sphinx poses to Oedipus: “What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three …
Viktor Orbán’s architectural ambition
Turning back the clock is proverbially impossible in history, but apparently not in architecture. Witness the Hungarian capital of Budapest, where since 2010 Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government has been carrying out ambitious renovations. At several symbolic points in the city, …
Gen Z’s worship of the Unabomber
This piece was first published in September 2022.
“The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” Writing those words as the introduction to his 1995 anti-technology manifesto Industrial Society and its Future, Ted Kaczynski …
Spotify Wrapped will expose you
My favourite part of Spotify Wrapped day is psychoanalysing my peers. Oh, your top artist was Alice in Chains, was it? When was the last time you spoke to your father? Lana Del Rey is pretty high on your list, …
Say Nothing’s empty empathy
Ever since Nicéphore Niépce took a snapshot from a window, overlooking the rooftops of Saône-et-Loire, in the 1820s, we’ve been living, and lost, in the kingdom of the image. With the development of photography, cinema, television, and the internet, the …