This isn’t for the normies, I’ve given up trying to write for them. They don’t read me, anyway. So forget about persuasion. If you’re reading this, I’m sure you hear it too, the clatter of flying hooves: pale horses careering all over the place. This one was a street mural in Brixton, South London. This […]
“The history of repression is filled with dissidents fleeing, hiding, disappearing, dying. Only usually, we don’t get to see the haunted look in their eyes.” Diana West I was hugely relieved when Karen Kingston turned up alive and safe. And the hat looked great, by the way. But those who admire and appreciate Kingston were […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 16 A covid mask in the shape of H R Giger’s ‘facehugger’ creature? What a beautiful concept — but it’s the creation of James Body of Pirate Leatherworks, based in York, UK. I wish I’d thought of it myself. After all, as Nerdist enthused, it combines the safety we need with the horror […]
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 15 It’s not surprising, I suppose. To look squarely at what is happening in the world at this time is extremely disturbing, and people have quickly evolved reasons for not doing so — even in my unvaccinated circles. There is one argument I’ve come across a number of times which seems to rest […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 14 And let us not speak falsely now, for the hour is getting late. –Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower In the garden at Bohemia there’s a brick circle laid into the gravel, and some months ago a young man called Theo fashioned a perfect yinyang inside it, using pale brown pebbles and […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 10 Chiney has friends, if you know what I mean, and he can get away with some things, to a degree. He would never boast about it, and knows the wisdom of making yourself seem smaller than you are. He had to close during the draconian lockdowns of 2020, and was forced to […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 8 My life is a dream. That’s what it feels like, more and more. Has done for a while; the last few years, at least. Paradoxically, I think that’s how life should feel; how reality feels if you are actually in it. It’s a measure: the more you live in reality, the more […]
“The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda — before the movements have the power to drop iron curtains to prevent anyone’s disturbing, by the slightest reality, the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world — lies in its ability to shut the masses from the real world. The only signs which the real world still offers […]
PARIJAH DIARIES 7 I spent my first five years in a Legoland suburb of London at the end of the Piccadilly Line. I was born at home, 2am on a Tuesday morning, I believe, with a transparent membrane covering my head — a ‘cowl’, the midwife called it, explaining to my mother the traditional belief […]