Magnificent Octopus

Άδάμας (Unconquerable), by Sophia Wallace, 2013. Desire, for women, can be complicated. While men are generally allowed to want openly, to c...

I'm humming a little. Softly. Just to myself. A tune I heard somewhere, can't remember where from, but it's lovely. It comes eas...

Above us Tyll Ulenspiegel turned, slowly and carelessly — not like someone in danger but like someone looking around with curiosity. He stoo...

It is a fact, though, that for some time now I have known about life. As for love, on that score there is not only no illusion left in me, b...

"I will submit to you today that logic is indeed sexy. Logic is fact in a world of fiction, truth in a society of lies, and light in th...

I indulged in the luxury of wandering through a bookstore the other day, hoping, as I do, that some miraculous book would stop me in my trac...

The last day of summer is misty and smells like fermented blackberry juice, and it sticks to me and makes me gag. I sit in my room in the at...

The fragrance in the room has four hearts. None of these hearts is human, and that's why I'm drawn towards them. At the base of this...

"A computer is only human," he used to say. "It, too, can break down." He cancels our meeting at the eleventh hour. I am...

César Aira, waits for his issues of Artforum to arrive.  Eventually (but this happened years ago: I am trying to recover a memory that I...

Ellie swam up to me. "Hey," she whispered, cupping her hand under my head and lifting it so I could hear her. "I was thinking...

Vernon Subutex , by Virginie Despentes, is a chaotic canvas of characters all falling into orbit around a new messiah. Convoluted as life it...

The Divorce , by César Aira, is not about a divorce. This realization came as a minor disappointment, as a divorce story stumbled upon in a ...

Caissa, the muse of chess, was no less ruthless than the muse of poetry. Muses had a way of killing those whom they inspired. The Eight , by...

Priestesses smelled like forbearance and cheap incense, not raw earth and full bellies. When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain is an exquisi...

The Ancestry of Objects , by Tatiana Ryckman, tells the story of a woman having an affair with a married man. We lean against the counter an...

"What's your passion?" How I hate that question. Passionately.  It's a phrase that gained traction over the last couple de...

Guided meditation this week reminds me: Your heart is devoted to your existence. Today, after five months, curfew is lifted. Tonight I think...

It is not difficult to fall in love. First her eyes staring at him last night, her youth and that faint impudence — nothing vulgar, just eno...

"The human being is the cause of all evil in this world. We are our own virus." Tender. One who tends. Legal tender. My heart is t...