I have a piece in Senses of Cinema

I am proud to have a piece published in Senses of Cinema for the Valérie Massadian cover story. My piece is called “Milla and Motherhood”.

When halfway through the film Léo dies at work you do not have to see the death —and you do not, such is Massadian’s dedication to life without spectacle — to know that his is the death of the young and low skilled, working in arduous conditions for businesses that likely cut corners.

Heavily pregnant and newly alone, Milla finds work as a cleaner in a hotel. The essential nature of work for the low paid is a constant theme of the film. The neatly maintained divisions between jobs and social connection, made possible with higher incomes, are absent. Milla doesn’t holiday, doesn’t go out for brunch. The majority of Milla’s most meaningful exchanges, such as when she outlines her future ambitions or tries to encourage maternal gestures from other women, happen with workmates.

In this context, the later protracted scenes of mothering make sense. Life happens for Milla not in her free time, which is limited, but while she works, including when the work is mothering work

Read Full Post »

Politics like poetry

But you are becoming more enormous and looming right out of control across the land, and controlling my mind. The more you push, the more I can’t find the answer for what should be kept under control. Where are all the proper story keepers? Who’s going to sing all the sacred story so you won’t feel lonely anymore, is there anyone left? Anyone there? Anyone at the birthday party?

From “Hey Ancestor!” by Alexis Wright in The Guardian. 

Read Full Post »

there are women who will let you

if you are waiting for the right girl
the really truly special one who blows
your mind and cock and the girl shop
doesn’t have her in yet you can take
a loan girl until the right one comes
and then you can return the other one
since they mostly dust off fine
you might just have to wait a long time
to buy the girl you’re looking for
and even then she may not be available
straight away but thankfully
there are women who will let you
take them home with nothing sparkly
you can drive them round and round
for free while looking for a better one
there are women who will wait
in the passenger seat

– Bronwyn Lovell

Read Full Post »

Joy is coming

Read Full Post »

On the female gaze

The man who wrote this piece is pretty clueless about feminism, but he manages to cover a lot of interesting ground anyway. “What happens when women create explicit paintings of men?” in Elle, by John H Richardson.

“There doesn’t seem to be any real home for any of these,” she continues a bit sadly. “It doesn’t go in the kids’ room; it doesn’t go in the living room; it doesn’t go in the dining room. Decoration is still an important element for painting, and when you have something with an aggressive subject matter, it doesn’t know its place.”

But does she intend to keep doing them, I ask, even if they don’t sell?

“Yeah,” she answers. “I mean, I might die with all these dicks, for all I care.”

Read Full Post »

The one you love is sick

Photo and words by Flannery O’Kafka. Flannery is one of the best photographers of motherhood around.

Read Full Post »

That it altered me

That I Saw the Light on Nonotuck Avenue
That every musical note is a flame, native in its own tongue.

That between bread and ash there is fire.

That the day swells and crests.

That I found myself born into it with sirens and trucks going by
out here in a poem.

That there are other things that go into poems like the pigeon,
cobalt, dirty windows, sun.

That I have seen skin in marble, eye in stone.

That the information I carry is mostly bacterial.

That I am a host.

That the ghost of the text is unknown.

That I live near an Air Force base and the sound in the sky is death.

That sound like old poetry can kill us.

That there are small things in the poem: paper clips, gauze, tater
tots, and knives.

That there can also be emptiness fanning out into breakfast rolls,
macadam, stars.

That I am hungry.

That I seek knowledge of the ancient sycamore that also lives in
the valley where I live.

That I call to it.

That there are airships overhead.

That I live alone in my head out here in a poem near a magical
tree.

That I saw the light on Nonotuck Avenue and heard the cry of a
dove recede into a rustle.

That its cry was quiet light falling into a coffin.

That it altered me.

That today the river is a camera obscura, bending trees.

That I sing this of metallic shimmer, sing the sky, the song, all of
it and wonder if I am dying would you come back for me?

– Peter Gizzi

Read Full Post »

Australian Summer

By photojournalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, Alex Ellinghausen .

Read Full Post »

This is very good and you would probably like it

I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

Read Full Post »

If you find yourself standing

If you find yourself standing
At the end of your line
Looking for a piece of something
Maybe a piece of mind
Fed up, lost, and run down
Nowhere to hold on
Tired of, take your place at the end son
We’ll get to you one by one

– “Sandusky” by Uncle Tupelo

Read Full Post »