Cinema

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Björk in concert

FictionThe wind feels strange on his face. He hasn’t stepped outside in too long. He hesitates in the doorway. He really doesn’t have time for this. He needs to write that last chapter. He needs to finish what he has promised. What separates humans from everything else is our urge to create. He turns back towards his computer but then he is outside and locking the door and it feels like he has no agency over this. His body wants to go for a walk and so he must walk. He catches a glimpse of something bright poking up through the mulch at the base of a tree. A mushroom. Then suddenly they all come into focus. Mushrooms everywhere. Mushrooms on tree trunks like little shelves for fairy books, mushrooms in the mud and mushrooms in among the grass. There are even little net-like things around red stalks. Weird Cronenberg mushrooms, half fungus, half machine.

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Exeunt

PoetryThe mirage of beer before their eyes. Barney wipes his feet upon the mat unaccustomed to such luxuries.

Scarlett fever

Non-fictionThe competition was notable for its shift away from being a Vivien Leigh lookalike contest. The bid to find a woman who, instead, ‘most closely’ resembled how Scarlett ‘would act and speak today’ and embodied ‘her spirit and sass’ opened up the search to any woman with a bit of chutzpah, including, in theory, Black and other women of colour.

In the Dollhouse

Poetry I don’t remember my Barbies, but Mother once told me I had twist-popped their limbs off. I do recall this one doll – she would wet her nappy if...