
The Good Pervert by David Velasco (Harpers)
“The newspapers, even if they get the facts right, will get the story wrong.”
You've got to dig to dig it, you dig?

The Good Pervert by David Velasco (Harpers)
“The newspapers, even if they get the facts right, will get the story wrong.”
Colonisation had sought to exclude the natives from politics, and Africans were viewed as objects that could be destroyed, animals who should be trained or children that needed firm leadership. The essence of neocolonialism was to perpetuate this habit: the African, forever immature, must not venture into politics.
The Cameroon war : a history of French neocolonialism in Africa / by Thomas Deltombe, Jacob Tatsitsa and Manuel Domergue ; translated by David Broder.
Africa Restored (Cheryl as Cleopatra), 2003-ongoing
Notably, Marshall adds new elements each time the sculpture goes on view, including for this current presentation. Thus, the work can be seen as an unfinished, living sculpture—open to continued revision by the artist. (Art Institute of Chicago)

Edwidge Danticat joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Two Men Arrive in a Village,” by Zadie Smith. (New Yorker) (PRX)
Sarah Bejerano. Cargo. Rialta.
Casi al final del prefacio de su Atlas de islas remotas, Judith Schalansky escribe: Los cartógrafos deberían reivindicar su oficio como un verdadero arte poético y los atlas como un género literario de belleza máxima; en definitiva, su arte es digno merecedor de la primera denominación que recibieron los mapas: Theatrum orbis terrarum [Teatro del mundo]. Si hubiera un atlas del mundo en la fotografía cubana, sería la obra de Sarah Bejerano. Si hubiera un atlas de la poesía en la fotografía cubana, sería la obra de Sarah Bejerano:
—¿Hay música en tus fotos?
—Hay música en mi cabeza, todo el tiempo. No puedo vivir sin música. Normalmente organizo mi vida por canciones, y mis fotos son lo mismo. Todas las series que hago tienen bandas sonoras, que muchas veces se conforman a la hora de realizarlas y otras viene cuando las visualizo posteriormente. No podría enmarcarlas en un género musical u otro, porque mis listas de reproducciones van desde Irakere hasta Rammstein, desde Vivaldi hasta Elvis Manuel.
—¿Crees en Dios?
—No, ¡por Dios!

“Of course, I am not K, but I find myself uncannily identified with his predicament. For in the letter you have sent you and your offices have informed me only that you have sent “a file or report related to alleged antisemitic incidents” that includes my name. Two aspects of this communication stand out to anyone who has read Kafka’s work. The first is that you imply, without stating it, that I have been accused of antisemitism or that my name is associated with an incident of that kind. But you are also actually more careful since you say that the incident of antisemitic harassment or discrimination is “alleged,” which means simply that the allegation was neither reviewed nor adjudicated but left to stand on its own.”
Judith Butler to David Robinson, in response to the University of California, Berkeley informing 160 students, faculty, and staff that files containing their names were forwarded to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in connection to its investigation of antisemitism on college and university campuses. via The Nation.
Aquí confluimos hacia la única estrella.
Volquémonos amado mío,
dejemos caer los remos
hasta donde la noche no existe.
Here we converge toward the only star.
Let’s fall in, love of mine,
let’s drop our oars
down to where night doesn’t exist.
Lacao, Rosabetty Muñoz, translated By Claudia Nuñez de Ibieta
How the Studio Museum in Harlem Reshaped the Art World. (Harper’s Bazaar)
Anahid Nersessian on Marisa Meltzer’s “It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin” (NewYorker)
[Charlotte] Gainsbourg shoots her mother as if she were a medieval sculpture of a sad but radiant saint whom the passage of time only ennobles.
?

ECHO DELAY REVERB. Art américain et pensées francophones, Naomi Beckwith et Elvan Zabunyan (dir.), coéd. Palais de Tokyo (17 octobre 2025) Editions B42.
[Arundhati Roy] writes … on a paper napkin for her friend to hold on to, formulating with that rare and exultant combination of passion and rigor what success really means:
To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.
via The Marginalian
Also. It was a sudden revelation (Woolf)

and for some
certain only of the syllables
it is the element they
search their lives for
Lucille Clifton, “the garden of delight”