‘You hear Benjamin Pell long before you see him.’
You hear Benjamin Pell long before you see him. He first came into earshot for me in February this year as I walked into a quiet residential road in west London, on the way to the home of his agent, Rex Berry. In this pristine row of Victorian villas the noise was otherworldly. At first I thought it…
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‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
‘It may be that writing fiction, imagining agencies, is my most trusted way into the unseen.’
‘He told the police officer that he was a vegan and the next morning a little slit in the prison door opened, with his breakfast: a metal tray on which there were three frozen potatoes.’
Tim Adams on the fox hunting ban in Granta 90: Country Life.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I think what draws me in is the spectacle of the law trying to deal with something that nothing can deal with – just the wildness of people.’
Izabella Scott in conversation with Helen Garner.
‘How can I accept a trauma or a loss that I cannot define?’
Rebecca May Johnson on pregnancy and divining the future.
‘Rehearsing in front of the mirror was for actors, according to them, not comedians. It was for vain people. A good comedian was the opposite of vain, they said.’
Fiction by Camille Bordas.
