‘The evidence suggests that the Third Way is a reactive rather than a creative force, a response rather than an original idea.’
The waiter told us ‘sit wherever you like’—which could only mean that no other customers were expected that evening. So, hunger dampened by agoraphobia, I chose a corner table and asked for the wine list with stuttering shame. I was taking Pat Moynihan to dinner and I could not imagine that at…
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘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 loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘I think people who ape the sentiments of others often go on to believe the thing they said. It becomes their opinion.’
Juliet Jacques and Iphgenia Baal discuss early digital cultures, precarity and social architecture.
‘How do we perform our politics, our outrage and our grievances when we are among a group?’
Anthony Anaxagorou talks about his collection Heritage Aesthetics.
‘By the time I was in my teens, I had taken up an existence framed by a double negative: not male, not white.’
An excerpt from Tsitsi Dangarembga’s essay collection, Black and Female.
‘Traditional hand-craft becomes literary practice; becomes critical theory.’
Preti Taneja on intertextuality.
‘We live with the permanent sense of imminent disaster.’
Charif Majdalani on the situation in Beirut. Translated from the French by Ruth Diver.
‘I think it’s impossible to draw a hard and fast line between reality and fantasy.’
