Thoughts on military mobilities, trade and capital accumulation, struggles over labour and citizenship rights in the making of transport infrastructures.
How will I ever be able to return to life, “circumspect life” in Melville’s words, after that, the “delirious throb” of this research adventure? In his gorgeous opening to Moby Dick, Melville writes, “whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; […] then, I account it high time to get to sea as […]
I have had the pleasure of reading Fernand Braudel’s The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Vol. II) while in Malta. When I first searched for Malta in the index, I was so pleased to see that it actually said passim… So many references that the indexer didn’t even have to bother. […]
Travelling between worlds. First in London, when my Thameslink train from St Pancras is cancelled and I have to jump in a last minute taxi for Victoria Station and Gatwick express. Driving through half-empty streets of London before 5 am is always glorious, the absence of traffic letting you see buildings you never see but […]
A Small Invitation By Yannis Ritsos Translated from the Greek by Kimon Friar Come to the luminous beaches─he murmured to himself here where the colors are celebrating─look─ here where the royal family never once passed with its closed carriages and its official envoys. Come, it won’t do for you to be seen─he used to say─ […]
The Aerodrome By Seamus Heaney First it went back to grass, then after that To warehouses and brickfields (designated The Creagh Meadows Industrial Estate), Its wartime grey control tower blanched and glazed Into a hard-edged CEO style villa: Toome Aerodrome had turned to local history. Hangars, bomb stores, nissen huts, the line Of perimeter barbed […]
[Untitled] By Octavio Paz, Trans. Muriel Rukeyser At daybreak go looking for your newborn name Over the thrones of sleep glittering the light Gallops across all mountains to the sea The sun with his spurs on is entering the waves Stony attack breaking the clarities The sea resists rearing to the horizon Confusion of […]
Children, the Sandbar, That Summer By Muriel Rukeyser Sunlight the tall women may never have seen. Men, perhaps, going headfirst into the breakers, but certainly the children at the sandbar. Shallow glints in the wave suspended we knew at the breaker line, running that shore at low tide, when it was safe. The grasses whipped […]
It all started off with this FT piece by Horatio Clare, whose book (a meditative reflection on ships and travel on the sea) was about to come out. I had just finished reading Rose George’s amazing book on her travels on a Maersk ship. And was about to read about historian Maya Jassanof’s travels on a freighter […]
There is very little that is original in this post, but I want to put it down anyway, because the affects of this moment are lovely; something that I want to remember when I think about so much that is functional, or dry, or frustrating, or riven with anger, power asymmetries and exploitation. What strikes […]
Marseilles Walter Benjamin The street . . . the only valid field of experience. – Andre Breton Marseilles-the yellow-studded maw of a seal with salt water running out between the teeth. When this gullet opens to catch the black and brown proletarian bodies thrown to it by ship’s companies according to their timetables, it exhales a stink of […]
