November light in North London at four-thirty in the evening is a Kodachrome delusion. It’s a saturated gold, bleeding but blurring at the edges, halatious, homely, glimmering, and glowing, the crushing atomic, photonic mass of fifty-six hundred Kelvin collapsing vehemently, violently, vitriolically into bruised oranges and peaches, beaten and battered. Miraculous exposure. The coldest ofContinue reading “The Last Rite of Birthright; or, A Letter to Sylvia Plath”
Author Archives: Ansel Tan
Squalor Victoria; or, An Elegy for the Shipyards
One night in Calgary, against that great white darkI leaned against a pillar that creaked, warilyAnd stared down the corridor of this old Gothic houseFraming, perfectly, the blue, cold streetsCold with the kind of cold that pulls your face tautAnd feathers the light. Makes her eyes look bluffing.Old Prairie days. Home at last.But is HomeContinue reading “Squalor Victoria; or, An Elegy for the Shipyards”
Singapore
I met a man atop the tallest peak of a tiny Pacific IslandI stared into his pitiless eyes, and he sneered, resentfulBehind lenses that immerse him in reality, artificialAnd labels that brand him with the names and the facesOf a country he’s never desiredAs I laid wailing and failing and crying and dyingHe pressed aContinue reading “Singapore”
Passenger Seat Satellite
If one night, whilst I lie in my bed, the Lord told meThat all I ever had and more would disappearI would never make another movie, never write another wordNever beat on against the currents like liberty told me I wouldNor spread my wings and dive into the valley, abseiling like a birdI would neverContinue reading “Passenger Seat Satellite”
the dollhouse
i carried the dollhouse, safe on my shouldersbowed but steady, beckoned with becomingbeneath shooting stars and satellites, she sat in my seatspeaking such small safeties and the softest subtletiesand as we descended the hill and passed beneath the freewaystars scattered across the river, nightlights in the baysoft sodium like glass across the banks of theContinue reading “the dollhouse”
Sasha
Sasha had frizzy platinum blonde hair, beautiful green eyes, a Slavic demeanour that left her with an aura of stubborn self-reliance, a coldness that put many first-timers off. There was a romance about her, though, and her dreary Soviet town, her fuzzy green 80s sweaters, the commie-blocks and the Brutalist architecture of her native Volgograd.Continue reading “Sasha”
What will I do with that green bag?
Last September, what is probably my favourite television show of all time came to an end. After some 25 years of working together, Jeremy Clarkson , Richard Hammond, and, my favourite host, James ‘Captain Slow’ May finally parted ways, first on the BBC’s motoring programme Top Gear, and later on its spiritual successor The GrandContinue reading “What will I do with that green bag?”
Half Awake in a Fake Empire
Freedom, Natality, and the Loss of the World in Hannah Arendt’s America The United States of America is not merely a sovereign state, but a political and affective project bound to a specific promise of freedom, action, and the immutable experience of wonder. In the final lines of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald glimpsesContinue reading “Half Awake in a Fake Empire”
One of these days.
I love New Order. Perhaps it’s because I grew up with them – they’re my dad’s favourite band. I’ve got these fond memories of hearing those glimmering synths, those droning basslines. Theirs might’ve been one of the first pieces of music I ever heard. And yet, despite knowing them all my life, it’s only todayContinue reading “One of these days.”
Waiting and Departing
In the southwest corner of Saskatchewan, there exists a rural municipality known to Statistics Canada as Reno No. 51. It lies six hours south of my hometown, Calgary, which, in the vast expanse of the Canadian Prairies, is but a short jog away. Neither is it particularly far away from the various population centres inContinue reading “Waiting and Departing”
line of best fit 