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Category Archives: readings
A love story far from the sea
This beautiful little love story has some extraordinary bits about the Syrian revolution, the subsequent civil war(s), love, families, sectarian sentiments, and the sea: On the second day of Ramadan, I come home from work to find Jesus, Maalik, and … Continue reading
Posted in Middle East, ports, readings, seafaring, the sea, war
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The Cargo Cults of USA – Part II
In an extraordinary essay titled “The Smell of Infrastructure,” Bruce Robbins argues that the scaffolding of our lives, the infrastructure that carries shit and coal and lobsters and water and electricity is often made invisible. He has a rousing call … Continue reading
The Cargo Cults of USA – Part I
John McPhee has taught David Remnick and Richard Stengel and a few other famous journalists to write, and apparently he is a fixture of The New Yorker, but his work is so much more interesting that those of his proteges, and … Continue reading
imaginary cities
Hav is like a nested doll. There is an original fictional travelogue published in 1987 embedded within the arc of a narrative that updates the story originally published in 1987 with “the events”; with the resulting diptych published in 2007. Then … Continue reading
Izzo, Camillieri, Montalbán
I have just finished a prize winning Manuel Vázquez Montalbán detective novel with Pepe Carvalho as its central character, The South Seas. I was also a devotee of Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano series (who was named in honour of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán). And of course … Continue reading
Posted in ports, readings, the sea
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“no sailor’s card”
Imagine a trans-textual “proletarian” protagonist, one that has travelled the world, gets stuck into adventures aboard ships and on land, and has a laconic easy sarcasm and a way with words. A kind of working class Marlowe with a better … Continue reading
Posted in bureacuracy, labour, literature, ports, readings, seafaring, shipping conditions, ships, the sea
Tagged Traven
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“a city of many rivers”
It is extraordinarily rare to read someone whose work haunts you and then becomes part of your personal canon. That you wake in the middle of the night wanting to look at the map of his imaginary geography. The last … Continue reading
“…for rivers and seas are not to be regarded as disjoining, but as uniting”
From Hegel through Schmitt to Foucault and onwards, there is a way of thinking about sea and land not as inert backdrop but as factors determining politics, history and the transformation of the world. Hegel’s The Philosophy of History is geographically deterministic … Continue reading
Posted in empire, imperialism & colonialism, militaries, ports, readings, seafaring, the sea, war
Tagged Carl Schmitt, Foucault, Hegel, Mahan
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“war, commerce, and transit”
“Let us have the courage to be crude: let us sweep the spirit of subtlety down the sewer along with the flags and the great warriors.” Paul Nizan Paul Nizan’s star burned bright and brief. He was a classmate of Jean-Paul Sartre‘s … Continue reading
Posted in empire, imperialism & colonialism, literature, Middle East, ports, readings, ships, war
Tagged Aden, Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Nizan
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“a seaman in exile from the sea”
Do you remember that haunting Conrad quotation from Heart of Darkness that says “The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a … Continue reading
Posted in literature, Melville, readings, seafaring, ships, the sea
Tagged Conrad, Edward Said, Lord Jim
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The Gamming 