Imagining the real. Really imagining.
There and here, blending and blurring, all together.
These things may have happened long ago; they may be still to come. No one really knows anymore.
Hayao Miyazaki, Shuna’s Journey.
But this agitation, like all Iranian agitations, is a valve for a more general anomie—one that combines global ills like social inequality and a sick planet with Kafkaesqueries of a more local character.
Christopher de Bellaigue on the possibilities of ‘an unstoppable spiral of state violence and popular fury’ in Iran.
The lack of clearly defined objectives makes the definition of victory uncertain. But this ambiguity also makes the criteria for defeat unclear…
Alexander Baunov on Russia’s objectives.
The company behind Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Krug and Dom Pérignon has said it is ‘running out of stock on our best champagnes’ as the wealthy spend big on luxury goods in a new ‘roaring 20s’ age of decadence.
2022 is set to be ‘a fabulous year’ for some.
Revolutions are rarely ‘won’: it is governments which lose power. But weakness can be defined in a variety of ways. It can relate to indecision, fractures within the elite, but also a stubborn determination not to change one’s ways – on the pretext that this reflects strength.
Ali Ansari on ‘failures of imagination’ in Iran.
As the repeated attacks on art begin to bore us, they prove what many people have come to believe: that the system will save us. Somehow. Because it has to. Surely someone, somewhere will have thought of this or that eventuality.
Lucy Whelan on ‘fear and complacency’.
We regret that those on duty did not pay enough attention.
Nam Hwa-young, acting chief of South Korea’s National Fire Agency, in reference to the Halloween disaster in Seoul.