Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Insightfully commonplace

    Insightfully commonplace

    I was initially underwhelmed by Michelle Theodore’s Cavity. Where were the insights? Where was the peek into an unfamiliar experience? Where was the pleasure and escapism? Then I re-read it, and realised that I had resisted its affect and dismissed its perspicacity because the subjective experience it represented was so familiar to me – precisely Read more

  • The cost of survival

    The cost of survival

    Late the year before last, when I bought my first console, and played Red Dead Redemption 2 quite soon after its release, I was completely bowled over. ‘This game changes everything!’ I ranted enthusiastically to you, my journal. Of course if I hadn’t been in the Mac gaming ghetto all my life I’d have been Read more

  • A trajectory

    A trajectory

    General relativity tells us something enticing about time. It doesn’t tell us what many would like it to tell us, that time is simply another dimension which our limited perspective turns into the one-way-street of our experience; it tells us instead that time has a particular relation to entropy, that it is tied to the Read more

  • Dwelling together

    Dwelling together

    A labyrinth can be a lonely place. In a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, Asterion, the most famous of labyrinthine inhabitants, is consoled in his solitude only by a prophecy that his redeemer will some day seek him out. That redeemer, the son of Aethra, fathered by both Aegeus and Poseidon, is the mythical Read more

  • For the readers

    For the readers

    There’s something wonderful about being immersed in the world of a book, something which for me is even more pronounced when that world is invented. Even when a secondary world is dystopian, like Margaret Atwood’s theocracy of Gilead, there’s something about inhabiting it which excites the explorer in me, which makes me feel both immensely Read more

  • This stomping mechanistic racket

    This stomping mechanistic racket

    This, stomping, mechanistic racket has the distinct sound of its era, despite sounding decidedly atypical. Its huge, rectangular, electronic drum beats have that 80s electro vibe, and its guitars are heavy in a harsh, post-punk sort of a way. KMFDM is a band with a recognisable sound, and the elements of that sound are present Read more