Author: Ars Notoria

Photograph Inge Colijn by Inge Colijn Geneva Camp in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is an old urban refugee camp. With the 1947 partition of India many Urdu speaking Biharis moved to then East-Pakistan. Those who supported the West Pakistan army during the 1971 Liberation War remained stranded here as stateless communities when…

Courage. Prompted by Phil Hall X by Phil Hall I have always loved the Tarot since the age of 17, when I bought a pack in a Brighton New Age shop in 1977, and I can throw a pretty good set of cards. After use comes understanding. The set I…

Darryl F. Zanuck. J. (1943) Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, Public Domain Darryl Zanuck and Fox by Norman B. Schwartz Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) was not only the Wizard of Menlo Park, the inventor supreme of the incandescent light bulb and the phonograph. He was also the quintessential capitalist….

Spam has a reputation so durable it can survive a frying pan, a joke, a war and a supermarket aisle without so much as loosening its tie. Photograph Kent Ng Pexels Sweet and savoury hallucinations people mock, fear, hide, inherit, sneer at and eat anyway by Arun Kapil Some foods…

My Hat. Photograph Phil Hall by Phil Hall We’re talking about religion and the imagination. Some of the wildest thoughts human beings have ever had have been religious thoughts. Some of the most extravagant love stories, like the Song of Solomon—are religious. Some of the most apocalyptic science fiction ever…

Oil wealth in the Gulf represents hope for the developing world. Photograph Tom Fisk. Destroying and killing nationalist, sovereign opposition to imperialism is the métier of capitalism by Phil Hall The destruction of alternative sources of energy, and of infrastructure in Central Asia, the Gulf and the Middle East represents…

Photograph Dmitryshein and Bristol Greens, Wikimedia Commons Polanski and Mamdani are no counterbalance to a monstrous system of global wealth extraction by Richard Steinhardt Zohran Mamdani and Zack Polanski are trying to get into your knickers. In the 1980s, something called “The New Man” emerged as a cultural phenomenon. Born…

“The word Chechnya alone was enough to provoke despair.” By Richard Steinhardt Parallels are often drawn between Napoleon’s invasion of Tsarist Russia and Hitler’s invasion of the USSR when the point is made that the results of invading Russia through the Ukraine, directly or through proxies, are disastrous. However, the…

Photograph Francesco Ungaro by Phil Hall The Enochian tradition is based on the 16th-century works of Dr. John Dee (1527–1608) and his Irish scryer, Edward Kelley. It is named after the biblical patriarch Enoch, who “walked with God.” Dee and Kelley claimed to have been given a language and an…

The legalisation of euthanasia under capitalism is not an act of compassion. It is a logical extension of a system that values profit over human life, death instead of care. Image X A Humane Socialist View I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, The reason why, I cannot tell; But…

Close up of Hari, Solaris. Screen capture Mosfilm, Fair Use It leaves you almost speechless. Certainly readers have been bombarded. Every article, interview, story, every exhibition of paintings is worthy of being examined with close attention. In particular, we had wonderful contributions from the Art Editor, Paul Halas; the Food…

Publicity photo of Fairuz, circa 1971. Publicity photo, photographer unknown by Phil Hall Israel has long suffered from a severe case of Lebanon envy, a condition that explains its relentless pattern of invasion and attempts at occupation. The Israelis, predominantly Ashkenazi Jews with little original genetic connection to the Levant,…

Demis Hassabis of the United Kingdom, 2024 Nobel Prize Laureate. Photograph John Sears, Wikimedia Commons The CaMeL Framework is Defense Research with Offensive Implications by Richard Steinhardt The bombing of an Iranian primary school, which resulted in the deaths of 175 innocent civilians—mainly young girls, along with some of their…

Photograph by Pixabay The New Malden Writers’ Group was set up in 2023. If you want to join, come along to Wesley’s Café at the Methodist Church in New Malden on Fridays at 11am. The group meets for two hours. We take it in turns to read things to each other…

Óscar de la Borbolla. Courtesy of Óscar de la Borbolla Óscar de la Borbolla, writer and philosopher, was born in Mexico City in 1949, although, as the poet Fargue said: he has dreamed so much! He has dreamed so much that he no longer belongs here. Among his notable books…

Beatriz Escalante. Photograph courtesy of Beatriz Escalante We are delighted to present two captivating short stories by the acclaimed Mexican writer, Beatriz Escalante. A prolific author of over thirty books, Escalante’s work has been recognised and celebrated internationally. Noteworthy books include: Fábula de la inmortalidad and Cómo ser mujer y no vivir en el…

The Jevons Paradox from Gaia, Sixth Extinction Series by Gordon Lidl The Jevons Paradox, Marx, the Modern Left, Deep Greens, AI and Collapse. by Gordon Lidl I want to tell you a story about a painting, a large painting I finished two years ago as part of a series of…

by David Yip At home, my younger sister, Diane, is working in Leeds and spends a lot of time there, staying in hotels. She tells me that she will be moving there as it makes more sense, but she needs to sell her houses. She asks if I will buy…

Ananya Vajpeyi. Original photograph Gautam Menon From Place: Intimate Encounters with Cities Ananya Vajpeyi is a Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. An intellectual historian, political theorist and writer, she was educated in Delhi, Oxford, and Chicago. Her book, Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations…

Bulgarian poet Geo Milev (1895-1925). Photographer unknown Introduced & Translated from the Bulgarian into English by Tom Phillips Geo Milev (1895-1925) was a poet, translator, critic, editor and activist who introduced a radical modernist strain into Bulgarian literature. Equally radical in his politics, he was extra-judicially executed during a round-up of communist…

Beena Kamlani. Photograph Beena Kalmani Beena Kamlani’s debut novel, The English Problem, was published in January 2025 in the U.S. by Penguin Random House and launched in India at the Jaipur Literary Festival in January 2026. The Indian edition has just come out from The Bombay Circle Press. Her short…

Ajay Jain. Photograph Ajay Jain Sapere Aude, Sincere et Constanter Ajay Jain is a writer, photographer, and traveller. He has written sixteen books across genres including travel, business, fiction and memoir. He also runs Kunzum, an independent bookstore in New Delhi. He holds degrees in mechanical engineering, business management and…

S.B. Easwaran, a former journalist who has worked in Gujarat and New Delhi, now lives in Sakyong, a small village in the eastern Himalayas. His poems have appeared in Prosopisia (an Indo-Australian journal), Interlitq, Drunk Monkeys, and Prometheus Dreaming. Sudeep Sen Secretsfor David Lynch (1946-2025) A speckled monarch reverses into…

Đorđe Andrejević Kun – Pasionaria speaks to the fighters before going to the front. Wikimedia Commons A response to a friend’s remark that ‘Lots of people have an aversion to politics.’ By Phil Hall First, we need to define the word politics. It is a set of activities associated with making…

Illustration ©Sebastian Kudas Ewa Lipska (b. 1945) is one of Poland’s most eminent poets, a defining voice of the Polish New Wave (Generation of ’68) since her debut in 1967. Her work, translated into over a dozen languages including English, has earned her international stature and numerous awards, among them…

President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2, 1964. Photograph Cecil Stoughton, White House Press Office. Public Domain As wicked dew as e’er my mother brush’dWith raven’s feather from unwholesome fenDrop on you both! a south-west blow on yeAnd blister you all o’er! Caliban, The Tempest by Dustin…

Gustavo and Priscilla Gac-Artigas. Credit Priscilla Gac-Artigas Born in Santiago de Chile in 1944, Gustavo Gac-Artigas is a Chilean poet, novelist, playwright, and former political prisoner whose writing has long engaged with questions of memory, exile, testimony, and the ethical responsibilities involved in using language. Following the 1973 military coup,…

US Defeat in Iran will lead to the unification of the Persian-Sphere by Richard Steinhardt Let us set aside, now and forever, the ridiculous idea of a Greater Israel. The United States and Europe are not powerful enough to colonise more of North Africa and West Asia or eliminate its…

Himalayan view. Photograph Sudeep Sen by Sudeep Sen It was good to wake up to the silence of the Himalayas this morning. The shifting grey palette of the clouds was an antithesis to the recent tsunami of stimuli. The pleated, opalus ridges hid their pine-green veneer in obfuscating skies. The…

It did not spin like a normal coin, losing energy to the friction of the wood. It spun with a velocity that defied Newtonian physics, gaining momentum from the very air it displaced. Illustration WordPress by Yogesh Patel The penthouse was less a residence than a vaulted reliquary, a glass-and-steel carbuncle grafted onto…