Performing Darkness vs. Living Inside It

Performing Darkness vs. Living Inside It

Venice, October 1817Byron arrived in this city last year and has been consuming it at the rate of a man who suspects he has a limited amount of time. We were introduced at a salon on the Giudecca three weeks ago. He is the most exhausting person I have met in fifty...
The Feast of Ghosts: Present Tense

The Feast of Ghosts: Present Tense

Present Day, May 2026The Victorian comparison I keep returning to is this: the salons where the wealthy consumed the performance of contact with the dead while the living poor were consuming cholera in the streets below. The performance was elaborate and expensive and...