Can this shutting down of emotions – a shift into a mode ofunfeeling – be an effective form of resistance to, and rupture of, the perpetuallynew and fleeting sensations that characterise modernity?

I sometimes assignan “exhaustion exercise” to my students—to write a poem about,say, an egg. Then another poem about an egg. Then another. By takethirteen or so, they will have exhausted all of the obvious thingsto say about an egg—they come from chickens; you eat them forbreakfast, et cetera—and get to the really good stuff

castrated her male partner

“Are you a friend of Dorothy?” If the response is a puzzled “Dorothy who?” he’ll know it’s wise to move on. But if the response is “Oh, yes, I’m a very good friend of Dorothy