Veronika Decides to Die toys with the two main ideas of vitriol and insanity, two abstract things which, according to Dr. Igor of Villete, warp the human soul. One is the poison, the other the symptom. Stepping deeper into Villete, the mental hospital, we learn that both are derived from fear, the foundation of panic…
To be surrounded by the concrete towers and glinting glass that make up a city is a glamorous thing but suffocating by nature in its solidity, absoluteness, and rectangularity of shape. Trees of a forest, on the other hand, are in a way liquid because they bend, shapeshift in wind, get cut down, with as…
Seoul is very metropolitan: webbed with highways, illuminated at night, a definition of urban. Forty-story office buildings, subway network underground, bus network overground, Ubers and lightning-fast delivery and robot waiters and just about a zillion ways to get around—and even more to do. With rapid growth comes rapid loss. I think something in this city’s…