Pity

Andrew McMillan’s debut poetry collection physical, an explicit yet tender study of masculinity in the post-industrial north of England, was a thrilling paean to young queer male experience in the noughties. In 2015 it became the first poetry collection to win the Guardian first book award; its successor, playtime, took the inaugural Polari prize for LGBTQ+ literature and was followed in 2021 by pandemonium.McMillan has now harnessed his considerable talent to writing a novel. Pity, appearing 40 years after the 1984-85…

Award-winning poet Andrew McMillan’s first novel takes place in a world immediately recognisable from his three collections of poetry – Physical, Playtime and Pandemonium. It is set in his native Barnsley, a town still living in the shadow of the destruction of its mining industry and the after-effects of Thatcherism.Pity’s protagonist, Simon, is a sometime drag artist and online sex worker whose key relationships are strained: his love interest, Ryan, hoping to become a policeman, has mixed feelings about the…

‘I am not the story,” says Michael J Fox, kind, and firm and, for the only time in our conversation, unpersuasive. “The story is the power of optimism. That it’s really a choice. Acceptance doesn’t mean being resigned to something. You look at it and say: ‘What does this truth require of me?’”He leans over for a sip of Diet Coke. “It’s like with our glorious ex-president: the only answer to that is truth. You can get caught up in the mythology being presented. In the nativism and the hatred, the resentment and the…

Screenshot: Lucasfilm, Zentropa/Peacock, Image: 20th Century Studios, Hasbro, WWE, Playmates, Harper Voyager, BBC, Robert Gill and Guru-eFX/Marvel Comics, AMCThis week on io9 The Bad Batch got us thinking about Dark Disciple, the Battle of Boz Pity, and so much Nightsister magic with the reveal that Asajj Ventress is the latest Star Wars character to cheat death. Read on for more on that, plus even more of our most-read stories of the week! —James Whitbrook Screenshot: Lucasfilm, Zentropa/Peacock, Image: 20th Century…

Screenshot: LucasfilmWell, aside from being another legacy character for whom death is a revolving door or something to frequently lie about for the drama of it all, Ventress’ return in the final season of The Bad Batch raises a lot of interesting questions about how she’ll fit into events, and more broadly into this era of Star Wars. After all, we thought she didn’t survive to see Sidious’ rise and his ultimate plan to form the Empire actually come to fruition—but now she has, so what will her place in all that be? Is…

Musician turned film-maker Amanda Kramer gave us a retro campy reverie of queer longing in her previous feature Please Baby Please which, though interesting, was oddly unsatisfying and insubstantial. This works much better: a genuinely strange and unsettling creation whose meaning and form can’t quite be pinned down.It appears to be an imaginary standalone primetime US TV special which went out in some alternative dream-universe between 1975 and 1985; it is centred on one particular star, a brassy, heart-on-sleeve…

It wasn’t the plan, but MillerKnoll Chief Executive Andi Owen passed on a crucial lesson to bosses everywhere this week: Zoom calls are a tricky venue for giving tough love to staff.Ms. Owen may have learned the hard way. In a video that sparked viral furor on social media, she gives a staff pep talk that shifts in tone as she addresses some employees’ “not-so-nice” questions about staying motivated if bonuses aren’t paid this year.  “‘You can visit Pity City,…

The chief executive of furniture company MillerKnoll Inc. is facing backlash after a video of her telling staffers worried about not getting a bonus to “leave pity city” went viral. “Questions came through about how can we stay motivated if we’re not going to get a bonus,” CEO Andi Owen said in a brief video shared on social media, adding that some of the questions were “not so nice.” The chief executive of furniture company MillerKnoll Inc. is facing backlash after a video of her…

Donald Trump, once the most powerful man on Earth, threw himself a pity party Tuesday night.Indicted, booked and fingerprinted, the former president scurried home to his safe space at Mar-a-Lago, where surrounded by sycophants and other grasping hangers-on, he whined.He lied about the conduct of the 2020 election. He lied about his efforts to overturn the result. He lied about his mishandling of classified documents. He lied about Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who brought the criminal charges he faces in…

I’d like to thank Samsung for this Badtz-Maru theme, which I bought for $1 in the Galaxy Apps store.Photo: Florence Ion / GizmodoIt’s a strange time for me to sit down and attempt to don the gadget reviewer hat. I was solo parenting a sick kid for the week, and then the rest of my family contracted the stupid virus,which meant this review had to take a backseat. There was much crying, mucus, missed deadlines, and a copious amount of video chat—more than I had anticipated.I bring up my chaotic life because the Samsung…