This Friday at Verdurin: After the Orgy What happens when all social struggles — for freedoms, rights, and acceptance — have been won? How may gay men map a future without becoming consumed by culture war narratives and without falsifying the historical record of their own emancipation?

Pierre d’Alancaisez: Freedom of Disassociation What is the gay ‘community?’ Finding that ‘everyone in’ is the door policy of both queer clubs and nation-states, d’Alancaisez explores attempts to defend gayness through appeals to essence, culture, and politics.

Are gays destined to be lone wolves? Is homosexuality really the narcissism of the soul? Is there such a thing as a gay community? Amir Naaman and I spoke with Stephen Adubato on his Cracks in Postmodernity podcast about Inversion.

Launching Inversion in Berlin last night.

Ran Heilbrunn: Abolish Queer Theory! Why has queer theory failed to account for the reality of gay life? Heilbrunn charges the field’s luminaries with an aversion to the male body, male sex, and, ultimately, men.

The final event of 2025 at Verdurin is 'After the Orgy' - the launch for 'Inversion' in discussion with author of 'The End of the Gay Rights Revolution' Ronan McCrea, hosted by Jo Bartosch.

Launching Inversion in Berlin this Friday, with Travis Jeppesen, Amir Naaman, and Ran Heilbrunn. 📅 5 December, 7.30pm 📍 Village, Berlin 🎟️ buff.ly/AN23qSP

Inversion is annoying people as intended. buff.ly/RS3m5XN

Amir Naaman: Wars of Desire Why do Western queer activists identify with fighters engaged in brutal conflicts on the other side of the world? Naaman proposes that the fantasy of righteous battle is an erotic, rather than a political issue.

"It feels like it leaves the discomfort of reality open, resisting over-determination." ❤️

Spotted in the wild.

Inversion launch in Berlin With Travis Jeppesen, Ran Heilbrunn, and Amir Naaman. 5 December, at Village, Kurfürstenstraße. buff.ly/bqKhUmn

Tonight: Recitations with Sam Jennings, Isobel McCrum, Nina Power, Sam Riviere, and @hamiltonmorrin.bsky.social. buff.ly/asRRYr4

On doormats today and on newsstands soon, the Christmas issue of The Critic with me on difficulty of contemporary art in churches after the Reformation and the Chinese dystopia presciently foretold by Lawrence Lek.

Stephen Adubato: The Deception of Orientation Essentialism What does the ‘sex’ in homosexual stand for? Sexual liberation rendered the true nature of gay sexuality moot. Is it ontologically possible for a man to be gay lest he recognizes the true nature of homosexuality’s defining practice?

This Wednesday at Verdurin: Recitations With Sam Jennings, Isobel McCrum, Nina Power, Sam Riviere, and @hamiltonmorrin.bsky.social. 📅 26 November, 7pm 🎟️ buff.ly/asRRYr4

"Untangling this jumble is aesthetically pleasurable, but vexing intellectually. That Urgessa presents these scenes in a style reminiscent of Picasso’s African period, for example, challenges the very possibility of accounting for the ownership of signs."

David Moulton: Towards a Gay Art of Suffering Can books turn a reader gay? Exploring the evolving gay canon as art and propaganda, Moulton critiques its entanglement in biopolitics.

In a better world, Inversion wouldn’t share a category with Halberstam, who believes that men’s politics should be modelled on Valerie Solanas and… Spongebob Squarepants.

Coming up at Verdurin: After the Orgy Double book launch for ‘Inversion’ and ‘The End of the Gay Rights Revolution’. 📅 12 December, 7pm 📍 Verdurin, Hoxton 🎟️ buff.ly/iPG0HX3

Trending with Blake Smith, Roger Lancaster, David Moulton, Stephen Adubato, Amir Naaman, Ran Heilbrunn, Pierre d’Alancaisez, Travis Jeppesen, @oliverjdavis.bsky.social, Yotam Feldman, Marcas Lancaster.

Next week at Verdurin: Recitations What should we do with do with the AI ‘author’? However closely the machine imitates our narrative abilities, its lack of authorship means we cannot trust its output in the way we believe the work of a writer. How should we adapt to authorless stories?

The library lists Inversion as both "inclusive" and "harmful". Hot.

Roger Lancaster: Being and Having in the Gay World 
How do terms like ‘gay’ and ‘faggot’ mark a homosexual’s status? Lancaster looks at the ongoing gentrification of identities, challenging fundamental questions of belonging.

❤️❤️❤️

Blake Smith: For the Love of the Gay World What do gay men have in common? Smith traces gay’s historical evolution, proposing that the articulation of shared cultural interests might help build a ‘gay world’ once more.

It’s a strange versions of iconoclasm where it’s the viewer, and not the artwork, that is to be hidden from sight. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Coming up at Verdurin: Recitations How should we adapt to authorless stories? If the machine imitates our narrative abilities, can we trust its output in the way we believe the work of a writer? With @jchwenger.bsky.social, Nina Power, Sam Riviere, Isobel McCrum, and @hamiltonmorrin.bsky.social

INVERSION, Gay Life After the Homosexual Out now in paperback and eBook. Order at buff.ly/jbCZT9e With Blake Smith, Roger Lancaster, David Moulton, Stephen Adubato, Amir Naaman, Ran Heilbrunn, Pierre d’Alancaisez, Travis Jeppesen, @oliverjdavis.bsky.social, Yotam Feldman, Marcas Lancaster.

Last weekend at Verdurin with J.F. Martel, Quentin S. Crisp, Jack Hunter, @petersjostedth.bsky.social, and Daniel Corrick, plus Amir Naaman.

Last weekend at Verdurin with J.F. Martel, Quentin S. Crisp, Jack Hunter, @petersjostedth.bsky.social, and Daniel Corrick, plus Amir Naaman.

So I've been invited to apply to be invited to max out my credit card to go on an "artist-led" "exclusive retreat" in Andalusia where gay men, "facilitated" by the likes of Jonathan Katz and Paul Burston, can think about what they've done. Thanks, but I might just read my own book.

Latest arrivals at the bookstore, including writing by @sarahsteinlubrano.bsky.social, Sam Riviere, Jack Hunter, Daniel Corrick, and @petersjostedth.bsky.social who will be speaking at Verdurin events this month. buff.ly/c4QV0Ep

INVERSION is out next Wednesday. buff.ly/jbCZT9e

notes and notices: Christopher Wool at Gagosian ★★★☆☆ Wool’s convoluted lines – in bent copper-plated steel, scrawled enamel, oil, or silkscreen – encourage the belief that, despite life’s difficulties, what starts at A will make it to B and, eventually, somehow back to A again.

Announcing: INVERSION, Gay Life After the Homosexual Out 12 November. Pre-order now: buff.ly/cYWH4jK With Blake Smith, Roger Lancaster, David Moulton, Stephen Adubato, Amir Naaman, Ran Heilbrunn, Pierre d’Alancaisez, Travis Jeppesen, Oliver Davis, Yotam Feldman, Marcas Lancaster.

Inversion.

Back to Haunt Us at Verdurin on 8 November will bring together thinkers and artists pursuing questions of the supernatural and the paranormal. Quentin S. Crisp will speak of the supernatural as a literary subject-matter and about literature as potentially supernatural in itself.

Puzzles, Picasso and prophecies: my thoughts on Tesfaye Urgessa's paintings (on show at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich) in the November issue of The Critic. On doormats today and on newsstands soon.

notes and notices: Liliane Lijn: Seeds of Tomorrow at Sylvia Kouvali ★★★☆☆   Lijn’s kinetic sculptures are prone to typecasting, except that their type depends entirely on content. Through Lijn’s long career, her trademark rotating cones and columns have borne text, abstract marks, and light

Inversion hitting its sales targets.

notes and notices: Hannah Black: HUSH MR GIANT at Arcadia Missa ★☆☆☆☆ Black is one of those artists whose career depends more on others not making work than her making some herself. Her activism, likewise, hinges on denial. She could, therefore, be a fitting prophet of the oncoming

Spotted in the wild.

Back to Haunt Us at Verdurin on 8 November will bring together thinkers and artists pursuing questions of the supernatural and the paranormal. What is the radically meaningless? Daniel Corrick will explore the event's key terms, including concepts such as the meaningful and'accessible...

notes and notices: Richard Knowlden: Negations at House Work Presents ★★★☆☆ Evacuating a two-up two-down 1970s council home seems like overkill for a weekend pop-up exhibition. A visitor who makes it past Knowlden’s steel spike sculpture – like an exhausted porcupine held together only by zip ties

Back to Haunt Us at Verdurin on 8 November will bring together thinkers and artists pursuing questions of the supernatural and the paranormal. @petersjostedth.bsky.social will speak about the ‘crisis of European existence’, prognosticated by Husserl, that stemmed from ‘a barbarian hatred of Mind’.

75kg of books just arrived, getting ready to launch the first title in Verdurin’s new publishing list. INVERSION, Gay Life After the Homosexual

Back to Haunt Us at Verdurin on 8 November will bring together thinkers and artists pursuing questions of the supernatural and the paranormal. Dr Jack Hunter is an anthropologist exploring the borderlands of consciousness, religion, ecology, and the paranormal.

Back to Haunt Us at Verdurin on 8 November will bring together thinkers and artists pursuing questions of the supernatural and the paranormal. The writer and author of 'Art in the Age of Artifice' J.F. Martel will consider these terms in relation to the "possible". For more than two centuries,