Most of you probably made your way here via my most-read articles,
Capitalism Has Failed, and Jay-Z’s Streaming Scandal Is Proof and The Difficulty in Defining Donald Glover’s “This is America.” These were among the first pieces I wrote, and I was lucky enough to have Medium’s editors select them to be Member Feature Stories.
My collection of my favorite essays, Disposable People, Disposable Planet is available for purchase here.
We all have hopes and dreams. Some of them we’ve achieved; others remain goals we’re working towards. We’ve had to give up on some of our hopes and dreams as we mature and put away childish things. It’s a dispiriting process. The lofty aspirations of youth make our world a more vibrant, hopeful place. The Star card of the tarot represents our wishes for ourselves. That’s fitting. We wish upon stars. The otherworldliness of those distant lights remind us to reach outside of ourselves, to think bigger, to want more, to believe.
It isn’t always easy to have wishes. As…
By Kitanya Harrison, writing as Harrison Kitteridge
The deployment of S.C.A.R.L.E.T. did indeed cut a swathe through the ranks of police detectives and scupper the lucrative private contracting industry that had grown up in parallel to traditional law enforcement. Lestrade continued on as Chief Interpreter, and, having made her bones off of Sherlock’s work, she would frequently consult him on particularly difficult G.R.E.E.K. cases. Jealous of her reputation, Lestrade tried to keep Sherlock under wraps, but all of her co-workers were highly skilled investigators themselves, and word of his prowess eventually spread. Other interpreters began…
I didn’t watch Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, in part, because I knew this is where things would end up: with a nasty breach after a relentless savaging by the British press and the complicity of the Royal Family. I didn’t think it would have happened this quickly and feared it might have been worse. In hindsight, I should have predicted that an interview with Oprah would have been somewhere in the mix. When the royal engagement was announced, I couldn’t for the life of me understand what so many people were cheering about, especially anyone old enough to…
Catastrophe strikes us all, from time to time. It is often unpredictable, making the upheaval even more difficult to deal with. It’s almost impossible to prepare for what you can’t see coming. The tarot card that represents these moments of sudden devastation is The Tower. Traditional depictions usually show a tower being struck by lightning. The structure is severely damaged, and human figures are plummeting from the collapsing edifice. It’s terrifying imagery. The Tower might be the scariest card in the tarot.
If tarot cards are mirrors, what part of ourselves does The Tower show us? The card crystallizes the…
Chapter 11: Quoth the Raven
I can’t pretend reading Mary’s paper journal didn’t enrage me — especially the bits where Sherlock pretended to be a traumatised military veteran. I wondered if he had modelled his demeanour in those moments after mine. Of all the blows in the journal, that one knocked the wind from me. It is the unspoken trusts, the ones we take for granted, that wound the most when they are broken. I suppose Sherlock presenting me with the damning information himself was a testament to his commitment to regaining my confidence. Nevertheless, I remained appalled by how…
The Devil card of the tarot can be frightening. In some traditional decks, the illustration features a satyr — a mythical figure that has the head and hind quarters of a goat and the body of a man. The drawings can have a monstrous, menacing quality to them. The Devil sometimes has a man and a woman chained to him, explicitly referencing a state of bondage. Modern depictions may show the “Handsome Devil” — a charming man, who will lead you into temptation and perhaps destruction. On the surface, the The Devil card seems to represent a dangerous external influence…
Chapter 10: The Paper Journal
By Kitanya Harrison, writing as Harrison Kitteridge
Does anyone really believe that before the Alex Tiberius films James Bond never had to suck a cock? Non-metaphorically, I mean.
Is it really plausible that none of the archvillains James Bond battled had beautiful neglected male lovers for 007 to seduce then ruthlessly exploit? It’s all hidden in plain sight, isn’t it, in the preening preposterousness of the baddies? Their statement accessories (golden guns, Persian cats, surplus nipples, etc.), …
SPOILERS FOLLOW.*
The Netflix documentary, Crime Scene: The Disappearance at the Cecil Hotel. explores the investigation into the disappearance of 21 year-old Canadian student, Elisa Lam, from the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles in February 2013. I went in expecting a whodunit but ended up watching a series that documents the unfolding of a set of escalating conspiracy theories that gripped the amateur sleuth community that became obsessed with solving the mystery of Elisa’s disappearance. The documentary is as much about information and patterns and how we process them in groups as it is about Elisa and her mysterious…
Black Women are Always Being Asked to be Patient
I’ve been learning the tarot for a couple of months now, and I can say definitively that it has helped bring balance into my life. It’s ironic that one of the cards I sometimes viscerally recoil from — Temperance — embodies calm, balance, and moderation.
I’m usually a cautious person, who doesn’t like risk. I also don’t like confrontation. If you try me, though, I will bark back or bite, if I have to. I like things calm. I enjoy the quiet. I practise moderation. So why don’t I like the Temperance card. I think it’s because these qualities are…
Kitanya Harrison
*squinting in Nanny of the Maroons* | Read my essay collection, DISPOSABLE PEOPLE, DISPOSABLE PLANET: books2read.com/u/mBOYNv | IG: kitanyaharrison
