Olivia Durif writes essays about culture and political resistance. Her work has been published by the Los Angeles Review of Books, The North American Congress on Latin America, and the Hypocrite Reader. She lives in Albuquerque.
Olivia Durif
Articles by Olivia Durif:
Emergencies
in Issue 95 | Symptoms (Jul 2020)It’s normal, in the ER, to make jokes about your patient’s death. It isn’t normal to make jokes about your own. At least, it wasn’t before.
Can Pulque Fight Capitalism?
in Issue 74 | Correspondences (Apr 2017)Pulque isn’t protected by global trade agreements like tequila and mezcal - I expect something to happen - I try to distinguish between authenticity and mimicry - when something is fetishized its history is threatened - my girlfriend is ready to leave the bar
That Open Road
in Issue 60 | See America (Jan 2016)road trips are, at heart, inefficient - those nasty pants in the cab - dark and alcoholic winter - going up to the bartender and just ordering an Olivia Durif - dump out the cheetos and multiply the number by 2 - a service station grocery store called DAD'S - bliss of riding bitch - to make a road trip of a human
Surviving the Age of Instagram
in Issue 51 | Wellness and Illness (Apr 2015)a little three-dimensional frog - Soylent (tagline: “Free Your Body”) - it’s healthiest to eat like a peasant - photo of avocado toast - the sensuality of survival - do most humans actually want the time sensitivity and “intolerance.” - could access to the bird’s neck - I trusted her completely
Whiskey, Women, and Gold: Loss & Profit in Country Songs
in Issue 44 | Free Money (Sep 2014)what you get when you play a country song backwards - but loss makes space to rewrite the past - Kip Moore's 2014 summer chart-topper - you blow it so you can repent - simile gives way to an economy - what do a truck, a beer and a kiss have in common - the small glory of getting in order to lose, losing in order to hope
Snails (A Translation)
in Issue 40 | Hold or Be Held (May 2014)Allons-y - eat her, shit her - salad butchers - to be (vain) or not to be - patient crusade - their flocculence intensifies - unapologetically, by trace - (the road to self-perfection) - Humanism
Unbearable Things, Scary Monsters, & the Problem of Looking
in Issue 37 | Fashion (Feb 2014)« I'm not cute » - interpreting a poem is a horizontal catcall - attempting to escape gendered meaning - it's not the ocean's fault - a slick and shocking move - drunk off « all the sex there is, » and still die - what is happening to these legs? - the tantrum my silk-scarved body threw
In the Kitchen
in Issue 31 | Strategies of Togetherness (Aug 2013)a pleasure both solitary and generous - different from heartbreak, bigger almost - what if I keep falling in love with my friends - « eating for » a person - starving is obviously a simpler route - her macchiato instead of my black drip - look at me out here, doing so well without you - I’m already homesick for the woman I’m watching cook
Erotics of Narcissism: How to Be a Daddy and a Woman
in Issue 30 | The Daddy Issue (Jul 2013)why we had sacrilegiously put some canonical text in « Trash » - Gertrude Stein would have definitely been an « Other Daddy » - the kind of genius that a Daddy is - it isn’t his sons he teaches to swim, but his lovers - narcissistic, even masturbatory, pleasure - Whitman’s translating tongue - the famous « be him or fuck him » problem