Archive • If I Speak... • Buttondown

Hellooo and welcome to the latest edition of If I Speak. First things first is a thing I realised I hadn’t explicitly said in this newsletter, so I’ll borrow...

A Very English Loneliness

February 18, 2024

An analysis of "All Of Us Strangers" and the gnawing hole at the centre of contemporary gay Englishness.

The Meh, The Bad and the Transmisogynistic

January 17, 2024

They're doing sexology down at the saloon!

Dungeons and Diets: Antifatness in Baldur's Gate 3

October 2, 2023

Some thoughts on the approach of Baldur's Gate 3 and games more generally to fatness and the links to antiblackness and antiqueerness.

Barbenheimer: Beautiful gowns, great gowns.

August 8, 2023

Now I am become Capital...destroyer of art.

The Last Elvis Impersonator

May 16, 2023

Cee didn’t get it, why they wanted him dressed like this.

Agbaya

May 7, 2023

100 Boyfriends Mixtape fuckboy summer etc [2023]: I'm currently on a kick of thinking about what it means to make messy art. What does it mean to make work...

Sins of the Flesh

February 5, 2023

Hey! Sorry for the long wait, there's been a laundry list of reasons but I'd rather just get on with the thing! Initially, I was going to do a newsletter...

RIP

November 22, 2022

I think the worst thing that being a poet (especially of the political kind) does is trick you into believing that your self-indulgences are somehow...

Getting Into Sonnets

November 6, 2022

Media Round

CRAWLER and the Erotics of Self-Destruction

September 16, 2022

Heeey! I finally thought I would try my hand at music crit! And where better to start than with one of my favourite albums of the past few years? Media...

Sneak Peek at The End

August 18, 2022

Hey! Just a quick one for funsies. Here's a sneak peek from the play (called "The End") that I'm writing (currently in fairly early development). I'm leaning...

Top 3: Love Island and the Material Effects of Desire

July 4, 2022

Media Round-Up: The Living End [1992] - Trying to watch more response pieces to the AIDS crisis as research for A Thing, and I wish I could get more into...

Moon/Knight

May 27, 2022

Media Round-Up The Follow [2001] / I Travelled 9000km to Give This To You [2007] /There's Only One Sun [2007] - I find it so fun how Wong Kar Wai will be...

HELLO I'M BACK BAYBEE

April 4, 2022

Hi! Sorry for being gone so long, shit happens I guess, I won't bore you all with my life story. Also, we can't say I didn't warn ya! (see: the first post)....

Devil in a White Tee

February 10, 2022

Media Round-Up The Power of the Dog - Did you see how many Oscars that got nominated for? What a convenient opportunity to read all about how it engages with...

NEW POETRY PAMPHLET

January 8, 2022

HEY! Your next newsletter is coming pretty soon but before that I'm sending this to announce that I've released my first pamphlet/chapbook of poetry! It's a...

JUSTICE FOR NINE DAYS!

December 30, 2021

I watched a pretty significant number of films this year! A lot of them were pretty good and most of them had been released way before 2021! Anyways fuck the...

Arcane in the Membrane

December 13, 2021

This isn’t going to be a Review. Not in any conventional sense. You can go to other places to hear people gush about the incredible animation, or how it...

To Security and Beyond!

October 31, 2021

There’s not a spooky theme here aside from all the pieces of media being horror. However, I hope you have a great Halloween with cool costumes and all the...

Scared Straight - Influencer Edition

September 23, 2021

Media Round-Up: Anthem (1991) - Basically the musical remix of some of Tongues Untied. Fucking LOVED IT! I feel like the more I look at the work people like...

Panic! at the Met Gala

September 15, 2021

Media Round-Up: The Hand (2020) - Very much a film which was made one-handed. Beautiful but also weirdly lacking in some of Wong Kar-Wai’s typical stylistic...

Towards A Tickbox-less Criticism

September 7, 2021

Media Round-Up Something Different [1963] - I am very quickly becoming a Věra Chytilová stan, because she simply refused to be constricted to a single style...

The Water's Toll

August 18, 2021

Media Round-Up JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Netflix): I think this is a real fun trashy anime. It also kind of showed me that a lot of people's bar for weird is...

What Is A Culture War?

August 3, 2021

Media Round-Up: The Horror Express (1972) - Very fun and silly horror film about a monster on a train in late Tsarist Russia. Every outfit here is...

#BlackLove is a scam

July 8, 2021

Heey it’s been a while! I got pulled in a lot of different directions for a bit there but we’re back! Also for mysterious reasons which you will find out...

Invoking the Name

June 10, 2021

In June, or pretty much any other month which is a designated ‘marginalised person month’ we get a lot of references to history and those who came before....

Bourgeoise Black Aesthetics

May 22, 2021

This is the germ of an idea that I might develop into a full article later, so feel free to let me know what you think. I was watching In Our Mothers’...

Brackets

April 30, 2021

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m perceived, how I present myself and how that limits me. I think there's a degree to which it's useful to be...

Thicker Than Water

April 25, 2021

Before I kick off in earnest here are a few things I’ve been finding interesting or fun recently: You and the Night [2013], wild, poetic and perplexing. Your...

Intro to the newsletter!

April 15, 2021

Hey! If you're subscribing to this you probably already know me! But if you don't then hey, I'm Tayo! This is my newsletter (which I have impulsively renamed...