Naiad Nymph Playing The Aulos - Frecheville Paris (detail)

Oscar Wilde

Nizar qabbani/ Rumi

Ottessa Moshfegh, from My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Butterflies from Nabokov’s collection at the Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg.

Transcription under the cut.

Words from Elena Cecchettin, Giulia Cecchettin's sister. Giulia was killed by her boyfriend Filippo Turetta some days ago, at 22 years old. Filippo has been described as exercising control and emotional manipulation during his relationship with Giulia. In the end, he killed her by stabbing her 20 times, and threw her body to the bottom of a ravine. There is video evidence that he killed her.

According to data from Italy’s Interior Ministry, since the beginning of this year 2023, there have been 105 women murdered, and at least 52 of these women were killed by a romantic partner or ex-partner. However, despite the constant femicides, Italian law does not recognise the category of "femicide" as separate from any other kind of murder, because it does not recognising that this disproportionate amount of women murdered for gender-based reasons are, in fact, murders as a result of sexist culture and gender-based violence.

Transcription of the video. Clip from an Italian TV programme where a reporter is holding up a microphone to a young girl. The English translation is this:

I want to send a message and I hope it can be heard by as many people as possible. These days we have heard Turetta be talked about and many people have defined him as a monster, as a sick man. But he's not a monster. Because a monster is the exception to society. A monster is he who is out of our society's normal canons. But he's a healthy son of the patriarchal society which is full of rape culture. Rape culture is all those actions that search to limit women's freedom, such as controlling a phone, like being possessive, like catcalling, and it's a structure that benefits all men. "Not all men are bad", they often tell me. Yes, it's true, but in cases like this, it's always men, and anyway all men benefit from this type of society. So, all men must pay attention, must call out the friend who catcalls passerbys, must call out the workmate that checks his girlfriend's phone. You must be hostile to these behaviours that might look trivial but are the prelude to femicide. Femicide is not a passion crime. Femicide is a power crime. And femicide is a state homicide, because the state doesn't protect us. It's necessary to plan sexual and affective education in order to prevent these things. It's necessary to fund shelters for victims of violence so that, if people need to ask for help, they're able to do it. And for Giulia, I ask you, don't do a minute of silence. For Giulia, burn it all down.

“I don’t have to see you today to know that you look amazing.”

— Unknown

I'm out with lanterns looking for myself

-Emily Dickinson

The Lagoon Nebula © Lisa Bromfield