the very eye of night (a response to maya deren)
published in anyone girl
I’m low in my waking hours, lids hoisted, waiting for the sun to end. Feels smoother to fold over into myself, twist into how I am when it’s night, dark, in the nurturing discretion of a black sky. Charge the black sky with you. Let my eyes shut, see you.
Conjure up your apparition, twist and fold into you. I believe you to be everything (I wish to be).
Corpses, dead in night, wrapped in each other. Twist and fold into you, inhabit your aura, step in and stay.
You move with an understanding that all space is for you, ready and waiting. It wants to be yours, so do I, I want to move like this, contort.
Each of your tastebuds takes on its own tongue. Each eyelash is a tress. Fingernails, faultless blades. I want to feel this, feel you, be you. You are absolute, everything, and tomorrow, I’ll wake up –
מודה אני
– but I’ll find myself astray, low, all over again, no stars, a dreamworld corroded. Lids hoisted after a night with you, I’ll tie my laces. Live out my day, wait for the sun to end.
Each of your tastebuds takes on its own tongue. Each eyelash is a tress. Fingernails, faultless blades. I want to feel this, feel you, be you. You are absolute, everything, and tomorrow, I’ll wake up –
מודה אני
– but I’ll find myself astray, low, all over again, no stars, a dreamworld corroded. Lids hoisted after a night with you, I’ll tie my laces. Live out my day, wait for the sun to end.
[ tracks to pair with the film on mute ]
.. Bound (with Blood Orange) by Wet
.. A Colour Named by You (Instrumental) by Dawn to Dawn
.. Cristo Redentor by Donald Byrd
.. Let Us Dance (Arca Remix) by Beverly Glenn-Copeland
a meditation on witches, midwives, & nurses
published in the furious beautiful review of books
The time to absorb Witches, Midwives, & Nurses is now. The bite-sized, nonfiction treasure effectively sets the mood for a contemplative Halloween season as trivialized portraiture of witchcraft encircles us all.
Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English put forward a history of witches as a thread of women’s rights and oppression, telling a larger story about women as healers. Through time, the crisis of the witch and her “aura of contamination” has shapeshifted into suspicion towards midwifery, nursing, and other modern-day occupations where women advocate for themselves and their bodies. This read then also feels like a warm hug and record of resilience for anyone frostbit by frustrating news and/or conversations about abortion access.
All in all, in approximately 100 pages, Witches, Midwives, & Nurses appreciates the women working to resolve human bodies and souls.
Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English put forward a history of witches as a thread of women’s rights and oppression, telling a larger story about women as healers. Through time, the crisis of the witch and her “aura of contamination” has shapeshifted into suspicion towards midwifery, nursing, and other modern-day occupations where women advocate for themselves and their bodies. This read then also feels like a warm hug and record of resilience for anyone frostbit by frustrating news and/or conversations about abortion access.
All in all, in approximately 100 pages, Witches, Midwives, & Nurses appreciates the women working to resolve human bodies and souls.
how book covers speak: a visualization of kafka’s the metamorphosis
published in syllabus project
The Metamorphosis is equal parts enthralling and distressing. One of Franz Kafka’s best-known works, the novella narrates the sudden transformation of traveling salesman Gregor Samsa into a large insect. Such a bodily evolution is jolting to say the least, and the direful hue of Gregor’s reality translates to many of the book covers which honor and frame the literary gem. An understanding of the covers as collaborators in Gregor’s story makes sense — not only because book covers generally attempt to speak to their insides, but also because The Metamorphosis is completely anchored in its contemplation of physicality.
As the story documents Gregor’s changing form, it depicts how each other character reacts to Gregor’s physical state, too. So much emphasis on shape-shifting, appearance, and embodiment gives rise to curiosity around the book itself as a physical entity. A copy of The Metamorphosis can become a sort of living body in its own right — a tangible object that grounds the world of Gregor in the reader’s hands. We breathe life into all of the books we touch, flipping through their pages at our very own paces with our very own fingerprints.
Since 1915, The Metamorphosis has racked up over 4,000 editions, and it’s been translated from its original German into Arabic, Russian, Spanish and more (with over 13 English interpretations alone). Such extensive production stands for the value in the story itself, which manages to offer both an escape from and critique of civilization as we know it. The Metamorphosis’s reader is at once relieved of everyday life and energized to live and think differently, with more compassion.
The many adaptations and editions also indicate a plethora of approaches to The Metamorphosis’s cover design. After sifting through the abundance, ahead lie a small bunch that begins to contemplate, without any spoilers, how distinct cover designs might validate or twist the story of Gregor Samsa differently. What does the book’s body say about Gregor’s? What do the various covers choose to extract? What do they leave tucked inside?
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The insect in this Alianza Editorial edition extends beyond the cover’s edge, communicating a sense of infinity to Gregor’s new body and speaking to the uncertainty of what exactly Gregor undergoes as he situates himself in a foreign form. It’s impossible to know when or how Gregor’s doom will end, and the unresolved figure on this cover reflects just that.
![]()
In designer Marlena Buczek Smith’s vision, smooth, cool tones appear against the burnt red of the insectile illustration she gives rise to. The color contrast at play emphasizes the discomfort and severity of Gregor’s transformation –– the colors evoke conflict, like the story itself. Contrast aside, vibrant colors make this copy difficult to ignore no matter where it lurks in a physical space, mimicking the unavoidability of Gregor’s physical form.
![]()
Though quite a lot is illustrated in this Bantam Classics edition –– and the illustrations themselves come with realistic, microscopic detail –– it’s all contained within a neat oval, reflective of the characters’ stuckness and isolation amid crisis. Gregor is trapped, and those around him are implicated in a collective confinement.
![]()
This edition also captures isolation, but it spotlights Gregor’s individual experience and loneliness. Its minimalistic approach and generous use of negative space presents the central figure with a starkness that reflects Gregor’s own starkness as he transforms. Further, the human skull atop an insect body pinpoints Gregor’s fate straddling between an internal sense of humanity and a bug exterior. Perhaps the human skull goes on to suggest the death of Gregor’s previous, wholly human self through his transformation.
![]()
Inspired by Edvard Munch’s The Scream, Dave Stanley’s take depicts Gregor’s transformation in real time –– the abstraction presents a figure that is neither insect nor human with an expression that matches Gregor’s turmoil. Or, the face might stand for the horrified reactions Gregor is faced with when others catch sight of his form. In either scenario, the loud red backdrop asserts emergency.
![]()
Jamie Keenan opts for a type-forward approach, where “The Metamorphosis” builds up and fills out Gregor’s insectile form. In turn, the design communicates that Gregor’s insect-self is completely consumed by the metamorphosis he has undergone, despite the parts of his internal self that remain. The illustrated text’s stance above Kafka’s name –– as if it’s about to annihilate Kafka himself –– gives the metamorphosis ultimate dominance.
![]()
In another type-forward and heavily meta approach, the title itself gradually transforms, and the sleek sans serif type treatment lets the text span across the entire cover to emphasize the all-consumption of Gregor’s transformation. The red author credit suggests Kafka’s culpability for masterminding Gregor and his fate.
![]()
Like the previous example, this Schocken Books edition steers away from any insect portraiture, instead running with Kafka’s own “K” to define the work as a writer’s creative output rather than an enclosed, fictional history of an actual Gregor Samsa. In other words, perhaps this cover reroutes our entrance to The Metamorphosis; rather than fixating on narrative specifics that confine us to the world of Gregor, it calls our attention to the book’s real-world messaging around human connection, alienation, and identity.
As the story documents Gregor’s changing form, it depicts how each other character reacts to Gregor’s physical state, too. So much emphasis on shape-shifting, appearance, and embodiment gives rise to curiosity around the book itself as a physical entity. A copy of The Metamorphosis can become a sort of living body in its own right — a tangible object that grounds the world of Gregor in the reader’s hands. We breathe life into all of the books we touch, flipping through their pages at our very own paces with our very own fingerprints.
Since 1915, The Metamorphosis has racked up over 4,000 editions, and it’s been translated from its original German into Arabic, Russian, Spanish and more (with over 13 English interpretations alone). Such extensive production stands for the value in the story itself, which manages to offer both an escape from and critique of civilization as we know it. The Metamorphosis’s reader is at once relieved of everyday life and energized to live and think differently, with more compassion.
The many adaptations and editions also indicate a plethora of approaches to The Metamorphosis’s cover design. After sifting through the abundance, ahead lie a small bunch that begins to contemplate, without any spoilers, how distinct cover designs might validate or twist the story of Gregor Samsa differently. What does the book’s body say about Gregor’s? What do the various covers choose to extract? What do they leave tucked inside?
The insect in this Alianza Editorial edition extends beyond the cover’s edge, communicating a sense of infinity to Gregor’s new body and speaking to the uncertainty of what exactly Gregor undergoes as he situates himself in a foreign form. It’s impossible to know when or how Gregor’s doom will end, and the unresolved figure on this cover reflects just that.
In designer Marlena Buczek Smith’s vision, smooth, cool tones appear against the burnt red of the insectile illustration she gives rise to. The color contrast at play emphasizes the discomfort and severity of Gregor’s transformation –– the colors evoke conflict, like the story itself. Contrast aside, vibrant colors make this copy difficult to ignore no matter where it lurks in a physical space, mimicking the unavoidability of Gregor’s physical form.
Though quite a lot is illustrated in this Bantam Classics edition –– and the illustrations themselves come with realistic, microscopic detail –– it’s all contained within a neat oval, reflective of the characters’ stuckness and isolation amid crisis. Gregor is trapped, and those around him are implicated in a collective confinement.
This edition also captures isolation, but it spotlights Gregor’s individual experience and loneliness. Its minimalistic approach and generous use of negative space presents the central figure with a starkness that reflects Gregor’s own starkness as he transforms. Further, the human skull atop an insect body pinpoints Gregor’s fate straddling between an internal sense of humanity and a bug exterior. Perhaps the human skull goes on to suggest the death of Gregor’s previous, wholly human self through his transformation.
Inspired by Edvard Munch’s The Scream, Dave Stanley’s take depicts Gregor’s transformation in real time –– the abstraction presents a figure that is neither insect nor human with an expression that matches Gregor’s turmoil. Or, the face might stand for the horrified reactions Gregor is faced with when others catch sight of his form. In either scenario, the loud red backdrop asserts emergency.
Jamie Keenan opts for a type-forward approach, where “The Metamorphosis” builds up and fills out Gregor’s insectile form. In turn, the design communicates that Gregor’s insect-self is completely consumed by the metamorphosis he has undergone, despite the parts of his internal self that remain. The illustrated text’s stance above Kafka’s name –– as if it’s about to annihilate Kafka himself –– gives the metamorphosis ultimate dominance.
In another type-forward and heavily meta approach, the title itself gradually transforms, and the sleek sans serif type treatment lets the text span across the entire cover to emphasize the all-consumption of Gregor’s transformation. The red author credit suggests Kafka’s culpability for masterminding Gregor and his fate.
Like the previous example, this Schocken Books edition steers away from any insect portraiture, instead running with Kafka’s own “K” to define the work as a writer’s creative output rather than an enclosed, fictional history of an actual Gregor Samsa. In other words, perhaps this cover reroutes our entrance to The Metamorphosis; rather than fixating on narrative specifics that confine us to the world of Gregor, it calls our attention to the book’s real-world messaging around human connection, alienation, and identity.
copywriting for marissa zappas perfume
explore marissa zappas perfume here
Marissa’s fragrances have received praise from Vogue, New York Times, Vanity Fair, and more. I refreshed her product descriptions, professional bio, and more to transmit the beauty of her aromas through the screen.
‘annabel’s birthday cake’ fragrance
This eccentric blend awakens pure celebration, sweetness, and the bliss of embarking on another trip around the sun. Inspired by writer and certified astrology expert Annabel Gat, rich tuberose frosting and candied rose petals on a bed of fluffy white cake carry the bottle’s warm, pastel essence.
‘the pink bedroom’ fragrance
A commemoration of Portia Munson’s "The Pink Bedroom," this limited edition fragrance evokes plastic doll heads, strawberry candy, and an overall unnerving aura by way of cassis, heliotrope, rose de mai, orris resinoid, strawberry, and musk. While the concentrated perfume oil feels like an instant portal to Munson’s dreamscape, you can also experience the exhibition itself at The Museum of Sex in New York City until July, 2023.
travel vials
Stay fresh wherever you roam. All fragrances are available in 10 mL travel-friendly vials at $40 each.
about marissa
Marissa Zappas is a perfumer, scent designer, and poet whose ethereal and nostalgic fragrances blend fantasy, reality, the gothic, and the modern. Her approach to perfumery finds fuel in her background in anthropology, her admiration for avant-garde perfumes of the early twentieth century, and her collaborations with New York City artists.
Marissa believes that perfume –– both creating and wearing it –– conjures our past, present, and future selves. Her academic work explores the intersection of perfume’s history, attitudes towards death, and the history of cemetery construction. While completing her M.A. and ethnographic training, Marissa also worked at Givaudan and later became an apprentice to master perfumer Olivier Gillotin.
Marissa has lived and worked as a freelancer in New York since 2017 and is now represented by Agence Grace, the premier agency for independent perfumers in Paris. She’s available for scent design projects, including fragrance, candle, and home goods development. Contact her at marissa@redamance.com for more information.
copywriting for hayom art’s newsletter
explore hayom art here
I was tasked with curating and articulating recommendations for inclusion in HaYom Art’s newsletter; the New-York-based contemporary Judaica shop is devoted to rethinking Judaica and nourishing the intersection of heritage, contemporary art, and modern living. HaYom itself has received praise from New York Times (and T Magazine), Jewish Food Society, and more.
rec: may god be with you (2021) by cléo cohen
May God Be With You (2021) induces warmth and pain all at once as the self-shot documentary by Cléo Cohen builds a portrait of the filmmaker's own Arab-Jewish identity. Through spotlighting Cohen's Tunisian- and Algerian-Jewish grandparents, and through moving, intimate cinematography at large, Cohen interrogates her grandparents' political, religious, and life reflections by way of difficult questions and conversations. But no matter the level of tension, their relationships remain loving above all else –– one minute, Cohen bickers with her grandmother about conflicting takes on intermarriage, and the next, the frame captures the two of them in a silent hug, nestled together on the same chair.
rec: diasporist shopfronts
In @diasporist_shopfronts lives a true treasure trove of detailed sketches documenting Jewish storefronts in England and elsewhere in the diaspora. My personal favorite work is easily their rendition of Pink Peacock –– a queer, Yiddish, anarchist, and pay-what-you-can cafe in Glasgow. Their prints are also available for purchase in postcard form here.
rec: old jewish men
@oldjewishmen's Instagram presence brings a sense of aesthetic and energetic definition to the archetypal Jewish-American grandpa, and their merch is not to be missed, either. This digital space is where to turn to for relief via deli highlights or other Jewish sightings from out in the world.