Change of name for this Substack

Welcome to The Empty City

25th June 2023

I have changed the name of this Substack from “lore and law” - which was confusing given my existing law and policy blog - to “The Empty City”.

This is in part a tribute to this painting:

This perfect, bright, ideal(ised) empty Renaissance city can be contrasted with this twentieth-century depiction by De Chirico:

Similar architecture, but with flawed inconsistent perspectives and a more ominous (near-)emptiness.

(You may have noticed that both the pictures above have often been banners or avatars for my social media accounts.)

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Much of practical law and policy commentary offers a contrast between ideal systems, on one hand, and the incoherence and contradictions of reality, on another.

That is, between how things should work and how they do (and don’t) work - between the ideal Renaissance City and a De Chirico city.

I also have also spent most of my life in and around large cities, and so much of my writing carries urban perspectives - which, again like perspectives in a De Chirico painting, don’t always neatly join in the middle.

Anyway, I like the new name, and I hope you don’t mind it too.

I am sorry if this change of name causes you problems with RSS feeds etc. Please forgive me for irking you.