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By this time he was a man of some maturity, and a man who, that day, had combed his hair, shaved, put on a nice red tie, and come to a realization of what life is: a web of ceremonial relationships which hold together something that has no substance.
- Gianni Celati, Voices from the Plains
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December 31, 2010
December 25, 2010
Some Favourite Things From 2010
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Books
The Jokers – Albert Cossery
Rose Alley – Jeremy M. Davies
The Adderall Diaries – Stephen Elliott
Capitalist Realism – Mark Fisher
Animism – Anselm Franke
The Communist Postscript – Boris Groys
Head in Flames – Lance Olsen
Equals – Adam Phillips
Albums
The Brilliant Corners – Growing Up Absurd / What's in a word / Fruit Machine
Philip Cohran and the Artistic Heritage Ensemble - The Spanish Suite
Darkstar – North
Death and Vanilla – Death and Vanilla
Fabulous Diamonds – II
Alhaji K. Frimpong – Kyenkyen Bi Adi Mawu
Karaocake – Rows and Stitches
Lloyd Miller – A Lifetime In Oriental Jazz
William Onyeabor – Atomic Bomb
Mustafa Ozkent – Genclik Ile Elele
Shangaan Electro – New Wave Dance Music From South Africa
Wait What - The Notorious XX
Young Michelin – EP
Tracks
Big Boi – Royal Flush
DRI – Two Are One
Gyptian Ft. Nicki Minaj – Hold Yuh (Remix)
Hot Sugar – The Seagull
Jai Paul – BTSTU
Plug – You Keep The Beats
Rafter – Beauty, Beauty
Rye Rye – Shake It To The Ground
Tobiah – I Love Your Music
Links
http://whof.blogspot.com/2010/11/paul-theks-teaching-notes.html
http://approximatif.free.fr/index.php?page1
http://beenlookingforthemagic.tumblr.com/post/1427157150/how-to-tour-in-a-band-or-whatever-by-thor-harris
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/173
http://arianareines.tumblr.com/
Best comment on this blog
Every lie creates a world in which it is true.
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Books
The Jokers – Albert Cossery
Rose Alley – Jeremy M. Davies
The Adderall Diaries – Stephen Elliott
Capitalist Realism – Mark Fisher
Animism – Anselm Franke
The Communist Postscript – Boris Groys
Head in Flames – Lance Olsen
Equals – Adam Phillips
Albums
The Brilliant Corners – Growing Up Absurd / What's in a word / Fruit Machine
Philip Cohran and the Artistic Heritage Ensemble - The Spanish Suite
Darkstar – North
Death and Vanilla – Death and Vanilla
Fabulous Diamonds – II
Alhaji K. Frimpong – Kyenkyen Bi Adi Mawu
Karaocake – Rows and Stitches
Lloyd Miller – A Lifetime In Oriental Jazz
William Onyeabor – Atomic Bomb
Mustafa Ozkent – Genclik Ile Elele
Shangaan Electro – New Wave Dance Music From South Africa
Wait What - The Notorious XX
Young Michelin – EP
Tracks
Big Boi – Royal Flush
DRI – Two Are One
Gyptian Ft. Nicki Minaj – Hold Yuh (Remix)
Hot Sugar – The Seagull
Jai Paul – BTSTU
Plug – You Keep The Beats
Rafter – Beauty, Beauty
Rye Rye – Shake It To The Ground
Tobiah – I Love Your Music
Links
http://whof.blogspot.com/2010/11/paul-theks-teaching-notes.html
http://approximatif.free.fr/index.php?page1
http://beenlookingforthemagic.tumblr.com/post/1427157150/how-to-tour-in-a-band-or-whatever-by-thor-harris
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/173
http://arianareines.tumblr.com/
Best comment on this blog
Every lie creates a world in which it is true.
.
December 19, 2010
Dreams and Lying
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The most effective lie is always the one closest to the truth. The closer the better. A dream is not true but is never a lie. There are various approaches for understanding dreams: as evidence of some deeper psychological truth, as alternate realities, as subtle yet surreal mental reprocessings of our daily life, as experiences equally valid to those had while awake. Due to the acuity of their strangeness, dreams practically call out for interpretation. However, since we don’t accurately know what consciousness is, since we don’t know precisely what or how we experience being awake, why would we be able to know what happens when we dream? There are also various approaches one might use to understand a lie. But one aspect generally agreed upon is that to tell the complete truth, and only the complete truth, at all times, is a disaster. There are different ways of being honest.
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The most effective lie is always the one closest to the truth. The closer the better. A dream is not true but is never a lie. There are various approaches for understanding dreams: as evidence of some deeper psychological truth, as alternate realities, as subtle yet surreal mental reprocessings of our daily life, as experiences equally valid to those had while awake. Due to the acuity of their strangeness, dreams practically call out for interpretation. However, since we don’t accurately know what consciousness is, since we don’t know precisely what or how we experience being awake, why would we be able to know what happens when we dream? There are also various approaches one might use to understand a lie. But one aspect generally agreed upon is that to tell the complete truth, and only the complete truth, at all times, is a disaster. There are different ways of being honest.
.
...
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Polyamorous Love Song is a novel concerning the relationship between artists and the world. Shot through with unexpected moments of sex and violence, it is written within the strict logic of an absolute dream, a dream that is both the same and opposite to the world in which we live. It is a novel of many through-lines. For example: 1) A group of people who wear furry mascot costumes at all times fighting a revolutionary war for their right to wear furry mascot costumes at all times. 2) A movement known as the ‘New Filmmaking’ in which, instead of shooting and editing a film, one simply does all of the things that would have been in the film, but in real life. This movement has many adherents. 3) A group of ‘New Filmmakers’ who devise increasingly strange sexual scenarios with complete strangers. They invent a drug that allows them to intuit the cell phone number of anyone they see, allowing phone calls to be the first stage of their spontaneous, yet somehow scripted, seductions. 4) A secret society that concocts a virus that only infects those on the political right. They stage large-scale orgies, creating unexpected intimacies and connections between individuals who are otherwise savagely opposed to each other. 5) A radical leftist who catches this virus, forcing her to question the depth of her considerable leftist credentials. 6) A German barber in New York who, out of scorn for the stupidity of his American clients, gives them avant-garde haircuts, unintentionally achieving acclaim among the bohemian set. And yet such stories are only the beginning.
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Polyamorous Love Song is a novel concerning the relationship between artists and the world. Shot through with unexpected moments of sex and violence, it is written within the strict logic of an absolute dream, a dream that is both the same and opposite to the world in which we live. It is a novel of many through-lines. For example: 1) A group of people who wear furry mascot costumes at all times fighting a revolutionary war for their right to wear furry mascot costumes at all times. 2) A movement known as the ‘New Filmmaking’ in which, instead of shooting and editing a film, one simply does all of the things that would have been in the film, but in real life. This movement has many adherents. 3) A group of ‘New Filmmakers’ who devise increasingly strange sexual scenarios with complete strangers. They invent a drug that allows them to intuit the cell phone number of anyone they see, allowing phone calls to be the first stage of their spontaneous, yet somehow scripted, seductions. 4) A secret society that concocts a virus that only infects those on the political right. They stage large-scale orgies, creating unexpected intimacies and connections between individuals who are otherwise savagely opposed to each other. 5) A radical leftist who catches this virus, forcing her to question the depth of her considerable leftist credentials. 6) A German barber in New York who, out of scorn for the stupidity of his American clients, gives them avant-garde haircuts, unintentionally achieving acclaim among the bohemian set. And yet such stories are only the beginning.
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December 8, 2010
Albert Cossery on the government
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“Number one is that the world we live in is governed by the most revolting bunch of crooks to ever defile the soil of this planet.”
“I couldn’t agree more. And number two?”
“Number two is that you must never take them seriously, for that is exactly what they want.”
- Albert Cossery
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“Number one is that the world we live in is governed by the most revolting bunch of crooks to ever defile the soil of this planet.”
“I couldn’t agree more. And number two?”
“Number two is that you must never take them seriously, for that is exactly what they want.”
- Albert Cossery
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December 7, 2010
César Aira on the unbuilt
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The unbuilt is characteristic of those arts whose realization requires the remunerated work of many people, the purchase of materials, the use of expensive equipment, etc. Cinema is the paradigmatic case: anyone can have an idea for a film, but then you need expertise, finance, personnel, and these obstacles mean that ninety-nine times out of a hundred the film doesn’t get made. Which might make you wonder if the prodigious bother of it all – which technological advances have exacerbated if anything – isn’t actually an essential part of cinema’s charm, since, paradoxically, it gives everyone access to movie-making, in the form of pure daydreaming. It’s the same in the other arts, to a greater or lesser extent. And yet it is possible to imagine an art in which the limitations of reality would be minimized, in which the made and the unmade would be indistinct, an art that would be instantaneously real, without ghosts. And perhaps that art exists, under the name of literature.
- César Aira
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The unbuilt is characteristic of those arts whose realization requires the remunerated work of many people, the purchase of materials, the use of expensive equipment, etc. Cinema is the paradigmatic case: anyone can have an idea for a film, but then you need expertise, finance, personnel, and these obstacles mean that ninety-nine times out of a hundred the film doesn’t get made. Which might make you wonder if the prodigious bother of it all – which technological advances have exacerbated if anything – isn’t actually an essential part of cinema’s charm, since, paradoxically, it gives everyone access to movie-making, in the form of pure daydreaming. It’s the same in the other arts, to a greater or lesser extent. And yet it is possible to imagine an art in which the limitations of reality would be minimized, in which the made and the unmade would be indistinct, an art that would be instantaneously real, without ghosts. And perhaps that art exists, under the name of literature.
- César Aira
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December 2, 2010
Six Fernando Pessoa Quotes
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There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.
Trying to revive tradition is like raising a ladder to climb up a wall that fell down. It’s interesting, because absurd, but only worth the bother because it’s not worth the bother.
The only basis for truth is self-contradiction. The universe contradicts itself, for it passes on. Life contradicts itself, for it dies. Paradox is nature’s norm. That’s why all truth has a paradoxical form.
My destiny belongs to another Law, whose existence you’re not even aware of, and it is ever more the slave of Masters who do not relent and do not forgive.
There’s a thin sheet of glass between me and life. However clearly I see and understand life, I cannot touch it.
One day, perhaps, they will understand that I carried out, as did no other, my inborn duty as interpreter of one particular period of our century; and when they do, they will write that I was misunderstood in my own times… and that it was a pity it should have been so. And the person writing, in whatever future epoch he or she may live, will be as mystified by my equivalent in that future time as are those around me now.
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There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.
Trying to revive tradition is like raising a ladder to climb up a wall that fell down. It’s interesting, because absurd, but only worth the bother because it’s not worth the bother.
The only basis for truth is self-contradiction. The universe contradicts itself, for it passes on. Life contradicts itself, for it dies. Paradox is nature’s norm. That’s why all truth has a paradoxical form.
My destiny belongs to another Law, whose existence you’re not even aware of, and it is ever more the slave of Masters who do not relent and do not forgive.
There’s a thin sheet of glass between me and life. However clearly I see and understand life, I cannot touch it.
One day, perhaps, they will understand that I carried out, as did no other, my inborn duty as interpreter of one particular period of our century; and when they do, they will write that I was misunderstood in my own times… and that it was a pity it should have been so. And the person writing, in whatever future epoch he or she may live, will be as mystified by my equivalent in that future time as are those around me now.
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