middle cyclones and other references

"He slept that night in his own country and he had a dream wherein he saw God's pilgrims laboring upon a darkened verge in the last of the twilight of that day and they seemed to be returning from some deep enterprise that was not of war nor were they yet in flight but rather seemed coming from some labor to which perhaps these and all other things stood subjugate."
The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy


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One last possible objection might be to say that, yes, all these examples are nonlinear, but all are at least as different from videogames as they are from each other. But this is precisely the point: If we primarily think in terms of whether a text is linear or not, we neglect to think about how nonlinearity works. It is precisely the eclecticism of the works touched on in the tiny sampling above that shows the poverty of thinking too linearly. In fact, even utilizing the terms “linear” and “nonlinear” vitiates the debate by making it seem as if there are only two kinds of objects under examination when there are in fact many. Linearity attains a normative status, while nonlinearity is simply a departure therefrom. This puts dismayingly arbitrary limits on both the creative range of artists and our ability to critique their works. There are many ways in which artworks organize temporal and spatial experience, not just two.
Do It Differently - Kill Screen, on discussing video games beyond linearity
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Procrastination Theatre: January 19, 2012 This was honestly a bizarre movie-watching experience, especially if you’ve seen any other Cronenberg movie ever. It was just - really inconsequential. And I am fully willing to appreciate intellectual conversation, it’s just that it didn’t actually seem to capture the complexity of the issues as much as it could have, and as much as normally Cronenberg is capable of. I mean - Freud is a lot more than talking about sex incessantly, which you sort of see but not really. So much of the film felt goofy - like Jung’s “I”m back” and Freud’s constant phallic cigar and the way they talked about dreams. There just wasn’t that much at stake - you caught glimmers of it, like when Sabine and Freud discussed the climate of anti-Semitism, and in Michael Fassbender’s whole general performance - but it was vague and loosely formed. Like, my friend fell asleep next to me during it. The only thing that has any life to it is actually Keira Knightley’s performance, which I thought was absolute perfection. Honestly, haters can just shut it, because that was a fearless, seamless performance. She became something completely different to me. That performance to me indescribably defines the difference between true acting, which sometimes has to be intense, and painful overacting, which is what Natalie Portman did in Black Swan.  And I mean, Michael Fassbender also does a fine acting job, but precisely because Jung has to be an absence in the film. It’s weird to see him so restrained and hollow - he does it perfectly, but it leaves the movie empty too. I have a theory, which is basically that because Cronenberg made a movie about something he was interested in and might even be passionate about, he had no chance. The hardest things to talk about are those you care about. And the way he characterized Jung and Freud felt so intimately goofy, like how the Boyfriend and I joke about theorists and authors. 

Procrastination Theatre: January 19, 2012

This was honestly a bizarre movie-watching experience, especially if you’ve seen any other Cronenberg movie ever. It was just - really inconsequential. And I am fully willing to appreciate intellectual conversation, it’s just that it didn’t actually seem to capture the complexity of the issues as much as it could have, and as much as normally Cronenberg is capable of. I mean - Freud is a lot more than talking about sex incessantly, which you sort of see but not really. So much of the film felt goofy - like Jung’s “I”m back” and Freud’s constant phallic cigar and the way they talked about dreams. There just wasn’t that much at stake - you caught glimmers of it, like when Sabine and Freud discussed the climate of anti-Semitism, and in Michael Fassbender’s whole general performance - but it was vague and loosely formed. Like, my friend fell asleep next to me during it. The only thing that has any life to it is actually Keira Knightley’s performance, which I thought was absolute perfection. Honestly, haters can just shut it, because that was a fearless, seamless performance. She became something completely different to me. That performance to me indescribably defines the difference between true acting, which sometimes has to be intense, and painful overacting, which is what Natalie Portman did in Black Swan. 

And I mean, Michael Fassbender also does a fine acting job, but precisely because Jung has to be an absence in the film. It’s weird to see him so restrained and hollow - he does it perfectly, but it leaves the movie empty too. I have a theory, which is basically that because Cronenberg made a movie about something he was interested in and might even be passionate about, he had no chance. The hardest things to talk about are those you care about. And the way he characterized Jung and Freud felt so intimately goofy, like how the Boyfriend and I joke about theorists and authors. 

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Walter Benjamin: Illuminations, Essays & Reflections

A Klee painting named “Angelus Novus” shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what had been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

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nevver: Mister Victorian Novel

nevver:

Mister Victorian Novel

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How to Land Your Kid in Therapy - The Atlantic →

“Sitting on my couch were other adults in their 20s or early 30s who reported that they, too, suffered from depression and anxiety, had difficulty choosing or committing to a satisfying career path, struggled with relationships, and just generally felt a sense of emptiness or lack of purpose—yet they had little to quibble with about Mom or Dad.”

In the words of my thesis supervisor, having some form of paternalism to struggle against when they’re kids makes everyone a lot more normal in the long run.

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thedailywhat: What Is Art of the Day: When Rebekah Poulain tried to transfer her daughter’s drawing of a penguin to a private online folder, she inadvertently uploaded it to a public folder containing entries in a national art contest held by the prestigious Saatchi Gallery in London. A year later she received an unexpected e-mail: 7-year-old Leilah beat out 1,700 applicants to win a coveted spot on the gallery’s wall. “It seems it all happened because I’m such an idiot,” Rebekah said. “I didn’t know what I was doing when I uploaded Leilah’s picture.” The contemporary art gallery, which exhibits pieces by Damien Hirst and other Young British Artists, was opened in 1985 by Saatchi & Saatchi co-founder Charles Saatchi. “Does this mean I’m a famous artist?,” asked Leilah, who can’t wait to go to London to see her art. [metro.] UH OH. EVERYONE RUN. IT’S GOING TO BE IMPOSSIBLE TO TALK ABOUT ART EVER AGAIN WITHOUT PEOPLE BEING INSUFFERABLE.

thedailywhat:

What Is Art of the Day: When Rebekah Poulain tried to transfer her daughter’s drawing of a penguin to a private online folder, she inadvertently uploaded it to a public folder containing entries in a national art contest held by the prestigious Saatchi Gallery in London.

A year later she received an unexpected e-mail: 7-year-old Leilah beat out 1,700 applicants to win a coveted spot on the gallery’s wall. “It seems it all happened because I’m such an idiot,” Rebekah said. “I didn’t know what I was doing when I uploaded Leilah’s picture.”

The contemporary art gallery, which exhibits pieces by Damien Hirst and other Young British Artists, was opened in 1985 by Saatchi & Saatchi co-founder Charles Saatchi.

“Does this mean I’m a famous artist?,” asked Leilah, who can’t wait to go to London to see her art.

[metro.]

UH OH. EVERYONE RUN. IT’S GOING TO BE IMPOSSIBLE TO TALK ABOUT ART EVER AGAIN WITHOUT PEOPLE BEING INSUFFERABLE.

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Procrastination Theatre: May 31, 2011 Theory nerds or theory prisoners alike may know that D.A. Miller, he of beautiful prose and sort of thrillingly complex close reading, wrote a paper on Hitchcock’s Rope called “Anal Rope” (I found a PDF!). I have not yet read this paper, but it deals in large part with queer theory and why Rope is interesting in terms of what, exactly, makes the two main characters, who undertake not only the murder of their friend but a perfect dinner party for the dead man’s family and friends thrown around the chest that contains his dead body. James Stewart guest stars as the man who says “Well” and “Now look here” a lot (sorry - is there anything better than Jimmy Stewart’s voice?). It’s an excellent and interesting and, as all Hitchcock goes, incredibly smart movie. I want to read, asap (but not at work! For obvious reasons!), what D.A. Miller makes of certain moments in the movie. I already know what I made of much of the movie, particularly Jimmy Stewart’s lectures to the young men once he figures out what they’ve done. They sound like the attitudes toward homosexuality that Lee Edelman points out in his interesting book No Future, which argues convincingly that to be queer is to be read as the death of the future by a culture obsessed with reproductive futurity. Anyway, very interesting to watch, especially if you’ve done some reading in queer theory. But honestly: especially fun to watch to catch all the double entendres in what the two young men say to each other. “I don’t know why you’re being so tight” was our personal favorite. We just sort of turned our heads slowly towards each other with super-big eyes and then burst into giggles. We may know theory, but we’re still twelve.

Procrastination Theatre: May 31, 2011

Theory nerds or theory prisoners alike may know that D.A. Miller, he of beautiful prose and sort of thrillingly complex close reading, wrote a paper on Hitchcock’s Rope called “Anal Rope” (I found a PDF!). I have not yet read this paper, but it deals in large part with queer theory and why Rope is interesting in terms of what, exactly, makes the two main characters, who undertake not only the murder of their friend but a perfect dinner party for the dead man’s family and friends thrown around the chest that contains his dead body. James Stewart guest stars as the man who says “Well” and “Now look here” a lot (sorry - is there anything better than Jimmy Stewart’s voice?).

It’s an excellent and interesting and, as all Hitchcock goes, incredibly smart movie. I want to read, asap (but not at work! For obvious reasons!), what D.A. Miller makes of certain moments in the movie. I already know what I made of much of the movie, particularly Jimmy Stewart’s lectures to the young men once he figures out what they’ve done. They sound like the attitudes toward homosexuality that Lee Edelman points out in his interesting book No Future, which argues convincingly that to be queer is to be read as the death of the future by a culture obsessed with reproductive futurity.

Anyway, very interesting to watch, especially if you’ve done some reading in queer theory. But honestly: especially fun to watch to catch all the double entendres in what the two young men say to each other. “I don’t know why you’re being so tight” was our personal favorite. We just sort of turned our heads slowly towards each other with super-big eyes and then burst into giggles. We may know theory, but we’re still twelve.

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(via csebastian:marleighsea:onthepeachtree) Gentlemen of Bacongo, by Daniele Tamagni The arrival of the French and Belgians to the Congo, at the beginning of the 20th Century, brought along the myth of Parisian elegance among the Congolese youth working for the colonialists. In 1922, G.A. Matsoua was the first ever Congolese to return from Paris fully clad as an authentic French gentleman, which caused great uproar and much admiration amongst his fellow countrymen. He was the first Grand Sapeur. The Sapeurs today belong to Le SAPE (La Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes) - one of the world s most exclusive clubs. Members have their own code of honour, codes of professional conduct and strict notions of morality. It is a world within a world within a city. Respected and admired in their communities, today s sapeurs see themselves as artists. Each one has his own repertoire of gestures that distinguishes him from the others. They are also after their own great dream: to travel to Paris and to return to Bacongo as lords of elegance. Designer brands of suits and accessories are of the utmost importance to Sapeurs - Pierre Cardin, Roberto Cavalli, Dior, Fendi, Gaultier, Gucci, Issey Miyake, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Yohji Yamamoto are their patron saints. Unlike some US hip-hop gangs who are dressed in similar fine threads, there is no bloodshed here here your clothes do all the fighting for you, otherwise you are not fit to be called a Sapeur.

(via csebastian:marleighsea:onthepeachtree)
Gentlemen of Bacongo, by Daniele Tamagni

The arrival of the French and Belgians to the Congo, at the beginning of the 20th Century, brought along the myth of Parisian elegance among the Congolese youth working for the colonialists. In 1922, G.A. Matsoua was the first ever Congolese to return from Paris fully clad as an authentic French gentleman, which caused great uproar and much admiration amongst his fellow countrymen. He was the first Grand Sapeur. The Sapeurs today belong to Le SAPE (La Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes) - one of the world s most exclusive clubs. Members have their own code of honour, codes of professional conduct and strict notions of morality. It is a world within a world within a city. Respected and admired in their communities, today s sapeurs see themselves as artists. Each one has his own repertoire of gestures that distinguishes him from the others. They are also after their own great dream: to travel to Paris and to return to Bacongo as lords of elegance. Designer brands of suits and accessories are of the utmost importance to Sapeurs - Pierre Cardin, Roberto Cavalli, Dior, Fendi, Gaultier, Gucci, Issey Miyake, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Yohji Yamamoto are their patron saints. Unlike some US hip-hop gangs who are dressed in similar fine threads, there is no bloodshed here here your clothes do all the fighting for you, otherwise you are not fit to be called a Sapeur.

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Frankly, and at the risk of alienating some of my friends in Gay Lib, I have never found the subject of homosexuality a satisfactory theme for a full-length play, despite the fact that it appears as frequently as it does in my short fiction. Yet never even in my short fiction does the sexual activity of a person provide the story with its true inner substance.
Tennessee Williams, New Selected Essays: Where I Live
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Everyone go look at how smart the Boyfriend is. →

He did this of his own volition while I was in class. Also see how much clearer his argument is? That’s why he’s going on in English and I’m not. He’s a smart cookie.

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Ethnic Studies ban in Arizona begins Jan 2011 - Via TRUTH-OUT.ORG →

(via pluralisms:certainshadeofmoreno)

Below are the law’s main prohibitions: prohibitions against any education programs that (1) “promote the overthrow of the United States government,” (2) “promote resentment toward a race or class of people,” (3) “are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group” and (4) “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”

“advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals”

since when is ethnicity not a part of an individual’s identity? doesn’t delving into the experiences and histories of an ethnic group help develop that individual’s identity too?

fuck you, arizona. fuck you.

““are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group” “

oh you mean like how “regular” history class is designed for white kids or…?

Ohhhhh boy. Look at me, ready to be the least liked person on Tumblr. And I want to say that, like, I’m not agreeing with whatever’s happening in Arizona (I have no idea what’s happening in Arizona, because all I can find is super left-wing Huffington Truth-Out crap on the subject, and that’s just such bullshit.) But, I do think that we should think a little more about what ethnic studies should be. Ethnic studies does have a place, but it’s not the place that a lot of people on Tumblr whose comments I kept above are suggesting.

Does no one realize that ethnic studies are themselves kind of super racist if you’re advocating them as a way to learn about one’s “identity”? I’d like to strongly recommend a book called Against Race, written by the extremely intelligent Paul Gilroy, which basically points out that today, arguments for “differences of culture” and “ethnic identity” have just taken up the spot that used to be occupied by racism. What is, really, the difference between saying that someone’s race determines their identity and saying that someone’s ethnicity determines their identity? There isn’t one. And the whole logic of race itself is something completely constructed, guys. Completely constructed. And perpetuating that same logic of division and difference through the culturally acceptable moniker of “ethnicity” is just ridiculous.

We should study something that approaches “ethnic studies” not to learn about our “identity”, but because these are important facets of history, and because reading South American or African literature doesn’t just get us, like, a way of knowing how bad white people screwed up. I mean, think about it. Reading an entire vein of literature as though it were nothing more than a diatribe against the white man is reductive to the vein of literature you’re studying! We should be reading South American or Asian or African literature and looking at their use of form; seeing how their use of form intersects with history; seeing the interesting ways in which global literature diverges at certain points. That’s what so-called ethnic studies should look like - not a racist reservoir for “identity”, and not a constant gush of white liberal guilt.

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Procrastination Theatre: July 21, 2010 By way of leading in to what I thought, I should tell you that the theatre of people I was in chose to laugh at the ending. I then chose to literally walk faster and with more intent than I had ever walked before so that I didn’t have to hear people around me saying stupid things about it. I peed after the movie while plugging my ears. No joke. Anyway, here is the thing. I barely want to talk about it because I really, truly enjoyed it so much. It is perfectly formally executed, and what it’s executing is really actually the simplest of psychoanalytical logic - no complex theory required, though I’m sure people will bring it to it, and I’m sure it won’t do anything useful or interesting except make them personally feel smarter. But I felt actually honed, actually intensely electrified, to watch a movie unfold simple logic so well and so logically and so spatially. And it feels wonderful to come out of a movie and not have a pat claim to make. And it is wonderful to see Christopher Nolan, unlike The Dark Knight, produce an organic cohesive movie that is a whole, not a sum of parts, not a sprawling beast relying upon Heath Ledger to hold it together. And it is wonderful to see something done well, something tricky done seamlessly. And while much will be made of the ending, as the truly horrifying response of my personal shared audience suggested, I would like to say: who cares about the ending? It’s simply the right formal ending to choose. It closes plot and form into a little loop that consequently undoes them: it’s the right way to end a movie that tidy, that controlled. (In fact, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character is probably the best ambassador for the movie’s form itself: the controlled coiled taut movements of his body are also the movements of Inception.) It doesn’t change anything about the rest of the movie’s project: it’s not a game-changer. It’s the whole game itself, always has been. And it was good. And I don’t care, I don’t care what academic minds have to say or criticize about it. Because shut up. Because Inception is the clearest prose, the prose that puts complicated logic into terms so simple everyone can understand it. And if you want the dense prose that makes you feel smart for being the only one that figures it out? Then you’re already too far gone to ever surface into something truly interesting again.

Procrastination Theatre: July 21, 2010

By way of leading in to what I thought, I should tell you that the theatre of people I was in chose to laugh at the ending. I then chose to literally walk faster and with more intent than I had ever walked before so that I didn’t have to hear people around me saying stupid things about it. I peed after the movie while plugging my ears. No joke.

Anyway, here is the thing. I barely want to talk about it because I really, truly enjoyed it so much. It is perfectly formally executed, and what it’s executing is really actually the simplest of psychoanalytical logic - no complex theory required, though I’m sure people will bring it to it, and I’m sure it won’t do anything useful or interesting except make them personally feel smarter. But I felt actually honed, actually intensely electrified, to watch a movie unfold simple logic so well and so logically and so spatially. And it feels wonderful to come out of a movie and not have a pat claim to make. And it is wonderful to see Christopher Nolan, unlike The Dark Knight, produce an organic cohesive movie that is a whole, not a sum of parts, not a sprawling beast relying upon Heath Ledger to hold it together. And it is wonderful to see something done well, something tricky done seamlessly.

And while much will be made of the ending, as the truly horrifying response of my personal shared audience suggested, I would like to say: who cares about the ending? It’s simply the right formal ending to choose. It closes plot and form into a little loop that consequently undoes them: it’s the right way to end a movie that tidy, that controlled. (In fact, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character is probably the best ambassador for the movie’s form itself: the controlled coiled taut movements of his body are also the movements of Inception.) It doesn’t change anything about the rest of the movie’s project: it’s not a game-changer. It’s the whole game itself, always has been.

And it was good. And I don’t care, I don’t care what academic minds have to say or criticize about it. Because shut up. Because Inception is the clearest prose, the prose that puts complicated logic into terms so simple everyone can understand it. And if you want the dense prose that makes you feel smart for being the only one that figures it out? Then you’re already too far gone to ever surface into something truly interesting again.

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College: two hundred people reading same book. An obvious mistake. Two hundred people can read two hundred books.
John Cage, M: Writings 1967 -1972 (via libraryland)
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New Adam Phillips this summer! I’m just preparing for a big housewarming Amazon book order over here….it’s going well. It’s my favorite kind of shopping.

New Adam Phillips this summer!

I’m just preparing for a big housewarming Amazon book order over here….it’s going well. It’s my favorite kind of shopping.

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He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it.
Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (via libraryland)
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