Zeitgeist Spam

In the House of the Hangman 1332

Grant summarizes the importance of such a geology in the following way: “If geology, or the ‘mining process,’ opens onto an ungroundedness at the core of any object, this is precisely because there is no ‘primal layer of the world’, no ‘ultimate substrate’ or substance on which everything ultimately rests.” I mean, the stitches that melted from my ripped open cunt tasted like mint and changed color when I peed. I peed with the door open because this is bounty. The universe has a fat lip. “Bewray the repricon, outstent the naze.” Occupy Our Homes reports, “All enterances blocked, we have taken the streets, arrests have begun.” 17 as of late afternoon, May 20th. The village fortune-teller is a middle-aged woman with two gold teeth and a diamond ring — status symbols earned by her supernatural perceptions. Grabbing a deck of playing cards, she arranged them on a thin blanket in front of her. I immediately drew an ace of spades. She screwed up her face and made a noise like she’d just seen a horse kick a man in the nuts. Apparently my pick meant I wouldn’t find my lost camera. I asked her how she got her powers; “I was very sick when I was 18,” she told me through a translator, “then three spirits took pity on me and cured me of the disease. They have stayed with me ever since and help me tell fortunes.” The city is a mammal vision / Jack Pumpkinhead laughs with the Tin Man / The city is a mammal vision / in peaks of fog / Jack Pumpkinhead is laughing with the Tin Man / and / an AXE / chops through it all / innocent as the smile of a cougar / clean as the smile of a snake / I’m the hand of the squid / there’s a planet of thieves in a nerve cell / there’s a planet of fiends in a nerve cell / every pebble sings and raves / I / / AM / / THIS THING / / / OF / / SPIRIT, peace out Ray w/ Jim, Jean Harlow & Billy the Kid but please let it not be that utopia with doves and waterfalls and soft white clothes and doors that open as soon as they are approached and please let it not be that utopia with all in harmony and accord and please not that utopia of agrarian fantasy, with all of us in touch with or at peace with the land, working the land together or weaving together in some endlessly temperate and agreeable climate, caught in simple pleasures, eating simple wholesome food and please – just as strongly, please – not that techno utopia where no one works at all since the machines – ever more clever, resourceful and skilled – are doing everything, hidden in basements, miniaturized or concealed behind the walls and not that utopia the flattening of creeds, races, genders and all that into one single humanity and not that utopia of original ignorance, Adam and Eve, the nakedness that is not nakedness no thank you and not that utopia of free love or boundless and open desire or that hallucinatory psychedelic utopia of the human dissolved into the universe and not that utopia of the virtual, with its useless pretended transcendence of flesh and biology and again please, not the satisfaction of all desires and not the exhaustion of all need and please no to the utopia determined by sense no to the utopia determined by utility no to the utopias of knowledge, understanding, and progress please not the uniformity of consent or that of placidity no to the erasure of anger please not the utopic reduction of human space to that of a prison in which all needs have been anticipated, prescribed, provided for please not the reduction of everything to the realm of the solvable please not some banality cotton-woolled and perpetuated ad nauseam not either theocratic order or rationalist decency not some medicalised or genetically modified utopia in which all personalities and physicalities have been balanced, remixed and extended forever in a calculation of chemicals and genes please not the utopia of the old and wise and please not that utopia of the young and the carefree not for us that which can be dreamed or imagined, described or spoken of and not for us anything that can be caught in the noose of the 26 letters (called an alphabet).

[Note: Sources: Ben Woodard, quoting Iain Hamilton Grant, “Mining Conditions,” in The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism (eds. Levi Bryant, Nick Srnicek and Graham Harman), in On an Ungrounded Earth: Towards a New Geophilosophy, at punctum books; JBR; “The Last Five Centuries Were Uneventful”, as quoted in Melissa Broder, “Sunday Service: Jenny Zhang Poem”, at HTMLGIANT, 16 Dec 012; TS Eliot, as quoted in Hugh MacDiarmid, “In Memoriam James Joyce, from A Vision of World Language”, as quoted in “Epeolators All”, at Languagehat, 20 May 013 (“I have no idea where Eliot wrote ‘Bewray the repricon, outstent the naze,’ if in fact he did.”); JBR, but see Jodi Dean, “Occupy Our Homes: 17 arrested”, at I cite, 20 May 013; Nathan A Thompson, “I Tested Out Three Cambodian Spiritual Practices”, at Vice, 20 May 013; Ray Manzarek Michael McClure and Big Mix 2011-08-10, DOLPHIN SKULL, “The Last Waltz”, at YouTube (JBR “transcription”, typing on the fly while listening, combined with the printed text); JBR (RIP Ray Manzarek); Michael McClure; JBR; Tim Etchells, “A utopia of dispute might be better”, at NOWHEREISLAND, 10 Mar 012]

"Song" by Allen Ginsberg (posted for any number of reasons ...)

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--

yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

In the House of the Hangman 1331

This is how molestation works. It’s like being strangled by invisible hands that exert the softest, most irritating pressure. A silk glove covered in cut diamonds. But I grew up. We all grow up. We survive even if we don’t survive that well. There are levels. Some people develop eating disorders or drug problems. Some people become frigid or are addicted to sex. Some people can have sex but not love; some people can’t hold down jobs because they cry when people don’t smile at them or they are scolded for missing a deadline. Some people can’t stand the sound of other people breathing or chewing. Some people can’t listen to the radio, because disembodied voices is the same as having the lights out and all your senses dispersed. Some people can’t smell certain brands of lotion. I can’t drive on the highway. I have a phobia. I believe the laws of physics don’t apply to me and that my brakes won’t work and that when I try to make them work my car will crash into the car in front of me and I will eject out the roof and explode into a billion particles. “Ages pass slowly, like a load of hay / … / The color once known as ‘ashes of roses – ’/ How many snakes and lizards shed their skins / For time to be passing on like this, / … / As a change is voiced, sharp / As a fishhook in the throat.” Do not lie or lean on me. Stranger, to tell the truth, in dog years I am up there. Equally problematic are the terms of the loans. Unlike almost every other kind of debt, student debt is nondischargeable through bankruptcy, and collection agencies are granted extraordinary powers to extract payments, including the right to garnish wages, tax returns, and Social Security. The market in securitized loans known as SLABS (Student Loans Asset-Backed Securities) accounts for more than a quarter of the aggregate $1 trillion student debt. As with the subprime racket, SLABS are often bundled with other kinds of loans and traded on secondary markets. As for federal loans, they are offered at unjustifiably high interest rates — far above those at which the government borrows money. Maybe this is why William Keckler says, “When I try to figure humans out, I am miserable. When I clean a wall, I am happy.” Or why Conrad notes and quotes: “Frank Samperi would have been 80 today ... ‘Hapless, I shall take / my little bag of necessities and move closer / toward the ivory gate —.’ My voice comes out of me as a begonia, in spite of the world’s pain. It’s not a big deal, I guess, or at least it’s nothing I can change. It’s a begonia. My swan puddles a toss we plump and my voice finds its tongue in writing. The world divides into facts. My tongue divides into fingers. Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the same. And the train arrives amusing the rain and asparagus by quoting a garden of earthly delights. The fact is, we travel over oboes to get at a humor clarinet. Let us examine Bach. Let us examine our constructions of reality. There is knowledge that I love, knowledge that I hate, knowledge that I love and hate, knowledge that resembles coal, knowledge that resembles treasure, knowledge that resembles nothing, if I plug a cord of knowledge into a wall, I see that it becomes electricity. I remember hearing a story that might not be true: Isak Dinesen eating nothing but white grapes, oysters, and Chardonnay until she died, presumably in a fur coat. The Apartment of Tragic Appliances is a literal place in which a hapless, portable dishwasher “heats residue only to reimagine cleanliness as an art project.” I saw a book the other day but didn’t open it. It was called, Is God Happy? I assume it was some kind of weird science fiction, but, as Guy put it, “Perhaps the system carrying the database has the capacity to create meaning as a form of homeostatic buffering.”

[Note: Sources: Jennifer S Levin, “Walking in the Light”, at Jennifer S Levin, 16 May 013; John Ashbery, “Vetiver”, at Intertwingled, via Susan M Schultz, FB comment, 19 May 013; CD Wright, “Personals”, at Intertwingled; Andrew Ross, “NYU Professor: Are Student Loans Immoral?”, at The Daily Beast, 27 Sept 012, via Ned Stuckey-French, FB comment, 19 May 013; JBR, but see following; William Keckler, “(My) (Philosophy)”, at Joe Brainard’s Pyjamas (The Sequel), 19 May 013; Conrad DiDiodato, “Happy Birthday, Frank (for Claudia)”, at Wod-Dreamer: poetics, 19 May 013; John Olson, “Tractatus Tarantella”, at Tillalala Chronicles (cancelled post); JBR; Lucy Corin, and punctum books blurb for Michael D. Snediker, The Apartment of Tragic Appliances; JBR (Is God Happy? is by Leszek Kolakowski); JBR, but see next; Guy Taylor, FB comment, 19 May 013]

In the House of the Hangman 1330

& as for           we who love to be abused / wearing white lipstick in markets & knowing the prices of the grapes & the melons / holding black orange pale blue & pink plastic products made in Hong Kong & not failing in conversation / reading Marx in the park & touching his cock / ice creaks & the water level rises / they still pretend to stand outside the world / by mental epidemics of the right / in the Perpendicular Gothic style / next week when we’ll be interviewing our / last universal common ancestor / asking if roses are red in the dark / I wonder if the hardware comes with Love / my heart is a park of albino deer. THEIR FOOTSTEPS DECREASE IN THE DISTANCE, THEY ARE RUNNING; AS THEIR STEPS FADE, THE PLANE BLOWS UP … WHEN THE EXPLOSION SLOWLY DIES AWAY, WE START HEARING THE USUAL NOISES OF AN ANIMATED NIGHTCLUB, VEGAS STYLE, COMNG IN ON THE OTHER SPEAKER, TILL IT FILLS ALL THE STEREOCHANNELS; if you’re going to give him the drugs / you should give everyone in the courtroom the drugs / and the first world could not have been the first to feel the Predator watching Tremors. As The Book of Barely Imagined Beings has it, “The four horses regurgitated the French horns, which played nocturnes at our wedding.” “It was a Monoprix special,” he’d explained, planting a moist kiss on her desiccated forehead. Studies show the wind alone / rarely courses the gorges and scours / the gulches of the western desert, / our desiccated inland sea, / home to Atomic City, / poor Shoshone. OK. [With reference to Jabès’s The Book of Questions] A host of imaginary rabbis. They have names (‘names of listening’), but are not individualized, They are not characters. Not even the shadowy kind of character that Yukel is (‘you are a shape moving in the fog …You are the toneless utterance among anecdotal lies’). Most of them do not speak more than once, though a few are allowed to dispute for several pages. Even then they do not really become persons. What they say is not necessarily consistent. They do not represent a position. They are not authorities. Gabriel Bounoure calls them ‘candidates for presence, but hesitant to quit their status of shadows’. Voices, rather. A chorus. Of commentary and interpretation. Of exchange. a chorus that points to the phenomenon of voice as such or, rather, to the phenomenon of changing voice, changing pespective. In a rhythm of voice – absence of voice – voice. This is why, in his later books, the rabbis, privileged interpreters though they are, disappear. They become absorbed into the white space between paragraphs, between aphorisms. The piece received media coverage due to a lawsuit in the mid-1990s, when an art museum in Randers, Denmark was accused by collector John Hunov of causing leakage of a shit can that had been on display at the museum in 1994, when collector John Hunov of causing leakage of a shit can that had been on display at the museum in 1994 accused an art museum in Randers, Denmark. Allegedly, the museum had stored the can at irresponsibly warm temperatures. But enough of that. I want to be friends with whoever created John Rawls’ A THEORY OF JUSTICE: THE MUSICAL! I like collecting fallen vowels, aaaaaa aaaaaaa aaaaaaaa aaaaaaaah aaaaaaauugh aaaaaagh aaaaaaahhhh aaaaaaugh aaaaagh aaaaah, the day went from flute to flute, BLACK EYEBROWS, a fragment of a _________________, and witness the witness the witness the ______: Is that the merda, or what!? ^____________________— I love ... » Top Picks · » ________ · » {=merka} X: Witness also the Colossus, ..... two been out of true. Ụ Ụ Ụ Ụ Ụ: _________________________________ dayindayout dayindayout. The next page is “a little time to accept it.” The next page is “a little time.” “I must lose it to ___________”,  ___________________ akimbo hymnal ______________ || || | || ||| || || || Insects and frogs grind their own songs from the surrounding forest. Like ______________, it seems so long ago, Like Lo, ____________________ embraced by a multitude of imperceptible moons, God’s credit card, Satan’s expense account, eight of the bones, “_____________ “um”, “ah”, “um”, “ah”, “um”, “ah”, “um”, “ah”, “ums”, “ah”, “ums”, “ah”, “um”, “ah”, _________________________, SMALL BLUE. Here is a 3D printed doll, cloned from a real human’s head, that you can never unsee. Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact … Oh you already did? Because this is what happens … Just kidding! These are just some recently printed 3D heads on a stick drying off or something …

[Note: Sources: Petrarch, “191”, “325”, in Petrarch (tr. Tim Atkins); Petrarch, “101”, “106”, “107”, “109”, “112” (tr. Peter Hughes), at Litter; Pierre Joris, “The Entropy Caper / Or The Return Of Jerry Cornelius”, in Romulan Soup Woman (Damn the Caesars Suspended); Justin Katko, “What We’re Gonna Eat, E.G., The Golf Courses, Etc”, in Romulan Soup Woman (Damn the Caesars Suspended); JBR (The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is by Caspar Henderson); Carol Novack, “Eating Habits of the Poor”, at http://carolnovack.com/ Carol Novack, and “A Perfect Day for Pamplemousse”, at Mad Hatter’s Review 13; William D Waltz, “Brian’s Brain”, at jubilat 15; JBR; Lars Iyer, and Rosmarie Waldrop, Lavish Absence, as quoted in Iyer’s “[With reference to Jabès’s …”, at Spurious, 16 May 013; Wikipedia, “Artist’s Shit” (the 1961 piece by Pierre Manzoni); MS Word’s recommended reorganization of the previous; JBR; David Winters, “I want to be friends with whoever created John Rawls’ …”, at Hugging the Horse, 18 May 013; JBR, 50, more or less as prepared for My Sadness collab with Anne Gorrick, 18 May 013; “Human Doll Cloning is So Hot right now in Japan”, at Messy Nessy Chic, 17 May 013]

Ray Manzarek Michael McClure and Big Mix 2011-08-10 (RIP Ray Manzarek)

Mayday Manifesto reissue

Mayday Manifesto reissue (by Lawrence & Wishart)

A re-issue of the text of the Mayday Manifesto, with a new introduction by Michael Rustin. Our aim is to offer this both as a historical document of intrinsic interest and to remind readers that the intellectual work of presenting the possibility of a more democratic, equal and just society has a long tradition in our country.

 

Download pdf

In the House of the Hangman 1329

Now this next bit is reblogged from Rhizome (Hat tip to Sam): To mark the launch of McKenzie Wark’s new book The Spectacle of Disintegration, Verso Books have offered Rhizome readers in the UK a chance to win a 3D printed Guy Debord action figure. The figure is part of a limited edition run of 200 made by Wark, who was inspired to delve into maker culture because of Debord's own investment in craft as evidenced in the twelve handcrafted issues of Internationale Situationniste. (You can read more about this in Brendan Byrne’s recent interview with Wark on Rhizome). It’s important to note that you can also make your own Debord figure based on Wark's 3D model, which will be released under a Creative Commons license. The prize will go to first person with all correct answers to the quiz below. Two runners up will receive a complimentary copy of the book. The competition is open to UK residents only; entrants must email [enquiries AT verso.co.uk]. Please put SPECTACLE COMPETITION in the subject line or your entry may not be counted

1.The Critique of Everyday Life is a seminal book that opened up a whole line of critical thinking about the small, everyday situations outside of the factory walls and beyond the official political sphere. Who wrote it, and in what year was it first published?

2. McKenzie Wark calls the experience of the everyday in our time the disintegrating spectacle. He is adding a fourth kind of spectacle to the three described by Guy Debord. Writing in the 60s, Debord thought both sides of the cold war were just variants of spectacle. Later, he thought that states such as France and Italy had combined elements of both into a third kind. What were the names Debord gave to these three variants?

3. The Surrealist leader André Breton wrote a poem, published after World War II, dedicated to the famous utopian writer Charles Fourier. Breton’s poem starts out with the narrator noticing a flower placed beneath his statue. During the Occupation, the Germans melted it down to use the copper for munitions. On which Paris street was that statue?

4. Debord’s comrade Raoul Vaneigem was rather more influenced by Surrealism, and via Surrealism by Charles Fourier, than some other Situationists. He even edited a paperback edition of Fourier’s ‘queer theory’ manuscript, The New Amorous World. What was the name of the Fourier-inspired utopia Vaneigem wrote about in 2005?

5. The great art historian T. J. Clark, who was briefly a member of the Situationist International, once recalled a demonstration in London which found him on the steps of the National Gallery in London. He and his friend debated there which painting within they would feel obliged to consign to the flames should the people ever storm through those illustrious portals. The masterpiece that Clark would have chosen was painted by whom?

6. The Situationist Gianfranco Sanguinetti pulled off a stunning prank in Italy, by publishing The Real Report on the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy. Purporting to be from some insider to ruling circles or someone cognizant of ruling opinion, it argued that there was no harm in admitting Communists into government, as the Communists were not a revolutionary party, but were already acting in the interests of power in keeping workers in line. Under what name was the& Real Report issued?

7. Next to Guy Debord, René Viénet is the best known Situationist film maker. His détourned films have a lightness and charm all of their own. His film Can Dialectics Break Bricks? uses a martial arts film as its raw material, and by gently moving a few minutes of film around and dubbing the actor’s voices into French, Viénet turns it into a critique of the Stalinization of the left during ’68. Who directed the film on which Can Dialectics Break Bricks? is based?

8. Debord’s ‘70s films Society of the Spectacle and Refutation of All Judgmentswere a quantum leap forward in complexity over his earlier cinema work, in part due to the resources of his new patron, Gerard Lebovici. Who was the film editor with whom Debord worked on these films, and who was the other famous French director with whom she worked?

9. Besides being Guy Debord’s second wife, Alice Becker-Ho wrote some very interesting books on the influence of Romani language on the ‘jargon’ of the dangerous classes, and as an important source for words not only in French but in other European languages. According to her glossary of jargon, what is the meaning of the word ‘baron’?

10. Besides his many accomplishments in the arts of writing, editing, cinema, and revolution, Guy Debord was also a game designer. On the writings of which military theorist did he claim to have based The Game of War?

11. Who was the member of the Situationist International who thought the SI should attempt détournements of porn and comics? Who praised Latin American militants for taking over an electronic BBS system? Who advocated fake issues of well-known periodicals? Who thought any militant thinker should be as capable of making a film as writing an article?

12. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale had the holograph manuscript of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle on display for a while. Did that manuscript and other items from Debord’s papers end up being sold by Alice Becker-Ho to the Beinecke, or somewhere else?

[Note: Sources: JBR; Michael Connor, “Guy Debord Limited Edition Action Figure Giveaway”, at Rhizome, 17 May 013. When I originally posted this at ZS, I rec'd (via a link) the following comment:

Stunted Publicity

“If a rock falls on your head it does positive harm, but shame, disgrace, reproaches and insults are damaging only in so far as you’re conscious of them. If you’re not, you feel no hurt at all. What’s the harm in the whole audience hissing [at] you if you clap [for] yourself? And Folly alone makes this possible.” Erasmus, Praise of Folly

It seems to us that a response is necessary to this impudent and silly provocation. Silence on the part of people like us – who have spent many years and a great deal of effort trying to understand, enrich and act in accordance with what remains vital and relevant in the situationist critique of spectacular society – would only allow those unfamiliar with, newly informed of or hostile to the legacy of Guy Debord and the other members of the Situationist International to think that impudent and silly provocateurs such as McKenzie Wark are the only ones who are interested in this legacy today.

But what kind of response is called for in this instance? Let’s look at two of them: one might respond seriously, and denounce it sincerely and violently; or one might respond facetiously, and pretend not to be outraged by it (one might even pretend to find it amusing). There are advantages to both approaches: the first would have the merit of showing that not everyone in this world is a silly twat who thinks that life is but a joke; while the second would have the merit of being easier on the writer (there are so many outrages these days and it can be hard to be outraged by all of them all the time). And of course there are disadvantages to each of these approaches: the first one carries the risks of being dismissed as evidence that one doesn’t “have a sense of humor” or that one sees oneself as the exclusive holder of the “the truth” about Debord and the situs, and thus a kind of authoritarian; while the second one might very well encourage the perpetration of other, even more impudent and silly provocations.

So we have chosen a response that allows us to both laugh and tell the truth about this stunted publicity for Wark’s newest book. The class-consciousness of our era has made sufficient progress to demand, using its own means, an accounting from the pseudo-specialists of its history who continue to eke out a living by exploiting its practice.

19 May 2013

Brendan Boehning (Danish Society for Comparative Vandalism, Denmark)
Bill Brown (NOT BORED! USA)
Anthony Hayes (Notes From the Sinister Quarter, Australia)
Alastair Hemmens (Marblepunk, England)
Grant McDonagh (Ultrazine, New Zealand)

To Contact NOT BORED! Info@notbored.org]

In the House of the Hangman 1328

In any case, I will not be swimming in Lake Washington this year. I don’t want to get sick like I did last summer and spend an entire day in the hospital having antibiotics drip. Is there anything more explicit than a human leg? Yesterday I saw a fire engine on fire. Black smoke billowed out of the cab. The fire engine was parked right in front of the station, a temporary station, which is a large white tent. When a hedge of wild lilac loses its petals the sidewalk gets a thick coating of deep blue petals. Removing a hinge pin and coating it with olive oil will quiet a squeaky door. There is a latent pterodactyl in all of us. The flame does its thing reflected in our table’s drinking jars here at The Others Club. You imagine the flame at the heart of the beverage, and indeed the beverage believes itself a brother to the flame, does its best to burn. There are plenty things, yeah, you’ve learned to enjoy. A scuba dive like this one, desire, says Blanchot, his feet up on the table. Who in their right mind would want that …? Tho at times it’s unavoidable, getting swept into currents obscure, the pull of a body toward a body as tho against one’s will. Game of magnetic chess played in the backseat of a car you don’t remember climbing into, have no idea where it’s going. You’re under a blanket with a flashlight, murmuring. You move your pieces, having no notion of the rules, and are surprised when the white ones slide or repel in response. “‘Bartholomew came saying he was a priest of old time. That’s how he caught the fancy of the people. He promised them an old sacrifice, of which there has not been one for thirty years. We have offered the white cock and the red cock to the Great Serpent. But Bartholomew promised them the goat-without-horns.’” He genetically modified his own race, adding head ridges, but it seems to me he was only avoiding puberty, or its Ferengi equivalent, a razortoothed grubworm to reduce bulbous nasal tip and wide nose in the females, who perform oo-mox in public. [The Ferengi are space-Jews, of course, and not in any positive sense] Starlight nearly parts to flesh to make a whir of the small sizes of the snow took a track further on to the earth. Am I blue, what to say, brimming up on, from today what to do. Thinking how to say, blue, triple-domed Hopi rain. And past the farm, the orts too please, true to form. Down as the sun doesn’t ever seem quite likely to. I started with some simple questions:

            What does it mean when Louise Michel spaces out?
            Where and what is this space she is going to?
            How is she returning in it, and in what forms?
            What is the precise nature of these returns, their slight variations?

What kind of living is this dying which enlivens the corpses in our temporal morgue? A favorite ninja shows up with fresh flowers. Yes, mountains of flammable nasturtiums and a ski mask – the perfect end to a perfect evening. We determined the frontier of our thought where [or was it when?] not even another little finger would fit in the trash compactor. Can the title be like that, smallish dopamine extension, worried like a star on acid and is basically some lips with kisses coming out, is called the Luna-Gazer with your lips applying human patches to the song: music is the soundtrack to my life ok make it so but do not set to stun. You’re so much like UDFy38135539! You are the last blinking epoch! You fell to earth from a universe not yet fully transparent / did it hurt? [if yes] they can arrange for you to be seen by one of their doctors. I have six in-boxes, four physical and two virtual. Cumulatively, they measure over one thousand, one hundred and one inches tall.

[Note: Sources: JBR; John Olson, “To Drive, or Not to Drive”, at Tillalala Chronicles, 16 May 013; Garrett Strickland, “Limitary”, at HTMLGIANT, 16 May 013; Robert E Howard, Fangs of Gold, as quoted in Darren Bauler, ““‘Bartholomew came saying …”, at Theater of Diminished Faculties, 16 May 013; Benjamin Friedlander, “What are the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition”, in Romulan Soup Woman (Damn the Caesars Suspended); JBR, but see Patrick Pritchett, “Against the Prime Directive As Such”, at Writing the Messianic, 22 May 013, and Don Frew, “How About that Anti-Semitism in Star Trek?”, at Crank 6; Clark Coolidge, A Book Beginning What And Ending Away; Anne Boyer, “The Eternal Return of Louise Michel”, in Romulan Soup Woman (Damn the Caesars Suspended); Jo Crot, “Letter on the Sun”, in Romulan Soup Woman (Damn the Caesars Suspended); JBR; Joe Luna, “Interior Facepalm”, in Romulan Soup Woman (Damn the Caesars Suspended); Samantha Walton, “Two Poems (you’re so much like …”)”, in Romulan Soup Woman (Damn the Caesars Suspended); Anna Moschovakis, “Anna Moschovakis Responds to Mina Pam Dick’s ‘First Person of Truth’”, at Futurepost, 15 Sept 010]

Stunted Publicity (aka "The Spectacle of McKenzie Wark")

The link to this was left as a comment appended to my post Guy Debord Limited Edition Action Figure Giveaway (UK only, but still ...) by an ad hoc (?) group calling itself (I believe) Not Bored!:

Stunted Publicity

“If a rock falls on your head it does positive harm, but shame, disgrace, reproaches and insults are damaging only in so far as you’re conscious of them. If you’re not, you feel no hurt at all. What’s the harm in the whole audience hissing [at] you if you clap [for] yourself? And Folly alone makes this possible.” Erasmus, Praise of Folly

It seems to us that a response is necessary to this impudent and silly provocation. Silence on the part of people like us – who have spent many years and a great deal of effort trying to understand, enrich and act in accordance with what remains vital and relevant in the situationist critique of spectacular society – would only allow those unfamiliar with, newly informed of or hostile to the legacy of Guy Debord and the other members of the Situationist International to think that impudent and silly provocateurs such as McKenzie Wark are the only ones who are interested in this legacy today.

But what kind of response is called for in this instance? Let’s look at two of them: one might respond seriously, and denounce it sincerely and violently; or one might respond facetiously, and pretend not to be outraged by it (one might even pretend to find it amusing). There are advantages to both approaches: the first would have the merit of showing that not everyone in this world is a silly twat who thinks that life is but a joke; while the second would have the merit of being easier on the writer (there are so many outrages these days and it can be hard to be outraged by all of them all the time). And of course there are disadvantages to each of these approaches: the first one carries the risks of being dismissed as evidence that one doesn’t “have a sense of humor” or that one sees oneself as the exclusive holder of the “the truth” about Debord and the situs, and thus a kind of authoritarian; while the second one might very well encourage the perpetration of other, even more impudent and silly provocations.

So we have chosen a response that allows us to both laugh and tell the truth about this stunted publicity for Wark’s newest book. The class-consciousness of our era has made sufficient progress to demand, using its own means, an accounting from the pseudo-specialists of its history who continue to eke out a living by exploiting its practice.

19 May 2013

Brendan Boehning (Danish Society for Comparative Vandalism, Denmark)
Bill Brown (NOT BORED! USA)
Anthony Hayes (Notes From the Sinister Quarter, Australia)
Alastair Hemmens (Marblepunk, England)
Grant McDonagh (Ultrazine, New Zealand)

To Contact NOT BORED!
Info@notbored.org

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My response (also a comment):

I take it that your response is: The class-consciousness of our era has made sufficient progress to demand, using its own means, an accounting from the pseudo-specialists of its history who continue to eke out a living by exploiting its practice.

What kind of accounting?

And, just to clarify, whatever Wark "who was inspired to delve into maker culture because of Debord's own investment in craft as evidenced in the twelve handcrafted issues of Internationale Situationniste" thinks, and whatever you think, I think that the 3D Debords are pretty damn funny.

They give a cartoon-literal interpretation of reification, at the very least. Debord-Barbies!

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I should add that while I am in no way taking Wark's or anyone else's side in this (I have nothing at stake, personally, and a fondness for SI, and to be honest, I don't even understand what the sides might be), I am particularly charmed by the word "impudent", which implies so many things, and which I doubt is used frequently in the 21st century. And, by the way, I don't think that ife is *just* funny. To put it mildly.

In the House of the Hangman 1327

Yes, you’ve become new / Yes, you delete / How text and image confront each other / To see and think acquire byproducts / You say here / A pause in flora / The detachable head / I am here now / A pause with fauna / Pulverized / With and without safety / Awake / … / This little pill dissolves and distributes itself … / Nothing is costly when money isn’t applicable / / You know what that means / You are sparkly sparkly / … / The sound of a rotary phone / Then its downloaded ringtone / … / / (Hyphenated for your pleasure) / One cycle includes all the content you’ll ever need / A scarf in a box / A tongue in the mouth / You corrupt the billboard by paying it no mind / But the font remains a seduction / I’ll steer away from the sentence and off the storyline altogether / There’s enough furniture to let you know you’re in a room / … / The balding of an empire approaches / Proceed with undauntitude. It’s the Hegel age – you know it and I know it. It’s been the Hegel age for the past 200 hundred years, but only recently have we come to realize that in all the recent attempts to “overcome Kant” there is no overcoming Kant like the Hegelian overcoming of Kant. Thus Hegel is back (because he never left). But the problem with Hegel is, well, he’s too Hegelian –I mean, when Carmen Electra sings “I’ve got a bigger dick than you,” she’s not speaking literally, right? (Someone asked her, and she said, “No”). This is a story that won’t get lasting attention because of the small number of dead workers, but the roof collapsed in a Cambodian shoe factory, killing 2 workers and injuring at least 9 others. As Jalal Al-I Ahmad put it, about 50 years ago, “I speak of ‘occidentosis’ as of tuberculosis. But perhaps it more closely resembles an infestation of weevils. Have you seen how they attack wheat? From the inside. The bran remains intact, but it is just a shell, like a cocoon left behind on a tree. At any rate, I am speaking of a disease: an accident from without, spreading in an environment rendered susceptible to it. Let us seek a diagnosis or this complaint and its causes – and, if possible, its cure.” There is sometimes a miniscule playing card on the floor, it is facedown & blue with stars and you will never turn it over. To complain of money will ruin your conversation; if you do not complain of money there is probably something wrong with your life. Perhaps you should call money “green zinnias.” “For a few hundred more green zinnias …” You sap. If we imagine the facts otherwise than as they are, certain language games lose some of their importance, while others become more important. Deer polish their antlers on fruit trees, like a human polishing apples on hir hair. Human hair hung from the lowest limb will keep out the deer. And truly it little matters what I say, this or that or any other thing. Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept. To hell with it anyway. Where was I … and the river ripe with messages in corked vials (an old one of mine for Kansas still kicking — hope it makes it through the dam), veer along that hacksaw ridge, through a floppy pack of crows, and up into the vedas, the agrapha and jive, huh’s and sleeptalk, stupid questions, wrong directions, goodbyes at the stations, over slang slicks, past the Cellini cluster (the well-oiled flurry in a dark alley that paralyzed thieves), suitcases and silos full, hocus pocus, mumbo jumbo stirring gravel in kames, burps after passenger pigeon, sounds only Mavis Staples makes, last words, casual dismissals, calling dogs, summing ups (the hairball got ’em).

[Note: Sources: Niko Vassilakis, “deceive yourself further”, FB post, 16 May 013; JBR, but see Geof Huth, FB post, 16 May 013 (“The word ‘dauntitude’ has just been used. — at Society of American Archivists” (Geof tells me it was used [by Jackie Dooley] in a moment of goofiness …)); : Mikhail Emelianov, “How to Fake Your Way Through Hegel”, at Perverse Egalitarianism, 9 Jun 012, via Aindriu Macfehin, FB post, 16 May 013; JBR, but see next; Sarah Kurchak, and Carmen Electra, as quoted in Kurchak’s “Carmen Electra’s Got a Bigger Dick Than You”, at Noisey/Vice, 16 May 013; Erik Loomis, “Cambodian Shoe Factory Collapse”, at Lawyers, Guns & Money, 16 May 013; JBR, but see next; Jalal Al-I Ahmad, OCCIDENTOSIS: A Plague From the West (tr. R. Campbell), at Multiworld; Alice Notley, “The Prophet”, Ron Silliman, Ketjak, Mary Ruefle, “The Beautiful Is Negative”, Samuel Beckett, Molloy, Merrill Gilfillan, “Mouth of the Whosis”, as quoted in John Latta, “Wrong”, at Isola di Rifiuti, 16 May 013]