In the House of the Hangman 1128

“Ovis bobat / Canis latrat / Lupus ululat…” which means something like “the sheep bleats / the dog barks / the wolf howls …” etc. These lists are interesting for many reasons; among other things, they often break open our ideas of what exactly constitutes an “animate” nonhuman agent in the first place; for instance, fire and running water among things that make sound. So join us on “HALO Island” for a groundbreaking, multi-jurisdictional counterterrorism event that will educate and train the entire range of national security stakeholders, from government agencies and elite military special operations units to law enforcement and emergency responders. A few of the featured training sessions will include: Islamic Literalist Ideology by Joe Butta, Low Light Operations by Ken Good, Patron Saints of the Underworld by Roberto Almonte’, Extremist Mindset in South America by Clare Lopéz, and Social Engineering by Chris Hadnagy. Due to the location, exhibitors and sponsors have the freedom to hold demonstrations that would normally be banned at other venues. “And we know the antelopes to that. The chateau schoolmates have provided the antelopes. We need to throw out the tablespoon.” The Total Click. / … / Their chastised colon prolapses so hard the ground / Snaps. / … / The currys of the future / Will be made of different types of shit” the total click was exactly / The shit it meant. The things I do for no blood in me, / Throqt – 9[…] gong […] white bees / or bovine fqlling so / hqrd to their knees The field snaps. Lek. Meal. Condiment bread. Breqd. “What is this present to which I belong?” This was the question asked by Foucault recalling Kant’s writing on the Enlightenment. We else have rocks for shoes without spanning indices that lead to set functions with overtones. Then the houses of the painted scenery topple down like the terrible drunkards and bury you. Only your hand can be seen jutting from under the steaming debris. The hand still moves a little, then the curtain falls. Meanwhile, a “pain vaccine” is being developed that will block intense pain for months at a time. I'm not quite sure how that would work, given that everyone's heard that story about their friend’s older brother’s buddy who took so much ketamine he couldn’t feel his arms snapping in half as he went on a car-flipping spree in Jersey, but this is the military we’re talking about here, so I guess anything is possible. Concerned by the situation, Stalin and the chief of his secret police, Lavrentiy Beria, have instated a committee to investigate the new political situation in Germany. The chairman of a committee reports as follows: By the end of 1934, Hitler’s power was unchallenged. Toward the end of the year, just before Christmas, he made a radio announcement that he had resigned and that he had been succeeded by Martin Heidegger. As soon as Hitler had finished speaking one could hear the sound of applause. Then Heidegger held his first big radio speech. We have studied gramophone records of the speeches and it is beyond doubt that those were indeed Hitler and Heidegger’s voices. Neither did we find any indications that Hitler may have been confused or drugged. The next day, Heidegger held his second big speech. That is the speech in which he nominated Walter Benjamin as Vice-chancellor. According to reliable witness reports, Benjamin had been present at the conversations between Heidegger and Hitler during December. We do not know how many times they talked. During this period, Benjamin was also in constant contact with the other Jews, notably Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and a few others. The Jews has been written as a play, a “talmudic tragicomedy,” and the two actors that mediate between Stalin — who has abolished theater — and Heidegger’s Germany — where they are slowly killing off theater — represent so to say the “survivors” of the death of theater itself, a theater, that, and this becomes clear at several points in the novel, we should read primarily as Athenian classical tragedy. The only real tragedy, according to Benjamin. Several indications can be found concerning the nature of this tragedy: except for the God of the Jews, it features several “ancient goddesses” and “royal gods and goddesses.” When Benjamin, just after explaining that Heidegger no longer speaks, says that he is going to fetch him to ask him what he thinks, he recounts: First there are only ancient goddesses. Then the royal gods and goddesses arrive. The royal gods are always worried about the ancient goddesses. They are trying to take away the old goddesses’ power or act as if they already have done so. There are theater plays about that. […] There are also ancient theater plays in which people think that they have an alliance with a royal god but as soon as a single ancient goddess appears they abandon the royal god. Sometimes the royal gods take revenge on them, at other times the ancient goddesses. They eat their children and their children eat them. Sometimes there is screaming because somebody notices that he was wrong. Thus, The The Jews takes place, as it were, in a situation that we could identify as after tragedy. That is, no longer under the sign of myth but under the sign of history. Both communism and fascism have abandoned tragedy. But Hitler has been sublated into Heidegger whereas Stalin later dies after a circumcision, being succeeded by the Rabbi of the recently conquered city of Jerusalem (that is, Moscow) and Birobidjan, the autonomous Jewish district in Siberia that Stalin established in 1934. Heidegger’s mother is in despair. At the end of the meeting where Hitler hands over power to Heidegger in the presence of Benjamin and Jewish actors she says: “Nobody knows how I feel today. […] My husband is in the book, my son sits next to me, silent. Nobody knows how I feel. […] I can scream but I won’t do it. […] I could yell and cry.”

[Note: Sources: Jonathan Hsy, “Between Species: Animal-Human Bilingualism”, at In the Middle, 28 Oct 012; “Join HALO Corporation in San Diego”, at HALO, and EMH Events (“The HALO Corporation is a California based organization founded by former Special Operations, National Security, and Intelligence personnel. HALO exists to provide safety and security for those in need and to improve: force protection, all aspects of security, humanitarian aid, and disaster response.” They are taking over the resort we came to in order to celebrate Kathy’s 60^th birthday; I’d love to have a press credential); Susan M Schultz, “Anne Romney on throwing out the public education system +6”, FB comment, 28 Oct 012; Jow Lindsay, “DOG PUKE”, in DPHAX, at Bad Press; workshop description, as quoted in Stuart Elden, “Foucault and the critique of our present – seminars”, at Progressive Geographies, 28 Oct 012; Allen Bramhall, “The laugh of salsa …”, at Simple Theories, 28 Oct 021; Robert Walser, Answer to an Inquiry (tr. Paul North), as quoted in Michael Kelleher, “Aimless Reading: The W’s, Part 5 (Robert Walser)”, at Pearlblossom Highway, 28 Oct 012; Theo Kindynis, “Woohoo, It’s The Future of War!”, at Vice, 26 Oct 012; Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, and Nachoem Wijnberg, Die joden, as quoted in van Gerven Oei’s “Heidegger’s Mom and the Joke of Democracy: Fictional Notes on the Political”, at Berfrois, 24 Oct 012]

Comments

[Omo Bob]

Heidegger and his squeaky little voice...

[john]

Yeah, "I always visualize him sitting on his wooden bench outside his Black Forest house, alongside his wife who, with her perverse knitting enthusiasm, ceaselessly knits winter socks for him from the wool she has shorn from their own Heidegger sheep."