Archives for October 2016

Mirror Mirror

"...the threatened man looks at himself with the eyes of his master." Ernst Bloch "Abjection is therefore a kind of narcissistic crisis: it is witness to the ephemeral aspect of the state called "narcissism" with reproachful jealousy, heaven knows why; what is more, abjection gives narcissism (the thing and the concept) its classification as "seeming."" Julia Kristeva "The conscious field is so narrow, and on all sides it shades off into darker edges and dissolves. Even before a mental event is forgotten, in fact even without it being forgotten, much in it is not conscious." Ernst Bloch Bloch says mental life is framed by morning and evening. The nightdream moves in the … [Read more...]

Forgetting to Forget

"Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man." Jean Genet "I am haunted by no phantoms. It is rather that the ashes I stir up contain the crystallization that hold the image (reduced or synthetic) of the living and impure beings that they constituted before the intervention of the fire. If life has a meaning, this image (from the beyond?) has perhaps some significance. That is what I should like to know. And it is why I write." Blaise Cendrars So, Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. Now, first off, this prize is a bit like being named poet laureate of a country. Except it is even more irrelevant. At least in terms of art. But … [Read more...]

Privatized Sirens

"Because what a child wishes seldom comes in time." Ernst Bloch "…their knees were smashed on small rocks as their poor pinnace likewise poorly lay..." Charles Olson Maximus Poems “But that which is the dawn is—a face, a look. It is a man on a ship. It is the successful termination of an experiment. It is discovery. At this a light does penetrate without announcement everywhere. It is indeed like the epidemic, in its humanity, the fullness of its rise. It is indeed a love that willynilly mounts. So is writing that is not infused with a light which is already at the edge of our understanding—dark.” William Carlos Williams One of the clear effects of mass digital culture is … [Read more...]