When someone said he wished he were King of China, Leibniz replied that that man’s wish was, first, to be dead, and second, that there be a king in China.
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a literature review on “The Diaspora and India”, specifically Latha Varadarajan’s Marxist analysis of Indian foreign policy
“we need to understand it [the state] as a dynamic and historically evolving structure
linked to the development of capitalism on a global scale.” […] “the emergence of a borderless world populated by transnational diasporas is quite unconvincing.” On the contrary, diasporas are playing “a critical role” in reinforcing the nation-state structure. This process is produced by a host of state policies and initiatives that seek to institutionalize the relationship between the nation-state and the diaspora.
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that whole book is a moment in human history alright
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RIP jaimie branch, jazz trumpeter, died at 39 this past august
The jazz musician we needed: Goodbye to jaimie branch - 48 hills
Piotr Orlov, a writer and critic who became friends with branch and inextricably involved (and happily so) with her, regarded her work and intuition as genius. “I don’t know why this is making me think of it right now, but she played like that Springsteen line from ‘Badlands,’” he said. “’For the ones who had a notion deep inside/That it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.’ She played like she was glad to be alive, and alongside people who cared as much as she did.”
“There’s very few audience members I know who walked away from her playing the past few years as anything less than completely won over and going ‘Holy Shit,’” he continued. “jaimie’s playing demanded that you either care, or get the fuck out of here. And she did not bring anything less than what she demanded of others.” …
“We got a bunch of wide-eyed racists!” Branch shout-speaks in the middle of the blues dirge “prayer for amerikkka pt 1 & 2” from her take-no-prisoners FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise album from 2019. “And they think they run this shit.”
This was my introduction to branch, and it boldly spoke out against the Orange One during his reign of terror. Possessing that hard-driving, Friday night church meeting ferocity, the rant and song spoke to humanity. FLY or DIE addressed people being attacked by a government that’s supposed to protect those without resources.
A jazz musician being righteous in the exact moment of need? One who, by the way, was just working at a cafe, wrapping up sandwiches, a couple of years earlier? Yup. I was all in.
“I had the privilege to not only hear jaimie play often, but play different kinds of music in many types of circumstances,” stated Orlov. “And the through-line was that absolutely nothing was regarded as ‘just a gig.’ She gave so much of herself. All. The. Time. Musically, when jaimie was playing, she was often over-powering, just wave-upon-wave of taking advantage of the moment, especially when she was playing with folks who cared just as much she did—which was, in my experience, pretty much all the time. She was infectious that way.”
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Have editors ever known so much about their readers? And known, in particular, how little and how badly they read? Today even the Weekly Standard and Democracy: A Journal of Ideas announce up front how long it takes to get through one of their online articles, like a warning, or a dare to cull the weak. Newspaper and magazine editors track page views, unique page views, time on-site, and, for the publishers willing to pay thousands a year, scroll depth — the exact point at which readers give up. Twitter, meanwhile, is a scrolling record of bad reading habits. Retweets of pieces one hasn’t finished; parts of pieces one wants to read but isn’t ready to endorse; fragments that cause one to click away in disgust. A reader argues with a stranger about whether they’ve actually read the piece, only to discover that the stranger is the author. The author, a reader herself, knows all about bad reading habits.
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I read Tao Lin’s latest novel, Leave Society which forms the third book in what feels to me like a bildungsroman stretching across a trilogy, beginning with Taipei and followed by his non-fiction book Trip: Psychedlics, Alienation, and Change. It is auto-fiction like his work usually is, detailing a story about him living in Taiwan with his parents as he so to speak recovers from himself through better habits, social bonds with his mom and dad and their dog, diet and creative LSD and cannabis use. I’ve found watching his change from how he was in that first novel to be really affecting. I was supremely unnerved by the narrator in Taipei without, I think, Tao really intending me to be. So when Trip ended with a closely intimate retelling about how good it felt to visit Kathleen Harrison (Terrance McKenna’s former spouse), told with the exact opposite of the disaffected and lobotomized tone of the narrator in Taipei, I finished Trip wondering more about who Tao Lin had become in between these two books: and Leave Society is all about that author and his experience of becoming someone else intentionally and on accident.
Anyway, this little bit of writing from a scene where his mom notices how he has been agitated, and remarks on it by saying something like "you’ve been more angry lately, that causes Li (Tao’s fictitious counterpart in this novel) to say he has actually been more joyful and friendly this past year than he has been in a decade and her saying that means she should think of time through greater intervals than just this past hour, day, week or even year. I really like his writing and ability to describe things about experience that are obvious and ubiquitous but subsequently hard to appreciate.
‘I’ll always be… unhappy a few days and happy a few days.’’ Patched-together or hard-won coverings of positivity flew away with ridiculous suddenness, like hats, or else gradually and unceremoniously, over days, like paint. Cheerful talkativeness became mute disassociation. Thoughts went from rational and shareable to infantile and melodramatic. Feelings toggled from magical friends to tormentive enemies. History, the strangest, most mystical, and possibly the last chapter of biology, became unaffecting and dull.
He’s on record as being a fan of Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet and it seems to come through in this description.
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http://www.notbored.org/no-more-flat-feet.html
a Letterist text, with an appearance by the soon to be Situationist, Guy Debord, dispersed at a press event they interrupted where Charlie Chaplin was talking about his film Limelight. Pretty incoherent lol but it has the fun, caustic verve typical of these publications. I like the flow of the part where they tell Chaplin to die soon. anyway, this and the removal of the little mermaid’s head are fun historical trivia about things the Situationists had their hand in
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Re-reading Rings of Saturn at work. Should have added it to the 12 writings post!
There is no antidote, he writes, against the opium of time. The winter sun shows how soon the light fades from the ash, how soon night enfolds us. Hour upon hour is added to the sum. Time itself grows old. Pyramids, arches and obelisks are melting pillars of snow.
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Of Airy Atoms.
The Atomes long, which streaming Aire makes,
Are hollow, from which Forme Aire softnesse takes.
This makes that Aire, and water neer agree,
Because in hollownesse alike they be.
For Aiery Atomes made are like a Pipe,
And watry Atomes, Round, and Cimball like.
Although the one is Long, the other Round;
Yet in the midst, a hollownesse is found.
This makes us thinke, water turnes into Aire,
And Aire often runs into water faire.
And like two Twins, mistaken they are oft;
Because their hollownesse makes them both soft.
after seeing margaret cavendish’s “what is liquid” cited as one of the worst poems in the english language i checked out some of her many, many earnest pseudoscientific poems about atoms and found myself getting really into it… that mixture of dogged struggling rhymes with highly dubious educational content is extremely appealing to me.
In every Braine loose Atomes there do lye,
Those which are Sharpe, from them do Fancies flye.
Those that are long, and Aiery, nimble be.
But Atomes Round, and Square, are dull, and sleepie.
i also enjoyed this line from her wikipedia entry, until i realised “spin” probably wasnt meant to be what i was picturing in this historical context
Looking at several of the epistles in Poems and Fancies, her dedication to Sir Charles Cavendish, her brother in law, compares writing poetry to spinning and calls poetry mental spinning – it was commonly thought to be more appropriate for women to spin than to write
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I can feel it… I can feel the unforgettable taste for play and festival returning to me
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NSFW
My email (Dilbertcartoonist@gmail.com) is starting to fill with stories from readers who have had spontaneous orgasms
https://www.scottadamssays.com/hypnotizing-you-to-have-the-best-new-years-day/
happy holidays
If you enjoy yourself sexually during this holiday, it means I am controlling you with my hypnosis
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Behold, the Lord will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you and whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a wide land.
god’s popeye years
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through half of these so far and they’re quite good
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