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Valencia/Rectify/Film/Television/Literature
I. James Nulick’s Valencia opens with an HIV diagnosis. Nulick, protagonist, is dying. He has traveled to the southern coast of Spain to stay at the hotel which gives the novel its name. He has traveled there to hasten his death, to preempt the prolonged and painful corporal vulnerability which immunodeficiency entails.
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Short Trip (Alexander Perrin)
Link. There is a hand-drawn tram simulator, beautifully drawn. You are in the role of some entity, appearing and not appearing human, and you walk him toward the waiting tram. He is — you are — not its passenger but its conductor, controlling the forward and backward movement of the tram. Along the tram route there are…
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Effect Ideas and Close Encounters
Gabriel Duquette of Liposuction has raised a number of objections to my insertion of effect-ideas into his maps/chords dualism. Either effect-ideas are not real, he argues, or they are not significant. They are trivial in that they are wildly personal, unpredictable, and unengineerable. Read rather than written into texts, they are the creations of readers…
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A Possibility for Artistic “Meaning”
Interested in literary or artistic “meaning” as the sum of all infinite interrelationships between a work of art/literature and the equally infinite set of all data points which exist both inside the work and out in the world. These data points include, but are not limited to, the composition of society in its entirety, both…
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Maps, Chords, and Effect Ideas
“A dramatic presentation should be an act of initiation during which the spectator will be awed and even terrified… During that experience of terror or frenzy… the spectator will be in a position to understand a new set of truths, superhuman in quality.” (Wallace Fowlie on Artaud’s “Theater of Cruelty”) Gabe Duquette, writing at Liposuction,…
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Return Maximization as Critical Mode
Interested in what I am possibly calling Utilitarian Criticism, or more likely Consequentialist Interpretation, or even more likely Return Maximization as a Critical Mode. This is the mode where the goodness or badness of a text/art object, for example, is largely irrelevant. Instead, modes of interpretation or ways of seeing are sought which maximize the…
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Alva Noë & Baseball
I do not watch baseball, though many of my favorite passages and anecdotes are inspired by the sport. There is DeLillo, of course, in his prologue to the monumental Underworld, whose opening line — He speaks in your voice, American, and there’s a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful. — remains one of the best ever written.¹
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The Areopagus
There is a hill on the Western slope of the Acropolis called the Areopagus, or Areopagus Hill. One would not know from the swooping doves and stretching olive orchards which adorn the area that it was until recently the site of recurring tragedy. The rocky outcropping above its rubbled ruins, which allows sublime views of…
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Liturgy & Pastoral
Mexico City The mask stares out, eyes appalled, black and glassy. He is anonymous and intensely personal; he sees the opiate addicts and the basement dwellers, the alienated-enfranchised; all the darkness of the developed world, so that it dominates his view and is reflected in his eyes and slowly suffuses his corneas. From here it…
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Found Writings from 4chan’s /lit/
What did it feel like to be alive and culturally enmeshed in the 2010s? What were our values, our hopes, our insecurities and terrors? April 25: And I thought, “This is the saddest thought I think I’ve ever had.” November 22: “…the second we touch down on Mars, people are going to realise how unfulfilling it is. Oh…
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Google Music Playlists, 2017
Suburban Ennui: Surrounded by strip malls and cookie cutter houses, the ‘burbs can be a real drag. Embrace the malaise with a mix of melancholy, ambient, and washed out fuzz. Celestial Instrumentals: We are all made from stardust. Ponder that wondrous fact while spacing out to these dreamy post-rock and ambient instrumentals, perfect for watching…
A D Jameson all communication is manipulation Alva Nöe ambiguity chords compression Erving Goffman fitness games generalized reading hermeneutic circle institutional theory Interpretation Jürgen Schmidhuber Karl Friston language games linguistics literary theory literature Maggie Nelson maps meaning modernism music music criticism New Sincerity nostalgia opticratics Peli Grietzer Pierre Bourdieu pop music poptimism pragmatism predictive hermeneutics predictive model predictive processing Sarah Perry selection games signaling strategic interaction surrogation the inexact sciences Thomas Schelling vibe theory visual art
Suspended Reason 