Monday, May 12, 2014
five points
a) ongoing western magical tradition and occult socities working in favour of that instinct (Rosy Cross' document Chemical Wedding...from 1616, and the idea of a chemical merriage as an active symbol of this)
b) traditions from the 16th century onward (eg Enochian magic was easily synthesised with other magical elements of the order because it was originally derrived from these same elements...icluding cabala, heremticism, astrology, alchemy and natural magic) being synthetic, so movements like Order of the Golden Dawn became kind of metasyntethtic. (for example, Westcott, one of the founders of the ORder of the Golden DAwn, talked about Securalism, Cabalsitic, Hermetic, Alechemial and Roschian practice) (or the order of the golden dawn a combo of heremticism, neoplat, cabala, demonic/natural) (see also the translations of the Agrippa ) also perhaps the intersections of pagan and cabalistic texts, not nessc. as christian, but including something else The canon OGD talught to initaites, for example: "before the admission to the Zectau grade, the neophye must learn the names and achlemical symbols and the four elemnets, the names of astrological symbols, and elements atruibuited to them, of the twelve zodiac signs, the names charactersand (ritual purpose) of the 22nd letters of the herbrew alphaet, the ten serphaie, etc) (33) Also the cabalistic replaces of words n xian prayers, use of hindu language in words like aum, also (and this might be a bit more Blavastsqkesque, nthough mentioned in less chapter, the inclusion of yoga) Also all the egyption borrowing--Freeamsonry esp. (see Assman) The possiblity of Masonry as Polythesitc or Pagan.
c) occasionaly more open (see Blavastky or Kingsfold's rship to women, or how common it was in lower and upper classes) See McacEnzie's Royal MAsonic Cycopledia of 1877, which while perhaps a bit debunked as a masonic text, was considered more than useful in how it discussed other groups) Dysons critique of Bretts MAgus
d) spats (about ritual, women, leadership, who they are absorbing) (see the differences in how theophists practiced ritual much less than the hermetists) (westcott less of a ritualist) free vs speculative masons RoX refusal of spiritualism
e) loose boundries (inventon of tradition, inclusion of fiction (see Buwler-Lytton), the cabala/pagan shit) also possiblity of collective
questions
urania
sufferage
h rider haggard
masonry and catholiism
working class
FRazer
crowley and purposeful obsfucation
random thots
caballa makes magic approite (24)
four rituals of the golden danwn
a) official rituals
b) the equavelent of cathchesis ot progress thru levels
c) Mcgregopr, et al's creative work (founder)
d) "extranous exampels of the members activeities (27)
nullifcation of the nesscessity of a second text
Tuesday, May 06, 2014
Donnie Darko, Bully, Gummo, Mysterious Skin, Blair Witch, Election, Jaw Breaker, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Apt Pupil, Hedwig, Spring Breakers, Funny Games, Happiness, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, Boys Don’t Cry, Velvet Goldmine, Fight Club, Bad Santa, Scream, The Ice Storm, Boogie Nights, Igby Goes Down, Rushmore, Die Mommy Die, Last Days of Disco, AI, Lost Highway, 28 Days Later, Pan’s Labyrinth, District 9, Capturing the Friedmans
In his letter to Alig, just now after prision, James St James writes a list of movies he has to say. This is the new cult canon kids. i want to write more about this, but i cannot think of a movie i would subtract to tis list, and only a few i would add.
In his letter to Alig, just now after prision, James St James writes a list of movies he has to say. This is the new cult canon kids. i want to write more about this, but i cannot think of a movie i would subtract to tis list, and only a few i would add.
Saturday, May 03, 2014
twelve things i am thinking about post emp:
a) ccm, mumford, larry norman, xian hipness (thanks Jewly Hight and Josh Langhoff) (thinking maybe a 33.3 on Amy Grant---ever since Rae Spoon I have thot an enourmous amount of Amy Grant as a pop music gateway drug)
b) the mutability of class (thanks well everyone)
c) reutning western to country and western, and who exactly is working class anymore (Thanks Ann Powers, Alfred Soto Tom Smucker)
d) the intersections of rezhop and noretona country (thanks Josh Langhoff and the entire regional panel)
e) Faure's Requiem (Thank Carl Wilson) and whether religious xtc is a useful critical category in pop)
f) What50s style sophistication means as an aesthetic and paedological category (Thanks Barry Shank)
g) The radical potential(s) of pleasure (well everyone)
h) How digital media functions versus analog media vis a vis preservation (ThanksAndy Zax)
h) bro country Jody Rosen, Thomas Inskeep Alfred, Ann, Carl, Josh, and well anyone)
i) How I don't understand straight negotions of adultery (the song Me and Mrs Jones)
j) intersectionality as an aesthetic of overlapping filigrees (Me'Shell at the keynote)
k) boarding schools and failures to form masculinity Dub Dob Dee
also seattle is a paradise of ciders, i had cider like three times a day--a smoked cider, a chery cider, a pear cider, dry ciders, sweet ciders, oh thank you jesus
op ten things i saw at the Seattle art museum
1) Al Held's Last Series from 1964-1966, maybe two dozen, small and medium size paintings, with bright house painted colours, over paintings, awkard shapes, attempting to soften hard edge, and harden lyricism, with its size, and its slight attiude of instiability or formal offness, prefigures heliman and silliman.
2) Remington Bronzes (they swerve and swagger)
3) dozens of objects of messian, and of chinese white ware, the chinese white ware made to look like messian, the messian made to look like work from china, 18th century global trade routes, and the role of the exotic in counissuership, placed together in an incredibly cloer gesture
4) This medium sized persian painting, of interlocking rooms, with a figure in each room, the spaces are at oblique angles, and a dual line of black and gold between them, negotiates the schematics of how to map place in a rigious composition.
5) Noland's Relic from 1969. a painting maybe a meter by two meters, tiny by noland's standars, the top 30 cm and the bottom 30 cms stripes, in jewel tones--gold, cobalt, hot pink, orange, citron, and the middle a dusty apricot. the control of pictoral space seems new. also, in the top 30 cm a line of dunnish brown that i thought was natural canvas, but was actually painted, in an inside baseball guesture of intimate trompe d'oilel.
6) Frankenthaler Hold, 1974. most of this canvas is empty, a large scrabbled line near the middle, and a floatinng rectangle, shading an interior sqaure. underneath all of this, is a unsteady curve. The colours are weird and sort of ugly, but the true genius of Frankenthaler is how to layer paint thru a set of negotions between the oblique and the transparent..this is a paticualrlly good example of this.
7) a coast salish cedar blanket which was just a grid, within a larger grid.
8) two haida skull masks.
9) The white scarf of Leon Delafosse in their only Sergent on view.
10) that much of their (large) african masks were displayed in ritual garments.
three things i liked at the seattle sculpture park
a) tony smith's stinger--large, but lying low on the ground, nestled in a grove, it has this weird, monolithic energy, in a kitsch sf sense, managing to be unnerving and v. much of its time and place.
b) sol lewitts large wall drawings
c) a nevelson that was of welded steal, not the usual assembelege
a) ccm, mumford, larry norman, xian hipness (thanks Jewly Hight and Josh Langhoff) (thinking maybe a 33.3 on Amy Grant---ever since Rae Spoon I have thot an enourmous amount of Amy Grant as a pop music gateway drug)
b) the mutability of class (thanks well everyone)
c) reutning western to country and western, and who exactly is working class anymore (Thanks Ann Powers, Alfred Soto Tom Smucker)
d) the intersections of rezhop and noretona country (thanks Josh Langhoff and the entire regional panel)
e) Faure's Requiem (Thank Carl Wilson) and whether religious xtc is a useful critical category in pop)
f) What50s style sophistication means as an aesthetic and paedological category (Thanks Barry Shank)
g) The radical potential(s) of pleasure (well everyone)
h) How digital media functions versus analog media vis a vis preservation (ThanksAndy Zax)
h) bro country Jody Rosen, Thomas Inskeep Alfred, Ann, Carl, Josh, and well anyone)
i) How I don't understand straight negotions of adultery (the song Me and Mrs Jones)
j) intersectionality as an aesthetic of overlapping filigrees (Me'Shell at the keynote)
k) boarding schools and failures to form masculinity Dub Dob Dee
also seattle is a paradise of ciders, i had cider like three times a day--a smoked cider, a chery cider, a pear cider, dry ciders, sweet ciders, oh thank you jesus
op ten things i saw at the Seattle art museum
1) Al Held's Last Series from 1964-1966, maybe two dozen, small and medium size paintings, with bright house painted colours, over paintings, awkard shapes, attempting to soften hard edge, and harden lyricism, with its size, and its slight attiude of instiability or formal offness, prefigures heliman and silliman.
2) Remington Bronzes (they swerve and swagger)
3) dozens of objects of messian, and of chinese white ware, the chinese white ware made to look like messian, the messian made to look like work from china, 18th century global trade routes, and the role of the exotic in counissuership, placed together in an incredibly cloer gesture
4) This medium sized persian painting, of interlocking rooms, with a figure in each room, the spaces are at oblique angles, and a dual line of black and gold between them, negotiates the schematics of how to map place in a rigious composition.
5) Noland's Relic from 1969. a painting maybe a meter by two meters, tiny by noland's standars, the top 30 cm and the bottom 30 cms stripes, in jewel tones--gold, cobalt, hot pink, orange, citron, and the middle a dusty apricot. the control of pictoral space seems new. also, in the top 30 cm a line of dunnish brown that i thought was natural canvas, but was actually painted, in an inside baseball guesture of intimate trompe d'oilel.
6) Frankenthaler Hold, 1974. most of this canvas is empty, a large scrabbled line near the middle, and a floatinng rectangle, shading an interior sqaure. underneath all of this, is a unsteady curve. The colours are weird and sort of ugly, but the true genius of Frankenthaler is how to layer paint thru a set of negotions between the oblique and the transparent..this is a paticualrlly good example of this.
7) a coast salish cedar blanket which was just a grid, within a larger grid.
8) two haida skull masks.
9) The white scarf of Leon Delafosse in their only Sergent on view.
10) that much of their (large) african masks were displayed in ritual garments.
three things i liked at the seattle sculpture park
a) tony smith's stinger--large, but lying low on the ground, nestled in a grove, it has this weird, monolithic energy, in a kitsch sf sense, managing to be unnerving and v. much of its time and place.
b) sol lewitts large wall drawings
c) a nevelson that was of welded steal, not the usual assembelege
Thursday, May 01, 2014
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead—as if innocence had ever been—and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to see the thread, weak, and involved. But there is no one but us. There never has been. There have been generations which remembered, and generations which forgot; there has never been a generation of whole men and women who lived well for even one day. Yet some have imagined well, with honesty and art, the detail of such a life, and have described it with such grace, that we mistake vision for history, dream for description, and fancy that life has devolved.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm
One of the things that JPII was huge on, and that Benedict pushed him back on, according to scuttlebutt was Marian work. Marian devotion are profoundly populist, and are a ready symbol of the split between the official church and the vernacular church. Benedict's theology was much more christological, and was v. high. Francis is much less of a theogian, and much lower-but he makes an argument for a vernuclar christology, and against a marian direction. I wonder if Francis' work is to pull the church away from people like the legionaires of christ, from folk devotions, and towards a low christology that maintains high ambitions?
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
a) pearlstein's late nudes are bonkers, b) i enjoy the habs during playoff seasons c) i am behind on work d) i think that the his hidden cameras album is kind of too ambitious for its stated themes e) i got an extension on the madpride thing but now i have to write about it f) what am i going to do about this circumcision review g) i am annoyed at the video for the new blake, h) i am scared about odsp paperwork i) do i want to do the guided research paper this summer j() i am glad that i got the other paperwork done k) is the check going to come in l) am i going to have a camera in time m) why am i so horny n) why does no one want to sleep with me o) will i have enough time to go to toys in babeland in seattle p) is olympia the best courtney love album q) how over rated is silencce of the lambs
Saturday, April 05, 2014
tumblr of ibm designs
expansive, eccentric essay on the influence of dylan's 80s work, including discussions of contrain critics, the problem of 60s artists and 80s aesthetics, the irrascible nature of dylan, and the general problems of aesthetic change. doesn't spend much time working thru jesus though.
dozens of vintage images of tubas.
i think that kandida crazy horses shift from critic to musician, or her working both fields, is the smartest thing she could have done, but i do miss her writing.
chumbawumba's history as one example of how the interior/exterior system working, and the problems of ancharist collectivism can be constructed as an aesthetic issue.
Durer 6 Pillows, 1493 (this is just a tiny little bit of a larger sheet, this was his fucking practice scratch work, sigh)
charles taylor's brilliant take down on meryl streep.
men are terrible at writing about women, men are even worse at talking about mary gaitskill.
link between eva hesse, sol lewitt, and lucy lippard thru postcards...including this brilliant setence from lippard to hesse: the book has fallen into place (or allen into peices).
expansive, eccentric essay on the influence of dylan's 80s work, including discussions of contrain critics, the problem of 60s artists and 80s aesthetics, the irrascible nature of dylan, and the general problems of aesthetic change. doesn't spend much time working thru jesus though.
dozens of vintage images of tubas.
i think that kandida crazy horses shift from critic to musician, or her working both fields, is the smartest thing she could have done, but i do miss her writing.
chumbawumba's history as one example of how the interior/exterior system working, and the problems of ancharist collectivism can be constructed as an aesthetic issue.
Durer 6 Pillows, 1493 (this is just a tiny little bit of a larger sheet, this was his fucking practice scratch work, sigh)
charles taylor's brilliant take down on meryl streep.
men are terrible at writing about women, men are even worse at talking about mary gaitskill.
link between eva hesse, sol lewitt, and lucy lippard thru postcards...including this brilliant setence from lippard to hesse: the book has fallen into place (or allen into peices).
Tuesday, April 01, 2014
i think the reason why frankie knuckles was so impt to me was that he was so good at priotizing the paratext over the text; i think the reason why frankie knuckles was so impt to me was that he realized the taxonomic was an act of creation; i think the reason why frankie knuckles was impt to me was that he knew that queer music required the careful carving of discourses, that the idea of that razor blade and that reel to reel was an act of discourse creation as self fashioning; i think why frankie knuckles was so impt to me was because all of those remixes he did, did not overwhelm or frustrate the voice of the original musician; i think why frankie knuckles was so impt to me was that he was such a master of the raw and the cooked, the smooth and the rough; i think the reason why frankie knuckles was so impt to me, was that he was a poet of the multiphasic potential of pleasure; i think the reason why frankie knuckles was impt to me was that he gave birth to house and house gave birth to the world; i think the reason why frankie knuckles was impt to me was because he taught an awkard white boy in suburban alberta how to impertinently shake his ass.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
My Ten Favourite, from the inside:
1) The zipless fuck is absolutely pure. Erica Jong Fear of Flying
2) Long flowering branches of beautifully coloured wistaria entwined about a pine tree. The Pillow Book of Shei Shonegran
3) The sitting room is subdued, symmetrical; it’s one of the shapes money takes when it freezes. Atwood, Handmaidens Tale.
4) California is a tragic country — like Palestine, like every Promised Land. Its short history is a fever-chart of migrations — the land rush, the gold rush, the oil rush, the movie rush, the Okie fruit-picking rush, the wartime rush to the aircraft factories — followed, in each instance, by counter-migrations of the disappointed and unsuccessful, moving sorrowfully homeward. Isherwood
"Los Angeles" from Exhumations
5) His designs were strictly honorable, as the phrase is; that is, to rob a lady of her fortune by way of marriage. Fielding, Tom Jones
6) When I put my hands on your body on your flesh I feel the history of that body. David Wojnarowicz
7) A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image.”
― Joan Didion, The White Album
8) “The first thing a proprietor learns, and painfully at that, is: Trust is fine, but control is better.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher
9)The deliberate punctuated weakening of paper and cardboard so that it will tear along an intended path, leaving a row of fine-haired pills or tuftlets on each new edge Nicholoson Baker, Mezzaine
10) “ABSTRACT THOUGHTS in a blue room; Nominative, genitive, etative, accusative one, accusative two, ablative, partitive, illative, instructive, abessive, adessive, inessive, essive, allative, translative, comitative. Delaney, Babel 17.
1) The zipless fuck is absolutely pure. Erica Jong Fear of Flying
2) Long flowering branches of beautifully coloured wistaria entwined about a pine tree. The Pillow Book of Shei Shonegran
3) The sitting room is subdued, symmetrical; it’s one of the shapes money takes when it freezes. Atwood, Handmaidens Tale.
4) California is a tragic country — like Palestine, like every Promised Land. Its short history is a fever-chart of migrations — the land rush, the gold rush, the oil rush, the movie rush, the Okie fruit-picking rush, the wartime rush to the aircraft factories — followed, in each instance, by counter-migrations of the disappointed and unsuccessful, moving sorrowfully homeward. Isherwood
"Los Angeles" from Exhumations
5) His designs were strictly honorable, as the phrase is; that is, to rob a lady of her fortune by way of marriage. Fielding, Tom Jones
6) When I put my hands on your body on your flesh I feel the history of that body. David Wojnarowicz
7) A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image.”
― Joan Didion, The White Album
8) “The first thing a proprietor learns, and painfully at that, is: Trust is fine, but control is better.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher
9)The deliberate punctuated weakening of paper and cardboard so that it will tear along an intended path, leaving a row of fine-haired pills or tuftlets on each new edge Nicholoson Baker, Mezzaine
10) “ABSTRACT THOUGHTS in a blue room; Nominative, genitive, etative, accusative one, accusative two, ablative, partitive, illative, instructive, abessive, adessive, inessive, essive, allative, translative, comitative. Delaney, Babel 17.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Rachel and I have started a Kickstarter to fund materials for a show at Xspace in January. Link here
What I am most proud of, is the amazing images Rachel has made to fund raise Here are three:
What I am most proud of, is the amazing images Rachel has made to fund raise Here are three:
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Anthony
Incredulity problem , those who make reports
hasten to yr piety
arguing in favour of their own truth, their own beliefs
pleasures associated with food
disciplined himself
let him who is idol, let him not eat (anthony)
thjis idea that working w/ hands, the physical, leads to appettites being absorbed
that moving passage 12-13, where it notes how much Anthon noticd his community--that he was not isolated, but h noticd the virutie, the piety of those around him, and how that community building was resoponisble for the demonic?
the devil..."first attempted to lead him away from the discipline, suggesting memories of his possesion, the gaurdianship of his sister, the bounds of kinship, love of money, and of glory, the manniforld pleasures of food, the relaxation of life, and finally the rigiours of virture" (33)
disturbing slep, restricting appetite,
from thots to actual human voice
from dragon to human
from narrative to flesh? (section 12, where h talks about actual gold)
see how it starts from phantasm, from "conspicious and filthy pleasures" to pretend to frighten him, phantasms,
angel coming at you in the night are not actually angles: "so when they come at you at night, and they wish to tell you what the future holds, or they say, we are the angels, disregard them, for they are lying. And should they commend your aescetism and call you blessed. ignore them and have nothing to do with them..." (35)
they then become invisbile at the sign of the lords cross.
the anecdote about the very tall demon saying that he is providence, and he will of the lord, and it is the will of the ord for Anthony to rest, and eat bread, but Anthony knows whats going on, puffs at him, speaks to him, says the word of god, and the fucker goes all immaterial (40)
"the antics of demons like smoke"
what are these, ghosts, vampires, sodomy demons.
i bet they are sodomy demons
the question of fear, but also spch acts
can you tell the difference /w an angel and some non angel like creature via them saying "be not afraid"
qoutes gabrieal
(work thir fraud by being transfigurd) (28)
prophetic speech act
oracle vs prophecy
"the foe had not been powerful enough to beguile him with bodily pleasures"
fasting
once a day
once very two days
once every four days
and then just bread and salt
list structure
the souls intensity is strong when the pleasures of the body are weakened
"long fill the desert w/ his discipline
the enclosed tomb. the starving almost death, the seeing him again, the revivng him again, obvs x, but also perhaps jeromes sealed founation body asd tomb
also, the passage where mor than one of his friends com, and seek Anthonty, thinking he might be dead, and he comes out singing
this weird tension b/w the bodily denail, th sealing away, the acetic, and the community building, the reconciling and the like (all the monks came to him, asking to hear a discourse)
list of animals--each of these animals moved w/ the accordance of his forms--natural and unnatural?
crocodiels
lots of hyenas, sent in the night, which is like, if you live in the fucking desrt, isnt there a god damned hynea hanging out w/ it being sent by a demon
"putting off the body then, which is corruiptle, we return it back, which is incorruptible" (16)
soul as a trust, to keep oure, to work agaisnt "sordid things"
demons who see monks "labouring gladly and advancing" in work put stumbling blocks in the way (23)
anthony as a t heological text about job
preparing hospitality
turning back, and feeling the things of the world
the anecdote about the father and the daughter, th call to preach to all those he encountered
the lord silncing the demnos thru the act of quaiting scrpture,
interested in this problem of bdily speech or the advancing of bodily speech
(Therefore the Lord thy God, silenced the demons. but it is fitting for us, since we have learned from the holy ones to act as they acted and to emulate their courage.(27)
\
that weird passage that argues against herssey
also what is worse--christ as chriminal, christ as human body, even christ as one of the crawling things, vs "pederasts and adulterers"
also not greek wisdom , not hllenic, not constructed thru argments direct thru jesus christ
protect the mind frmo foul thots
he didnt cacall the meletians evil or discourdant, just not wrong
daily martyrd y his conciousn
people rapping on doors
questions:
bear to learn letters vs the piety of written texts
just outside his own villag, isoaltion, monastaries as another kind of mailies
trading kinship
actual real life devil or
thebans wtf?
what does it mean when the demon is departed
Incredulity problem , those who make reports
hasten to yr piety
arguing in favour of their own truth, their own beliefs
pleasures associated with food
disciplined himself
let him who is idol, let him not eat (anthony)
thjis idea that working w/ hands, the physical, leads to appettites being absorbed
that moving passage 12-13, where it notes how much Anthon noticd his community--that he was not isolated, but h noticd the virutie, the piety of those around him, and how that community building was resoponisble for the demonic?
the devil..."first attempted to lead him away from the discipline, suggesting memories of his possesion, the gaurdianship of his sister, the bounds of kinship, love of money, and of glory, the manniforld pleasures of food, the relaxation of life, and finally the rigiours of virture" (33)
disturbing slep, restricting appetite,
from thots to actual human voice
from dragon to human
from narrative to flesh? (section 12, where h talks about actual gold)
see how it starts from phantasm, from "conspicious and filthy pleasures" to pretend to frighten him, phantasms,
angel coming at you in the night are not actually angles: "so when they come at you at night, and they wish to tell you what the future holds, or they say, we are the angels, disregard them, for they are lying. And should they commend your aescetism and call you blessed. ignore them and have nothing to do with them..." (35)
they then become invisbile at the sign of the lords cross.
the anecdote about the very tall demon saying that he is providence, and he will of the lord, and it is the will of the ord for Anthony to rest, and eat bread, but Anthony knows whats going on, puffs at him, speaks to him, says the word of god, and the fucker goes all immaterial (40)
"the antics of demons like smoke"
what are these, ghosts, vampires, sodomy demons.
i bet they are sodomy demons
the question of fear, but also spch acts
can you tell the difference /w an angel and some non angel like creature via them saying "be not afraid"
qoutes gabrieal
(work thir fraud by being transfigurd) (28)
prophetic speech act
oracle vs prophecy
"the foe had not been powerful enough to beguile him with bodily pleasures"
fasting
once a day
once very two days
once every four days
and then just bread and salt
list structure
the souls intensity is strong when the pleasures of the body are weakened
"long fill the desert w/ his discipline
the enclosed tomb. the starving almost death, the seeing him again, the revivng him again, obvs x, but also perhaps jeromes sealed founation body asd tomb
also, the passage where mor than one of his friends com, and seek Anthonty, thinking he might be dead, and he comes out singing
this weird tension b/w the bodily denail, th sealing away, the acetic, and the community building, the reconciling and the like (all the monks came to him, asking to hear a discourse)
list of animals--each of these animals moved w/ the accordance of his forms--natural and unnatural?
crocodiels
lots of hyenas, sent in the night, which is like, if you live in the fucking desrt, isnt there a god damned hynea hanging out w/ it being sent by a demon
"putting off the body then, which is corruiptle, we return it back, which is incorruptible" (16)
soul as a trust, to keep oure, to work agaisnt "sordid things"
demons who see monks "labouring gladly and advancing" in work put stumbling blocks in the way (23)
anthony as a t heological text about job
preparing hospitality
turning back, and feeling the things of the world
the anecdote about the father and the daughter, th call to preach to all those he encountered
the lord silncing the demnos thru the act of quaiting scrpture,
interested in this problem of bdily speech or the advancing of bodily speech
(Therefore the Lord thy God, silenced the demons. but it is fitting for us, since we have learned from the holy ones to act as they acted and to emulate their courage.(27)
\
that weird passage that argues against herssey
also what is worse--christ as chriminal, christ as human body, even christ as one of the crawling things, vs "pederasts and adulterers"
also not greek wisdom , not hllenic, not constructed thru argments direct thru jesus christ
protect the mind frmo foul thots
he didnt cacall the meletians evil or discourdant, just not wrong
daily martyrd y his conciousn
people rapping on doors
questions:
bear to learn letters vs the piety of written texts
just outside his own villag, isoaltion, monastaries as another kind of mailies
trading kinship
actual real life devil or
thebans wtf?
what does it mean when the demon is departed
The reviews of the new De Mann Bio and Hedigger's recently published black notebooks, it is not a good day to be a Theoretically minded worker.
four things:
a) i think that De Man was a psychopath and a fascist. I think that Althusser killed his wife. I find Foucault sexual ethics deeply problematic, as is his misogyny. I think that stating these things is necessary. They do not get a free pass from the rigours of their own methodology.
b) i have spent a lot of time trying to work out the implications of what this means. I think on my darkest days, the idea that this was an obfuscating technique, startlingly anti-democratic. But I think lots of things--i think that it is useful to see how texts work, i think that new ideas require new language, i have no problem with the technical and sometimes it aids precision, and sometimes a cant is useful. i think that obscurity is not evil, i think that not everyone needs to understand everything, i think that what appears to be clear writing refuses discourse, i think that the polysemic is often a moral good, i think that aesthetic writing, important writing, can come from places that are dark or evil. I also think we have to have a serious chat about why fascism, and antisemitism was such a useful category for european thinkers in the first half of the 20th century--why it was so seductive. Even after the discovery of the camps, I wonder if it has even gone away.
c) I think that often writers lives are messy, and not very complete. I also like that he pushed his way into the academy when the academy would not let him in. I find that post 1970s North American insituites are often for many reasons, more willing to provide refuge for thinkers that might be too toxic elsewhere. Sometimes this is a vice, but more often it is a virtue. (see Said, Bhaba, Derrida, even Strauss)
d) de Man makes me reconsider if the work I do is worth doing. I think there are very few excuses for him. I also find his work less impt than others. The beginning of that Menad essay, when he talks about the work happening elsewhere, or it would have worked elsewhere is a comfort, but he does provide some excellent ammunition.
i haven't read the biography.
four things:
a) i think that De Man was a psychopath and a fascist. I think that Althusser killed his wife. I find Foucault sexual ethics deeply problematic, as is his misogyny. I think that stating these things is necessary. They do not get a free pass from the rigours of their own methodology.
b) i have spent a lot of time trying to work out the implications of what this means. I think on my darkest days, the idea that this was an obfuscating technique, startlingly anti-democratic. But I think lots of things--i think that it is useful to see how texts work, i think that new ideas require new language, i have no problem with the technical and sometimes it aids precision, and sometimes a cant is useful. i think that obscurity is not evil, i think that not everyone needs to understand everything, i think that what appears to be clear writing refuses discourse, i think that the polysemic is often a moral good, i think that aesthetic writing, important writing, can come from places that are dark or evil. I also think we have to have a serious chat about why fascism, and antisemitism was such a useful category for european thinkers in the first half of the 20th century--why it was so seductive. Even after the discovery of the camps, I wonder if it has even gone away.
c) I think that often writers lives are messy, and not very complete. I also like that he pushed his way into the academy when the academy would not let him in. I find that post 1970s North American insituites are often for many reasons, more willing to provide refuge for thinkers that might be too toxic elsewhere. Sometimes this is a vice, but more often it is a virtue. (see Said, Bhaba, Derrida, even Strauss)
d) de Man makes me reconsider if the work I do is worth doing. I think there are very few excuses for him. I also find his work less impt than others. The beginning of that Menad essay, when he talks about the work happening elsewhere, or it would have worked elsewhere is a comfort, but he does provide some excellent ammunition.
i haven't read the biography.
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Ree Brown, Untitled Cat, Watercolour and pencil, 05
Broad Creek Winter Camping Badges,
First Mennonite Queer Pastor
the destroying of fishing libraries in winnipeg and atlantic canada is what makes me angriest among harper. it is so symbolic of his rship to the larger culture. Speaking of Harper why we should be offended at Harper's election policy and his censerous position on people
good article on the politics of charismatic churches in lambreth palace.
really important comic by kate beaton on the daily microagressions and the implications of living as a woman in mostly male camps in northern alberta.
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool Logo, mid 1950s.
The Ghostrides of Regional English Carnival. from the 1970s.
notebooks made from grids based on national borders.
on secret prisons, the cia and poland.
the most beautiful modernist house in yorkshire.
From Farm Boy T Shirts
the reason why the google buses are such a symbol, is that they use muncipal resources for private gain, without paying people back.
rollerskating fotos Fla., 1970s
the girl in one of hine's child labour photos has been identified. Her name is Lala Blanton. One of the interesting things about the story, is the use of vernacular family history, incouding family records.
long, well articulated, study of Temple.
Chris Randle's brilliant article on the nature of african american record sales, the problem of adult r and b, and the case study of the new Toni Braxton Albu, Must read.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
“The punishment of the devil
was apparent in the torment of the
human body”: Epilepsy in
Ancient Christianity
Nicole Kelley
Peter Chrysologus, on the other hand, blames the boy’s condition on
his parents. Since (according to Mark 9:21) the boy had seizures even in
childhood, his own behavior cannot be the cause of his suffering. Jesus’
question
reveals how long it has been, he makes known the extent of time, he goes back
over his infancy, so that the cause of so great an evil not taint the offspring, but
the parent, who consigned the child entrusted to him by God to the service
of the devil, and as payment to demons, as Scripture says: “And they offered
their sons and their daughters to demons.” What sort of crime, what sort of
offense did infancy commit, so as to admit the devil into itself? But children
are possessed by a demon when they are offered by their parents to the devil
when they are given over to the demons’ keeping
can we connect to this to texts on blindness?
sp since kelly later qoutes Origen:
Origen casts aside this physiological and sympathetic etiology, asserting
that he believes the Gospel, where the boy’s illness is attributed to “an impure
dumb and deaf spirit.” (215)
it seems vtal that the spirit is both deaf and dumb, does the idea of possesion tie into the idea that for a demon to speak or move he needs a body?
Origen and the goodness of creation
was apparent in the torment of the
human body”: Epilepsy in
Ancient Christianity
Nicole Kelley
Peter Chrysologus, on the other hand, blames the boy’s condition on
his parents. Since (according to Mark 9:21) the boy had seizures even in
childhood, his own behavior cannot be the cause of his suffering. Jesus’
question
reveals how long it has been, he makes known the extent of time, he goes back
over his infancy, so that the cause of so great an evil not taint the offspring, but
the parent, who consigned the child entrusted to him by God to the service
of the devil, and as payment to demons, as Scripture says: “And they offered
their sons and their daughters to demons.” What sort of crime, what sort of
offense did infancy commit, so as to admit the devil into itself? But children
are possessed by a demon when they are offered by their parents to the devil
when they are given over to the demons’ keeping
can we connect to this to texts on blindness?
sp since kelly later qoutes Origen:
Origen casts aside this physiological and sympathetic etiology, asserting
that he believes the Gospel, where the boy’s illness is attributed to “an impure
dumb and deaf spirit.” (215)
it seems vtal that the spirit is both deaf and dumb, does the idea of possesion tie into the idea that for a demon to speak or move he needs a body?
Origen and the goodness of creation
? Does it not happen that,
when you now admit the salvation of only the soul, you ascribe it to men at the
cost of half their nature?
does this mena that nature cannot change? also, he seems obsesssed with this idea of the south and the body being tehtered, this problem of free floaitng souls escapes him.
Tertuallian continues:
For, by assigning immortality to the repeating of death, and incorruption to the repairing of the wasted body, he has fitted one to the raising and the other to the retrieval of the body.
and then the endless bride metapohors--just after talking about eunuchs or dried tits, or use funciton, he talks about about a bride and a bridegroom fitting together, bring a deeper complicaiton to the axiom as usefull as a eunuch at a whorehose. how can one be the full bride of christ, and therefore restore bodily fullness w/ the lack of cock.
The soul shall never be an outcast, to be had home by the bridegroom bare and naked. She has her dower, her outfit, her fortune in the flesh, which shall accompany her with the love and fidelity of a foster-sister. But suppose the flesh to be the bride, then in Christ Jesus she has in the contract of His blood received His Spirit as her spouse. Now, what you take to be her extinction, you may be sure is only her temporary retirement. It is not the soul only which withdraws from view.
Greater cases prescribe rules for lesser ones. Is not the amputation or the crushing of a limb the death of that limb? Now, if the death of the whole person is rescinded by its resurrection, what must we say of the death of a part of him? If we are changed for glory, how much more for integrity
what of that which was born w/o a limb--if the rule for the whole is the same as the rule for the part, then does it not follow
if "natural condition is prone to injury" does this equate the fallen body w/ the sinful body--does injury as a physical mistake correlate to injury as a moral mistake
therefore no more corruption, it being chased away by incorruption, even as death is by immortality
narrative of decay
What purpose can be served by loins, conscious of seminal secretions, and all the other organs of generation, in the two sexes, and the laboratories of embryos, and the fountains of the breast, when concubinage, and pregnancy, and infant nurture shall cease? In short, what will be the use of the entire body, when the entire body shall become useless
Paul his head cut off spurting milk, the fountains of milk from f and p, a burlesque of conatinament, none of these acts consider a set of "rigid" or contained movements constructed around ideas of use function--neither the wounds of crucifixtion, the question is not what to do when the boy stops becoming useful, but more the idea that the body in xian constructions was never useful.
. How many voluntary eunuchs are there! How many virgins espoused to Christ! How many, both of men and women, whom nature has made sterile, with a structure which cannot procreate
will the testicles of voulntary enuchs be restored, Tertuillian still does not answer the problem of sanctified disembodiment
also the idea that you will never need sex, that christ will be the only bride you need and eucharist the only food you need maybe?
does this mena that nature cannot change? also, he seems obsesssed with this idea of the south and the body being tehtered, this problem of free floaitng souls escapes him.
Tertuallian continues:
For, by assigning immortality to the repeating of death, and incorruption to the repairing of the wasted body, he has fitted one to the raising and the other to the retrieval of the body.
and then the endless bride metapohors--just after talking about eunuchs or dried tits, or use funciton, he talks about about a bride and a bridegroom fitting together, bring a deeper complicaiton to the axiom as usefull as a eunuch at a whorehose. how can one be the full bride of christ, and therefore restore bodily fullness w/ the lack of cock.
The soul shall never be an outcast, to be had home by the bridegroom bare and naked. She has her dower, her outfit, her fortune in the flesh, which shall accompany her with the love and fidelity of a foster-sister. But suppose the flesh to be the bride, then in Christ Jesus she has in the contract of His blood received His Spirit as her spouse. Now, what you take to be her extinction, you may be sure is only her temporary retirement. It is not the soul only which withdraws from view.
Greater cases prescribe rules for lesser ones. Is not the amputation or the crushing of a limb the death of that limb? Now, if the death of the whole person is rescinded by its resurrection, what must we say of the death of a part of him? If we are changed for glory, how much more for integrity
what of that which was born w/o a limb--if the rule for the whole is the same as the rule for the part, then does it not follow
if "natural condition is prone to injury" does this equate the fallen body w/ the sinful body--does injury as a physical mistake correlate to injury as a moral mistake
therefore no more corruption, it being chased away by incorruption, even as death is by immortality
narrative of decay
What purpose can be served by loins, conscious of seminal secretions, and all the other organs of generation, in the two sexes, and the laboratories of embryos, and the fountains of the breast, when concubinage, and pregnancy, and infant nurture shall cease? In short, what will be the use of the entire body, when the entire body shall become useless
Paul his head cut off spurting milk, the fountains of milk from f and p, a burlesque of conatinament, none of these acts consider a set of "rigid" or contained movements constructed around ideas of use function--neither the wounds of crucifixtion, the question is not what to do when the boy stops becoming useful, but more the idea that the body in xian constructions was never useful.
. How many voluntary eunuchs are there! How many virgins espoused to Christ! How many, both of men and women, whom nature has made sterile, with a structure which cannot procreate
will the testicles of voulntary enuchs be restored, Tertuillian still does not answer the problem of sanctified disembodiment
also the idea that you will never need sex, that christ will be the only bride you need and eucharist the only food you need maybe?
Maccuras Tattoo as scar
Norman Britian Blindness as Criminal
Although early Christians were not alone in anticipating divine eschatological healing, the characterization of God’s saving work in history as a process of healing marks a profound shift in though (996)
two points:
a) the flesh and the spirit perfected together
b) the long narrative of xian views of history
so when christ returns is this a radical break/shift when Christ returns--if xians continue to move towards a perfectable flesh, in order to prepare for the resecuration of christ, when that resueration occurs, the striving must end, so why strive
The continuation of the shade in the under- world preserved all the characteristics of the individual’s body in life. All the various permutations of the physical appearance were repro-
duced in phantasmic form. (997)
Greek ideal as an antecedent of Xian ideals, but xian suggests both a body that avoids the foilbes of the self pre reseurction, an also suggests a kind of communitarian body that must be broken down and restored?
Pindar and Pseudo-Apollodorus recount the story of
Pelops, who was cut up by his father and served as supper to the gods
as part of an attempt to test the omniscience of the gods.28 The gods,
perceiving the trick, place the parts of Pelops’ body back in the caul-
dron and retrieve him complete, only more beautiful, stronger, and
younger than before. (999)
does the view of the reseurction then become a set of arguments, a working thru of a variety of opinons and desires?
These debates, however, have been uninter-
ested in the identity of the resurrected body. (1001)
is that b/c there are really two bodies--a resurrected body and a fleshy body, does the narrative seperation of death suggest a kidn of split identity--and if this is the case, how does it relate to both the views of the maccabbes, and hte continious shade metaphor in the greek. the xian body seems to be more signifcantly teathered to the spirt?
luke 24 and the problem of recognition
Jesus’ corporeality is in question both for the audience and their narrative representatives, the disciples. Both groups are reassured by Luke: Jesus eats (1002)
Jesus' insistence and Thomas’ response indicate that the resurrected
body of Jesus is continuous with his living body. Even in his glorious
resurrected body he remains scarred and bleeding. Moreover, Jesus’
wounds are an integral part of his identity. It is by his wounds that he
is recognized as Jesus himself. (1003)
both of these narratives suggest that that the perfectable body is not the idea, and also suggest that the tether b/w the body of this world and the next are stronger--the question emerges them, where do we get this idea of the perfectable body.
so this problem of the dis/continous body becomes complicated by how paul constructs it, using a matrix of problemtazing metaphors"
. There is an ambiguous relationship between bodies as they are now (the seed) and bodies as they will be in the resurrection (sprouted). They are both continuous and discon-
tinuous (1004) she notes bynum, as we all should.
Pseudo Justin and ideas of what to do with the disruption of the disabled bodies, brings questions of taboo and disgust: Pseudo-Justin’s opponents do not believe in physical resurrection. The argument that disabled bodies will rise as disabled was rhetorically
powerful pprecisely because it utilized ancient distaste for perceived
deformities. Infirmity stands as a cipher for corrupt and weak flesh. (1005)
that ties into the problemso f birth, and the idea of infertitlity:
Pseudo-Justin treats earthly infertility as anticipating the state
of the resurrected body:
The function of the womb is to become pregnant; and of the member
of the male to impregnate. But as, though these members are destined
to discharge such functions, it is not therefore necessary that they from
the beginning discharge them (since we see many women who do not
become pregnant, as those that are barren, even though they have
wombs), so pregnancy is not the immediate and necessary conse-
quence of having a womb; but those even who are not barren abstain
from sexual intercourse, some being virgins from the first, and others
from a certain time. And we see men also keeping themselves virgins,
some from the first, and some from a certain time; so that by their
means, marriage, made lawless through lust, is destroyed.46
do they have babies in heaven ma, is the inablity to be pregerant a mroal problem, if we are waiting for a kingdom of perferctable bodies, do we not want to add more xians, if we cannot hve children does that not extend and reinforce the cult of virginity?
goes into qouting Irrenaous: At his coming “the lame man shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall [speak] plainly, and the eyes of the blind shall be
opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear,”
four thots:
a) the wounded christ would suggest the possiblity of a non-perfectable flesh
b) paul in cor. suggests the possible reading that this non perfectable flesh could be inheirted, (modernist problem w/ identity, and most likely not a strong argument)
c) that using the inferitily problem that some disabilities could be considered virtious.
d) christ healing and rising the dead suggests that he believes in the perfectability of the flesh/?
the question then of how the body shall be perfected is an open one?
Ireanus doesn't think so:
In offering a biblically based justification for the resurrection,
Irenaeus reinforces the New Testament connection between healing and
salvation, able-bodiedness and divine order. (1008)
the perfectable body is a well ordered body, the flesh reflects the general order of the world, a reseructed body then has to be perfect--continues onto augustine's bizarre obsession w/ detail...does not talk about the wounds of christ, or the idea of christ as resecuted is an imperfect body.
In the case of scarred martyrs, whose wounds were received as part
of a divinely sanctified mission, the situation is slightly different.56 The
bodies of the martyrs will, like those of other Christians, be reas-
sembled, yet the marks of these wounds will be preserved in their
immortal flesh. (1010)
the act of violence that corrupts the body, done in an act to service of the lord, sanctifies the disorder of the flesh?
so the problem becomes what disordered the body?
does Catherine's back break for eternity, does agatha have breasts, does anne have eyes?
Norman Britian Blindness as Criminal
Although early Christians were not alone in anticipating divine eschatological healing, the characterization of God’s saving work in history as a process of healing marks a profound shift in though (996)
two points:
a) the flesh and the spirit perfected together
b) the long narrative of xian views of history
so when christ returns is this a radical break/shift when Christ returns--if xians continue to move towards a perfectable flesh, in order to prepare for the resecuration of christ, when that resueration occurs, the striving must end, so why strive
The continuation of the shade in the under- world preserved all the characteristics of the individual’s body in life. All the various permutations of the physical appearance were repro-
duced in phantasmic form. (997)
Greek ideal as an antecedent of Xian ideals, but xian suggests both a body that avoids the foilbes of the self pre reseurction, an also suggests a kind of communitarian body that must be broken down and restored?
Pindar and Pseudo-Apollodorus recount the story of
Pelops, who was cut up by his father and served as supper to the gods
as part of an attempt to test the omniscience of the gods.28 The gods,
perceiving the trick, place the parts of Pelops’ body back in the caul-
dron and retrieve him complete, only more beautiful, stronger, and
younger than before. (999)
does the view of the reseurction then become a set of arguments, a working thru of a variety of opinons and desires?
These debates, however, have been uninter-
ested in the identity of the resurrected body. (1001)
is that b/c there are really two bodies--a resurrected body and a fleshy body, does the narrative seperation of death suggest a kidn of split identity--and if this is the case, how does it relate to both the views of the maccabbes, and hte continious shade metaphor in the greek. the xian body seems to be more signifcantly teathered to the spirt?
luke 24 and the problem of recognition
Jesus’ corporeality is in question both for the audience and their narrative representatives, the disciples. Both groups are reassured by Luke: Jesus eats (1002)
Jesus' insistence and Thomas’ response indicate that the resurrected
body of Jesus is continuous with his living body. Even in his glorious
resurrected body he remains scarred and bleeding. Moreover, Jesus’
wounds are an integral part of his identity. It is by his wounds that he
is recognized as Jesus himself. (1003)
both of these narratives suggest that that the perfectable body is not the idea, and also suggest that the tether b/w the body of this world and the next are stronger--the question emerges them, where do we get this idea of the perfectable body.
so this problem of the dis/continous body becomes complicated by how paul constructs it, using a matrix of problemtazing metaphors"
. There is an ambiguous relationship between bodies as they are now (the seed) and bodies as they will be in the resurrection (sprouted). They are both continuous and discon-
tinuous (1004) she notes bynum, as we all should.
Pseudo Justin and ideas of what to do with the disruption of the disabled bodies, brings questions of taboo and disgust: Pseudo-Justin’s opponents do not believe in physical resurrection. The argument that disabled bodies will rise as disabled was rhetorically
powerful pprecisely because it utilized ancient distaste for perceived
deformities. Infirmity stands as a cipher for corrupt and weak flesh. (1005)
that ties into the problemso f birth, and the idea of infertitlity:
Pseudo-Justin treats earthly infertility as anticipating the state
of the resurrected body:
The function of the womb is to become pregnant; and of the member
of the male to impregnate. But as, though these members are destined
to discharge such functions, it is not therefore necessary that they from
the beginning discharge them (since we see many women who do not
become pregnant, as those that are barren, even though they have
wombs), so pregnancy is not the immediate and necessary conse-
quence of having a womb; but those even who are not barren abstain
from sexual intercourse, some being virgins from the first, and others
from a certain time. And we see men also keeping themselves virgins,
some from the first, and some from a certain time; so that by their
means, marriage, made lawless through lust, is destroyed.46
do they have babies in heaven ma, is the inablity to be pregerant a mroal problem, if we are waiting for a kingdom of perferctable bodies, do we not want to add more xians, if we cannot hve children does that not extend and reinforce the cult of virginity?
goes into qouting Irrenaous: At his coming “the lame man shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall [speak] plainly, and the eyes of the blind shall be
opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear,”
four thots:
a) the wounded christ would suggest the possiblity of a non-perfectable flesh
b) paul in cor. suggests the possible reading that this non perfectable flesh could be inheirted, (modernist problem w/ identity, and most likely not a strong argument)
c) that using the inferitily problem that some disabilities could be considered virtious.
d) christ healing and rising the dead suggests that he believes in the perfectability of the flesh/?
the question then of how the body shall be perfected is an open one?
Ireanus doesn't think so:
In offering a biblically based justification for the resurrection,
Irenaeus reinforces the New Testament connection between healing and
salvation, able-bodiedness and divine order. (1008)
the perfectable body is a well ordered body, the flesh reflects the general order of the world, a reseructed body then has to be perfect--continues onto augustine's bizarre obsession w/ detail...does not talk about the wounds of christ, or the idea of christ as resecuted is an imperfect body.
In the case of scarred martyrs, whose wounds were received as part
of a divinely sanctified mission, the situation is slightly different.56 The
bodies of the martyrs will, like those of other Christians, be reas-
sembled, yet the marks of these wounds will be preserved in their
immortal flesh. (1010)
the act of violence that corrupts the body, done in an act to service of the lord, sanctifies the disorder of the flesh?
so the problem becomes what disordered the body?
does Catherine's back break for eternity, does agatha have breasts, does anne have eyes?
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