2024 IN REVIEW What a year — I bounced all around, from the base of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming to a village in the Andes to Houston, Texas to consort with falconers, Trumpists, Ecuadorian farmers, pilots, poets, and cowboys. January set the tone. As I set off for Wyoming, I watched an arc flash…
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MONDAY LINKS: Moving Through the Threshold of the Psyche; Inventing the Future; Disappearance of the Diminished Creed
Celluloid Caesar: “So, is Megalopolis a miraculous comeback to Coppola’s 1970s quality? No. Of course not. It’s absolutely as horrible as everybody says it is.” Make California Red Again: “The future is still invented in California and its influence on global culture remains critically important. California remains one of the most naturally beautiful places on Earth,…
MONDAY LINKS: Reformation; Blessings of Providence; and the Multiplication of Man’s Ends
A More Perfect Disunion: “Trump’s running mate in 2016 was Mike Pence, an Evangelical Neocon. His current partner is JD Vance, 40, a Catholic equally at home with reactionary rightism and technological futurism. Vance represents the beginning of a new sort of establishment, less comprehensive, more regional and eclectic, and archaeo-traditional in outlook: a faith…
𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: aestheticized violence, life as a work of art, undiluted trust
Aesthetic Violence: “The Left seeks to demonstrate that it can hurt you; this is what encourages lockstep compliance. If this claim is not contested, then the extant Leftist narrative prevails. This was the situation in 2020 when COVID locked much of the country in their homes and riots broke out in the wake of the death…
₩ɆɆ₭Ɇ₦Đ Ⱡł₦₭₴: Erased by Time; Strange Contagions; Collapse
Citizen Disposal: “Mimetic theory teaches us, and neuroscience and studies on human imitation have confirmed, that all desire is mediated. There is no way to desire without emulating some other. In his 2017 book Strange Contagion, Lee Daniel Kravetz explores the phenomenon of social contagions, noting especially the terrible fact that suicide itself is contagious…Social contagions,…
▁ ▂ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █ WEEKEND LINKS █ ▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▂ ▁
Alaska: “Alaska was, and is, the Last Frontier. The entire territory is one giant snow globe, something to shake up and peer into, oohing and aahing at its beauty, before retiring to the humdrum of everyday life. In many ways it’s a blessing that the settlement effort stopped – the land’s natural bounty remained unsullied….
ẅ̴͍é̷̞̲͐e̵̺̊͜ķ̷̥́̃e̸͎̣̼͂n̴̬̄d̸̡̈́ ̴̯̲̠̈́̾ĺ̸̯͎̯̈́i̷̻̼̚n̸̰̲̽̈̍k̴̖͆̊s̴̤̓̄: Pastoral Beauty; Entropy; Overkill
Beauty Is Not Just in the Eye of the Beholder: “It exists at the intersection of biological, cultural, and individual factors. It is much more malleable than we think. And what we find beautiful is broader than what is publicly expressed.” How Nature Became the Environment: “…while [Aldo] Leopold sought for balance between the lethal…
WEEKEND LINKS: Whispered Intuition…Deep, Dark Psychodrama
Science as Enchantment: “…the new enchantment had its advantages, but it also has had tremendous costs, and the bills are still coming due.” The Crisis of 2025: “… it’s factually indisputable that Americans are a demoralized populace. You can see it in polls and the way people talk about their own country.” The Meta-Crises and…
ШԐЄҠԐИD LЇЙԞS: Waiting for the Barbarians, Strange Gods, Death Masks
COUNTER-CURRENTS: “[Robert E. Lee]’s bronze head was ripped from his body, his face was peeled from his head in the form of a death mask, and then it was super-heated to the point where it glowed…” HOW TO MAKE ART in NORTH KOREA: “[Laibach] are very, very unashamedly flirting with totalitarian aesthetics and the philosopher…
W҈҉҈҉e҈҉҈҉e҈҉҈҉k҈҉҈҉e҈҉҈҉n҈҉҈҉d҈҉҈҉ ҈҉҈҉L҈҉҈҉i҈҉҈҉n҈҉҈҉k҈҉҈҉s҈҉҈҉: Storming the Heavens, Unfreedom, Alienation
A New Cosmist Moment: “Paradigm breakthroughs always begin with calls to great, even fantastical endeavors—to ‘storm the heavens,’ as Fyodorov once implored his followers to do. Even if Cosmism’s attempts at articulating a human project were kooky in certain respects, a great deal of tangible scientific progress emerged from its admirers. New, totalizing theories of…
weekend links: twilight, starlings, gods
Christianity is Not Monotheistic: “…angels were made to sing. Specifically, to sing the cosmos into existence. That’s why the medievals organized them into ‘choirs.’” Cormac McCarthy’s New Books of Revelation: “Everyone easily notices the Old Testament style, but rather than saints and gods, we encounter simple men who are driven by an instinctive solidarity for…