Against Inevitability, Toward “Psychological Decentralization”: “‘The Psychopathology of Time and Life’ is a remarkable essay falling at the point where Marshall McLuhan is turning from a career in teaching poetry and literature to a career in studying media and becoming a kind of ‘anti-environmental activist’ in terms of the invisible shaping environment which is what…
Category: War
weekend links: the bone orchard, war as divination, punishing wickedness
Don’t Waste a Good Crisis: “If you want to know what might come next, read the memoir of ‘White’ Russian general Pyotr Wrangel, Always with Honor, about the Russian Civil War. I’m not joking.” Godzilla: “A highlight of Heisei period Godzilla movies is Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. It’s mostly a highlight for being completely bonkers Japanese nationalism. The…
****WEEKEND LINKS****
How David Bowie Used William S. Burroughs’ Cut-Up Method to Write His Unforgettable Lyrics: Bowie says, “if you put three or four dissociated ideas together and create awkward relationships with them, the unconscious intelligence that comes from those pairings is really quite startling sometimes, quite provocative.” Prudence in Hell 044: All models are wrong and…
WEEKEND LINKS: Siberia, Nicolas Cage/Nick Cave, the Cathedral, and Rebellion Against the Playbook
Have You Ever Met Nicolas Cage?/Do You Ever Add an Untrue Component to a Story to Make it More Interesting Than it Actually Is? (Nick Cave/The Red Hand Files): Suddenly, a security guy in a dark suit with an earpiece and shades steps out of nowhere and asks me if I’m Nick Cave. I say,…
weekend links
Making Sense of a Weird War (The Outpost): What’s really going on? What is it about? Only one thing is for sure: if you hear it in the news, it’s not it. We’ve talked before about the Russian establishment’s role in enforcing the Global System. They are the bad cop that will help wasted regimes…
weekend links
Vodka & Petrol Martini, Stirred not Shaken (The Outpost): Kazakh energy resources do not stop at uranium. The country is a major fossil fuel exporter, pumping out about 1.6 million bpd of petrol (more than Qatar, Libya or Algeria). About 3/4 of this is exported, either to Western Europe or to China, in direct competition…
ẅ̷̷̢̟͇͈̒ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊k̶̸͙̭̹͆͟ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊n̷̶̯͉̊̽̐ͦ͘d̸̡̩͍̔ͥ͜ ḻ̸͈ͧ͑̓̓̀͡i̵͓͙̱͚̎͟n̷̶̯͉̊̽̐ͦ͘k̶̸͙̭̹͆͟s̩͙͖̋͛͟
2#: Notes on the Desertification of Signs and Men (Some Private Diagonal) After America, Baudrillard often returns to this theme of banalisation. With his Stateside serenity having vanished, he frames the unstoppable advance of the desert of banality in increasingly bleak terms. He speaks often of loss – of the Westerner having ‘lost his alterity’, or sometimes ‘his…
ШЭЭԞԐЙD LЇЙҠS
Cybernetics of Migration in the Covidian Age (The Outpost) κυβερνητική (kybernētikḗ) means “governance” in Greek. While the world’s hoi polloi accumulate at the gates of sinking empires, the great powers (the US, China, Russia) scramble for influence over the vast territories left behind. Meanwhile, second-tier petty kings in Europe and Africa navigate the stormy waters…
sʞuıl puǝʞǝǝʍ
Crisis in the Liberal City: “Perhaps we can return to a world where Nike mouths radical slogans but nobody loots their stores. But we’ve seen what happens when you pull back that surface, and we know what’s underneath: the grinning skull beneath the liberal city’s skin.” Ross Douthat Futurist Rioting, Conceptualism, and Sensuality: “Advanced communication…