THE DRAWER THAT GOT STUCK
Rachel Shihor
I pushed my hand into the jammed drawer of my escritoire, and it nearly got stuck there. It was trapped in the narrow impalpable gap between the rim of the drawer and the wooden panel above it. In fact, the tiny old Neil Sedaka records that were leaning on a stack of playing cards jammed it. With my other hand I searched for a way to make a clearing and I tried looking inside, but the drawer gloomily looked back at me from the beyond; there was no discernable obstruction that, if moved, would relieve me. I said to myself that I needed to resign myself to the idea that not everything could be mended, but still, I didn't give to despair. I thought about the dead gazing at me from the gloomy beyond, just after their souls had departed and right before someone shoved their bodies into the dark drawers of the municipal morgues.
- Two requested more Shihor, so have more Shihor along with the links I'd collected for tomorrow today.
- Also, I have this need to post posts that mean more to me than many others on days when I know they'll be least read, an application common in all aspects of my life.
- Yes, it has been a while since I posted Stars of the Lid. Apologies.
- No one would have noticed had I not showed up.
- Holding Chomsky to Chomsky's standards.
- The political uncanny.
- The principle of our negative solidarity: It seems appropriate to begin a review of Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism with a story like this, that illustrates how a commonality of interests and ideas intersects with an institution geared toward individuation and competition. That we live in an “age of individualism” perhaps goes without saying. However, such a judgment raises as many questions as it answers. At what level are we to locate the individual? Is it, to borrow words from Foucault, an “illusion,” an “ideological effect,” or is it a real functioning element of society? In short, are people deluded into seeing themselves as individuals, or is individuation a real material effect of practices?
- Justin Bieber and the aesthetics of destruction.
- Maggie's weekly links.
- { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
- Bleggalgazing.
- How to find Kentucky on a map.
- Dickenson: raw or cooked?
- Beckett, for those of you who do.
- Prunella's latest playlist.
I LEFT A BAD IMPRESSION
Rachel Shihor
I left a bad impression, definitely a bad impression, on the patrons of the Munich Opera House when they were listening to Judith Triumphant. And I didn't even have to make an effort. The severed head was enough.
THE TRAIN
Rachel Shihor
It was my misfortune to have been born inside a mine.There I spent my youth and there I grew up. No one knew of this and no one invited me over. They did not know me, they did not ask me to come up so that I might entertain them.
Sometimes trains would pass above the mine. When the train was far away I would feel the high walls of the mine vibrating faintly; when the train came closer, these vibrations became stronger, and when the train passed, little chunks of granite from the ceiling would fall on my head. So fast was the passing train and so slow were my movements in the mine.
Once I climbed up to see the light of day and to see the world. Along black rail tracks I saw crushed weeds.
