- See bottom bullet for more, but my eyes ache after an hour of reading novels, ease but ache again after an hour of reading poetry, which is not excuse but part explanation why I fish links to post on days very few read since I'm reading online anyway, which doesn't hurt my eyes, or maybe does when I read from a book. As for the rash of thwarted bleggalgazing of late, I had a long email from L last night, the Death of Thursday Night Pints has denied me a vital spigot.
- The Disruption Machine: Every age has a theory of rising and falling, of growth and decay, of bloom and wilt: a theory of nature. Every age also has a theory about the past and the present, of what was and what is, a notion of time: a theory of history. Theories of history used to be supernatural: the divine ruled time; the hand of God, a special providence, lay behind the fall of each sparrow. If the present differed from the past, it was usually worse: supernatural theories of history tend to involve decline, a fall from grace, the loss of God’s favor, corruption. Beginning in the eighteenth century, as the intellectual historian Dorothy Ross once pointed out, theories of history became secular; then they started something new—historicism, the idea “that all events in historical time can be explained by prior events in historical time.” Things began looking up. First, there was that, then there was this, and this is better than that. The eighteenth century embraced the idea of progress; the nineteenth century had evolution; the twentieth century had growth and then innovation. Our era has disruption, which, despite its futurism, is atavistic. It’s a theory of history founded on a profound anxiety about financial collapse, an apocalyptic fear of global devastation, and shaky evidence.
- Another murderous milestone: Our 21st century intervention in Iraq has killed far more people much more quickly, of course. But as we gear up for yet another round of slaughter in the country we have recently demolished, it’s good to be reminded that none of this is new or unusual; it is, very simply — and quite horribly — the way the bipartisan American elite do business. Violence is their profession, their religion, their guiding light. They use violence to advance their agenda, then use more violence to deal with the inevitable horrific consequences spawned by their violence, on and on in an endless cycle.
- Guess what I fell asleep listening to and woke up with in my head. Click tab in footer for more. Expect more in coming days. MSADI5G, yes, they are in the inner circle.
- But yes, Fuck It, Fuck This, Fuck Me.
- The Obscene.
- Maggie's weekly links.
- { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
- Sacasas's links.
- Reality Check.
- The cost of almost apprehending anything.
- He, for one, welcomes our invisible piano-teacher overlords.
- If Brazil ends up winning this World Cup remember that Chilean ball of the crossbar in the 120th. And I suspect that if anyone is going to beat Brazil it will be Colombia.
- See, Solar Crumpet works as long as I'm not distracted but I'm easily distracted and my eyes are old and ache after an hour. Long ago I made a rule that I can only read one novel at a time - I'm curious re: my dilemma when I finish Sawn Yawns - do I immediately go to A Bounded Thriving Wig or read something else? I put down Sawn Yawns at eye ache, picked up Hejinian (another rule: no music permitted when reading novels, music allowed when reading poetry) and found my This Heat on the iPod.
[A DREAM, STILL CLINGING LIKE LIGHT TO THE DARK, ROUNDING]
Lyn Hejinian
A dream, still clinging like light to the dark, rounding
The gap left by things which have already happened
Leaving nothing in their place, may have nothing to do
But that. Dreams are like ghosts achieving ghosts' perennial goal
Of revoking the sensation of repose. It's terrible
To think we write these things for them, to tell them
Of our life - that is, our whole life. Along comes a dream
Of a machine. Why? What is being sold there? How is the product emitted?
It must have been sparked by a noise, the way the very word "spark"
Emits a brief picture. Is it original? Inevitable?
We seem to sleep so as to draw the picture
Of events that have already happened so we can picture
them. A dream for example of a procession to an execution site.
How many strangers could circle the space while speaking of nostalgia
And of wolves in the hills? We find them
Thinking of nothing instead - there's no one to impersonate, nothing
To foresee. It's logical that prophesies would be emitted
Through the gaps left by previous things, or by the dead
Refusing conversation and contemplating beauty instead.
But isn't that the problem with beauty - that it's apt in retrospect
To seem preordained? The dawn birds are trilling
A new day - it has the psychical quality of "pastness" and they are trailing
It. The day breaks in an imperfectly continuous course
Of life. Sleep is immediate and memory nothing.
