what i'm reading§

"Everybody Wants to be a Fascist" - Felix Guattari§

There would no longer be mass, centrally ordered movements which would set more or less serialized individuals in motion on a local scale. Rather, it would be the connection of a multiplicity of molecular desires which would catalyze challenges on a large scale.... In such a situation there is no longer an ideal unity which represents and mediates multiple interests, but rather, there is a univocal multiplicity of desires whose process secretes its own systems of tracking and regulation.

I love and hate reading D&G, because the concepts and stakes feel so relevant, but also what the fuck are they ever talking about. When, for example, I tried to explain to my book club why I thought Forest Euphoria was cryptodeleuzian (though it would've been more correct of me to say cryptodeleuzoguattarian), it just made me feel like an idiot. Reading secondary sources on them feels more elucidating (e.g. Brian Massumi's A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia), but always comes with the risk of being at the whim of someone else's misinterpretation. It doesn't help that D&G just seems inescapable, and everything I read has to reckon with them at some point.

I feel like the above quote about "micropolitics" can be applied to the rapid response networks in Minneapolis. The networks were decentralized-- organized on a neighborhood level via group chats-- but "univocal", sharing tactics and whistles.

what i'm listening to§

The Kills - "Cheap and Cheerful"§

The SebasTian remix of this was in a y2k dj set I listened to and it sounded so fucking familiar. Maybe it's just so close to the platonic ideal of a banger that it was already prefigured in my shard of the collective unconscious.

what i'm watching§

Hugh Grant§

I've accidentally double-dipped on Hugh Grant: first in In The Lair of the White Worm (1988) and then in Maurice (1987).

White Worm§

I added White Worm during my Ken Russel phase. I missed the opportunity to see it in a theater in St. Louis, only finally watching it at home. Amanda Donohoe is hypnotizing as Lady Sylvia. I love a freaky bitch with tits. Not much to say about Hugh Grant. He's there.

Maurice§

Maurice was this month's book club pick, very appropriate for the early modern mood I'm in. I'd watched the film adaptation before, which helped me follow the events described in antiquated prose, but I forgot the details.

Hugh Grant plays a kind of dewey-eyed Draco Malfoy-type foil to Rupert Graves' smooth-brained Golden Retriever. The movie tried to make Grant's character a little more sympathetic by writing in a public indecency side-plot to justify his anxiety around the relationship with Maurice. By keeping a lot of unnecessary details from the book, the film seems to gesture towards the literary interiority that's necessarily lost in the translation to the screen, so it seems like an odd choice they'd give extra time to the character that loses the least in the translation. Even so, it injects an extra bit of yearning.

Also, we simply do not know how to film movies anymore. Maurice was filmed on a 1.5 million pound budget and it looks better than any moving from the past decade with a hundred times that.

what i'm working on§

cut-up poems§

I wrote a script that takes words from random files in my notes folder to make cut-up poems a la William S. Burroughs. It still needs some tuning. Here's a couple I liked:

 IMMEDIATE MY 1 RUBBING
IN 4  SLEEP
FREUD  TO A DITCHING AND FILE

WE AT A TO OF CORN INTERACTIVE
TO LEG
TO RESOURCE A MIGHT

something i liked§

the onion v. infowars§

The news that The Onion was trying to buy Infowars was a ray of sunlight in the post-election malaise of January 2024. After no news for a year, Onion CEO Ben Collins went on the podcast circuit to hype up potential movement on the acquisition-- unfortunately, it's been paused by the courts again.

It's frustrating, to say the least, that the Republican establishment and Russian operatives can pour infinite funds into an endless stream of right-wing shitposters and influencers, but a milquetoast parody company can't legally acquire the assets of a media outlet that shot itself in the foot. "Free market" my ass.

something i hated§

i deserved it§

Someone took $20 out of my wallet that I left unattended in my coat pocket at the gym. And I deserved it.

a picture:§

I popped open a cheap point-and-shoot I got at a yard sale for $5 after getting recommended r/circuitbending