Happy to have finally read Fanon! Reading this was a bit like looking through blinds; so much is obscured, but rays of dazzling light shoot through. By that I mean it‘s an obviously brilliant work, but a lot of the psychoanalysis and phenomenology went over my head. I‘d definitely like to re-read it more closely in the future.
so-soReads like a university dissertation at times but overall it‘s decent. Fraser‘s more expansive view of capitalism highlighted the structural ills of a system that is fundamentally unstable and unsustainable.
1. Several books at once.
2. My favorite this year was "Woke Racism" by John McWhorter. I bailed on a few books this year, but the most annoying one was Ben Burgis's "Cancelling Comedians While the World Burns."
#wondrouswednesday
#basicwitchswap aesthetic @sprainedbrain
Notes:
The thunderstorm is there to represent the water element.
Professor Trelawney is there to represent Divination practice (my fave HP witches are Hermione, Minerva and Bellatrix).
And the Turkey Pie is there instead of pumpkin and apples - I much prefer savoury pies to these traditional samhain/halloween foods.
#AlphabetGame @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
Letter S
As a theoretical/philosophical work, it does get dense & hard to parse in places but still worth the effort, I think. The style is short numbered paragraphs; it's easy to pick up anytime & mull over. I just feel it perfectly captures our hypercapitalist present & the "autocratic reign of the market economy" where it feels like commodities have more rights, & freedom of movement, than people...
[T]he fact paralyses the intention, gives it something like a malaise producing immobility: in order to make it innocent, it freezes it. This is because myth is speech stolen and restored. Only, speech which is restored is no longer quite that which was stolen: when it was brought back, it was not put exactly in its place. It is this brief act of larceny, this.moment taken for surreptitious faking, which gives mystical speech a benumbed look.
In a single day, how many non-signifying fields do we cross? Very few, sometimes none. Here I am, before the sea; it is true that it bears no message. But the beach, what material for semiology! Flags, slogans, signals, sign-boards, clothes, suntan even, which are so many messages to me.
pick