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Rousseau and Octavia Butler
A passage from Rousseau about the innate human ability to feel pity found in Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes Il y a d’ailleurs un autre principe que Hobbes n’a point aperçu, et qui, ayant … Continue reading
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Theory, Practice and the Time of Practice
Barbara Johnson in the interview published with her Bucknell Lectures in Literary Theory as The Wake of Deconstruction says Analysis and action are not necessarily separable, but they may obey different temporalities. Thinking and doing carve out the possibilities of … Continue reading
Self-absorption
Rilke in the sixth letter in the collection Letters to a Young Poet writes about the importance of solitude and the normal state of the child to be in touch with necessary solitude. The necessary thing is after all but … Continue reading
Labour and Consciousness
Eli Zaretsky Capitalism, The Family and Personal Life But what distinguishes human from animal life is not labor — it is conscious labor. According to Marx: “A bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. … Continue reading
Discovery in Repetition and Repeating
This is a longish piece from Januaray 10, 2003, here transcribed from two pages of longhand. Gertrude Stein’s Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia A close reading of a passage and a bit of translation à la Erasmian … Continue reading
Repetition and Discovery
I have quoted elsewhere on the blog from Simon McBurney’s piece that appeared in Brick (Winter 2004) and my selection focused on the importance of following directions and how the order of gestures serves a mnemonic. See Order disorder. Following … Continue reading
You Can Get There There
Roo Borson in Short Journey Upriver Toward Ōishida muses on the phenomenology of place. Ōishida still exists on the map. I would someday like to go there. whether it would be the same Ōishida Bashō knew is another question. Nonetheless … Continue reading
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Value of diversion
Kate Taylor in a Globe and Mail (12.03.11) review of Finding the Words: Writers on Inspiration, Desire, War, Celebrity, Exile and Breaking the Rules edited by Jared Bland concludes the review with a little summary of her favourite piece. And, … Continue reading
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Farms, factories and camps
Extending a comparison The industrial farm is said to have been patterned on the factory production line. In practice, it invariably looks more like a concentration camp. So concludes Wendell Berry in “The Pleasure of Eating” in Antaeus 68. And … Continue reading
Mystery of Self and the Needs of the Body
In the midst of a meditation on the mysteries of food and its consumption comes this passage: Not just the physiological self, the perpetually hungry, eating, food-besotted self, but the nighttime, dreaming self as well — these rebuff our attempts … Continue reading
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