From Harry Mathews' "20 Lines a Day"

“When you go to piss in the bathroom with people within possible earshot (and sometimes with no people around at all), you direct your jet at the edge of the pool of water in the toilet bowl so as to reduce the noise you make. (Long ago you observed that peeing on the enamel of the bowl splashed a spray over its edges—something even less nice than making a watery racket.) You are astonished when other men disappear into the bathroom and immediately produce the almost roaring sound of drilled water that you so anxiously avoid, pissing happily, or at least with no audible sign of hesitation, straight into the center of the pool, its deepest and so loudest point. You notice that your astonishment contains no trace of disapproval. You not only take no offense at the undisguised noise you hear, you even feel a certain admiration and respect for its instigator, like those a timid little boy feels for a confident grown-up. Perhaps your admiration is centered on this man’s so surely knowing that his behavior has no relevance to people’s opinion of him—he knows that no one cares whether he is pissing or not, openly or not, because everybody does it, and does it in the knowledge that they are practicing a universal act. This knowledge has somehow escaped you. What exactly have you imagined in its place?”

[I love this almost imbecilic prose mode that Mathews gets into in this book. An earnest/honest, observational/confessional mode of writing that lacks any narrative panache, but is somehow very effective. I never understand why people always call Mathews a "great prose stylist"—often the basic character of his prose is determined by its total lack of style, as with this excerpt here.]

Some manuskripte covers

manuskripte is an Austrian literary journal, first published in 1960, founded by Alfred Kolleritsch, based in Graz. More information here and here.

Those garish, sickly smiles

"Man sieht einen Menschen und denkt, was für ein sympathischer Mensch, und bald sieht man (als würde einem auf den Kopf geschlagen!), was für ein gemeiner Mensch, was für ein lächerlicher Mensch, was für ein niedriger Menschentypus."

You see a person and you think, what a nice person, and soon you see (as if it smacked you on the head!), what a cruel person, what a ridiculous person, what a lowly kind of person.

Thomas Bernhard, Watten

 

Cosas

First off, a stunning bit of ignorant, self-absorbed buffoonery from the master of such things, Bernard-Henri Lévy. In an aggravatingly uncritical article by Benjamin Wallace-Wells about his role in the Libyan intervention in New York magazine, BHL drops this clanger attempting to explain his aggressive defence of Dominique Strauss-Kahn after his arrest:

One day in Paris, when we are sitting in the lobby bar of the Right Bank five-star Hotel le Bristol, I ask Lévy what had motivated this response. “Principle,” he says, gravely. “Principle.” I ask what the principle was. He sighs. “Class justice,” he says. “Twenty years ago, class justice was to be gentle with the rich and terrible with the poor. This was a problem. When you are a rich man, you can escape justice. When you are a poor man, stealing a fruit—how do you say, a ­pomme?—you went to jail. Today there is a reversal of the process. You have a lot of people who, if you are rich, powerful, and white, do not care if you are guilty or not guilty—you are guilty by principle. It is exactly the same but reversed. And for me, I cannot, I cannot—it is as unbearable as the other one.” 

First off, if BHL really thinks that the situation has been reversed in the last twenty years, that rich people no longer escape justice, and poor people no longer go to jail for stealing apples, he deserves to be deprived of the power of speech. Is this really what European pseudo-leftist neoliberals believe, that twenty years of their own tireless political posturing has successfully solved the problems of "class justice" to such an extent that things have gone too far, necessitating a movement of class justice in defense of the rich? If this really is his view of "class justice," we should consider it terrifying that his dysfunctional moral compass is allowed to exert such an influence on public discourse.
This is also exactly what Brecht was thinking about in his comments on Grosz that I quoted earlier, where he speaks of the common tendency shared by himself and Grosz to more readily forgive injustice perpetuated by the proletariat rather than by the bourgeoisie. BHL shows his roots here: his inability or unwillingness to transcend his own privileged economic position, to see the full social schematic that is class relations. We see here only the myopia of contemporary humanitarian discourse, a misguided faith in the rights of the individual, regardless of class or social situation. This course of thinking serves and has always served to cloak an underlying ideology in defense of capital.
___________

Secondly, some wisdom from Fidel Castro, one of the few to be honest regarding yesterday's national holiday:

"The dreams of Martin Luther King Jr. are thousands of light years further away than the nearest inhabitable planet."

He also bemoans the inability of today's technological advances to solve the most pressing problems:

"Is it not obvious that the worst of all is the absence in the White House of a robot capable of governing the United States and preventing a war that would end the life of our species?"

___________

Finally, let it all float away with the art of Ann Steel:

Chris Marker's Junkopia (1981)

Here's a nice little Marker short that I didn't know existed until now. It's a film about the Albany Bulb, a former landfill on a peninsula that juts out into the SF Bay from Berkeley. From the 60s onwards, the Bulb has been used as a refuge for large urban art/art brut installations, including some impressive architectural creations. I remember being led here when I was last in San Francisco, while on tour with Dreamhouse in 2004. There is a very strong homeless community that lives there now, but it also seems to be a popular place for dogwalking. Marker's film captures the otherworldly atmosphere of the place, which contrasts here richly with the traces of 1980's America that sneak in. As usual, the soundtrack credited to Michel Krasna (aka Marker himself) is great as well.

Cosas

1.

New logo for Guardian business blog

2. Mahmoud Ahmed live in Amsterdam, 1987

For the last few years I've had an MP3 of 20 minutes of a Mahmoud Ahmed concert floating around my computer. I originally got it from the sadly-defunct Benn loxo du taccu blog, and never knew much about its origins, except that it was broadcast on Dutch radio. I recently unearthed it again after being disappointed with the comparatively low energy of the "Live in Paris" CD from 1994. The Paris concert is not bad, but it seems so uninspired compared with the pure fire that is this Amsterdam show. Looking around the internet today I was incredibly pleased to happen upon a video of one of the songs from the Benn loxo recording:



Only after finding the video did I discover the date of the recording. I previously thought it was from the 90s. Looking at the video again, the poster says this was from a concert of the Adei Ababa Ensemble, featuring other famous Ethiopian singers, such as Tilahun Gessesse.
In honor of Mahmoud, and of Benn loxo as well, I'm re-upping the original recording here. If anyone has more tracks from this show, please get in touch!

Mahmoud Ahmed - Live in Amsterdam, 1987 (MP3, 29.7 mb)


3. Kebad Kenya

In these sad days it is incredibly revitalizing to see a casual, intelligent, non-academic/non-professional blog devoted to an underread and underrated writer such as Hans Henny Jahnn. The Kebad Kenya blog, run by Will from 50 Watts, is a great little thing indeed.

Trikitixa Zoom (1991) / Faruaji (1987)

I would be extremely grateful if anyone could help me find the following two albums:

Kepa Junkera - Trikitixa Zoom (1991, Euskal Herria)


La Ciapa Rusa - Faruaji (1987, Italy)

Rote Blumen (1983)

>>>Fit & Limo - Rote Blumen CS (1983) @ Tape Attack


This tape seems like the next step onwards from the wonderful Im Blickpunkt side of a split tape with Stratis which Mutant Sounds posted ages ago. A few of the same tracks are reproduced here, along with a couple newer versions of same or similar songs. This is the pure Küchenpop sound, the result of F&L's induction into the world of DIY recordings direct from the 70s German hippy milieu — by which I mean that they were influenced only by the positivity and self-empowered ethos of the European punk movement, without picking up any trace of the alienated negativity or politically-conscious protest spirit. F&L are one of the only examples I know of the Überleben of a 70s psychedelic orientation within the cultural milieu of 80s DIY, electronically enhanced, lo-fi new wave. These songs thrive as unironic, homemade syntheses of adventurous sonic experimentalism and heartfelt pop instincts.
This tape was self-released on F&L's own Servil label. I would love to hear more of the label's offerings, especially the s/t The Lie tape, as well as the early Pure Luege material. Do get in touch if you have access to such gems.

Preverb

Going through a pre-verbal moment: lots of thoughts about literature, the internet, Ron Paul, Fat Studies, and cinematography, yet nothing coming to fruition.

Advanced Humanism

"My point is that to turn a jungle baboon into a seminar baboon is a cruel, irreversible process. I understand why you won't ever be happy around the waterhole again."

Nathan Zuckerman's agent (from Philip Roth's Zuckerman Unbound) is referring to the scarring that results from higher education, how four years of training in "Advanced Humanistic Decisions" can make it difficult for an individual to navigate the less advanced humanism of society outside the university. While I think this is true, I've also noticed (in myself and certain other colleagues) that the reverse is also the case: that too much time spent outside the academy leads to dissatisfaction with the functionings of the academic world. After finishing a somewhat botched undergraduate degree, I spent five years enjoying the freedom of a nu-bohemian creative lifestyle—inclusive of autodidactic efforts to approach literature and philosophy outside of a university perspective—before deciding that the time was right to reenter the academic fold. At first I treasured these five years, believing that they gave me a certain perspective that my fellow students (many of whom entered their doctoral programs directly from college) lacked. I am beginning to see now that this brief taste of freedom had its price: that, opposite to Zuckerman, whose academic experience makes it difficult for him to be content in the "real world," my five years out of the academy also represent an irreversible shift, a break from the academic winding-up process, making it very difficult for me to be happy around the university waterhole.
To go back to the clip I posted of Paul McIsaac in Robert Kramer's Route One USA, it's not always a matter of choice which "prizes" one ends up striving for. With academia, as with bourgeois America, it is a matter of being able to enjoy its system of rewards. With any enclosed cultural ecosystem, a dose of perspective can spell exile for the curious participant.

More of the same

(Thank u UQT)

Different Prizes

From Robert Kramer's Route One USA (1989), which portrays the journey of two Americans returning from extended stays in Europe (Kramer himself, behind the camera, and Paul McIsaac playing the "Doc" character originating from Kramer's earlier film, Doc's Kingdom) along the entire stretch of Route 1 from Maine to Key West. Doc plays the home-returner who is simultaneously an alien observer. A wide selection of Americans are interviewed and observed, yet Doc's involvement with them is always transitory: as one who as chosen a different path (namely, that of the expatriated radical) Doc can only continue down the road, hoping to find some situation where he can insert himself back into the American machine. The melancholy of Kramer and McIsaac, products of 60s radical culture, is tangible here, as they look with indignation and admiration at the workings of the society they have turned away from. I find the above sequence especially poignant, with Doc confessing the shameful pangs of regret felt by an aging radical observing the comforts of bourgeois American life. Doc acts as counselor, but also as comrade, reminding the hypothetical viewer of the reasons for choosing a different path, the "different prizes" that replace those of bourgeois society. "Under the surface" is also "beyond the ordinary." Doc assures us that it is worth the effort to uncover the substructure of America, even though this breaks the illusion that would allow us to enjoy its privileged surface.

Sudden Sway - "Tales of Talking Town"

Tony Coulter on D.D.A.A.

>>>Tony Coulter on Deficits Des Années Anterieures

So ist es (Bernhard)

Auch von den Handwerkern
haben wir genug
Gerade auch
von den sogenannten einfachen Leuten
die komplizierten haben wir immer gehaßt
aber jetzt hassen wir auch die einfachen
wir vertragen weder die komplizierten
noch die einfachen
Wenn wir auf die Straße gehen
ekelt es uns vor allen
das ist die Wahrheit

[from Einfach Kompliziert]