Buzzing Wire Vaguely Song

The Markson Project: Reader’s Block 195-202

buzzing wire — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:00:00 +0000

Blaise Cendrars lost an arm in World War I. As did one of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s brothers, a concert pianist. (195)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Lice in the locks of literature, Tennyson called critics. (196)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMquotations
All page numbers mentioned are from 5th edition of Reader’s Block.

Or will the question persist? Why does Protagonist have no life? (197)
#Reader/Protagonist

Having written books of his own, would he have known other writers? (198)
#Reader/Protagonist

Does he not, now? (199)
#Reader/Protagonist

After Anne Sexton turned on her car’s engine in a closed garage to commit suicide, she sat drinking vodka while waiting. (200)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #ThisIsTheEndMyFriend

Erinna of Telos, who died at nineteen. Twenty-three hundred years ago. (201)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #ThisIsTheEndMyFriend #Numbers

Politics in a work of literature is like a pistol shot in the middle of a concert. (202)
#DMBookshelf

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Screentime 2025

buzzing wire — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000

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The Social Unit 24: What are the Skills of an Ideal Citizen?

buzzing wire — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000

It isn’t obvious what these skills are. I hope to do more thinking and reading about this. But, to furnish an example as a beginning, I imagine it is important for a citizen to be able to control or dampen their violent impulses and outrage. Putting aside any moral considerations, violence as a tool to discipline governments is less effective than other means. The reason being that almost all governments have technical expertise, manpower, and practice wielding it. This is one reason why governments often steer conflicts with citizen groups to be adjudicated on these grounds–they have a strong relative advantage.

Check out all the work in the collection: The Social Unit

Bookshelf 2025

buzzing wire — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000

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The Markson Project: Reader’s Block 188-194

buzzing wire — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000

Camille Claudel spent the last thirty years of her life in an insane asylum. (188)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #PoorMadDirtyDrunkAlone #Numbers

Someone will call. Surely someone will call. (189)
#Reader/Protagonist

Aristotle’s may have been the first purely private library. (190)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

At forty-six, after an illness, Goya suddenly turned stone deaf. (191)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

How long can Reader deal with Protagonist’s isolation without explaining his background? (192)
#Reader/Protagonist

How conceivable is it for the emptiness to simply exist? (193)
#Markson Mysteries

L’Être et le Néant. (194)
#DMBookshelf

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Light 49: Water Glasses

buzzing wire — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000

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The Markson Project: Reader’s Block 180-187

buzzing wire — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 15:00:00 +0000

Roland Barthes died after being hit by a laundry truck. (180)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #ThisIsTheEndMyFriend

When Ovid was banished from Rome, it was to Tomi, on the Black Sea.
Would Reader have otherwise ever heard of a city in Romania now called Constanta? (181)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DM Map #Speculation

Anne Bradstreet’s first home in Massachusetts, a decade after the Mayflower, was at what later would become Harvard Square. (182)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DM Map

Aesop was a slave. Terence was a slave. Epictetus was a slave. (183)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Protagonist watching the woman who appears?
After a time, finding himself waiting for her almost unwittingly? (184)
#Reader/Protagonist

Helen Frankenthaler Motherwell, her name legally once was. (185)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Frédéric Chopin was an anti-Semite. (186)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #Bigotry

Madame,
If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously married; if it is yet undone, let us once talk together. (187)
#DMquotations

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The Social Unit 23: Hints in Prior Work

buzzing wire — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000

Traditional philosophy has discussed the ideal traits of citizens in specific contexts. The politicians of the American Revolution gave a lot of thought to what capacities propertied, white males would need to participate in a democracy, for example. This is not the same as asking the more general question; what people need to make their government more responsive regardless of form. Still some of these qualities might generalize to help answer the broader question.

Check out all the work in the collection: The Social Unit

Light 48: Stones

buzzing wire — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000

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So I Have Heard: Richard Siken

buzzing wire — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 15:00:00 +0000

This recording was from the same session as I recorded these poems from War of the Foxes. However, they are from his new book I Do Know Some Things by Copper Canyon Press. The poems read are Cloud Factory, Devonian Forest, Non-Diegetic Music, and True Love.