Second Balcony

No seriously I moved to Tumblr

2010-03-24T23:30:00.001-07:00

No seriously I moved to Tumblr. Go there not here.

ready set go

2010-03-05T15:21:00.000-08:00

I have this fantasy of writing essays that explain phenomena that don’t exist. But you'll have to read the premium edition 'Second Balcony' to know more.

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2010-03-04T01:14:00.000-08:00

Because I watched not-many films throughout my adolescence, and six of them had ‘London Calling’ playing, and custom makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past, I grew up believing ‘London Calling’ was the soundtrack to a thousand films. I heard ‘London Calling’ play on ‘Friends’ when I was twelve and in ‘Billy Elliot’ when I was fourteen. Then on the new Bond when I was sixteen, and in the airplane movie on my NY flight at seventeen. Then a zombie movie the year after, and another zombie movie on the next. Discovering that ‘London Callin’ only ever featured in nine films was like discovering the sun is only up when I am looking out my window.

[Also on Tumblr]

From now on

2010-03-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

From now-on also on tumblr . From sooner-or-later-on only on tumblr.

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2010-02-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

If Derrida was alive and more interesting he would have published an essay right about now about how last month's John Mayer thing embodies the primacy of writing in that if the interviewer were to transcribe "...call it "a nigger pass"" rather than "...call it a nigger pass" there couldn't be a scandal, even though the two transcriptions differ not in what they indicate about the speech-act that they document but only in what writing-act they assign to be the speech-act's signified.

dear edgy critics

2010-02-25T19:02:00.000-08:00

your article does not get twice as clever every time you say 'white people' for no reason. please fucking die already.

exhibit a

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2010-02-25T12:57:00.000-08:00

i intend to do a project where i interview people for no reason. do you want me to interview you for no reason? e-mail me.

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2010-02-25T12:20:00.000-08:00

clarified butter

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2010-02-23T10:44:00.000-08:00

"I feel about conversation like some people feel about sex: it's the highest expression of love and a loveless (affection-less/enthusiasm-less) conversation denigrates our humanity."

'Contra' and How We Read Lyrics

2010-02-17T19:57:00.000-08:00

My essay on Vampire Weekend, lyrics, and pop-talk is up at Elif Batuman's.

goodbye ethos hello dianoia

2010-02-14T01:54:00.000-08:00

sitcoms don't invent new personalities anymore but the good ones invent new cognitive profiles. what really makes a character memorable nowadays is an interesting nuanced map of areas-of-quickness and areas-of-slowness.

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2010-02-03T01:16:00.000-08:00

These days I read mostly to try to find a book that can't exist: it's gotta be as cold and infinite and scary as reading-avant-garde-literature-and-not-getting-it is and as dazzling and free and telepathic as reading-avant-garde-literature-and-getting-it is. And yes, even I don't believe that this isn't transference.

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2010-02-02T22:49:00.000-08:00

Reading Hipster Runoff makes me feel like no one's ever gonna die. After I stopped reading I got freaked out recalling the fact that I'm going to die [I'm not kidding, this actually happened]. I love Andy Warhol a lot and I kind of dislike Hipster Runoff, but I never got this full effect from 'From A to B & Back Again' so this godawful kid is evidently talented.

triptych

2010-01-26T15:23:00.000-08:00

1.

i'd love to write a short story where we discover earth18, a planet that's exactly like 18th century earth, and some anthropologists write a defense of the earth18 british, saying we shouldn't criticize the 'primitive' british imperialists from our 'enlightened' post-imperialist discourse.

2.

i don't want to contest the performative necessity of these it's-not-as-bad-in-context defenses of african female circumcision or whatnot. but i shudder at the underlying supposition that it's dumb to think that one society is safer/freer than another. the supposition is of course meant to deter from synchronic comparison (us vs. them) not diachronic comparison (us now vs. us then), but the diachronic implication is inevitable and a huge fuck you to anyone who ever fought for anything.

3.

problems of multiculturalism are co-extensive with problems of multi-sub-culturalism, or else you're a racialist asshole. i take pro-ana self determination seriously.

more recreation

2010-01-14T14:36:00.000-08:00

Title for future Gossip Girl episode about Jenny Humphrey: "Oration on the Dignity of Meth"

tswift

2010-01-14T10:03:00.000-08:00

me: if i had to bet who is the one person who actually exists and everyone else is just a part of that person's dream, i'd bet taylor swift rather than me. that's a possible phd topic: proof that taylor swift is the red king

[try to imagine]

2009-12-26T01:44:00.000-08:00

that the wittgenstein/anscombe 'not a mind in a body but a minded body' thing is really to make us not feel bad about taking hot people's emotions more seriously

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2009-12-20T03:13:00.000-08:00

it's not that i want my lit avant-garde it's that i want it thorough; i want the negative space around each artistic choice [to be] avant-garde.

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2009-12-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

imminent extinction can be kind of exhilarating. isn't it good to know the work you do now will never not-be-on-the-cutting-edge?

[redux]

2009-12-07T04:11:00.000-08:00

1.

The very you are very different.
They have more to them.

Architects also raise dogs but they know not to think much of it they
can't look out in NY it was made with a lake for a heart and a taste for the uncanny.

Old resources have it going for them still. In the continent's strong air

your personality on tape uncomfortably high-pitched,

thin chance at eluding psychology drawn from the world famous smoke of tobacco. The very very you are.

Very different from the very me.
All the objects left Europ we looked at the tan-lines

left after them by the sun of the mind

it is not tired to do this it is almost new

2.

Dear acquaintances your second language.

First europ Dear acquaintagonists after

the money's gone and you're as good. The best of your ridiculous powers all there

after a sleep so good that it was practically unverifiable. Get stabbed in the habitus once

and me as a culture is over it [and out

and over ]

3.

Leaving in bad faith from x-ing to trying-to-x never looked or
aside. So much theater left in this old piece of junk.

4.

years after years that it took us to solute the difference. grone-over. speak soon. miss yours
and yourare. age-
ing ag-ain-'t to far. to here's and hers
lookit up

akrazors. run out.

5.

but but-an-after-dinner smoke.
but-we-have-standards. but the details will speak on their own.

work

2009-12-06T14:11:00.000-08:00

a formalist explanation of a foucauldian explanation of a formalist explanation of marlowe's doctor fuastus

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2009-12-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

old question: are dreams object-oriented or pure output?

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2009-11-24T22:56:00.000-08:00

after enough years you start thinking of your migraines as a personality trait

collected

2009-11-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

Allusion Unto Title

The Cultural Logic Of Academic Allusions

Allusions And The Individual Paper

The Birth Of Allusion From The Spirit Of Laziness

Why I Am Not A Person Who Can Make Up New Titles

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Allusions

The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Allusions For Titles

On The Very Idea Of An Original Title

How To Name Papers With Allusions

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2009-11-19T15:35:00.000-08:00

XkcdExplained is funny but also the latest instance of terror-by-recognition. 'haha i know what types of things you enjoy; aren't you ashamed to enjoy types of things'.