Vampire architecture

By
Low-rent cousin of The Hardware. Where the diurnal undead mill about forever on shag that never quite feels dry, not ever. From the inestimable terriblerealestateagentphotos.com
Low-rent cousin of The Hardware. Where the diurnal undead mill about forever on shag that never quite feels dry, not ever. Read More...

1983 - 1962

By
The dead occasionally twitch and so it goes with the cinema…
[I'm in the final months of writing my dissertation project, which is about Italian cinema, circulation, and communist thought through the "Creeping '70s." As I'll be subtracting from the world a bit while finishing this up, I'll share excerpts for those interested. For those not, sorry - things more likely to inspire John Mayer trolls will return shortly, as will the materials of my next big historical project: on sabotage.]   On February 13, 1983, a second-run theater in Turin called Cinema Statuto - so named for its proximity to the nearby Piazza Statuto, itself named in memory of the Statuto Albertino, the Albertino Statute, of 1848 with which Charles Albert of Sardinia surrendered to the Kingdom of Sardinia and which would become the basis of the Italian constitution until 1948 - was showing The Goat (La Chevre, dir. Francis… Read More...

Some covert wonder

By
The fucking quinoa was on fire.
[An excerpt from a real estate horror project in progress entitled The Trojan House] "Babe, you have to see this one. 4 bed, 2 and half bath. Got this sort of Victorian meets mid-century thing.  And the floors..." The fucking quinoa was on fire. She hadn't thought that quinoa could be on fire.  She still didn't. Burned, seared to the pan, left to be soaked overnight and chipped at with fingernails. Those are things quinoa does. It does not do this. It does not get consumed in small and shimmying flames. "... how we didn't catch this before. Says it's been listed for ages, but we totally searched this price range and area before.  More than 3 acres. Don't know where that's been hiding. Whatever, you'll... Oh fuck, is that slate?..." But it is, it does. The tongues are almost… Read More...

An inauspicious beginning

By
Like cancer or money or dusk, no one could ever say precisely when it started.
Like cancer or money or dusk, no one could ever say precisely when it started. However, it was all too easy to say: now, now is when it is here. And by it, we meant they. Not that there wasn’t a first sighting, some first mark in history’s sodden page.  Of course there was. But that’s the very problem. Because when the first one was found, directly between and well below the Campden Hill Lawn Tennis Club and the Holland Park Lawn Tennis Club, so was a second. And it, the second one, had clearly been there long before there even was a first to be found. Been there for weeks. Or months, depending who you asked. Or years, depending on the rate of decay and the half-life of its obstinate clinging to existence. Either way, even if the finding… Read More...

Re: Ordinance Prohibiting the Possession of the Tools of Violence And Vandalism During a Demonstration

By
Camouflage that makes all rioters look like local businesses, camouflage that creeps down the throats of riot police on little rat feet.
[Optional soundtrack for reading]   +++ Regarding this:   [See here for the full report] It is a question of choosing between the dictatorship from below and dictatorship from above. I choose the one from above because it comes from regions which are pure and more serene. In the last resort it is a question of choosing between the dictatorship of the dagger and that of the sabre: I choose that of the sabre because it is nobler.  - Juan Donoso Cortés, the marqués de Valdegamas, descendent of Hernando Cortés, diplomat, author,  Ultramontist Catholic, and all-around dick   No person shall carry or possess a Club, fire accelerant, fireworks, Painting Device, Paint Projectile, Shield, sling shot, Hammer, Wrench, satchel of ball bearings, scythe, Tome, fixed but non-circulating capital, Teeth, a negative relation to capitalizing nouns in which what has not… Read More...

A Contribution to the Critique of John Mayer

By
To recognize the fact that John Mayer has not been executed calls into doubt our entire conception of history.
John Mayer, currently: John Mayer, when we take our teeth out of our pockets : +++ The continued existence of John Mayer is unthinkable. Terribly and literally so.  Because one must admit not just his perpetuity, not just acknowledge the knowing that he is still out there, somewhere, while we wash the dishes and look back over our shoulders at what has just passed us, at that streak behind the skull that means the dog is pursuing with joy and maliceless rage a small number of birds who found their way inside this heated house, and the two types, dog and birds, slur in speed together just like the two sides of the thaumatrope, with its dog side and its bird side, that when at rest and turned slow in the hand will ask Why is a pointer dog like… Read More...

Invisible architecture

By
Despite apparent affinities, cinema's kissing cousin is not TV but the hotel.
Been away from online writing for a long while, as I've moved across a continent and have been finishing a number of large projects that will be surfacing in the next couple of weeks, including: in collaboration with Steve Wright, translations of, and a critical introduction to, Romano Alquati, a crucial Italian Marxist who's never been available in English - this will be coming out with Viewpoint and will, with any luck, go some way toward changing how readers of English make sense of operaismo; a long essay on over-accumulation and cinema for World Picture; an essay for a new Criterion Collection release; a dissertation; a new work on Joseph Losey, helicopters, cameras, war, and architectural fly-throughs of shitty lux yuppie condos for La Furia Umana; and, above all, work on a new, long, and ongoing project that develops a… Read More...

A guillotinable mass of lame

By
Sincerity is terrifying and beauty is nothing but the backwash of terror.
Last night, I was listening to a Christian rock station, as I'm wont to do, because sincerity is terrifying and beauty is nothing but the backwash of terror.  (That, and the banal certainty of their discussions of what will happen when things go rapturous, an assuredness that can't quite explain why the truth about the specific guise in which the Antichrist will reveal himself - hint: from arid regions, albeit ones that also have advanced social democracy and scalable sodomy -  is nevertheless relegated to self-publishing.) On said station, I heard an actually beautiful act: coming off a carefully non-exciting exhaltation to take Him into your heart,  they played U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."  In other words, they hijacked it into being the inspirational, insipid Christian rock song it's always been.  It's a flawless instance of… Read More...

Bravo, Gentlemen!

By
Auberive prison, November 28, 1872, 7 a.m. Murderers, can you hear time’s bell? In any event, I'm content with this. We suffered but we saved…
Auberive prison, November 28, 1872, 7 a.m. Murderers, can you hear time’s bell? In any event, I'm content with this. We suffered but we saved our cause. So many cynically accumulated crimes, coldly done, so much cowardice and inability widely expose you. Bravo, Gentlemen! The white orgy is complete! Can you take your good name away from here, no! In history you will always be the commission for the “coup de grâce,” executioner’s valet! Gentlemen, you must remember that we will be afraid, and we will laugh at you because you are such horrible, grotesque people. Louise Michel   Read More...