but other times, like when he says ethical questions have simply been superseded by marxist politics & no longer warrant discussion, i'm less convinced

it's def one of his favorite moves to refuse on principle to consider a question. sometimes i struggle to decide whether it's an ingenious escape from a sterile debate or a way of dodging a genuinely difficult issue. on AES the dodge helps avoid the nightmare you describe in your post abt rockhill

seems this lets you appreciate what was utopian in their self-conception without defending stalinist mistakes... and explains so many people's deep attachment to those images today

on actually existing socialism, i've (characteristically) always found jameson's take persuasive: they were not communist by any stretch, but made use of socialist institutions and ideological forms to justify themselves, and this practice, though duplicitous, offered a real glimpse at communism

young charles fourier grew flowers on the floor of his room

u missed the point by idolizing him

he knows baal

when an interviewer asked Oliver Gogarty how he felt knowing he was the model for the unflattering Buck Mulligan, Gogarty pointed out that he'd inspired one of the only characters in Joyce's novel who demonstrated good hygiene lol

A french language copy of Emile Zola's Germinal

feeling inordinately proud of having finished this, the first full novel I've read in French. amazing book too. Zola is brilliant, cruel and malicious

I spoke to Jürgen a few days before he passed. sensing the gravity of this meeting, I madd a rare indiscretion to ask him, 'professor, in your lifetime, have we ever seen an ideal speech situation?' he thought for a moment and said, 'the old internet. when it was wholesome. before slop.'

what if the solution were right in front of our eyes all along—at least if we're looking up. space. the ultimate shipping lane...

love this. my entry into Marxism was Jameson and I spent years in Hegel and Marx before realizing that the best stuff in FJ wasn't "the dialectic" but the attentiveness to language and literary form

I would advise americans to get comfortable with the feeling of shame

What the genocide in Gaza reinforced is that there are no "civilians" when it comes to Israel and the United States. The rest of the world learned the same lesson and the consequences are going to be felt across the world.

Only definition of dialectics I’d defend is: it’s an art & not a method or technique, but the good conscience of the bad conscience of many methods & techniques of thinking since Socrates & Confucius, & that you can’t pick it up without getting pulled into the history—which is the whole point

Stylized portrait head of Brecht in bronze.

Bertolt Brecht by Gustav Seitz, 1959

"The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news."

Magellan was easily my favorite of last year, does the genre proud

From Günther Anders’s Kafka book

French Communist Party image mocking that inscrutable fascist lone penguin thing. "He goes off on his own, we move forward together" Parte in this context also can be read as "departs" i.e., dies

lmao

adorno-benjamin correspondence might finally make me sick of reading the word "dialectical"

they don't make guys who churn out 1-3 masterpieces a year and then abruptly die anymore

I LOVE RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER

I was telling my bf about thermidor/the fall of robespierre and he said, thoughtfully, "his jaw... the safdie brothers should make a movie about this"

it's horrible they took the deleuze abécédaire off youtube. used to put one on at breakfast and spend the rest of the day thinking about his thoughts on opera or proust or spinoza

what year did he say this?

so true, the scene of faye valentine watching the old tape of herself is almost unbearable

"tout le monde peut repondre" all by itself would make debord shit himself

I spent most of 2025 between totally fantastical hope for the future and grim resignation to an unhappy present... praying 2026 will be my Knight of Faith year