Just finished Tricky's autobiography, which concludes with the most horrible gut-punch: Tricky's daughter killed herself earlier this year. There's nothing I can say or do for him,
so I just cried. Not much gets to me lately; this sure did. Rest in peace Mazy Mina. Take care, Tricky. My heart bleeds for you.
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Monday, November 4, 2019
11/19
Far-reaching interview about Hungary's unusual metamorphosis. Actually read this last month, but the link wasn't working, so here it is now!
This year's Radical Bookfair in Baltimore introduced me to many new writers and scholars, as well as giving me the chance to meet a few whose work I'd been following.* One impressive speaker was Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, whose new book How to Be an Anti-Racist sounds like a clear-eyed approach to an endlessly complex problem. At the end of his talk, he discussed the premature passing of Elijah Cummings and how it related to his own father's health troubles. The connections he draws are best experienced for yourself, but even from this essay, you can tell that Dr. Kendi digs deep into himself and his ideas for this work.
*One of whom is Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, who also has a new book out (Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership). This new book has a simple thesis with vast implications: private property will always be at odds with the human right to affordable, public housing. Taylor's book looks at the 'predatory inclusion' practices that sold decrepit houses to low-income black people, then profited on the inevitable foreclosures. Her talk was very impressive, and though I was tempted to buy the new book, ultimately I bought a previous one she edited (How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective) that I'd been meaning to buy for a longer time.
From Hong Kong to Chile. This is a strong summary of Chile's post-Allende history, and Lili Loofbourow writes from a helpfully personal perspective. There's also this Bloomberg article whose panicky tone is amusing, but which does contain some useful findings (like the near-certainty of riots over transit fare raises).
The early history of 'segrenomics.'
Learning a little more about Lupita Nyong'o.
I've been wavering a bit on whether I'd want to see Soderbergh-collaborator Scott Z. Burns' THE REPORT, but this Intercept article digs into a weird preoccupation it has about avoiding partisanship, forgoing journalistic pugilism for the self-evident higher purpose of 'official process.' As if the country that perpetrated these crimes against humanity would be amenable to such a reckoning. While the titular report did eventually make it out to the public, it seems basically to have been a fluke, far from an actionable path a concerned whistleblower ought to take. For a film meant to critique power, it appears oblivious to the real dangers faced by people like Daniel Jones.
What Brody's onto here with THE LAUNDROMAT is what got me excited about it as well, flaws and all.
I used to like THE PRINCESS BRIDE a lot as a teenager, but an unexpected recent viewing ended up quite a slog. So Brody's right again: remake everything, because who knows what you'll get. This article of his ends with an observation also made recently by Nick Pinkerton, that studios lately have a vested interest in denying audiences access to classic movies so that there are no points of comparison for newer ones. Very pernicious.
Racism in health-care algorithms.
Homo sapiens originated from Botswana. Charles Mudede has some poetic thoughts on how this helps re-conceptualize human history.
And really Mudede's been on a tear recently. I've always admired his writing, but the breadth of it is remarkable when juxtaposed: here he is on lunar living (with more on human evolution too, as an aside); Malaysia's rat-eating macaques (bring them to Baltimore!); Africa and globalization; and most head-spinning of all, Spinoza vs. Leibniz on free will and memory.
Another: the emotional power of soul music reveals its philosophical dimensions as well.
Last one: to my understanding, capitalism's eternal crisis is over-abundance, which is controlled through forced scarcity, which then necessitates the production of more things, a cycle predicated on irrationally avoiding low-growth/no-growth for the appearance of profit.
The DPRK continues its fight against US sanctions.
Marx's gothic imagery.
Excellent autopsy from John Semley on the cyberpunk aesthetic, which has well and truly met its end. I also like the elevation of TETSUO: THE IRON MAN as a possible alternative for the classic cyberpunk preoccupations.
Convenience isn't so much an end in itself as it is the by-product of technological evolution you're given as a compromise for accepting new forms of control.
Perpetually, algorithmically out-performing your under-performing baseline self. This one chilled me.
Corbynism may end up outlasting Corbyn (which is the best outcome anyhow). Momentum certainly seems to be evolving into its own thing, so I imagine the Corbyn movement's lasting effects will be best measured in the more distant future.
Fairly astounding situation in regards to the recent Nobel Prize for Literature. It appears that two jurors fell prey to the same selectively-sourced conspiracy theory, one which even the slightest bit of contextual understanding can immediately unravel. And so a long-marginalized and -discredited movement reignites. Now, with that said, one of the hardest things about evaluating information is trying to figure out what you don't know, because, by definition, you don't know what you don't know. But that doesn't mean we should have sympathy for the jurors, who seemed prone to believing this alternative history even before happening across it. That's the really insidious part: all it takes a little nudge in the direction you're already leaning. And when you're in a considerable position of power, tasked with granting distinction to a body of work that will soon be amplified worldwide...
Baltimore is unlikely to get safe drug consumption sites under our awful Republican governor, but maybe in the future...
Plenty of luxury apartments in Baltimore. They don't seem to be filling up, to my relief. But that does raise the question of what will happen when this bubble pops.
China's Belt and Road project continues -- with some alterations. From a distance these measures seem worthwhile; I'd like to dig into those References at the bottom of the article, but I'm running out of free Bloomberg articles for the month.
Said it before and I'll say it again: kill Vice (and the Fader now too).
Four things uniting most recent mass shooters.
So many older US adults get news from TV, as I was reminded on my recent trip to see my parents for the holiday break. It's worse than useless; it's actively harmful, as can be deduced from boomer antipathy toward anything that hints at a better future. TV offers nihilism of the eternal present, oblivious to emerging social currents when it's not hostilely denouncing them. Whatever social media's faults, I'll shed no tears for TV's slow-moving obsolescence.
That said, watching TV with my family did allow me another peek at the dynamic Rob Horning describes here, the behind-the-scenes influencer rebrand. It came from a show on Netflix called Broken, which I inferred was about consumer products with unsavory histories. The make-up industry was in the spotlight, with much time spent discussing the pressures of being an influencer or being influenced by one. Though no one quite delved into the 'really real' play-acting that Horning described, there was enough distance between the scrolling feed and its producers + consumers that I could visualize the mechanics behind projecting a relatable image and making it compelling to social media users.
Online advertising has little evidence proving its effectiveness, despite structuring most of the internet as we know it. Really makes me wonder what the internet will look like in 2020, if/when this bubble pops as spectacularly as it ought to. Does Twitter survive? Facebook? Google?
I despair of ever publishing a book.
An introduction to police abolition.
15 years ago rockism got taken apart quite satisfyingly. Yet still it persists.
I never found THE INSIDER to be among Mann's best films, but Bilge Ebiri suggests that the looser, more subjective style of his digital films can be seen developing throughout this last analog one. I'd be interested in revisiting it as a transitional work.
Climate change could end the prevalence of 30-year mortgages. Definitely concerned about this myself. Baltimore seems like a fairly safe area, but who can say for sure? If a hurricane can hit New York...
More flooding everywhere.
From the above link: Indonesia's moving its capital to Borneo and...abandoning Jakarta? Honestly shocking that a major city like this seems doomed to obliteration.
Singapore explores its alternative energy options. Sad to realize that rising sea levels will be a big problem there. It's really a remarkable place.
!!!!!Emergency round blogging (11/10)!!!!!
Where to start with Evo Morales' sudden resignation? At first it was just the recount, and I thought that would be all. But Benjamin Norton has a thorough thread on Twitter attacking the coup from all angles. Morales was allowed to run for president a fourth time, despite reasonable outcry from the opposition. It appears that aspects of the subsequent unrest were predicted, though Morales' ouster happened much more swiftly than mapped out in those posts.
One item of note above: check out the history behind George Eli Birnbaum. He pops up in the WordPress postings above and in this article listing Bolivia's achievements. Birnbaum, for his part, has the (dis)honor of consulting for Netanyahu, Orbán, and (unsuccessfully) Ben Carson. But maybe his greatest success prior to the current coup was his part in demonizing George Soros, that specter haunting right-wing conspiracy theorists across the US.
I researched this node in the Bolivian coup myself, and what I was able to find is symptomatic of how the right coordinates internationally. Any left response needs to be commensurate with the growing power of a global right-wing movement.
Back to Ben Norton's links: here's an interview with ex-President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras. By linking it, I don't endorse everything he says (his opponent being mentally ill; Julian Assange being a hero), but many of his insights are thoughtful and informative. Additionally, Zelaya provides a rare bird's eye view of what happened to the Honduran government after the US sponsored a coup there. In times ahead, Bolivia may face a similar fate.
Yet the situation may be even more multi-faceted than most accounts have claimed. Here are two essays from Bolivian feminists who claim that the election and its aftermath were a chest-puffing contest. Libcom.org provides the links, and several others as well, that complicate the heroic socialist story favored by leftists. I admit, I was swept up in the anti-imperialist fury that accompanied this turn of events, but reflecting with a calmer head allows for contradictions to emerge. It's best, as always, to listen to marginalized people whose voices may not immediately be the most amplified. Thanks to libcom for guiding my analysis.
(11/18) Continuing updates...libcom seems quite critical of the "Grayzone gang." I am fairly new to the collective (excluding Ajit Singh, whom I've Followed for a while now), and while I think the facts above still stand, I'm going to walk back my praise anyhow because this is a good example of hearing what you want to hear in times of chaos. I'd personally started to see some holes in the Grayzone coverage of Bolivia after the previous libcom intervention, but now I'd like to distance myself a little more and keep an eye out for better sources in the future.
This year's Radical Bookfair in Baltimore introduced me to many new writers and scholars, as well as giving me the chance to meet a few whose work I'd been following.* One impressive speaker was Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, whose new book How to Be an Anti-Racist sounds like a clear-eyed approach to an endlessly complex problem. At the end of his talk, he discussed the premature passing of Elijah Cummings and how it related to his own father's health troubles. The connections he draws are best experienced for yourself, but even from this essay, you can tell that Dr. Kendi digs deep into himself and his ideas for this work.
*One of whom is Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, who also has a new book out (Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership). This new book has a simple thesis with vast implications: private property will always be at odds with the human right to affordable, public housing. Taylor's book looks at the 'predatory inclusion' practices that sold decrepit houses to low-income black people, then profited on the inevitable foreclosures. Her talk was very impressive, and though I was tempted to buy the new book, ultimately I bought a previous one she edited (How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective) that I'd been meaning to buy for a longer time.
From Hong Kong to Chile. This is a strong summary of Chile's post-Allende history, and Lili Loofbourow writes from a helpfully personal perspective. There's also this Bloomberg article whose panicky tone is amusing, but which does contain some useful findings (like the near-certainty of riots over transit fare raises).
The early history of 'segrenomics.'
Learning a little more about Lupita Nyong'o.
I've been wavering a bit on whether I'd want to see Soderbergh-collaborator Scott Z. Burns' THE REPORT, but this Intercept article digs into a weird preoccupation it has about avoiding partisanship, forgoing journalistic pugilism for the self-evident higher purpose of 'official process.' As if the country that perpetrated these crimes against humanity would be amenable to such a reckoning. While the titular report did eventually make it out to the public, it seems basically to have been a fluke, far from an actionable path a concerned whistleblower ought to take. For a film meant to critique power, it appears oblivious to the real dangers faced by people like Daniel Jones.
What Brody's onto here with THE LAUNDROMAT is what got me excited about it as well, flaws and all.
I used to like THE PRINCESS BRIDE a lot as a teenager, but an unexpected recent viewing ended up quite a slog. So Brody's right again: remake everything, because who knows what you'll get. This article of his ends with an observation also made recently by Nick Pinkerton, that studios lately have a vested interest in denying audiences access to classic movies so that there are no points of comparison for newer ones. Very pernicious.
Racism in health-care algorithms.
Homo sapiens originated from Botswana. Charles Mudede has some poetic thoughts on how this helps re-conceptualize human history.
And really Mudede's been on a tear recently. I've always admired his writing, but the breadth of it is remarkable when juxtaposed: here he is on lunar living (with more on human evolution too, as an aside); Malaysia's rat-eating macaques (bring them to Baltimore!); Africa and globalization; and most head-spinning of all, Spinoza vs. Leibniz on free will and memory.
Another: the emotional power of soul music reveals its philosophical dimensions as well.
Last one: to my understanding, capitalism's eternal crisis is over-abundance, which is controlled through forced scarcity, which then necessitates the production of more things, a cycle predicated on irrationally avoiding low-growth/no-growth for the appearance of profit.
The DPRK continues its fight against US sanctions.
Marx's gothic imagery.
Excellent autopsy from John Semley on the cyberpunk aesthetic, which has well and truly met its end. I also like the elevation of TETSUO: THE IRON MAN as a possible alternative for the classic cyberpunk preoccupations.
Convenience isn't so much an end in itself as it is the by-product of technological evolution you're given as a compromise for accepting new forms of control.
Perpetually, algorithmically out-performing your under-performing baseline self. This one chilled me.
Corbynism may end up outlasting Corbyn (which is the best outcome anyhow). Momentum certainly seems to be evolving into its own thing, so I imagine the Corbyn movement's lasting effects will be best measured in the more distant future.
Fairly astounding situation in regards to the recent Nobel Prize for Literature. It appears that two jurors fell prey to the same selectively-sourced conspiracy theory, one which even the slightest bit of contextual understanding can immediately unravel. And so a long-marginalized and -discredited movement reignites. Now, with that said, one of the hardest things about evaluating information is trying to figure out what you don't know, because, by definition, you don't know what you don't know. But that doesn't mean we should have sympathy for the jurors, who seemed prone to believing this alternative history even before happening across it. That's the really insidious part: all it takes a little nudge in the direction you're already leaning. And when you're in a considerable position of power, tasked with granting distinction to a body of work that will soon be amplified worldwide...
Baltimore is unlikely to get safe drug consumption sites under our awful Republican governor, but maybe in the future...
Plenty of luxury apartments in Baltimore. They don't seem to be filling up, to my relief. But that does raise the question of what will happen when this bubble pops.
China's Belt and Road project continues -- with some alterations. From a distance these measures seem worthwhile; I'd like to dig into those References at the bottom of the article, but I'm running out of free Bloomberg articles for the month.
Said it before and I'll say it again: kill Vice (and the Fader now too).
Four things uniting most recent mass shooters.
So many older US adults get news from TV, as I was reminded on my recent trip to see my parents for the holiday break. It's worse than useless; it's actively harmful, as can be deduced from boomer antipathy toward anything that hints at a better future. TV offers nihilism of the eternal present, oblivious to emerging social currents when it's not hostilely denouncing them. Whatever social media's faults, I'll shed no tears for TV's slow-moving obsolescence.
That said, watching TV with my family did allow me another peek at the dynamic Rob Horning describes here, the behind-the-scenes influencer rebrand. It came from a show on Netflix called Broken, which I inferred was about consumer products with unsavory histories. The make-up industry was in the spotlight, with much time spent discussing the pressures of being an influencer or being influenced by one. Though no one quite delved into the 'really real' play-acting that Horning described, there was enough distance between the scrolling feed and its producers + consumers that I could visualize the mechanics behind projecting a relatable image and making it compelling to social media users.
Online advertising has little evidence proving its effectiveness, despite structuring most of the internet as we know it. Really makes me wonder what the internet will look like in 2020, if/when this bubble pops as spectacularly as it ought to. Does Twitter survive? Facebook? Google?
I despair of ever publishing a book.
An introduction to police abolition.
15 years ago rockism got taken apart quite satisfyingly. Yet still it persists.
I never found THE INSIDER to be among Mann's best films, but Bilge Ebiri suggests that the looser, more subjective style of his digital films can be seen developing throughout this last analog one. I'd be interested in revisiting it as a transitional work.
Climate change could end the prevalence of 30-year mortgages. Definitely concerned about this myself. Baltimore seems like a fairly safe area, but who can say for sure? If a hurricane can hit New York...
More flooding everywhere.
From the above link: Indonesia's moving its capital to Borneo and...abandoning Jakarta? Honestly shocking that a major city like this seems doomed to obliteration.
Singapore explores its alternative energy options. Sad to realize that rising sea levels will be a big problem there. It's really a remarkable place.
!!!!!Emergency round blogging (11/10)!!!!!
Where to start with Evo Morales' sudden resignation? At first it was just the recount, and I thought that would be all. But Benjamin Norton has a thorough thread on Twitter attacking the coup from all angles. Morales was allowed to run for president a fourth time, despite reasonable outcry from the opposition. It appears that aspects of the subsequent unrest were predicted, though Morales' ouster happened much more swiftly than mapped out in those posts.
One item of note above: check out the history behind George Eli Birnbaum. He pops up in the WordPress postings above and in this article listing Bolivia's achievements. Birnbaum, for his part, has the (dis)honor of consulting for Netanyahu, Orbán, and (unsuccessfully) Ben Carson. But maybe his greatest success prior to the current coup was his part in demonizing George Soros, that specter haunting right-wing conspiracy theorists across the US.
I researched this node in the Bolivian coup myself, and what I was able to find is symptomatic of how the right coordinates internationally. Any left response needs to be commensurate with the growing power of a global right-wing movement.
Back to Ben Norton's links: here's an interview with ex-President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras. By linking it, I don't endorse everything he says (his opponent being mentally ill; Julian Assange being a hero), but many of his insights are thoughtful and informative. Additionally, Zelaya provides a rare bird's eye view of what happened to the Honduran government after the US sponsored a coup there. In times ahead, Bolivia may face a similar fate.
Yet the situation may be even more multi-faceted than most accounts have claimed. Here are two essays from Bolivian feminists who claim that the election and its aftermath were a chest-puffing contest. Libcom.org provides the links, and several others as well, that complicate the heroic socialist story favored by leftists. I admit, I was swept up in the anti-imperialist fury that accompanied this turn of events, but reflecting with a calmer head allows for contradictions to emerge. It's best, as always, to listen to marginalized people whose voices may not immediately be the most amplified. Thanks to libcom for guiding my analysis.
(11/18) Continuing updates...libcom seems quite critical of the "Grayzone gang." I am fairly new to the collective (excluding Ajit Singh, whom I've Followed for a while now), and while I think the facts above still stand, I'm going to walk back my praise anyhow because this is a good example of hearing what you want to hear in times of chaos. I'd personally started to see some holes in the Grayzone coverage of Bolivia after the previous libcom intervention, but now I'd like to distance myself a little more and keep an eye out for better sources in the future.
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