hyperculture

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summer strike (2022)

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on tragedy, fate, and inevitability.

oresteia, robert icke // theatre of the oppressed, augusto boal // song of achilles, madeline miller // the book thief, markus zusak // antigone, jean anouilh // revisiting mockingjay ahead of the hunger games prequel, entertainment weekly // romeo and juliet, shakespeare // h of h playbook, anne carson // war of the foxes, richard siken // the road to hell (reprise), hadestown // planet of love, richard siken // they both die at the end, adam silvera

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misc readings

On books and reading!

Reading insecurity, katy waldman, slate

The deep space of digital reading, paul la farge, nautilus

The curse of reading and forgetting, ian crouch, new yorker

Why read the classics, italo calvino (pdf)

How reading is like love: italo calvino on the ecstasy of surrendering to other dimensions of experience, the marginalian

Just read the book already, lauren miller, slate

Treasure the books no one else seems to love, molly templeton, tor

Papyralysis, jacob mikanowski, los angeles review of books

How to nurture a personal library, freya howarth, psyche

Brief notes on the art and manner of arranging one's books, georges perec

If I don't remember what I read, did I read it at all? molly templeton, tor

Never do that to a book, anne fadiman, slate

Mary oliver on how reading saved her life and the greatest antidote to sorrow, the marginalian

On the pleasures and solitudes of quiet books, emily st. john mandel, the millions

Being a better online reader, maria konnikova, new yorker

How 11 writers organize their personal libraries, emily temple, literary hub

How many errorrs are in this essay? ed simon, the millions

Adrienne rich on resistance, the liberating power of storytelling, and how reading emancipates, the marginalian

How we read series, wired

Fiction detective: on literary citation and search engine sleuthing, sophie haigney, the drift

our autofiction fixation, jessica winter, the new york times

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[...] What is to be done when one identifies a body of work that clearly makes use of architectural principles, but is not manifested in the typical mediums of the professional architect (i.e. through drawing, modeling, or physical construction)? Is this work any less architectural, or should this person be considered any less of an architect? These questions are implicit in black feminist writer and blogger Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ historiographical inclusion of June Jordan in the architectural canon. Despite having no physical structures credited to her name, June Jordan – a female artist and woman of color, an autodidact with no architectural license – was indelibly drawn to and incorporated the principles of modern architecture into her writings throughout her career. 

[...] Jordan’s literature is a virtual manual of the techniques, strategies, and suppositions that were used by progressive postwar architects. In light of this, it might be more fruitful to consider her literary output as a synthetic hybridization of her poetic and architectural talents. Such a reading builds upon Cheryl Fish’s identification of the “architextural” character of Jordan’s career; the architectural implications of her genius remain pregnant in the prose and poetry she produced in her literary oeuvre. Jordan’s literature served as an intermediary for the disenfranchised black readers who had limited physical agency to reform their physical environments, but were discovering a new sense of self worth and agency in the radical messages being communicated by black social movements in the 1960s and 70s.

[...]Jordan’s 1971 novella His Own Where describes the experiences of a young black boy named Buddy who is forced to live on his own after his father is hospitalized by an errant car zipping along a Harlem crosswalk. Buddy’s life experiences teach him that the urban space is overtly aggressive and unforgiving toward black life and never to be trusted. As Buddy’s desire for independence grows, his increasing agency is mirrored by a daring transformation of the family home. Although Jordan never uses the term ‘architect’ to describe Buddy or ‘architectural’ to describe his transformation of the family brownstone, it is clear that her description of the spare and minimalist aesthetic of the now modernist interior is an allegory for Buddy’s self-determination.

[...]Jordan’s textual depiction of alternative modernism gives her character Buddy a glint of the handicraft roots of Adolf Loos or Mies van der Rohe, although his fate is far more tempered by the neglect and want of the ‘Negro’ in 1960s America. Hers is a radical black version of architectural culture that pluralizes its restrictive canons to include the most sympathetic of personalities – a boy abandoned by both family and society who refuses to lose all hope. In a biographical sense, Jordan’s attempts to synthesize race and place in her works constituted her efforts come to grips with the race riots and abject poverty that marked Harlem in the mid to late-1960s. She wanted to move beyond the hate she felt for her oppressors by providing the urban residents of these segregated enclaves with a glimpse of hope, even if this hope was largely textual in form.

Buddy is an ideal characterization of the social position of the black designer who cannot officially claim to be an architect, but still resolves to make use of the tools of architecture for their own means.

[...] Through her words, Jordan reveals the complexity of black urban space in the postwar period through an alternative vision of architectural modernism.

More important than arguing over whether June Jordan can officially be called an architect for the purposes of architectural historiography is her insistence on not identifying herself in exclusively careerist terms. Whatever we decide to call her does not matter if we can resolutely reclaim her hybridized and ecological approach to interpreting the built environment. In this sense, June Jordan is only one of many black artists and writers who found value in the principles of architectural modernism and urban design. All it requires of us is to read through these speculations and continue to remake them in the present. Doing so would afford such work an even greater influence on architectural culture as it requires an active interpretation of the word-images that were recorded in the postwar period.

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im sick of being angry and sad and tired and poor and im tired of being pushed and pulled and im tired of walking around w one arm cut off and still doing as much as someone w two etc etc so on and so forth

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the body's been keeping score... right...

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oh im really really heartbroken . that's what this is

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Urgent help to buy medicine

Dear human,

I am writing to you as a human being like you. I am part of a family that is going through difficult times amidst this genocide. My brother suffers from bipolar disorder, and we only need 60 euros to buy his essential medication.🇵🇸

We ask you to stand by us, whether by donating, sharing our story, or talking about us. 💔🙏😔

https://gofund.me/917ecb89

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after a full year ive made it thru 1 half of angels in america . book that makes u fucking insane every time you pick it up

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earlier i liked your post but upon further reflection your point was facile and construed on bad faith. consider my like retracted

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Love when ppl have i can't agree with anyone disease bc you'll say something like "i think this is cool for xyz reasons" and they'll be like "yeah no so I actually think it's cool for [the exact same thing you just said]" Ah ok. Sorry you're right my opinion was poseur and shallow but your perspective is much more unique and heartfelt.

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ughhh fine *experiences emotional growth*