#mette madison

[spettriedemoni]

Catwoman e Batman

Il primo racconto che Conan Doyle scrive con protagonista il suo celebre detective Sherlock Holmes è "Uno Scandalo in Boemia". Cronologicamente credo venga dopo il romanzo "Il Segno dei Quattro".

L'incipit di questo racconto dice, riassumendo, che Holmes chiama Irene Adler semplicemente "La Donna". La chiama così per una sorta di deferenza nei suoi confronti ed è un caso più unico che raro perché fondamentalmente Holmes è un misogino che non ha certo una grande opinione delle donne, a voler essere buoni.

Dunque perché è così deferente verso questa donna?

La risposta è semplice: perché Irene Adler, attrice e arrivista, è riuscita a evitare di essere battuta da Holmes dimostrandosi arguta tanto quanto il detective.

Holmes ne rimane talmente colpito che come unico compenso per i servigi resi all'uomo che lo aveva ingaggiato per prendere l'attrice che lo stava ricattando, chiede di poter avere la foto di lei sul cui retro c'è una dedica indirizzata proprio al detective.

L'unica donna che prende il cuore al razionale e freddo Holmes è una donna capace di tenergli testa.

Anni dopo un disegnatore di fumetti di nome Bob Kane inserirà tra i nemici del personaggio da lui inventato, il celebre Batman, una donna ladra affascinante e sensuale che si maschera come un gatto quando compie le sue imprese.

Negli anni Catwoman è diventato un personaggio preponderante nell'universo batmaniano e meno definibile come "villain". Il rapporto con Batman è andato oltre il semplice antagonismo e si è andato sfumando. Avevano provato a mettere un personaggio stile "dama in pericolo" al fianco del Cavaliere Oscuro, prima una fidanzata ufficiale tale Julie Madison, poi una fotografa come Vicky Vale che doveva essere forse una copia di Lois Lane, poi però qualcuno ha capito, fortunatamente, che Batman non è un personaggio che possa essere sedotto dalla classica damigella in pericolo. No, serviva qualcuna di molto diversa da questo stereotipo.

C'era già una donna così. Certo negli anni '70 avevano trovato Talia, la figlia di Ra's Al Ghul, ma Catwoman c'era prima ed stata più o meno sempre presente nella storia editoriale di Batman, lo conosce da più tempo.

Catwoman, alias Selina Kyle, è intelligente, scaltra, affascinante, forte e tiene testa al Cavaliere Oscuro.

In tempi più recenti lo sceneggiatore J. Loeb è arrivato a far baciare i due. Anche se in passato era già successo in altre storie, la novità stavolta è che nella saga "Hush" Batman decide di rivelare la sua vera identità a Selina che nel frattempo è sempre meno villain e molto più hero.

Tuttavia i due non dureranno mai troppo insieme, perché in queste storie l'eroe invecchia irrimediabilmente se mette su famiglia. Così i due sono destinati a ballare insieme ancora a lungo, ad appartenersi senza mai aversi davvero.

Che storia, vero?

[1000-year-old-virgin]

200 Best Songs of 2023

Janine - If I Call *FAVE SONG OF THE YEAR*

Kim Petras - Brrr

Sam Smith, Koffee, Jessie Reyez - Gimme

ILIRA - Work of Art

Joseph - Nervous System

Mariah the Scientist ft. 21 Savage - 77 degrees

PinkPantheress & Ice Spice – Boy's a liar Pt. 2

Ryan Destiny - Lie Like That

Latto ft. LU KALA - Lottery

Chrissy Chlapecka - I'm So Hot

Ashnikko - Don't Look at It

serpentwithfeet - Gonna Go

Don Toliver ft. Lil Durk & GloRilla- Leave The Club

Don Toliver ft. James Blake - Let Her Go

Miley Cyrus - Flowers

Miley Cyrus - River

Meghan Trainor - Mother

Ice Spice & Nicki Minaj - Princess Diana (Remix)

Melanie Martinez - DEATH

Natalie Jane - Seeing You With Other Girls

Amelia Moore feat. jxdn - FUMD

Ashnikko - You Make Me Sick!

Flo Milli ft. Lola Brooke & Maiya The Don - Conceited (Remix)

Flo Milli ft. Monaleo & Gloss Up - Bed Time (Remix)

Astrid S - Come First

Ashnikko - Want It All

salem ilese - PainHub

Libianca ft. Ayra Starr & Omah Lay - People (Remix)

Labrinth ft. Billie Eilish - Never Felt So Alone

Katie Belle - The Best You'll Ever Have

Emilie Nicolas - Everyday

Donna Missal - Flicker

Donna Missal - Out of Me

Donna Missal - Move Me

Donna Missal - God Complex

Donna Missal - I Saw God

LØLØ ft. girlfriends- 5,6,7,8

Jackson Wang & Ciara - Slow

Troye Sivan - Can't Go Back, Baby

Baby Tate & Saweetie - Hey, Mickey! (Remix)

Shania Twain - Number One

Shania Twain - Got It Good

Empress Of ft. Rina Sawayama - Kiss Me

NLE Choppa ft. SexyyRed / Sukihana - Slut Me Out (Remix)

Maggie Lindemann, Siiickbrain - deprecating

Ed Sheeran - The Hills of Aberfeldy

Rita Ora ft. Fatboy Slim Praising You (Fatboy Slim Remix)

Tyla & Ayra Starr - Girl Next Door

Kesha - Only Love Can Save Us Now

Ciara ft. Lola Brooke & Lady London - Da Girls (Girls Mix)

Jeremy Zucker - OK

CXLOE - Flight Risk

Josh Levi - See Low

Josh Levi - BIRTHDAY DANCE

Alex Vaughn & Summer Walker - So Be It (Remix)

Alex Vaughn & Ari Lennox - Demon Time (Remix)

Taylor Swift ft. Ice Spice - Karma (Remix)

Taylor Swift ft. Lana Del Rey - Snow On The Beach (More Lana Del Rey Edit)

Boris The Lucid - BOYFRIEND

Carrie Underwood - Take Me Out

Libianca - Jah

Conan Gray - Never Ending Song

The Aces - Always Get This Way

Madison Beer ft. Timbaland - Home To Another One (Remix)

Äyanna - Girlfriend

Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice ft. Aqua – Barbie World

Rita Ora - That Girl

Rita Ora - Unfeel It

Tanerelle - Feel Good Inc. X Sidetracked (Perfect Lover Mash Up)

Sleater-Kinney - Hell

Saweetie ft. YG & Tyga - BIRTHDAY

Mae Stephens ft. Meghan Trainor - Mr Right

Brooke Candy - FMUATW

Ben Kessler - When I Hate Myself

Eliott ft. Vancouver Sleep Clinic - Happy On My Own

Reneé Rapp - Pretty Girls

Leah Kate - Bored

Chappell Roan - HOT TO GO!

Rina Sawayama ft. Amaarae - Imagining

GAYLE - Leave Me For Dead

Selena Gomez - Single Soon

Äyanna - Change Your Life

Julia Wolf - Wishbone

Cloudy June - Devil Is A Woman

Anne-Marie ft. Shania Twain - UNHEALTHY

Leaf ft. Bandmanrill, DJ Drewski - 2 Freaky

Olivia O'Brien - I should've fucked your brother

SIIICKBRAIN - Psychopath

Adekunle Gold - Do You Mind?

Duncan Laurence - I Do

Dizzy - Open Up Wide

Leigh-Anne ft. Ayra Starr - My Love

Troye Sivan – Got Me Started

Cate - Girlfriend

NERIAH - Falling 4 Somebody

Cardi B ft. Megan Thee Stallion - Bongos

Amelia Moore - Over My Ex

Johnny Orlando - Boyfriend

Tyla - Water

Tems - Me & U

Mette - Mama's Eyes

Wrabel - Beautiful Day

Chxrry22 - MORE

Norah Jones - Can You Believe

Kanii ft. Trippie Redd - sins (let me in) [Remix]

Niall Horan & Lizzy McAlpine - You Could Start A Cult (Encore Version)

Travis Scott ft. Beyoncé - DELRESTO (ECHOES)

Addison Rae ft. Charli XCX - 2 Die 4

Gyakie - Rent Free

Kim Petras - Hit It From The Back

Kim Petras ft. Banks - Bait

Kim Petras - Dirty Things

K. Michelle - Blame Yourself

Sunnitharapper ft. Salma Slims - Moody

Troye Sivan - One of Your Girls

Lady London ft. Jeremih - Do Something

Zara Larsson, David Guetta - On My Love

cassö, RAYE, D-Block Europe - Prada

Serpentwithfeet- Damn Gloves

Dove Cameron - Still

Kenya Grace - Paris

Dua Lipa - Houdini

Tokischa ft. Sexyy Red - Daddy

Zach Seabaugh - Helium Balloons

COBRAH - 10/10

COBRAH - BAD POSITION

COBRAH - TEQUILA

Clinton Kane - PANIC ATTACK

Megan Thee Stallion - Cobra

Nick Wilson - For You It Was Him

Nick Wilson - Way Back

Ice Spice - Deli

Enchanting - Needy

SZA - Kill Bill

Kylie Minogue - Padam Padam

Summer Walker - Girls Need Love (Girls Mix) ft. Tyla / Victoria Monet / Tink

Tate McRae - exes

Tove Lo - I like u

Kim Petras - Je T'Adore

Doechii - Booty Drop

Kim Petras - Claws

Sam Smith & Madonna - VULGAR

Kim Petras - uhoh

Borgore x Cupcakke x Chase Icon - Abracadabra

Clinton Kane - DISAPPEAR

Nicki Minaj - Big Difference

Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday Girls

Charli XCX ft. Sam Smith - In The City

Reneé Rapp ft. Megan Thee Stallion - Not My Fault

Flo Milli - Never Lose Me

Kim Petras - Thousand Pieces

Kim Petras - Minute

Charli XCX - Speed Drive (jamesjamesjames Remix)

Chrissy Chlapecka - BRAT

The Last Dinner Party - My Lady of Mercy

Shania Twain - Waking Up Dreaming

Nicki Minaj - Fallin 4 U

Jessie Ware ft. Pabllo Vittar -Pearls (Brabo Remix)

Shania Twain - Queen Of Me

Chiké, Oxlade - Spell [Remix]

Anycia - REFUND

Lah Pat ft. Flo Milli - Rodeo (Remix)

Biig Piig - This Is What They Meant

Niall Horan - Save My Life

Bronze Avery - Sex In The Room

Ava Max - Cold As Ice

Peach PRC - F U Goodbye

Suzanne Sheer - Off Limits

Nicki Minaj - FTCU

Madison Rose - Girls Girls Girls

Kaliii ft. GloRilla - Can't Get 'Em

BIA - FALLBACK

Miley Cyrus - Jaded

Kylie Minogue - You Still Get Me High

Miley Cyrus - Violet Chemistry

Miley Cyrus ft. Sia - Muddy Feet

Bebe Rexha - Visions (Don't Go)

Coi Leray - My Body

Coi Leray ft. Saucy Santana - Spend It

Maiya The Don - Luv U Better

The Last Dinner Party - Nothing Matters

IDK ft. Jucee Froot & Saucy Santana - Pinot Noir

Tinashe - Uh Huh

Nicki Minaj - Beep Beep

Nicki Minaj - Pink Birthday

Bella Poarch - Bad Boy

Nicki Minaj - My Life

Trippie Redd & BANKS - Saint Michael Myers

Tamera - Frozen

Shygirl & CoSha - Thicc

Ari Lennox - Get Close

Flo Milli - Fruit Loop

Mette - For The People

Amaarae - Angels in Tibet

Jamila Woods ft. Saba - Practice

Rachel Chinouriri - Maybe I’m Lonely

Jonah Kagen - Save My Soul

The OMG Girlz - Lover Boy

Karin Ann - A Stranger With My Face

Victoria Monet - Alright

Paige - Aquarian

2022's List

[susieporta]

Il solo amore, è quello impossibile.

Breve sunto di una lezione scolastica

Classe: 12-14 anni

' Il solo vero grande amore, è quello impossibile.'

Mormorio e risatine...

'Prof , spieghi? Le nostre storie non valgono nulla?

' Al contrario. Le vostre storie d'amore, oggi ( e qua di coppie ne vedo tante) sono tali perchè portano dentro il resto di qualcosa di non realizzato, inappagato. Se così non fosse, vi sareste già mollati'

Meta classe si mette piu in attenti e segue, l'altra invece accende i telefoni..'

Si va avanti

'l'amore assoluto, vero, è quello impossibile. E proprio perchè è tale, permette di avere relazioni diciamo 'normali'

' Non capisco' ( ragazza molto sveglia, e sul pezzo)

'L'amore è per caso, e unisce ed interseca vite che si sfiorano, apparetemente inconciliabili. Essi si innamorano, e si agganciano per sempre, ma non stanno assieme'

'Perchè?

Proprio perchè appartengono a mondi oppostiti, per certi versi incompatibili. L'amore lascia qualcosa di aperto, di erotizzato si dice in termini clinici.

Una tensione amorosa legata all'oggetto perduto, che fa in modo tal da rendere quel varco mai aperto, mai chiuso, ma sempre erotizzato

' In senso sessuale??

'No . il sesso non c'entra. Tu puoi fare sesso anche con un ebete, se fisicamante attraente. ( risate fragorose...)

Ma dopo, lui non sarà mai in grado di saziare quel desiderio innescato dal primo incontro, magari andato in fumo'

' Comincio a capire'

' Ok. Allora , dunque. Proprio perchè e' impossibile resterà il Grande Amore, . Perchè non consumato, non toccato, Non immerso nella quotidianità, non usurato dal tempo e dal decadimento del corpo L'altro è sempre quello che avete incontrato, ma non avete potuto avere.'

'Sapete secondo Lacan, quale è la lettera d'amore piu' importante? Quella non spedita. Trattenuta da voi, non in taccata.

Vi faccio un esempio

C'è un film, chiamato i ponti di Madison County che forse voi no, ma il vostro pro qua alle mie spalle ha di certo visto ( prof ingnavo colto di sorpresa mentre scrive al telefono, risate dei ragazzi)

Ecco, chiedete in casa di vederlo, lo trovate su molte piattaforme

Racconta un amore, un amore impossibile.

Che dura solo pochi giorni.

Ma eterno

cito:

Il film è ambientato nello stato dello Iowa. Attraverso i tre diari personali di Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep), lasciati in eredità ai suoi due figli, avviene il racconto dell’estate 1965. Mentre marito e figli sono in viaggio, Francesca, casalinga, vive una fugace ma intensa storia d’amore con il fotografo Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood).

Giunto per fare un reportage fotografico dei sei ponti coperti di Madison County, Robert entra come un uragano nella vita di Francesca, fino a farla innamorare. Lei, però, vive la lotta interiore tra la morale famigliare e la nuova passione sopraggiunta, fino al momento in cui compie una scelta dolorosa.

Nelle pagine del diario, Francesca, nome quanto mai simbolico per la tradizione letteraria, racconta le sue scelte. Non cerca giudizio favorevole, non argomenta con ragioni e motivazioni. Lascia solo dispiegare gli eventi che, nella loro forza poetica, creano ponti empatici. I ponti di Madison County sono ponti reali che collegano i due amanti, ad inizio film, e sono ponti immaginari, che collegano due anime lontane.

L’Iowa, con i suoi spazi sterminati, diventa foglio bianco per scrivere dell’amore tra due individui soli e diversi. Un luogo dove, per pochi giorni, reale e immaginario collassano in corpi avvinghiati, sorrisi e abbracci. Capelli al vento, picnic, bagni caldi e luci soffuse. Canzoni blues, balli e cene come Dio comanda.

Il principio di realtà poi ritorna prepotente, e come lama squarcia i fogli ora pieni di parole. Ma l’immaginazione e il ricordo restano intatti come un diamante, eterno. Prendono spazio e forma non più nel caldo Iowa, ma nella mente dei protagonisti, dove il tempo, così rapido nell’estate 1965, diventa invariato, fisso.

' Avete capito, adesso?

Un amore fugace, impossibile, e per questo eterno'

'Prof, io non credo di aver capito molto, ma qualcosa si.

Quello che so, è che oggi mollo il mio ragazzo..'

Risate generali che durano mezz'ora.

E mi fanno capire, se mai ce ne fosse bisogno che due ore passate qua, con questi studenti che mi hanno pure preso per i fondelli, valgono mille congressi in giro per il mondo.

Maurizio Montanari

[statisticalcats2]

Statcat's official list of favorite Cats performers

(I'm horrible with specific ranking so performers are listed in alphabetical order gfiuedw)

Alonzo: Jason Gardiner, Matt Huet

Bombalurina: Erica Lee Cianiculli, Rosemarie Ford, Chelsea Nicole Mitchell, Christine Cornish Smith

Cassandra: Lexy Bittner, Emily Pynenburg, Mette Towley

Demeter: Nora DeGreen, Kim Faure, Juliann Kuchocki, Aeva May, Madison Mitchell, Cornelia Waibel

Electra: Lili Froehlich

Grizabella: Tayler Harris, Jennifer Hudson, Elaine Paige, Mamie Parris

Gus: Christopher Gurr, John Mills, Tony Mowatt

Jellylorum: Sara Jean Ford, Kayli Jamison

Jemima/Sillabub: Arianna Rosario, Ahren Victory

Jennyanydots: Eloise Kropp, Susie McKenna, Emily Jeanne Phillips

Macavity: Daniel Gaymon

Mistoffelees: Jacob Brent, Tion Gaston

Mungojerrie: Danny Collins, Max Craven, John Thornton, Drew Varley

Munkustrap: Robbie Fairchild, Michael Gruber, Matthew Pike, Kade Wright

Old Deuteronomy: Ken Page

Plato: Daniel Gaymon, Tyler John Logan

Rum Tum Tugger: Jason Derulo, John Partridge, Hank Santos, Siegmar Tonk

Rumpleteazer: Jo Gibb, Shonica Gooden, Bonnie Langford, Taryn Smithson

Skimbleshanks: Jeremy Davis, Geoffrey Garratt, Steven McRae, Christopher Salvaggio

Tumblebrutus: Daymon Montaigne-Jones, Devin Neilson

Victoria: Phyllida Crowley Smith, Francesca Hayward, Yuka Notsuka, Georgina Pazcoguin

[gallatingazette]

Senior Shout Outs

● Brianna Bloom- committed to West Virginia University to study criminology. ● Gianna Valenti- committed to Washington & Jefferson College to study political science and play soccer. ● Laura Mildren- committed to PennWest California. ● Jaelyn Carr- committed to PennWest California. ● Maddie Milligan- committed to PennWest California. ● Nina Grimes- committed to West Virginia University. ● Abby Barnes- committed to West Virginia University. ● Savannah Brundege- committed to PennWest California. ● Alexis Metts- committed to Alderson Broaddus University on athletic and academic scholarship to continue her education while also playing softball in college. ● Hunter Brangard- going to attend LBI for welding then go onto work on the pipeline. ● Blair Kotarsky- committed to Washington & Jefferson College. ● Jackie Bennett- committed to Pittsburgh Technical College for online criminal justice courses and plans on working at the Hazelton West Virginia Penitentiary as corrections officer after her schooling. ● Madison Shushok- committed to Seton Hill University.

[mashabrum]

Our team member Kenton Cool is on the top of K2 (8611m). . . . . . . . . #madison #international #k2 #Expedition2021 #teammett #sherpas #highporters #karakoram #highmountains #pakistan #nepal #usa🇺🇸 #uk #ukrainegirl #mett #mashabrum #mashabrumexpeditions #madisonmountaineering #himalyanguidesnepal #mightyk2 #congratulations #climbingheros #fantasticjob (at K2) https://www.instagram.com/p/CR28Qo1jdsK/?utm_medium=tumblr

[thegirlwhonobodyknow]

Per la serie: Grant e le giornate complicate. Una doccia fredda, quella delle dimissioni di Damian Bayley che lascia l’ufficio Hampton. Grant Senior non si è nemmeno sbilanciato a dare un suo parere sulla situazione e ha lasciato il figlio in balia di mille dubbi su come comportarsi. Chissà cosa deve esser successo per condurre Damian a compiere una scelta simile. Cosa fare? Cosa dirgli? Si interroga così, Grant, mentre quella mattina sta nella sala da pranzo di Villa Hampton mentre fa colazione, la televisione accesa che passa in rassegna notizie, a far da sottofondo ai suoi pensieri. A interrompere, però, quel flusso di coscienza ci pensa il campanello di casa. Un suono insistente. Seline sembra indaffarata a far altro, i suoi e sua sorella non li vede in giro, saranno usciti prima di lui. Quindi destino vuole che sia lui ad andare ad aprire la porta. Sulla soglia di casa trova il postino che gli recapita una busta con un sigillo in ceralacca e con su scritto: “per la famiglia Hampton”. Firma per certificare l’avvenuta consegna e rientra carico di curiosità di sapere di cosa si tratti. Quindi si accomoda sul divano e mette da parte le stampelle, di cui ogni tanto decide di far ancora uso, e si appresta ad aprire quella busta e… per poco l’invito al suo interno non gli cade dalle mani. È da parte di Rachel. Si laurea. Il 15 novembre. La sua Rachel si laurea. O quella che una volta aveva la pretesa di considerar tale, prima di voltarle le spalle, incapace di portare avanti una relazione, troppo codardo per esporsi oltre il suo orgoglio. Gli tremano le mani e la gola gli diventa improvvisamente secca, mentre i battiti nel petto si fanno più frequenti e incessanti. Non ha sue notizie da quanto? Un anno? Perché nonostante lei e Madison si sentano come sempre, non gli è mai passato per la mente di chiedere come stesse o cosa stesse facendo a Sydney, nonostante la curiosità e l’interesse per la vita di lei non sia mai scemato. Sempre perché Grant Hampton Jr non è nato con un cuor di leone. Si è solo crogiolato nella stupida convinzione che Rachel stesse meglio senza di lui. Perché Grant ha deciso così, per entrambi. E ora riceve quello schiaffo morale di essere incluso ad un evento tanto importante per la vita della Harris. Perché non c’è scritto: la famiglia Hampton tranne Grant. E questo lo fa sentire dannatamente sciocco. Perché con lei si è comportato da egoista e invece che ripagarlo con la stessa moneta, si è dimostrata nettamente superiore. E lo sa, lo sa che anche questo è un tratto fondamentale di Rachel: se deve mostrarsi sopra gli altri, non esiterà a evidenziarlo. E questo è sempre stato un aspetto di lei che ha apprezzato, che forse avrebbe voluto vedere meno legato alle rivalità di quella stupida città e alle sue differenze sociali. E lo sa che Sydney l’ha resa migliore di quanto potesse farlo Alice Springs. L’ha vista��

[ flashback ] — 𝟭𝟭𝘁𝗵 𝗷𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮

Ha appena finito di cenare con suo padre dopo quella lunga giornata di intenso lavoro. Sydney è una città mille volte più frenetica di Alice Springs e solletica sempre la sua voglia di trasferirvisi un giorno. Perché solo lontano dalle radici che lo tengono legato alla sua città natale sentirebbe di poter dare il meglio di se stesso. Ma fino a che non imparerà a spiccare il volo da solo, dovrà continuare a stare sotto l’ala protettrice di suo padre, che sarà il primo a capire quando sarà pronto. Fino a quel momento, il massimo che può fare è fantasticare sul proprio futuro, mentre si intrattiene a bere in un locale del centro, seduto davanti al bancone. Poco più in la sente ridere un gruppo di ragazze e ragazzi e per un attimo, mentre si volta a guardarli, immagina di essere in mezzo a loro. Nuove persone che entrano a far parte della sua vita. Un sogno! Ma la realtà lo richiama ben presto a sé, svegliandolo dal suo viaggio nella fantasia, facendogli notare in mezzo a quelle persone una chioma bionda e degli occhi azzurri che conosce fin troppo bene. È Rachel. Quasi non cade dallo sgabello su cui è seduto per lo shock di quella scoperta. E va bene che il mondo è piccolo, ma addirittura così tanto da trovarsela nel medesimo locale la stessa e unica sera che alloggia a Sydney gli sembra un po’ troppo. Che bella che è, mentre ride e scherza con i suoi nuovi amici. È quasi invidioso della sua nuova vita di cui non fa parte. Ma lo vede nel suo sguardo, nella sua risata, che Rachel sta bene. Sta bene via da Alice Springs e sta bene senza di lui. Difatti, questo stesso pensiero lo induce a restare nell’ombra a non farsi vedere. Ma al tempo stesso, prima di andar via, vuole lasciarle un segno d’esser stato lì, anche senza che lei lo veda. Chiama a sé uno dei camerieri del bar e gli chiede di portare al tavolo della bionda il drink che questa di più preferisce, assieme ad un biglietto, di cui suggerisce il contenuto al suo interlocutore, cui lascia una cospicua mancia per questo favore. Cosa le lascia scritto? “Sei la versione migliore di te stessa che potessi mai sognare di vedere. Sono fiero di te. G.H.” Detto ciò, riprende il suo orgoglio e la sua malinconia dell’aver visto l’unica ragazza per cui abbia provato sinceri sentimenti e per la seconda volta nella sua vita la lascia andare, mentre se ne esce dal locale con la coda tra le gambe. Consapevole che tra i due quella a crescere ed andare avanti è sempre lei.

[ 𝟮𝟴𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮 ]

L’ha vista a Sydney quanto sembra diversa, anche solo per qualche istante. E si chiede se il suo gesto, quel biglietto dietro cui si è nascosto abbia smosso la scelta di Rachel a non tagliarlo fuori da uno dei momenti più importanti della sua vita. Rigira l’invito tra le mani, ancora incredulo, e quasi nemmeno si accorge della presenza di sua madre nella stanza. Lei che pare già essere consapevole di cosa turbi il figlio. Si fa passare il biglietto da Grant ed annuisce, sorridendo con l’aria di chi la sa lunga. Ma certo! Che sciocco?! Era ovvio che sua madre e sua sorella ne fossero al corrente. Solo lui era, anche giustamente, all’oscuro di cosa la sua ex ragazza e la sua storica migliore amica stesse facendo nella sua nuova vita. Che ingenuo a non pensarci prima.

“ Va tutto bene, Grant? ” « Non lo so. Secondo te dovrei venire? » “ Perché non dovresti? ” « Perché il fatto che lei mi abbia incluso non vuol dire che magari voglia vedermi. Magari è solo di facciata. » “ Sai anche tu che non è così. Rachel aveva tutto il diritto di non invitarti. Non lo ha fatto. Non pensi che forse voglia il suo migliore amico alla sua festa di laurea? ” « Il suo migliore amico forse si. Il suo ex ragazzo non credo. » “ Decidi tu in che veste vuoi presentarti. ” « Quindi mi stai dicendo che devo venire? » “ Io non ti sto dicendo cosa devi fare. Sei abbastanza adulto da capirlo da solo. Ti sto dicendo di seguire cosa vuoi fare, magari senza condizionarti con le tue stesse convinzioni. ” « Tu pensi che sia stato uno sciocco a lasciarla. » “ Non giudico la tua scelta, figlio mio, solo non ne capisco il motivo. Ma non tocca a me fare i conti con le conseguenze di questa decisione. ”

Segue un lungo minuto di silenzio al termine del quale Grant esala un sospiro ed accenna quel che sembra un vago sorriso. « Mi accompagnerai a scegliere un vestito nuovo per la sua laurea, quindi? » Domanda, calpestando la sua voglia di scappare da questa situazione . Priscilla Hampton gli rivolge un sorriso compiaciuto, annuisce e gli scocca un bacio sulla fronte, congedandosi prima di uscire dalla villa. Lasciandolo solo a fare i conti con questa nuova sfida. È davvero pronto a rivedere e rivivere una parte mai chiusa del suo passato?

[duskfellhq-arch]

      WHEN DUSK FALLS  …  welcome  to  new york,  SIAN GRIVALDI, LENNON SINCLAIR, DANIEL METT, SILAS WAYLAND, DELIA LEÄVIT, JAVIER FERREIRA, SAMUEL AVIER & SANTIAGO SARIEGO  —  you  look  an  awful  lot  like sofia carson, sydney sweeney, tom holland, keanu reeves, dewanda wise, david castaneda, martin sensmeier & alberto rosende,  don’t  you  ?   please  be  sure  to  pick  up  a  subway map  on  your  way  in,  and  send  in  your  account  within  the  next  24  HOURS.

( sofia carson. nonbinary. she/they. villain & k/da + madison beer. ) i heard SIAN GRIVALDI singing the other night, though it didn’t sound like english. it’s so admirable that someone who’s only TWENTY-EIGHT can sing latin so fluently! i hear they hang out with the NOCTIS coven, but they’re also a MARKETING MANAGER at TIME MAGAZINE. when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to BROOKLYN by LYFT. (bri. 25. she/her. cst. )

(sydney sweeney. cis woman. she/her. eyes on fire & blue foundation. ) supposedly LENNON FAYE SINCLAIR is actually a FAE CHANGELING, but i doubt it. they look like they’re TWENTY SEVEN, though they act like they’ve been on earth for TWENTY FOUR years. i recently saw them at CROWNED WILLOWS — i think they’re a(n) FLORIST there. when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to MANHATTAN by TOWN CAR. ( raven. 26. she/her. est. )

( alberto rosende. cismale. he&him. believer & imagine dragons. ) supposedly SANTIAGO MAQUEZ SARIEGO is actually a HYBRID (WEREWOLF/VAMPIRE), but i doubt it. they look like they’re TWENTY-EIGHT, though they act like they’ve been on earth for EIGHTY-TWO years. i recently saw them at BROOKYLN— i think they’re a(n) FIREFIGHTER there. when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to STATEN ISLAND by MOTORCYCLE. ( jen. 24. she/her. GMT-3. )

( tom holland. cis male. he/him/his. brutal & olivia rodrigo. ) well, would you look at DANIEL METT this year? i’ve heard they’re a full TWENTY-FOUR years young, and a COLLEGE STUDENT & EMPLOYEE at THE RECORD SKIP. you can always find them sipping a SALTED CARAMEL CREAME COLD BREW COFFEE while they EDIT VIDEOS. when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to QUEENS by ELECTRIC SCOOTER. ( m. 21+. she/her. pst. )

( keanu reeves. cisgender male. he/him/his. little dark age & mgmt. ) well, would you look at SILAS WAYLAND this year? i believe they have been training for FIFTEEN of their FIFTY-TWO years of life. this makes them a PROFICIENT hunter in their family, but they’re also pretty good at SKETCHING. when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to QUEENS by MOTORBIKE. ( m. 21+. she/her. pst. )

( Dewanda Wise. Cis female. She/They. Rise & Solange. ) i heard Delia Leävit singing the other night, though it didn’t sound like english. it’s so admirable that someone who’s only 32 can sing latin so fluently! i hear they hang out with the UNAFFILIATED coven, but they’re also a(n) TRAVELING MIDWIFE in the city. when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to BROOKLYN by FOOT. ( aurin. 23. She/they. CST. )     

hunter app: ( david castaneda. cismale. He/him. Invisible man & theory of a deadman ) well, would you look at JAVIER FERREIRA this year? i believe they have been training for 25 of their 30 years of life. this makes them a HIGH hunter in their family, but they’re also pretty good at TENNIS. when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to QUEENS by WALKING. ( j 30. she/her. mst. )

misc app: ( martin sensmeier. cis male. he/him. pet sematary by the ramones. ) supposedly SAMUEL AVIER is actually a REANIMATED/UNDEAD PERSON, but i doubt it. they look like they’re 35, though they act like they’ve been on earth for 41 years. i recently saw them at THE FLAME — i think they’re a BARTENDER there. when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to STATEN ISLAND by FOOT. ( hazy. 24. she/her. est. )

[corallorosso]

THE GARDEN OF EDEN... Gli Stones, nascosti dietro le quinte del Madison Square Garden, scalpitano come cavalli imbizzarriti. Adrenalina, alcol, tanta voglia di suonare e, manco a dirlo, troppa chimica in corpo. 27 Novembre 1969, New York. Tina e Ike, moglie e marito, sono sul palco da una ventina di minuti. Stanno andando alla grande. Quando suona, Ike, è una persona normale. Anzi no: quando suona, Ike, è un vero e proprio genio. Fuori dal palco invece, lontano dai riflettori, è uno stronzo. Tina lo sa bene. L'ha sposato, lo stronzo, e quando ci si unisce a una persona per "tutta la vita", si acquista "tutto il pacchetto". Anche se le porcate - i tradimenti, le brutte parole, e persino le botte -, di solito vengono a galla col tempo, quando la fiamma non è più viva come lo era all'inizio. Purtroppo è così. E quel che fatto è fatto. Ora Tina non può far altro che cantare e ballare. Far vedere a tutti di cosa è capace. "Il Garden" è un palco importante. I fan degli Stones sono tizi esigenti. Pretendono, oltre alla buona musica, anche performance di livello. Uno show vero e proprio. Ike, seduto al piano, le rivolge un cenno. Lei capisce al volo. Si passa da "Son of a Preacher Man" di Dusty Springfield a "Come Together" dei Beatles senza soluzione di continuità. Come se le due canzoni non fossero altro che la "Part I" e "Part II" dello stesso brano. Il pubblico di New York sembra apprezzare. Applausi, urla, fischi. Poi accade qualcosa di magico. I loro sguardi si sfiorano mentre Tina sta cantando a gran voce i versi della seconda strofa: "He say I know you, you know me One thing I can tell you is you got to be free Come together right now over me", E' solo un attimo. Un flash già passato. Ma è quanto basta. Janis ha una specie di gatto bianco sulla testa, collane e braccialetti sparsi un po' ovunque, e - più di ogni altra cosa -, segue lo spettacolo con il suo inconfondibile sorriso (alcolico) stampato sulla faccia. Tra lei e Tina l'intesa è immediata. La signora Turner le punta un dito contro, vuole che la raggiunga sul palco. Janis è sorpresa. Non così tanto, per la verità. In fondo, Janis Joplin all'interno del Madison Square Garden non può che essere sinonimo di salire sul palco e cantare. E' per questo che è nata. E' per questo che è scappata dal Texas a poco più di vent'anni. "Come Together" è giunta al termine. Nell'aria riecheggiano ancora gli ipnotici "Come together / Yeah", come un mantra destinato a durare in eterno. Janis, traballante a causa dei tacchi alti e non solo, si materializza davanti a ventimila newyorkesi increduli. La folla va in delirio. Mick e Keith, da dietro le quinte, osservano la scena a bocca aperta. Vorrebbero partecipare anche loro. Niente da fare. Sotto le luci della ribalta, ora, è il turno delle ragazze. Nel frattempo i Beatles hanno già lasciato il palco ai Creedence. Le note di "Proud Mary" avvolgono le due Ladies che, senza pensarci su nemmeno un secondo, le acchiappano facendole loro. Janis e Tina. Tina e Janis. Insieme sul palco. E' come se fosse appena detonata una bomba. Il pubblico se ne rende conto. Comincia a battere le mani, a urlare e a fischiare come se lì davanti, a un paio di metri da terra, ci fossero due Dee. Proprio così. Due divinità. La magia continua, viaggia alla velocità della luce, fa a pezzi le regole sacre del music business e dei suoi cliché avidi di profitto. Istinto e improvvisazione. Poco altro. La performance è giunta al termine. Janis e Tina ringraziano il pubblico con un inchino figlio d'altri tempi. Ike le raggiunge e si mette fra loro. Le prende a braccetto. Lo show è finito. Adesso tocca agli Stones. Prima di tornare al suo posto, e dopo che Ike si è allontanato, Janis sussurra qualcosa all'orecchio di Tina. - Quello è uno stronzo, - le dice indicando Mr. Turner - mi ha appena toccato il culo. Non l'ho preso a pugni per rispetto verso il pubblico, e soprattutto verso sua moglie. Tina annuisce. - Levatelo di torno appena puoi - conclude Janis prima di abbandonare il palco - altrimenti potrebbe finire male. Si scambiano un bacio che suona come una promessa. "Lascialo!" dicono gli occhi di Janis. "Lo lascio appena posso, ma tu cerca di rimanere viva!" ribattono quelli di Tina. La signora Turner, dopo sette lunghi anni di Calvario, avrebbe mantenuto la sua promessa. Janis, purtroppo, no. (Alessandro Casalini Scrittore)

[edsonlnoe]

MG Awards 2019 | Nominaciones

Película Dolor y Gloria The Favourite Gisaengchung If Beale Street Could Talk Luciérnagas Us Director Pedro Almodóvar | Dolor y Gloria Bong Joon-ho | Gisaengchung Barry Jenkins | If Beale Street Could Talk Bani Khoshnoudi | Luciérnagas Yorgos Lanthimos | The Favourite Jordan Peele | Us Actriz Olivia Colman | The Favourite Dakota Johnson | Suspiria Melissa McCarthy | Can You Ever Forgive Me? Lupita Nyong’o | Us Florence Pugh | Midsommar Emma Stone | The Favourite Actor Antonio Banderas | Dolor y Gloria Michael B. Jordan | Creed II Ethan Hawke | First Reformed Arash Marandi | Luciérnagas Dev Patel | The Wedding Guest Brad Pitt | Ad Astra Actriz de Reparto Edwarda Gurrola | Luciérnagas Jo Yeo-jeong | Gisaengchung Regina King | If Beale Street Could Talk Jennifer Lopez | Hustlers Tessa Thompson | Creed II Rachel Weisz | The Favourite Actor de Reparto Choi Woo-sik | Gisaengchung Lee Sun-kyun | Gisaengchung Dev Patel | Hotel Mumbai Leonardo Sbaraglia | Dolor y Gloria Song Kang-ho | Gisaengchung Yeun Sang-yeop | Beoning Guión Original Dolor y Gloria The Favourite First Reformed Gisaengchung Midsommar Us Guión Adaptado Beautiful Boy Can You Ever Forgive Me? Hustlers If Beale Street Could Talk The Irishman The Two Popes Edición Dolor y Gloria The Favourite Hustlers Gisaengchung If Beale Street Could Talk Us Fotografía Ad Astra Columbus The Favourite Gisaengchung If Beale Street Could Talk Us Diseño de Producción Dolor y Gloria The Favourite Gisaengchung Midsommar Suspiria Us Diseño de Vestuario The Favourite Mary Queen of Scots Once Upon A Time …In Hollywood Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Suspiria Us Make-Up & Hairstyling The Favourite Hellboy Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Mary Queen of Scots Suspiria Us Efectos Visuales / Especiales Ad Astra The Aeronauts Avengers: Endgame Crawl Spider-Man: Far From Home Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Edición de Sonido Ad Astra Avengers: Endgame La Casa Lobo Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Toy Story 4 Triple Frontier Mezcla de Sonido Ad Astra Avengers: Endgame Creed II If Beale Street Could Talk Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Us Score Ad Astra Creed II Dolor y Gloria Gisaengchung If Beale Street Could Talk J'ai Perdu Mon Corps Suspiria Us Soundtrack Beautiful Boy Creed II The Favourite Frozen II The Lion King Rocketman Canción “Home to You” — Sigrid | The Aeronauts “I Will Go to War” — Tessa Thompson | Creed II “Into the Unknown” — Idina Menzel, Aurora | Frozen II “Revelation” — Troye Sivan & Jónsi | Boy Erased “Show Yourself” — Idina Menzel, Evan Rachel Wood | Frozen II “Suspirium” — Thom Yorke | Suspiria “Treasure” — Sampha | Beautiful Boy “Unmade” — Thom Yorke | Suspiria “You Might Find Me” — Ludwig Göransson, Jacob Banks | Creed II Poster Aladdin Columbus Creed II The Favourite High Life Us Trailer Ad Astra The Favourite Frozen II Gisaengchung If Beale Street Could Talk Midsommar Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Us Diseño de Créditos Can You Ever Forgive Me? Familia Sumergida The Favourite If Beale Street Could Talk Missing Link Sorry to Bother You Película Animada Abominable La Casa Lobo Frozen II How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World J'ai Perdu Mon Corps Toy Story 4 Off-Screen Performance Jay Baruchel | How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World Josh Gad | Frozen II Tom Hanks | Toy Story 4 Christina Hendricks | Toy Story 4 Tenzing Norgay Trainor | Abominable Rosa Salazar | Alita: Battle Angel Non-Anglo Performance Sakura Andô | Manbiki Kazoku Antonio Banderas | Dolor y Gloria Penélope Cruz | Todos lo Saben Arash Marandi | Luciérnagas Song Kang-ho | Gisaengchung Yeun Sang-yeop | Beoning Performance Mexicano Sophie Alexander-Katz | Los Días Más Oscuros de Nosotras Gabriela Cartol | La Camarista Benny Emmanuel | Chicuarotes Edwarda Gurrola | Luciérnagas Hoze Meléndez | Noches de Julio Ilse Salas | Las Niñas Bien Featured Actor Joe Alwyn | Boy Erased Elena Fokina | Suspiria Dave Franco | If Beale Street Could Talk Théodore Pellerin | Boy Erased José Manuel Poncelis | Polvo Evan Rachel Wood | Frozen II Stunts Aladdin Avengers: Endgame Crawl Hobbs & Shaw John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum Terminator: Dark Fate Breakthrough Actriz Julia Butters | Once Upon A Time …In Hollywood Gabriela Cartol | La Camarista Madison Curry | Us Elsie Fisher | Eighth Grade Jeon Jong-Seo | Beoning KiKi Layne | If Beale Street Could Talk Lashana Lynch | Captain Marvel Shahadi Wright Joseph | Us Breakthrough Actor Evan Alex | Us Gabriel Bateman | Child’s Play Gabriel Carbajal | Chicuarotes Stephan James | If Beale Street Could Talk Naoki Kobayashi | Earthquake Bird Mena Massoud | Aladdin Florian Munteanu | Creed II César Vicente | Dolor y Gloria Keith L. Williams | Good Boys Rising Filmmaker Lila Avilés | La Camarista Steven Caple Jr. | Creed II Nia DaCosta | Little Woods Gael García Bernal | Chicuarotes Kogonada | Columbus Astrid Rondero | Los Días Más Oscuros de Nosotras Olivia Wilde | Booksmart José María Yázpik | Polvo Ensamble Avengers: Endgame | Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, Karen Gillan, Don Cheadle, Brie Larson, Tessa Thompson, Danai Gurira, Bradley Cooper, Tilda Swinton, John Slattery, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lexi Rabe, Zoe Saldana, Rene Russo, y Josh Brolin. Gisaengchung | Kang-ho Song, Yeo-jeong Jo, Sun-kyun Lee, Woo-sik Choi, So-dam Park, Hye-jin Jang, Jeong-eun Lee, Ji-so Jung, Hyun-jun Jung, y Myeong-hoon Park. Hustlers | Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Stiles, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, Mercedes Ruehl, Wai Ching Ho, Madeline Brewer, Trace Lysette, Mette Towley, Lizzo, y Cardi B. If Beale Street Could Talk | KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina King, Colman Domingo, Teyonah Parris, Brian Tyree Henry, Aunjanue Ellis, Michael Beach, Finn Wittrock, Ed Skrein, Emily Rios, Dave Franco, y Diego Luna. Suspiria | Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, Angela Winkler, Ingrid Caven, Elena Fokina, Sylvie Testud, Renée Soutendijk, Christine Leboutte, Malgosia Bela, Fabrizia Sacchi, Chloë Grace Moretz, y Jessica Harper. Us | Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Madison Curry, Anna Diop, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Tim Heidecker, y Elisabeth Moss. Escena Avengers! Assemble | Avengers: Endgame El Primer Deseo | Dolor y Gloria Zappaguri | Gisaengchung Crocodile Rock | Rocketman Mysterio’s Illusion | Spider-Man: Far From Home Vision Quest | Us Blockbuster Avengers: Endgame Creed II Hustlers Knives Out Spider-Man: Far From Home Us Non-Theatrical Release Atlantique Bad Times at the El Royale Columbus Earthquake Bird Little Woods Triple Frontier The Wedding Guest Documental Apollo 11 Free Solo Homecoming Soleils Noirs Tell Me Who I Am Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Película Mexicana La Camarista Chicuarotes Los Días Más Oscuros de Nosotras Luciérnagas Las Niñas Bien Polvo Película Iberoamericana Bacurau La Casa Lobo Dolor y Gloria Las Herederas Joaquim Todos lo Saben Circuito Independiente Di Qiu Zui Hou De Ye Wan Etz Teena The Irishman Luciérnagas Manbiki Kazoku The Two Popes

[cheladyn]

THE BODY AS POTENTIALITY

This was a paper I wrote for SA870 Anthropological Theory in the first semester of grad school (fall 2019). I still like it. I actually love parts of it. I think things have shifted for me since, but it’s fun to think alongside. I also got an A+. ;)

0I want to make theory personable; not because I have read the need for personable theory in a scholarly source, but because I viscerally feel the need to address and trudge through my thinking-feeling in a way that performatively expresses the topic at hand. I crave for an application of anthropological theory that honours the emergence of theory from the ground, from the doing, from the one who utters it. This is, in essence, a performative theoretical essay that seeks to bring my ambivalence toward conventional theory to life.  The writerly voice presented in this paper will weave between that of the assumed theoretician, and that of the anxious woman on the other side (me, the ‘I’ of Ileanna who stopped drinking coffee to manage her anxiety, and who has an obedient, hesitant love for theoretical legitimacy).

I

When we (academics and anthropologists) talk about bodies, we are really talking about the world they inhabit (and the world that inhabits them). When we talk about bodies by invoking ‘the body’, we often end up talking about discipline, obedience, docility, identity, violence, resistance, discourse, language, power, coercion. Secondarily, when we conjure ‘the body’, we may talk about affect, emotions, experience, an event. Tertiarily, we may fall into talking about flesh, sensation, proprioception, mobility, organs, movement, touch, feelings, the senses. This first-second-third hierarchy of the topic of ‘the body’ is not summoned unintentionally. There is a pressing/problematic hierarchy of bodiliness present in discourses that situate the lived sensation of Being as distinctly and curiously ‘lesser than.’

A concerted effort is exerted when this third level of analysis – the body as fleshy and ageing – is the primary topic of research. Scholars like David Howes, Constance Classen, Dara Culhane, Sarah Pink, Soyini Madison, and Jaida Kim Samudra have produced (sometimes extensive) bodies of work that continue to approach ‘the body’ as being a sensing, feeling, doing entity, entangled in social and cultural modes of production. Through their work, and through my position as a practicing professional in the field of dance (a dance artist), I am filled with care for how bodies are theorized. Thus, I appear unsatisfied with the ways that texts that include ‘the body’ fail to acknowledge its blurry boundaries beyond the acknowledgement of a blurriness itself.

When we talk about bodies, we are not exactly clear what we mean by the term ‘the body’. Frequently we allow this term, ‘the body’, to hang unsupported. When ‘the body’ manifests, it is taken for granted as to what it is and how to account for it; ‘the body’ is an unquestioned axiom of much theory and analysis. It is a simple thing, a Heideggerian thing, or a Spinozan thing, a thing Sara Ahmed would do, to ask “what is a body? What does/can one do? And what are it’s a/effects?” The need for a stable definition is not what I am asking for; rather I am left yearning for an analysis of social life that adequately offers a framework for bodily understandings. Producing strict definitions of such an entity or phenomena like ‘the body’ is not particularly exciting. I have/am a body, we all have some semblance of ‘the body’, we all wake up to such a complication every morning, so I am not keen to take time defining it. If anything, defining ‘the body’ would be a daunting task if there is the simultaneous desire not to create a definition that is drawn and quartered, dismembered and decapitated, excluding a dynamic embodied unfolding; a definition would be confusing (if it is not already clear, I am confused enough by my own corporeal existence). Bodies are messy.

There is a possibility here to offer a new formulation or conceptualization of ‘the body’: the body as potentiality. Yet, this feels sterile, bracketing off too much for the purposes of anthropological inquiry in general, and for research on the implications of kinesthesia (the sense movement) on subjectivity and agency in specific. Such tight conceptualization – the body as potentiality – functions by condensing heavy, polysemous terms to simultaneously suspend reality and metaphor into something akin to theoretical assertion. The body as potentiality could mean something, be useful somewhere, some how; such a formulation offers not a framework but a definition. The body as potentiality requires a concern for avoiding the disembodied approaches that continue to relegate bodiliness as ‘lesser than’. If I had the luxury of time, I would write a text on this body as potentiality in such a way that could contribute to the wider knowledge of bodies as emergent and unfolding. I am interested in one day delving into this sort of theory-building, delving into the first level of the discursive hierarchy that privileges bodies at a distance from their sensations as a means to re-form ontological assumptions about body-knowledge or knowledge-in-movement. We work on theory by working within it. The sterile dangers of such conceptualization, nonetheless, feeds my current corporeal state as I theorize myself into oblivion. I am confused and unsure and still striving, I want to learn from an attempt. The body is messy, and I am doubly so.

I.i

In this paper, I would like to gesture, in a winding and twisted sort of way, towards the body as potentiality as a remediation to current paradigms for approaching embodiment and ‘the body’ within anthropological research. This is a gesture to a small audience, making the journey more intimate even if the fantasies of the outcome are large. To offer an initial conceptualization of the body as potentiality, we will traverse the territory that links potentiality, subjectivation, and ‘the body’. I will lead us through the ways that bodiliness can be contemporaneously understood as transcending the postmodern insight of “the body” being a social and cultural entity that is in excess of itself and its world. With this groundwork, bodiliness becomes the point from which all perception and experience of the world emerges – yes, aligned with phenomenological thinking. From bodiliness comes care, which thus gives weight, meaning, and importance to the ‘impasse’ characteristic of potentiality. The ultimate aim of such path is to deliver us to a site that recognizes the entanglement of potentiality with agency; potentiality is not ‘potential’ but the multitude of possibilities unfolding constantly in relation to power and difference. The body as potentiality seeks to demonstrate how lived experience, shaped through an ongoing process of subjectivation, gives rise to embodied agency. At a certain point we will see how subjectivity and embodiment are productively complicated by the notion of care, as that which separates one’s body from one’s ‘I’. This results in accounting for dualities, especially the mind/body duality that keeps me up at night. Thwarting everything is the messy/tidy relationship of bodiliness to theory at large. We will arrive to our destination with the intention of having accidentally refurbished Thomas Csordas’ paradigm of embodiment for anthropology. Let’s see if we can get there together.

II

I begin with concern, a nice thing to have. I am most concerned about the terms potentiality, subjectivation, and subjectivity. These extend our broader concern for ‘the body’. Our concern for these terms and ideas will serve us as guides for how bodies expand and contract into anthropological analyses. These terms will introduce how “excess” permeates such bodiliness in relation to the survivance of the postmodern discourse of subjectivity.

II.i

To maneuver the term ‘potentiality’, I leap from Mette Svendsen’s (2011) anthropological approach to the term that “addresses the cultural context as well as the material conditions of that seen as incomplete yet with a power – a potency – to develop into something else” (Svendsen, 2011: 416). Immediately we see potentiality as potency. This conceptualization follows a discussion of Aristotle’s second type of potentiality that Giorgio Agamben deliberates in his work Potentialities (1999) which is a potentiality “that belongs to someone who, for example, has knowledge or an ability” (179). This type of potentiality in the individual is based upon existing potentialities, existing skills and capacities, the capacity to say “I can”. For Agamben, potentiality always exists in relation to impotentiality – an implicit relationship present in Svendsen’s use of potency – where the capacity to say “I can” hinges on the possibility of saying “I cannot”. This “I cannot” is not of not knowing how, but of an incapacity or lack:

“To be potential means to be one’s own lack, to be in relation to one’s own incapacity. Beings that exist in the mode of potentiality are capable of their own impotentiality; and only in this way do they become potential. They can be because they are in relation to their own non-Being” (Agamben, 1999: 182, emphasis original).

Thus the ‘potency’ described by Svendsen is also one of impotency, a possibility of being flaccid to the task at hand, an action which still results in this potentiality to, as Svendsen notes, develop into something else. Such potentiality can be described as an impasse, an in-between moment that requires or forces something upon one’s potentialities. Lauren Berlant (2006) offers the notion of the impasse in relation to cruel optimism where our attachments of desire are actually hindrances to our possibilities of flourishing. The impasse for Berlant, is a moment produced by an event that causes an internal displacement imposing either a falling back into old habituations around our attachments of desire, or a transition into new actualities and futurities. These attachments and desires that support one’s movements of potentiality, cruel or otherwise, are distinctly “promises and not possessions” (Berlant, 2006: 31). Framing potentiality as a promise reworks Agamben’s notion of potentiality as a capacity and lack one has; it may be a matter of language, but language matters when it comes to describing and making worlds.

To call potentiality a promise rather than a possession decenters the position of the subject. Agamben, focusing on one’s capacity, may be working with an understanding of subjectivity that is, for our purposes here, outdated. If Berlant correctly situates a subject as decentered through the term “promise” rather than “possession”, then Agamben, in turn, correctly situates a constant movement in the experience/moment/being of potentiality. Looking again at language, Berlant’s use of “impasse” seeks to stabilize something, to fix a moment in time – language does this, it is sticky and requires force (or poetry) to open itself to a varied terrain of expertise and knowing. However, reading Agamben alongside Berlant (both with Svendsen) offers us an understanding of impasse that is in constant negotiation, moving, pacing, turning in circles; this reading also allows us to see potentiality as a decentered movement. We meet an impasse, a moment of potentiality/impotentiality, and time still passes. There is still movement that extends within and beyond the limits of the subject themselves into the realm of what gives potency to the Being. This is the cultural context that gives weight, value, and meaning to the potentiality. From here, we can now determine a bit more about this Being who is caught in their potentiality, in the impasse.

II.ii

In Judith Butler’s The Psychic Life of Power (1997), subjectivation is described as the process by which one becomes a subject. This process involves a double movement of subordination and subject formation (Butler, 1997: 29). Through forms of knowledge, discourses, institutions, and techniques of power, a subject is socially constructed through submission to such powers (Butler, 1997: 3). This socially constructed nature of subjectivation makes subjectivity – the experience of being a subject – a situated and historical process, rather than isolated, individual, and ahistorical (Biehl, 2007). For Butler (1997), subjectivation “consists precisely in this fundamental dependency on a discourse that we never chose, but that, paradoxically initiates and sustains our agency” (2). Agency becomes the contradictory product of subjectivation whereby the discursive powers that delineates a liveable realm of sociality for the subject are both reiterated through the subject and transformed through this inexact repetition (Butler, 1997: 29). In other words, subjectivation circumscribes an interior and an exterior in the relationship of ‘self’ to ‘power’ where the translation of the power from which the subject emerges is imperfectly reproduced through the life, the living, of the subject. This imperfect translation of power is the locus of agency. Agency is thus the “excess” of subjectivation.  

Louis Althusser offers the notion of ‘interpellation’ to describe this process of subjectivation whereby the authoritative voice hails you into recognition, and accordingly as a subject to that power. The hail, a literal calling out in language: ‘hey, you!’ This produces an internal recognition of the self as being the subject of ‘you’, an act of subordination to the “authoritative voice that hails the individual” (Butler,1997: 5). This authoritative voice can be experienced beyond the vocal hail; a look, a gesture, a touch, an offering, a distraction, these all call a subject into being and subjectness by way of rapidly situating the subject in a relation of power and knowing. The hail indicates one’s place in the relative pecking order, and thus defines the capacity for proper action and behaviour. What these proper actions and behaviours are depends on the cultural context, and which actions and behaviours are enacted will allocate agency in this formulation.

This Butlerian basis of subjectivation and agency opens up a larger conversation that notes how traditional western approaches to subjectivity (again, the experience of being a subject) has focused on fixing the subject in time and space (Briginshaw, 2009). This history of a fixed subject (a product of Descartes’ thinking that maintains mind/body dualism) is being vehemently challenged given the contemporary context of political and social unrest; consequently offering new entry points into conceptualizing subjectivity. For Biehl et al, subjectivity “does not imply an error but connotes creativity, the possibility of a subject’s adopting a distinctive symbolic relation to the world in order to understand lived experience” (2007: 6). In this way, subjectivity is a “synonym for inner life processes and affective states” (Biehl et al, 2007: 6) where “subjects are themselves unfinished and unfinishable” ( Biehl, 2007: 15).

Biehl et al are clear that the approach to researching subjectivity in terms of the “dynamic density of the interpersonal” (9) is a continuation of postmodern trajectories (15). Echoing this sentiment, Natalie Garret Brown (2011) follows the postmodern sensibility to outline a theory of embodied subjectivity that is non-unitary, emergent, and embedded in a nexus of pleasure and desire that blur and flatten the territorial lines of subjectivity. Briginshaw, Biehl et al, and Brown (the three B’s, four if we included Butler), not only intersect on this harnessing of postmodern approaches to subjectivity and the subject, but they also confer on the term ‘excess’ to describe the sociality of the subject, or the relation of the embodied subject and their lived world. For Brown, subjectivated bodies are bodies of difference whose material excess is “a reminder of an embodied resistance contained by boundaries” (2001: 69). Briginshaw mobilizes ‘excess’ in terms of “excessive overflowing bodies” (2009: 17) that locate subjectivity in the “in-between spaces of hybridity and ambiguity” (2009: 20). Biehl et al enter excess obliquely, from the vantage point of the subjectivated body being unfinished: “Whether these demands [of subjection] come from institutions, discourses and disciplinary practices, or the subject’s own desires and needs, the body, from the perspective of subjectivity, is always more and less than what it seems it should be” (2007: 9).

The theories of subjectivation and subjectivity outlined above intersect on the notion of excess as being constitutive of agency that thus builds productively unstable worlds of flux and change. What is curious to me is that the three B’s all draw on postmodern literature to define their excessive contemporary subject. Here I offer a break for the eyes as we move more directly into this territory of excess.

III

Excess; the more than, the overflowing and the leaky, the unaccounted for. Excess; articled into the archive for later use, stored away for future projects. Be it love or writing, excess is encountered in both the margins and the center; my concentration is overwhelmed by the excess of possibilities. I wade in my shallow waters to acknowledge the excess, feet floating above the depths, finding a vantage point from which I can proceed. The excess is not in me, but of me and of the world. Through excess we blend and blur with what is there. There is just so much there.

III.i

The three B’s (Briginshaw, Biehl et al, and Brown) offer ‘excess’ as a key characteristic of subjectivity, grounded specifically in the body. In other words, the embodied experiences of subjectivity, as an expression of agency, is a product in excess of subjectivation. This is particularly interesting; the body is fundamentally described as excessive. Excess is nice to have, like concern. It gives us options, possibilities, lines of flight. But excess does not collaborate very well with theory now does it? Excess in theory is not the easiest thing to deal with; I have proven by demonstration in the first sections that excess makes for detours and obstructions that make the contents (thoughts and feelings) difficult to parse. It leads to instability and an untrustworthy speaker of dubious legitimacy. Excess is the fat to be supposedly, canonically trimmed from a theoretical text.

Excess does not collaborate with text or theory very well, so how do we account for excess other than describing, and locating it in a distant, dismembered body, “the body”? How do we account for excess given that ‘excess’ refers to a normal amount (and thus bringing our readings of the uses of ‘excess’ as acts of normative violence)? When it comes to the excess of subjectivation being described as something of the body and of agency, how do we manage and honour such constitutive excess? Perhaps this goes far beyond the intentions of the texts addressed, asking questions outside the immediate scope, but this idea of excess has stuck and I have to follow through.

To involve the description of ‘excess’ in a given situation, we require structure, a normative standard to which ‘excess’ can exceed and be the ‘other’. The structure that makes bodies excessive is precisely that of subjectivation. So, while subjectivation and the powers that animate it (the subject’s agency, an imperfectly iterative process) produce the subject/agent as boundaried and bordered, circumscribed and delineated, the excess as the originary state of the subject (the body) already exceeds this primordial animation. What do I mean by this? I mean that perhaps subjectivity and agency are not actually excessive.

This is not about language, I like the term ‘excess’ and all its derivatives. For the three B’s, ‘excess’ delivers on their promises at describing the history of fixation that the notion of subjectivity sometimes maintains. ‘Excess’ is the mess of the body they implicate into previously disembodied theories of subjectivation and subjectivity; it works. Nonetheless, the appropriate place to situate excess may be in the powers of subjectivation itself. Rather than saying the body is in excess of the powers that made it, perhaps such powers are in excess of corporeality.

III.ii

Here I want to note that ‘subjectivation’ is not an entity that exists above or beyond a subject or individual; on the contrary, invoking ‘subjectivation’ is to invoke the many subjects who uphold the near-perfect repetition of power. Power is just people; it is always just people who are entrusted with powers of conception and action. Thus, what is excessive about subjectivation is not the body, but the potentiality of agency, the potentiality of embodiment, and the embodied experience of being an agent.

I have introduced a bit of a knot that needs to be cleaned up: subjectivation is excessive, and potentiality is excessive. In effect, a few paradoxes have been introduced that I am unsure if I can tidy. (Could I leave it all with the statement that maybe everything is excessive?) To lean into this term of excess utilized by the three B’s, I would have to agree with them that bodies are messy and excessive; bodies are, in a word, uncontainable. In the first section, I claim that bodies (and myself) are messy. However, my experience of messiness is situated in the excess of the gesture and the limits of language, not in the lack of categorical tools and techniques of power that fail to ‘contain’ bodies. Bodies themselves are quite neat and tidy – perhaps this is an assumption resulting from a capitalist, biomedical perspective I am interpellated by – and the experience of bodiliness is one of simplicity. Right, left, right, left, walking for my able-bodied self is easy; I do not have to relearn what is right and left in a step nor when I pick up a pen. I am what I am, corporeal and fleshy. Bodiliness can be understood as a closed system in relation to its environment, an aspect of a broader ecology of symbiosis. The mess of bodiliness in gesture that I am speaking of is in relation to language (the life-source of theory). Again, I draw on Agamben (1999) to describe what I here gesture towards:

“Gesture is not an absolutely nonlinguistic element but, rather, something closely tied to language. It is first of all a forceful presence in language itself, one that is older and more originary than conceptual expression.” (77)

A little later on:

“The more human beings have language, the stronger the unsayable weighs them down… the more the speaker tries to express himself in words, the more he makes himself incomprehensible… gesture is always the gesture of being at a loss in language” (Agamben, 1999: 78)

Gesture, as in gesticulation, as in the embodied experience of sociality and being in the world, provides a possible way to determine the excess of subjectivation and subjectivation. The body, always in relation to language and discourse, is definitely in excess of the discourses that form the subject by way of gesture being at a loss in language. Yet, the excess exists in the wordiness of discourse, too. The more steeped in discourse, the less it makes sense, the less power the words have. The excess of the body in relation to subjectivity thus settles on subjectivation itself. It is an excessive process; one that attempts totality and in so doing, exceeds its own bounds, producing agentic subjects that are left to their potentialities of new futurities.

An example (hopefully brief given the weight and mass of what still needs to come): I have been subjectivated through dance training, I am a subject of dance who was once mastered by the techniques and who now masters those techniques. I am also subjectivated on an ongoing, continuous basis as I continue to engage in the milieu. I, as a fleshy dancing subject, am not in excess of the techniques themselves, rather the excess of the techniques is part of my subject-core. In attempts to subjectivate me, these techniques go overboard, leaking themselves into every corner, making themselves more and more visible, more and more vulnerable to my agentic penetration. Pointing my toes, lifting my legs, perfecting turns and twists and rolls over the course of years of intensive training was a process of stripping. Dance training broke me and stripped me down of all ‘unproductive’ habits, seeking to build me anew. In my practice now, I have the capacity to scavenge and remake myself, both inside and outside the powers of dance training. I scavenge from a love life, from a family life, from an academic life, and my dancing subjectivity bears on these aspects of my life, too. Forever folding and unfolding, increasing the surface area of Being, I am not a singular subject of dance, but a dancing subject, prancing across discourses of containment.

Because I identify as a dance artist, I am brought in as a subject of dance. Because I make dance in the way I do, and the aesthetics I end up engaging in become a relational practice (dance aesthetics relate to one another), I am a subject alongside other subjects. Daily training in dance school was an immediate form of subjectivation. No longer in school, I am still subjectivated by processes of grant writing, talking to presenters, booking studio space, managing other’s schedules, taking classes, working on other’s projects… To engage as a subject of dance is not merely in the technique. The subjectivity of a dancer is grounded in the excess of how subjects relate to a practice that is grounded in many bodies and places, as well as in the practices that exceed a definition of what it is to be a dancer. The excess of the subjected body exists in embodied agency whereby a dancer, after (and in) training learns of how their experience and desires of dancing exceed the bounds that are imposed by the subjectivating powers (teachers, choreographers, directors). Quite literally this is found in the moment a dancer makes a move – dancers train to be reliable, their training subjectivates them, and their subjectivity exists in and around the habits that could not be stripped, in the idiosyncrasies that remain despite training. Following choreography or a score still brings the whole self, uncontainable by a choreography, thus making the expressions of subjectivity visible, palpable. Almost defiance, the excess of agency in dance is in the small slips and deviations.

Simply put, the excess of subjectivity is not necessarily grounded in the body-as-body, rather excess could be located at the multiplicity of subjectivities, the excess of subjectivations that I must endure constantly in the imperfect iterations of being. I should have started with that.

IV

With this groundwork out of the way, we approach bodiliness as the point from which all perceptions and experiences of the world emerges. It is a late introduction (perhaps an excessive introduction), but I would like to explicitly bring Thomas Csordas into this. Bringing Csordas in will provide a deeper context towards a use of “the body” in the current situation of working towards the body as potentiality. More directly, Csordas will deliver us to an understanding of care as a fundamental and unavoidable duality.

IV.i

The magnum opus of the embodiment paradigm in anthropology is Csordas’ 1990 text “Embodiment as a paradigm for Anthropology.” In it, he claims that an anthropological approach to embodiment “begins from the methodological postulate that the body is an object to be studied in relation to culture, but is considered as the subject of culture, or in other words as the existential ground of culture” (Csordas, 1990: 5, emphasis original). Already we can see how subjectivity fits into this paradigm. The subject of culture alludes to the embodied subject being in constant relation to the construction, maintenance, reproduction, augmentation, and rupture of a given cultural context. Csordas grounds his text in two terms: perception (Merleau-Ponty’s term) and practice (Bourdieu’s term). Of utmost concern for Csordas is mitigating dualism in general, and the mind/body division in specific. To do this, he draws on the French men (Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu):

“The collapsing of dualities in embodiment requires that the body as a methodological figure itself be non-dualistic, that is, not distinct from or in interaction with an opposed principle of mind. Thus, for Merleau-Ponty the body is a ‘setting in relation to the world,’ and consciousness is the body projecting itself into the world; for Bourdieu the socially informed body is the ‘principle generating and unifying all practices,’ and consciousness is a form of strategic calculation fused with a system of objective potentialities.” (Csordas, 1990: 8)

From this quote we understand that embodiment serves anthropological analyses by way of collapsing dualities, while situating embodiment in perception, or the being in the world, and practice, the doing of being. Both are always situated in relation to norms and values offered by the cultural contexts in which potentialities of becoming are defined. Initially, this paradigm is seductive for the prospect of the body as potentiality. Csordas even uses the word potentiality! However, when posited in the midst of an essay that is working to conceptualize embodied agency in relation to the process of subjectivation, the paradigm Csordas proposes no longer holds water (or at least it becomes shaky grounds to stand on).

“In taking up a paradigm of embodiment, it is critical to apply the analysis of subject and object to our distinction between mind and body, between self and other, between cognition and emotion, and between subjectivity and objectivity in the social sciences… My argument has been that on the level of perception it is not legitimate to distinguish mind and body… When the body is recognized for what it is in experiential terms, not as an object but as a subject, the mind body distinction becomes more much more uncertain.” (Csordas, 1990: 36).

Fundamentally I agree with what Csordas is getting at here – bodiliness as it is experienced is… well, in excess of any dualism that might be imposed. I agree that it is absolutely not legitimate to distinguish between mind and body, on any occasion. However, the problem for me arises in his reliance on object and subject to collapse this duality; carelessly harnessing object with mind, and subject with body, fails to account for the variety of subjectivating practices that interpellate a subject. Further, the world as we know it is full of subjects and objects; it is not a sin to say that I am both a subject and an object, and sometimes it is good to distinguish which one I am in an interpellative instance. If we bring in the various discussions that have preceded this moment in the essay, we can see that dualities exist regardless of our attempts to collapse them. In the case of potentiality, impotentiality completes the pair. For subjectivation, we have power and subject as the dualism of explanatory value. In essence, a critique I have held of Csordas – that he himself ends up falling into a dualism – might be a critique of misrecognition.

I am concerned with dualisms because, perhaps, they are valuable to us, as subjects and agents. They offer a performative grounding of being, illusory as it may be. Going a step further and inquiring into an existential grounding of embodiment may be more productive in collapsing dualities (Heidegger’s Being-in-the-world could provide the essential erasure). Nonetheless, in the experiential arena – a concern for all theorists and scholars so far introduced – dualities will persist all the way down. If it is dualisms all the way down, then it is a matter of determining a better dualism within which to ground embodied analyses. A better dualism could provide insight into the body as potentiality, embodied agency. After the paradox of excess, we arrive at a double bind of duality. By ‘better dualism’ I mean one that could honour the excesses as they are divvied up and lived in the mess of Being, one that would be iterative and reciprocal and eating itself all the time.

IV.ii

I realize that in many ways placing all these texts and ideas together feel at odds. Csordas and Briginshaw are distinctly anthropological, offering terms, concepts, and frameworks that methodologically situate bodiliness and embodiment. These methodological approaches feel, on an intuitive basis, to jive well with the philosophical. I do, nonetheless realize that Csordas and Briginshaw are not asking what the body or embodiment is, but rather follow up on what embodiment and bodiliness does. I think it is productive to bring all of these perspectives together, if only as a way to acknowledge that methodological approaches still serve as philosophy.

V

I am working towards something here, I feel it. I worry about legitimacy, about correctness, about being enough, about having a strong enough punching line. I repeat myself over and over, drawing back over the first lines to make them thicker, more visible, maybe more powerful. The presence of my body in haunts all over the city are unified in the single essay, in this moment of expression that cannot quite contain what I feel I’m after.

V.i

Jumping off Csordas’ point that perception and practice are the primary sites of bodiliness and embodiment, I return to Berlant (2006) and Agamben (1999). Their harmonizing works on potentiality and the impasse can step us into this more productive dualism that I am invoking. To reiterate: the impasse for Berlant is the instance of an event that brings us face to face with the possibility of falling back into habituation, or of thrusting us into new futurities. The impasse is the instance of potentiality. For Agamben, potentiality is directly in relation to the impotentiality of a Being, the potential to say “I cannot”. They come together in this essay to describe potentiality as an embodied experience on the edge of something, always in movement, and always in relation to the broader social and cultural contexts that determine what habit and new futures may be.  

With this notion of potentiality I am no longer bound to a mind/body dualism (embodiment is the germinal necessity, grounded in subjectivation and agency). However, the body in itself, in its constitution as “the body” involves a practical duality. Put forth by Agamben in his work The Uses of Bodies (2015), he follows Aristotle and Foucault in determining that care/use is the formative duality of embodiment. To posit care in relation to use, there emerges a promise for understanding how bodiliness is constituted in processes of subjectivation, and in relation to subjectivation. I am saying that care of one’s own body separates it from an ‘I’; my care of my body is separate from (yet still entangled with) the ‘I’ that is constituted through subjectivation. My subjectivity of ‘I’ determines how I will care for my body – what methods and tools determined on a basis of power – but this care produces an excess of relation to this ‘I’. Agamben writes:

“If the one who uses and that of which one makes use are not the same thing, this means then that the human being (who ‘uses his whole body’)… does not coincide with his body and therefore, in taking care of it, he is taking care of a ‘a thing that is his own’… but not ‘of himself’.” (Agamben, 2015: 31)

Again, we could return to the problematics laid bare by Berlant of possession (attachments are not possessions but promises). However, the materiality of the body in this quote is such that it has an unnegotiable possession. I have my body whether I like it or not; I can sell its uses, but I cannot sell it. An economics of possession is already written into the embodied experience. Agamben here shows us a deeper duality than mind/body, a dualism grounded in action and recognition. The body, as a social vector of Being, is torn, rugged, oddly shaped from the start. Making use of ones embodied potentialities takes a stance that is at odds with the ‘I’ around which the uses are situated. More specifically, only in being a subject can we care for the body of the self.  

“The relation of use, which constitutes precisely the primary dimension in which subjectivity is constituted, thus remains in the shadows and gives way to a primacy of care over use… it is only insofar as a human being is introduced as subject into a series of relations of use that a care-of-oneself may perhaps become possible.” (Agamben, 2015: 33-34)

Subjectivity is consequently a relation of uses, being of use to the subjectivating powers in reiterative agency. Only once we submit to such powers to form a subjectivity, an ‘I’, can we have the grounds on which to care for our bodies, bodies as subject. The body accordingly exists in a third theoretical space, despite occupying the same space of the ‘I’. A new dualism emerges, and a productive one at that; one that does not separate an inside from an outside, but a dualism that joins the ‘I’ of subjectivity with the acts of embodied agency. Care of one’s body therefore becomes the mechanism with which one relates to themselves.

With care, we can fully understand the weight of the impasse proposed by Berlant. Care gives weight, meaning, significance, importance to the impasse of habituation and new ways of being. Care, as the relationship to the subjected self marks an event as socially and culturally important, thrusting the embodied self into a spiral of doing and being. What to do, how to be, with whom to ally, who to follow, who to reject and refuse, what to consume, what time to arrive… we care about how we align ourselves with the impasse of being. We care about the potentialities we contain and the potency of becoming something else. We register care on an embodied level deeply entangled with the sociality of subjectivation. Feelings emerge, and so too do actions and uses. This duality of the body and the ‘I’, mitigated through care, leverages understandings of how bodiliness is implicated in processes of subjectivation. Care gives direction to the multiplicity of potentiality and the impasses faced therein; the body as potentiality emerges as that which is subjectivated through a necessity to care about how a subject continues to be in relation to the embodied and agentic self.

VI

Well, I have grand doubts if this is making sense. I may have taken a few thousand words to say what has already been said by someone much more skillful and knowledgeable than I. Nonetheless, these turns and twists towards the body as potentiality make sense for me in my embodied situation. As a dancer, or someone who is concerned with my movements and gesticulations in communicative modes, I see the intuitive linking between “the body”, potentiality, and subjectivation to be exciting. Ultimately, I feel we have found ourselves having made this link, requiring only a few more aspects of the body as potentiality to be addressed.

VI.i

The body as potentiality involves a possible hiccup. Potentiality must be understood in terms of Briginshaw’s potency, and not as ‘potential’. This term, ‘potential’ was a term uttered to me often while in dance school: “You have so much potential,” “I see so much potential in you.” These are, in effect, violent utterances, offering a foreclosure to my own flourishing, imposing an intended fixed potential. Agamben, Berlant, and Briginshaw align on the understanding of potentiality being something moving, constantly adapting within constraints, an instance of improvising based on what is already at hand. Potentiality, in terms of the body, is not the same as ‘potential’ where, like a flower, we sprint towards a moment of blooming. Rather, potentiality follows more closely with Sartre’s approach to freedom wherein the human, or the subject, is constantly existing in an ambiguous relationship to what is and what is not. Sartre writes:

“We insist on our individual rights only within the compass of a vast project which would tend to confer existence on us in terms of the function which we fulfill. This is the reason why man [sic] tries so often to identify himself with his function and seeks to see in himself only the "Presiding Judge of the Court of Appeal," the "Chief Treasurer and Paymaster" etc. Each of these functions has its existence justified by its end. To be identified with one of them is to take one's own existence as saved from contingency. But these efforts to escape original contingency succeed only in better establishing the existence of this contingency.” (1943: 485)

In other words, potentiality always includes multiple genuine possibilities of opportunity in every concrete situation. Potentiality is presence to situational possibilities; never singular, but always unfolding, always moving. A subject has been made into the ‘Presiding Judge of the Court of Appeal’, but this determined potential is itself riddled with contingency that demands the ongoing negotiations of its potentiality in becoming as it relates to the broader structuring powers. Thus, potentiality is that which unfolds alongside power in terms of the possibilities of action. Potentiality is multiple.

VI.ii

Within this potentiality based in subjectivation, Biehl et al, Briginshaw, and Brown (a reappearance of the three B’s) provide the necessary nuance to potentiality: difference. Being a subject is not an isolated thing; as we have seen, subjectivity is this constant negotiation with the world and the self. Additionally, because power is just people and because our worlds are filled with both subjects and objects, our subjectivity is relative and relational to other subjectivities. The issue here then is to account for differences between and within subjects. Remember, The three B’s ground their conceptualizations and analyses of subjectivity in postmodernist thought. Briginshaw notes that

“in much Western philosophy subjection erases difference to maintain the illusion of sameness. Within the context of certain strands of postmodern theory the differences in subjects are recognized, so that subjects are seen as fragmented or split. This allows for subjects to be both the same and different from one another, to be both gendered and ‘racialized’, to be both agents with power to act on the one hand, and subjected to the rules and laws of language on the other.” (2009: 6, emphasis original)

Echoing this, Biehl (2007) et al describe a broader difference of subjectivity across time and cultural spaces as a means to inquire into “historically situated differences in social sensibility and what it means to feel and regard oneself as human; cross-cultural differences in cognition, affect, and action; and peculiarities of each individual.” (3). Brown grounds difference in a literally embodied, experiential understanding of subjectivity. For Brown (2011), certain dance forms illicit an experience of subjectivity “as mobile through physical exchange that thereby negates the notion of difference as fixed and determinate” (67). Dancing offers “a means to destabilize and shift through fixed identities, thereby erasing a hierarchical understanding of difference in part because they embrace a somatic approach to the body.” (ibid).  Difference becomes an invaluable vector to organizations and experiences of subjectivity that traverse the personal, the social, the structural, and the participatory. Difference then comes to shape the motions of potentiality that are circumscribed by these many factors. Potentiality as the different sorts of possibilities in which I can follow, pursue, engage, refuse.

Grounding the ‘body as potentiality’ through power and difference returns us to the body once again, as in the literal fleshy body, the bloody and queer and shaking body. Oh how my body can tremble. The body as the site and product of subjectivation and the site of all important actions that carry out the self. The body as potentiality asks us to embrace agency as embodied, agency filtered through, acting upon, moving with our steps and breaths. This is an avenue to explore more, embodied agency, and fieldwork (dancing) will help me in my desire to flesh this out more tangibly.

VII

We began with a concern for the body as potentiality and all that which would fall out of it. The terms potentiality, subjectivation, subjectivity, and “the body” have been addressed in relation to the term of excess. Excess thoroughly complicated the relationship of the embodied subject that follows from postmodernist threads of subjectivity. The contemporaneous approach to subjectivity could be captured in this delicious term of excess. The body, power, subjectivity, all of it is in excess of itself. The paradigm of embodiment was introduced as a way to reaffirm the body as the locus and basis of all being and perception. This paradigm was also an entry into addressing the pervasive mind/body dualism that troubles the attempt at sketching the body as potentiality. From here we followed this path of dualisms, acknowledging that dualisms may be inescapable, to find a more productive dualism in care/use of the body in terms of subjectivity. Introducing care showed us the gravity of the impasse that is characteristic of potentiality. We then looked at potentiality as not ‘potential’, but rather the multiple and many and always in relation to power and difference. Finally, there was a moment of seeing the body as potential opening up a possibility of understanding embodied agency.

That was a lot. I am hoping that there is something here is that moves us somewhere new, a text of potentiality that offers new futures of thinking about the body and subjectivity. I do feel more at ease about the analytic category of “the body”, I feel I did a decent job at unpacking some of its stickier points. As mentioned, I would like to work more on this idea of the body as potentiality. This would require more work around the notion of the embodied agent. Nonetheless, having a loose path around which agency and subjectivation have been marked allow for this future endeavour to be less daunting. When it comes to the meat of my research I am torn between modes of communication. At times the philosophical approach I engaged above felt good – somatically I felt that I was going somewhere and it was meaningful. However, such theoretical mode also felt too abstract to bring back to the topic and experience of the body. Still, even after all this work, I harbour a deep anxiety about the relationship between theory and body.

Another possible angle of future approaches would be to stick to the discomfort in the relationship between theory and bodiliness. Such task is not new to me, but still the discomfort of how theory applies to bodies, on the ground is in need of more work. The most obvious initial entry into this will be in my field work, seeing how theory comes out of the experience. Not the other way around. I sense imperial detritus when I attempt to slap on theory like that onto living and moving bodies. Theory does not feel slapped onto my body, however, when I write in this mode. This theory does, in the end, come out of me, from my fingers, shaped by the powers invested in my subjectivity and my utility… the theory is of my own approach to being an embodied subject… sometimes crushed with the possibilities of potentiality. This paper is a proven feat that potentiality is movement, potentiality is always the experience of time passing, counted on the corporeal plane.

 References

Agamben, Giorgio. (1999). Potentialities: collected essays in philosophy. (D. Heller-Roazen, Trans.). Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press.

Agamben, Giorgio. (2015). The use of bodies. (A. Kotsko, Trans.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Berlant, Lauren. G. (2011). Cruel optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Biehl João, Good, B., & Kleinman, A. (2007). Subjectivity: ethnographic investigations. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

Briginshaw, Valerie. A. (2009). Dance, space and subjectivity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Brown, Natalie. G. (2011). Disorientation and emergent subjectivity: The political potentiality of embodied encounter. Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, 3(1)

Butler, Judith. (1997). The psychic life of power: theories in subjection. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.

Csordas, Thomas. J. (1990). Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology. Ethos, 18(1), 5–47.

Sartre, Jean.-Paul. (1943). Being and nothingness: an essay in phenomenological ontology. London: Routledge.

Svendsen, Mette. N. (2011). ARTICULATING POTENTIALITY: Notes on the Delineation of the Blank Figure in Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Cultural Anthropology, 26(3), 414–437.

[girlfromtube]

PHOTOSET: (1) http://girlfromtube.tumblr.com/post/177687872383 (2) http://girlfromtube.tumblr.com/post/177687905363 (3) http://girlfromtube.tumblr.com/post/177687936453 Thomas Madison: Forza bello, non puoi tenertela dentro! Qualsiasi cosa sia, devi farla uscire! E' molto meglio se la butti nell'etere! Michael Stevens: Negli ultimi quarant'anni ci sono stati più di ottomila conflitti. E trentatré milioni di mine seppellite in quest'area. Thomas Madison: Mine. Ah, mi piace quando sei ottimista Mike! Maggiore: Per quanto ne sappiamo il tipo di mine disseminato in quell'area puo' rimanere attivo per circa quarant'anni. Ma dieci anni dopo la produzione, a seconda di alcune variabili, esiste un 4% di possibilità di malfunzionamento. Quindici anni dopo la produzione, la possibilità di malfunzionamento raggiunge il 7%. Berbero: Mina non mia! Tu non preoccupare per amico, lui trova pace adesso. Ma tu vivo! Tu devi fare prossimo passo, ora! Michael Stevens: No! Prossimo... Il mio prossimo passo sarà anche l'ultimo! Jenny: Va e sconfiggi i tuoi demoni come un cavaliere nella scintillante armatura! Berbero: Io non sa dove sono mine, ma se io cammina dritto su campo minato prima o poi, mette piede su mina! Sicuro! Berbero: No importa dove tu sei ora, solo dove tu vuole andare. Io vuole solo andare a casa da mia famiglia. Io segue soltanto mio destino. Michael Stevens: Beh, sembra che il mio destino si fermi qui. Ho fatto il mio ultimo passo falso. Berbero: Ogni giorno. Ogni giorno tuo passo puo' essere tuo ultimo passo. Quale differenza, oggi? Michael Stevens: La differenza è che oggi, io so che anche se fossi un uomo fortunato ho solo il 7% di possibilità di non morire. Berbero: 7%. Buono! Berbero: Diventa uomo libero! Tu devi andare avanti. Anche strada sbagliata puo' portare a casa. Thomas Madison: Non hai mai avuto le palle di dirmi qualcosa di quello che ti divora dentro. Michael Stevens: Vostra Altezza. Giuro solennemente di essere un cavaliere coraggioso, riverente e sempre gentile. Un campione di verità e giustizia. E giuro solennemente di essere onesto e buono. Giuro di proteggere il nostro regno e giuro tutto questo al vostro cospetto, mia Principessa. Michael Stevens: Tutto ciò che tocco, cade a pezzi. Tutte le cose belle si distruggono... Berbero: Io è uomo libero, ma non sempre uomo molto fortunato. Berbero: Io pensa solo che no aveva più mia gamba. Io pensa solo a tutte le cose che non poteva fare mai più. C'era radio che faceva uscire musica, in ospedale, e cantante diceva "Devi sempre andare avanti! Devi sempre andare avanti!" ma io no ascoltava cantante, io solo pensava a mia gamba. Mia gamba che era andata. Berbero: Forse questa cosa brutta era unico modo per arrivare a cosa bella. Berbero: Io no è uomo molto fortunato come tu, ma io è uomo libero. Io andato avanti. Io sempre va avanti, perché tu devi sempre andare avanti. Io sempre fa prossimo passo anche se prossimo passo difficile, troppo grande e fa paura. Tu sa come no avere paura? Michael Stevens: Devo diventare uomo libero. Rose: Non aver paura di smettere di soffrire.

[mashabrum]

#Congratulations #team . . . . . . #madison #international #k2 #Expedition2021 #teammett #sherpas #highporters #karakoram #highmountains #pakistan #nepal #usa🇺🇸 #uk #ukrainegirl #mett #mashabrum #mashabrumexpeditions #madisonmountaineering #himalyanguide #mightyk2 #congratulations #climbingheros #fantasticjob (at K2) https://www.instagram.com/p/CR2qpKJjdzR/?utm_medium=tumblr

[architectnews]

Washington ferry terminal informed by Native American longhouses

Seattle firm LMN Architects worked with the Coast Salish tribes to design the Mukilteo Multimodal Ferry Terminal on a sacred waterfront in Washington State.

Mukilteo Multimodal Ferry Terminal is a two-storey building and a toll booth serving the Mukilteo-Clinton transport route for vehicles and pedestrians.

A metal spindle whorl decorates the exterior

Built to replace the 1957 terminal building, LMN Architects designed the new complex to be both environmentally sustainable and respectful of the site's history as the fishing and burial grounds of the Coast Salish tribes.

The ferry terminal takes the form of a traditional longhouse, realised in contemporary materials such as glass, concrete and cross-laminated timber (CLT).

The terminal building is designed like a longhouse

"The US Federal Transportation Administration requires that any federally-funded project on Native American land involve consultation with the relevant tribes," LMN Architects principal Howard Fitzpatrick told Dezeen.

"As part of this consultation, the tribes stipulated that the new terminal respect the history of the site, and specifically required that the design be influenced by the form of the indigenous tribal longhouse."

Western red cedar clads the great hall

LMN Architects interpreted the pole-supported form using composite steel and timber columns, which support a glued-laminated timber (glulam) roof topped by CLT.

"Consistent with the historical longhouse, Douglas fir is employed for the structural members," said Fitzpatrick. "Western Red Cedar, an indispensable tree species for Coast Salish tribes, is used for the wall cladding."

A glass mural by James Madison depicts people and orcas

Along with timber, more industrial materials for the terminal building include board-formed concrete that was cast in situ and oxidizing steel.

Vertical glass murals by James Madison, a Snohomish and Tlingit artist, decorate the elevator shaft and depict the connection between the Coast Salish tribes and sea creatures.

A wood carving by Joe Grobin also features orcas

In the Mukilteo Multimodal Ferry Terminal's great hall, large spindle whorls carved from wood by Joe Gobin depict humans and orcas. Gobin, who is of the Tulalip tribes, also carved a canoe from cedar for the hall and the male and female figures.

A separate toll building is decorated with male and female figures cut from aluminium by Kate Ahvakana of the Suquamish tribe.

Carved figures by Joe Grobin in the terminal

Construction was planned carefully so as not to disturb the sacred land around the terminal building.

"For over 10,000 years – the tribes use the term 'from time immemorial' – what is now the shoreline in Mukilteo was a significant tribal landing and ceremonial area, fronting a now filled-in lagoon," said Fitzpatrick.

"The ground underlying the modern waterfront is sacred to the tribes since it contains thousands of years' worth of artefacts and potential burial sites. During construction of the project, no excavation was permitted within the boundaries of the historic midden near the building site."

The roof of the two-storey terminal building is covered in solar panels

LMN Architects also removed the toxic creosote-covered piles from the second world war fuel depot and pier that once occupied the site, as part of a commitment to sustainability and to acknowledge the importance Coast Salish tribes' place on environmental stewardship.

Creosote – a tar made from coal – was used to preserve wood used for marine architecture in the Puget Sound, but it leaches chemicals into the water and kills herring eggs laid on them, removing a food source for migrating salmon – the sole prey of the southern resident killer whale.

Aluminium figures by Kate Ahvakana decorate the toll booth

As a piece of sustainable architecture, Mukilteo Multimodal Ferry Terminal features solar panels on the roof and electric heat pumps to regulate the temperature of the concrete floor. Windows can also be opened for natural ventilation.

Permeable concrete lining the vehicle holding area collects rainwater and filters it through sand before it meets the Possession Sound.

LMN Architects was founded in 1979. Recent projects include an extension to an Asian art museum in Seattle and a performing arts centre in Iowa.

Photography is by Benjamin Benschneider.

Project credits:

Client: Washington State Ferries Architect: LMN Architects Team: Clay Anderson, David Backs, Greg Bishop, Elizabeth Correa, Aubrey Davidson, Matthew Fisher, Howard Fitzpatrick, Cody Gabaldon, Apoorv Goyal, Mette Greenshields, Chelsea Holman, Euiseok Jeong, Gustavo Lopez, Graham Moore, Lori Naig, Christopher Patterson, John Petterson, Bennett Sapin, Tyler Schaffer, Todd Schwisow, Kathy Stallings, John Woloszyn, Rushyan Yen.

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