#plural spherology

[irwonder]

The modernity of the patriotic cult spectacle of the Field of Mars...(which was imitated with similar mass rallies in improvised stadiums in every important French city) lies in the fact that with it, the forming of a multitudinous, metropolitan crowd into a present mass wa an architectural, organizational, and ritual task (and later, a ask of the law) that moved into the phase of being explicitly orchestrated. Teh preparation and realization of the Fête de la Fédération of 1790, and its succeeding events, reveal that 'the masses,' 'the nation,' or 'the people' can only exist as a collective subject when the physical assemblage of the magnitudes is the object of an elaborate production – from the mobilization to participate, the orchestration of affect in the stadium, and the fixation of mass attention through spectacle, to the civic guards that supervise the orderly dispersal of the crowds going home. No dough without a vessel to form it in; no mass without a hand that knows the purpose of its kneading.

Peter Sloterdijk, “Foam City” 

[vasilinaorlova]

hologram and flamingo, superimposed / anatomy of hysterics

uncanny valley. spooky. translucent you are a bunch of hypocrites. you would swear you love me but still won’t buy my book. I am not drinking that coffee with you, nor do I eat that cheesecake I promised you to share with you one day. what?! I cannot possibly humanly supposedly theoretically hypothetically reasonably wait this long. “vinyl” is veritably the strangest word in the whole English language. the more you look at it the stranger it is. I know you cannot marry me for a variety of overwhelmingly silly reasons, but buy my book. It’s almost the same, only twice better. In fact it brings all the privileges of the named arrangement but none of its horrific downsides. I was about to throw a tantrum,                       conduct a scene,                                    an instance of hysterics,                                  a scandal, but– thank you who bought or plans to buy my book; when you have just published something, there is always this great anxiety. *wipes out traces of cheesecake from her cheeks with a tablecloth’s ridge*

I will drink coffee with you and I will eat that cheesecake *another one* that I promised I’ll eat with you one day. sigh. Billy Collins, I hear–and he’s one of the most successful poets at least among those who look like something recognizable as poets, for there are perhaps more successful ones, but their identity as poets is under a sort of question, a pending identity, as it were–Billy Collins sells some 18.000 copies of his poetry books a year, and earns $44.000 a year of royalties–which are ridiculously low numbers for one of the most famous poets alive of the huge English-speaking world. just how much more he’d earn if he wrote prose. or how even more he’d earn if he wrote self-help books. in some sense it is a privilege to be a poet in the Western society, to afford to be a poet. either you have nothing and you can therefore afford to be a poet, or you have to have a lot–a (preferably tenured) position in a good university by the very least, connections, time to and understanding how to submit endlessly carousels of your poems to journals (might be a full-time job in its own right), a lit agent at least, a publisher, etc., etc., etc. poetry is a completely thankless trade, a vain business                           (yet in another sense the most rewarding too).

hologram and flamingo, superimposed

(I am looking for a title for my streams.) hologram and flamingo: invariance theorem (another variant)

my writing career started in another language, another time, and in another country. there I was lucky to be absorbed momentarily, as soon as I gave the first glimpse of myself, into existing writing community. to be sure, an impoverished community it was, a community which had next to no power, no assets, not much of a political voice or any other kind of significance beyond its own imaginings, but a community consisting of viciously ambitious writers who are professionals of the Russian letters for what it is worth.

this community is relatively small in comparison to English-speaking writing communities, but it is also dense and centered around several dying literary journals. I publish my work in these journals and used to have books coming out regularly from publishing houses which predate on these journals as well.

the journals are treasures of writings that are barely read; their authors suffer constantly and viscerally from being un-demanded by the society. plainly put, there are no adequate infrastructures in existence, for the un-reader of said journals also exists, but laments the absence of good literature.

this un-reader dismisses the journals without reading them, because journals are the remnants of the previous epoch, surviving well into the new times in forms that seems to be outdated. (the irony of it, however, that they are just fine–in the Western world such professional journals look exactly the same). it is quite a world. pretty much everything I have ever written in Russian is published, except for diaries and things like that–something that I write for my own endless references.

I moved to the English-speaking world in 2010, and struggled with the language for quite a while (I continue struggling with it, every day is another challenge). here my successes are quite modest, at least they are not in any way in comparison with what I had in Russia.

now is a luminous, liminal moment: I have everything in endless drafts. tons of work. I like this work sincerely. my best pages are written in English, no doubt. however, there is a lot of difficulties with getting it out there. everything requires another round of revision. additionally, the services of a professional editor are extremely expensive, and I have to consult a highly skilled native speaker professional for any of my writings I attempt to advance. I asked friends to help me several times, but they cannot possibly run such a charity, and I am not entirely comfortable asking them all the time. …yes. this is about it. everything that appears in this book (Holy Robots) at some point was given away “for free,” as you put it, that is to say, was posted. I have no secret storages of writings that somehow exceed in mastery or ferocity what you see every day. however, the preparation of the book does involve selection, revisions, polishing, and, most importantly, building of sequences of poems, which is a crucial part. I try to compose my books so that each division in them has its own logic, and together they form a complex but permeable system. I believe the book should have a breathing; for the poetry book it is extremely important to think about the rhythm, architectonics, and harmony of the whole corpus of texts. I don’t know in what degree I succeeded with my task but I tried. a text into which it is easy to slip my old-time dream is fulfilled. when I was asking myself many times a day if I ever master the English language, the image of a remote room, the inhabitant of which would one day perhaps listen to my words in silence, was something that kept me going. don’t forget to write me an explicit report. Holy Robots consist(s) of eight divisions: “Holy Robots,” “Necromancer,” “Emperor,” “Missionary,” “Poems in a Male Voice,” “Alchemist,” “Paper Flowers,” and “Mirrors." Six poems out of the “Poems in a Male Voice”  series were out in Figroot Press web literary journal December 2016. This is approximately one fifth part of all the Poems in a Male Voice. I am happy with this book but I am also tired of it. It took me a long time to put it together because I kept adding poems to two sections, “Poems in a Male Voice” and “Alchemist.” By the end of it I was thoroughly exasperated. I hope I will never write another Alchemist poem or Poem in a Male Voice. I am so done with both, I cannot even tell you. The tomb of the unknown writer Is a faceless obelisk                     {obscene]                     {obsidian] Amidst a deserted landscape, Surviving by pure chance, Rising alone, Throwing a straight shadow Like a sundial For no one to measure time; No flowers, And a path                   [petulant} Overtaken by virulent verdure. Infinite Jest traveled with me to Russia–Moscow and then Siberia–in 2013. It was the only book in English I took to that travel of mine. I rather liked and disliked the book. It is a writing as much fascinating as it is disappointing. Ulysses is another matter; one cannot really dislike it–it is already pretty much a monument covered with beautiful stains of respectable moss. (Who knew it’ll happen so soon.) German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk’s masterpiece is a trilogy consisting of “Bubbles. Spheres Volume I: Microspherology,” “Globes. Spheres Volume II: Macrospherology,” and finally “Foams. Spheres Volume III: Plural Spherology.” Sounds like a life pleasantly spent. “…what Clément describes as a punitive adoration of female singers: "They suffer, they cry, they die.”“ –Alex Ross (”In Extremis,” The New Yorker, Jan.9, 2017) very true in regard to writing as well (Ross is talking about music) the female writer is constantly on the edge. inasmuch as the female writer is her character, she suffers terrible blows from life, even if as a person she’s perfectly fine. she follows through the enfilade unfolding: from one excruciating story into another. it’s a never-ending cascade of stairways, an endless kaleidoscope. the key is to sustain this spectacular falling for years without (or preferably with) the harm to the mental health. everything should fall apart to blow the reader away. if you don’t have tragedies in your life, forge them. exaggerate what little you have. keep them fascinated with the tragic sublime. be a figure of constant emaciation. a silhouette of the unbearable. sustain endless hysterics of writing. be a cascading cry, a carousel of terrible losses. "wake up from a nightmare into another nightmare.” feed vultures of déjà vu. pick worst lovers. pick lovers who would prostitute you on the agora. age tragically in one night. age irreversibly. choose strong betrayers. arrange a failure out of the most enduring friendships possible–a female friendship. bury relatives. divorce husbands. have a drug-addict child. nothing is too gross. don’t forget to die from your own hand.

[irwonder]

Individualism is a cult of digestion; it celebrates the passage of food, experiences and information through the subject. Where everything is immanence, the apartment becomes the integral toilet: in every sense, what takes place here is determined by end use. Eating/digesting; reading/writing; television/opinion; regeneration/commitment; arousal/discharge. As the micro-theater of auto-symbiosis, the apartment encloses the existence of individuals running as candidates for experiences and significances.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

Tell me what you are immersed in, and I will tell you what you are.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

The 'masses,' the 'nation' or the 'people' can only exist as a collective subject to the extent that the physical assembly of these units is artfully staged—from mobilization to participation, via affective guidance in the stadium and the capture of the 'masses'' attention through fascinogenic spectacles, finally extending to the dispersal of the homecoming crowd under the supervision of the civil guard. No dough without the vessel in which it is formed; no 'masses' without a hand that knows what it is kneading it for.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

The totalitarian tendency of groups expresses itself most characteristically of all in moments when it forces reluctant individuals to sing along.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

Appeals to bloodthirsty republicans or incapable democrats are quickly dispatched by recognizing the bipartisan ability to ignore Flint victims, and broader appeals to corrupt government oversight in organizations like the MDEQ [Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality] are likewise dispatched by observing the malfunctions of other political oversight bodies and procedures that, were proper attention being paid, could have caught the lead problem before it got out of hand despite any potential corruption or mistakes on the part of the MDEQ. In other words, what the lead pipes reveal as lead pipes is a vast network of societal repression, i.e. exclusion, that cannot be so routinely dismissed. Vast as it is, however, this network is not simply mysterious or overly complex in such a way as to render us helpless before some freak event. Instead, while the toxification of Flint residents is indeed an accident in the qualified sense...it is no accident that the whole impetus for starting on the path to toxicity comes from the demands of finance, nor that a city that earns financial crisis managers is also predominantly inhabited by black persons. As [Paul] Virilio observes, the accident reveals the substance—and the substance of Flint's water infrastructure relies heretofore closeted or seemingly debatable mechanisms of exclusion, namely classism and racism.

Dean Dettloff and Matt Bernico, “Atmoterrorism and Atmodesign in the 21st Century: Mediating Flint’s Water Crisis”

[irwonder]

No contemporary philosopher...would be going too far describing terror as the father of the science of cultures.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

The poverty of organicism comes from the fact that its legitimate plea for justice in relation to the larger interests of communities usually turns quickly into resentment towards the self-will of the smaller units it has declared 'parts.' Its typical tone is that of a disempowered aristocracy that preserves its hunger for excellence in the dream of pure service. Noble holists are usually happy to serve the community as wise brains or useful bellies, while expecting that the other organs will also take their places. If one wishes to salvage the productive intuitions of holism, one must develop an alternative view of the associations: it is necessary to derive the togetherness, communication and cooperation of the multiplicities of individual spaces tied together by the stress of coexistence, which are regrettably still called societies, from their own conditions—without using the [anti-holism] with which individualists and contractualists [use].

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

In a word, contract theory no longer has a use for the coexistent as they are before or alongside the contract. It addresses itself to people who acquired qualities as sinners, and are willing as penitents to begin anew beyond their qualities—one can tell that we are on Protestant and Kantian terrain. In this, the Rawlsian utopia is congenial with a certain theory of communicative action, which similarly has no use for speakers who speak outside of idealized speech situations. This theory describes the communicators as if their words were the consequences of a statement exchange agreement which they, despairing at their own babble in the natural state, had made with one another in the transition to the linguistic contract state. In both cases: first theory for the last humans.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

The liberal contract theories, like all counterintuitive discourses that abase 'common sense,' are as expertocratically colored as the holistic ones, with the sole difference that their authors were imagining something more like an advocatocracy. Experience shows that contract theorists are usually only interested in democratic forms to the extent that they guarantee the conditions in which jurists, correctness journalists and professors of moral philosophy are on top.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

These young people have understood that knowledge prepares them not for life, but for quiz shows.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

The great majority of modern sociologies, political sciences and social philosophies could be characterized as a series of attempts to balance out the overstretches of one approach and another by crossing them with each other, as if one could correct two mistakes by combining them.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

Compared to space travel, politics—even when practiced with the usual degree of professionalism—is still tied to a dreamy, vague, error-riddled milieu in which topic speculators and containers of collective confusion can attain the highest offices. The difference of explicitness between space travel as the art of what is possible in a vacuum and politics as the art of what is possible on the earth's surface is still very great at present; compared to the former, the current political profession resembles a karaoke party at which the competitors appear as political parties.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

Humans are those who are together but can usually not speak properly about the reasons for their being together. For what does it mean to be together? If no one asks me, I know; if I am asked to explain it, I do not know.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)

[irwonder]

Claiming that the harmful god of consensus has died means declaring which energies are required to resume work: it can only be those that were bound by metaphysical hyperbole. Once a great exaggeration becomes obsolete, swarms of more discreet upsurges arise.

Peter Sloterdijk, Foams: Plural Spherology (Spheres, Volume III)