minden-grl

[abnormalpsychology]

Sometimes this site gives me a much brighter flame of hope for the future and sometimes it makes me a whole lot worse. I think that’s worth being transparent about actually

[fatehbaz]

Non-places; strange allure of eerie landscape and liminal space:

Spectacular message.

Part 1: Ghosts, transgressions, thresholds, ecology, empire etc. Me being annoying.

Part 2: List of sources and reading recommendations.

Part 3, some excerpts I think you might like, here:

de Certeau, whose writing influenced Marc Auge’s work on non-places, from: “Walking in the City.” In: The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. 1984.

Escaping the imaginary totalizations produced by the eye, the everyday has a certain strangeness [...]. [P]roper names carve out pockets of hidden and familiar meaning. [...] Ultimately, since proper names are already “local authorities” [...], they are [in the modern space, the non-place] replaced by numbers: the telephone number, [etc.] [...]. The same is true of the stories and legends that haunt urban space like superfluous or additional inhabitants. Their extermination (like the extermination of trees, forests, and hidden places in which such legends live) makes the city a “suspended symbolic order.” The habitable city is thereby annulled. [...] Objects and words also have hollow places in which a past sleeps, as in the everyday acts of walking, eating, going to bed, in which ancient revolutions slumber [...]. Travel (like walking) is a substitute for the legends that used to open up space to something different. [...] There is no place that is not haunted by many different spirits hidden there in silence, spirits one can “invoke” or not. Haunted places are the only ones people can live in -- and this  inverts the schema of the panopticon.

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I think Giggs said it well, too. [From: Rebecca A. Giggs. The Rise of the Edge. 2010 Draft.]

Unlike the sublime, with its axiomatic relationship with nature and its place in a history of “the outdoors,” the uncanny is more readily associated with anti-natural concerns - degrees of deadness; animated corpses, ghosts, and artificial beings; dolls, automatons, and doubles. [...] Modern shopping malls that replicate identical layouts, and retirement communities wherein every residential unit is built in the mirror-image of the unit  opposite – right down to the pearly patina of the laminex on the bench-tops. [...] The uniform architecture and visual   parroting of W/a/l/Marts, Apple/bees, Best/Buys, Starb/ucks and Borders [...].  This doubling of place not only arouses the unnerving suspicious -- “I’ve been here before,” and “am I here, or am I in fact elsewhere?” -- but additionally reaffirms the underlying unnaturalness of all place-based experience. The local is eerie on account of it being familiar. In other words, it is precisely because the local is “homely” that it is capable of being shot-through with the “unhomely.” The uncanny exists because there is an environment. Many of us may be struck by the uncanny compulsion to repeat in these self-same environments -- to return in search of the small dissimilarity, the idosyncrasy that distinguishes the “here” from the “there.” [...] Standing in the aisles of I/kea, frozen to the spot, you are seized by an alarming vision; you are split prismatically, and somewhere else another you is holding another flat-packed  E/ngan storage box in walnut [...].  As multinational corporations seek to comfort and disarm through their “commonplace” design, they also run the risk that such places become indirectly disturbing in their duplication. [...] Things are are ambiguous where there is too much multivalent, ambient information coming in from all angles. Human-animal-machine. Everywhere-anywhere-nowhere. Alive-dead-stimulant. Evolve-devolve-mutate. The uncanny concerns a dislocation of time [...] the resurfacing of intuitive misgivings into a space where there is no longer a clear language or psychological register within which they can be articulated. Hence, the uncanny does not disappear, but becomes more condensed and potent in societies where there is little room apportioned for the public acceptance of the pre-logical strangeness of experience. Where uncanny dubiety persists, it can no longer be assimilated into the hinterlands of the sacred or the mythic.

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And from Tim Edensor: “The ghosts of industrial ruins: ordering and disordering memory in excessive space.” Environment and Planning. 2005.

Within the interstices of the city there are a host of other spaces, part of a “wild zone”, a “[…] site […] which avoids the objective processes of ordered territorialisation […]”. What Ford (2000) calls the ‘spaces between buildings’, the unadorned backsides of the city, the alleys, culverts, service areas, and other microspaces, along with wastelands, railway sidings, spaces behind billboards, and unofficial rubbish tips, as well as the ‘edgelands’ or ‘urban fringe’ (Shoard, 2003), are spaces “where aesthetics and ethics merge and where there are no defined boundaries and constant ruptures […].” [T]his collection of marginal sites [...]. Staged […] through the intensified mediatisation and commodification of popular sites, myths, and icons […], mediated imaginary geographies circulate through adverts, soap operas, ‘classic’ rock stations […]. But […] the modern city can never become a wholly Appollonian, seamlessly regulated realm for it continues to be haunted by the neglected, the disposed of, and the repressed, most clearly in marginal sites where ghostly memories cannot be entirely expunged. [...] And yet their absence manifests itself as a presence through the shreds and silent things … a host of signs and traces which let us know that “a haunting is taking place.” […] Movement in ruins becomes strangely reminiscent of childhood […]. Crawling through dense undergrowth, scrambling over walls and under fences [...]. Such spaces might be compared to the ‘felicitous’ and ‘eulogised’ spaces – primarily the protective, inhabited domestic spaces, the ‘corners of our world’ – which provide the basis of feeling at ‘home’ […], but are also analogous to the dens of childhood, where the sensual experience of texture and micro-atmosphere are absorbed, “nooks and corners” which became “a resting-place for daydreams” that may reemerge during adulthood. [...] Being haunted draws us, “always a bit magically, into the structure of feeling of a reality we come to experience, not as cold knowledge, but as transformative recognition” […].

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Also, from Bob Cluness: “I am an other and I always was…”: On the Weird and Eerie in Contemporary and Digital Cultures. University of Iceland MA Thesis. 2019.

On a material level, the eerie is often not located in the humanistic confines and locales of the family and home. Often, it is located in marginal spaces, in landscapes, sites, and structures where there is either a distinct lack of human presence, or there was once a human activity which has since disappeared. Various ruins, such as the ancient sites of Stonehenge […] to more modern locations such as abandoned buildings […].

Where society is increasingly on the move, movement turns a place into a passage of space, and therefore non-place. […] To facilitate the semblance of frictionless movement and exchange, the layout, design and production of non-places tend towards a structural homogeneity […]. Non-spaces therefore create a disavowal towards exhibiting any particular cultural roots or an innate historical connection with the surrounding area. […] The basic layout of a shopping mall or an airport is the same whether it is in Reykjavik or Rio de Janeiro. [...] Through their overriding spatial conformity, and the mechanical nature they invoke in the individual towards consumerism and social control, non-places invoke forms of eerie alienation [...] they allow the individual to psychologically disconnect, to drift […]. Such places (or non-places) are often where there is an absence of humanity, or where there is something or some agency at work that is just beyond our realm of understanding; “The eerie concerns the most fundamental metaphysical questions one could pose, questions to do with existence and non- existence.” As such, the eerie “is constituted by a failure of absence or by a failure of  presence. The sensation of the eerie occurs either when there is something present where there should be nothing, or is there nothing present when there should be something.” This becomes evident with the use “eerie” as descriptive terms, such as there being an “eerie silence,” or an “eerie cry”; at the heart of the eerie, it talks of an absence of something, or the presence of something, but something that is unknown and outside of our normal frames of knowledge and reference. [...] Fisher asserts […]:

It is about the forces that govern our lives and the world […] In the case of the failure of absence, the question concerns the existence of agency as such. Is there a deliberative agent here at all? Are we being watched by an entity that has not yet revealed itself? In the case of the failure of presence, the question concerns the particular nature of the agent at work. We know that Stonehenge has been erected, so the questions of whether there was an agent behind its construction or not does not arise; what we have to reckon with are the traces of a departed agent whose purposes are unknown.

[sistazai]

I am always bowled over by the fact that everyone is unique. How amazing is that? You can share the same womb, grow in the same house, go through the exact same life experiences and we all end up absolutely unique individuals. Imagine if we each invested time and energy into self awareness and self knowledge? I bet you there would not be a single cookie cutter job in existence ... in fact the homogenisation of employment (the assembly line, standardised testing etc) are all products of the industrial revolution - a time when the world needed fewer free thinkers and more slaves/folks who would follow instructions without questioning or rebelling. Before this, how did human beings function and organise themselves? . . . Writers and spiritual teachers like #sobonfusome from Burkina Faso suggest that each person incarnates into a particular society at a particular time with a unique set of gifts to offer to their community. The community benefits if they support that person to fully individuate and manifest their full potential. The person is also more connected and satisfied when they become more of themselves. In ‘Zimbabwe’, we call this ‘uhnu’ - I am because we are (and vice versa). . . . Now, we seem to be moving into a time when it is possible for folks to step out of the rat race and create work out of their passion. People have a range of opinions about whether or not this commodification of talent and passion is necessarily a good thing. That’s a #realtalk topic for another #courageouswednesdays. My focus today is simply to say this: stay true to you - really do the work of self knowledge and allow that truth to guide you. Regardless of whether you are in corporate, creative or freelance, there comes a time when you have to push past fears or physical limits and grow. For some folks, cash is a motivator but, I dare say, you can only buy so much and spend so much until you realise your spirit is starved. If you are going to spend most of your time doing something, make sure that activity is aligned to the truest part of you - the part that sings and soars whenever you do the thing you were born to do in this lifetime and for you and your entire community. ❤ https://www.instagram.com/p/BuUP9knlFEd/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=2oq1e0sl8zuu

[runandtellthatreviews]

Jesus Papoleto Melendez (photo courtesy of the Poetry Foundation)

A Legend Speaks: An Interview with Nuyorican Poet Jesús Papoleto Meléndez

by Dimitri Reyes

Thinking of your poems “Subway Sleeper Car Sleeper” or “The Flood Came to Puerto Rico,” how do you think that writing politically driven poems help change the political climate in a time where social media has American dialogue moving so quickly?

Well, first of all, people need to slow down. Just because one is dealing with intellectual technology doesn’t necessarily mean that one is keeping up with it intellectually. I feel that people need to read more, than speak poetry. I am always dismayed when there is a conversation about poetics, et al, and many folk are unfamiliar with a lot of poetry, historic poetry, poets and poetry that mattered, and still does, if read. How many times has my head fallen to my chest when I ask about my great friend, El Reverendo Pedro Pietri, and no one, or very few even know of whom I’m speaking; Pedro’s passing just yesterday (March, 2004). So, I don’t think that people are paying attention, but rather, seeking it, via a poetic voice-device. Now, having said that, I’ll add that Poetry can tolerate the self-voice because within even the “self-voice” (vis-à-vis, the “I” or “Me” poem-speak), empathy still emerges; albeit, self-empathy. Poems as you’ve mentioned above are empathetic to situations “outside” of oneself. They are things that happen to other people, and therefore, are not necessarily “personal,” but rather, global, humanistic, about life. It is the empathy of putting yourself in someone else’s situation, and relating it. So, we need to study poetry more thoroughly; look to see where everything comes from, and, perhaps to where things are going. Poetry is not a stepping-stone to fortune and fame, or Hollywood for that matter – where, if the poet where to seek that, he or she would trade their voice for that of Hollywood, or fortune and fame, and lose their use of poetry. Poetry does not compromise itself for such mundane material.

In terms of our youth, can you talk about the importance of having poets in the schools and making poetry and performance a part of the curriculum?

When I was 19 years old, I started working as a poet in the classroom. I had just started getting published and was reading my poetry around New York town, and people were beginning to call me out as a poet. It was then, but we didn’t know it then, the beginning to the Nuyorican poets movement, and it was a very hot political time. With programs like Teachers & Writers Collaborative, and Poets-in-the-Schools, we were assigned to classroom teaching assignments, with the English subject teacher totally involved in the process of eliciting poetry from young students’ personal experiences, and connecting them to realities outside of themselves wherein they might find affinity. Now, poetry in the curriculum has been relegated to after-school, recreational activity, competing with robotics. Poetry belongs everywhere, of course – but especially in the classroom. It’s not the sole purview of “teachers” in the classroom, but of poets in the classrooms as well. Visiting artists, and introduced as such – and not just student-peer teachers, but elder poets especially. When I was a kid the only poets you ever saw were Shakespeare (in depictions), Whitman (Mr. Selfie), and Robert Frost in photos. So, we really didn’t know what poets looked liked, or what they liked. I am very glad that poetry has permeated society in a myriad of forms, such as rap (the dozens, revisited), hip hop, spoken-word – even breaking-dancing to modern dance. But, the youth of today does not know every damned thing – especially, the past. Elders are very important people, especially if one is able to communicate with one. Damn it, take oral histories of your family. Look up “StoryCorps” (https://storycorps.org/listen/jesus-melendez-and-frank-perez/ part of the Smithsonian collection), where they keep oral histories. You’ll find the testimony that I recorded with poet Frank Perez, following the death of Pedro Pietri, wherein I give a detailed account of Pietri’s last moments as he drifts into eternity 45,000 feet above earth, in a private air-ambulance flying from Tijuana, Mexico to La Guardia airport. Pedro dies over Roswell, New Mexico – to prove a point! Hear it!

You are very in tune with “the spiritual” while navigating poems that take hold in very urban spaces; this also blends uniquely with views of commodification and capitalism. Are there subjects related to these two stratifying ideas that you think this new generation of poets needs to pay closer attention to?

Well, you always gotta be careful with capitalism – or any ism, for that matter. However, poetry writing is not a money-making adventure; it’s an adventure into the human soul, which might be different from the spiritual soul – one being more material than the other, as far as material things go. And, hell-yeah, art has become commodified, and the youth is buying into it. As young Nuyorican poets we were trying to speak for our people through our personal experiences socially, politically, and culturally via poetry. We were speaking for our people and creating a new idiom for that expression. Now, I find what I might characterize a cultural-capitalists, say, people utilize cultural idioms for the purpose of capitalizing on them for some bitcoins of fortune and fame. I say, it’s like our generation broke through and shattered the walls of the citadel of this society’s access to a voice, and the subsequent generations have sauntered through those gates to discover a shopping mall and they’ve begun a shopping spree. Seek the spiritual in poetry. “Up on Housing Project Hill, it’s either fortune or fame; You must pick one or the other, though neither of them are to be what they claim.”                                                 —Bob Dylan, “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”

You dedicated Papolitico, “to the belief that The Nature of Poetry is the Universal Empathetic Expression of the Spirits’ suffering a Human Experience.” Can you speak to what that means to you? What is or isn’t “The Nature of Poetry” and “Human Experience” today, that it wasn’t 60 or 100 years ago.

Are we spiritual beings having a human experience, or are we humans having a spiritual experience? I believe the former is truer to life’s purpose. Life is an information-gathering expedition, built on one prime directive in two-parts: Gather as much information as possible via human experience; and live as long and fully as possible to do so. And, as we can now see, human society has “progressed” from the stone age, the iron period, et al, the industrial revolution, and revolutions outright, and now into the information age, of course, but to what end? Well, here on earth, there is one purpose – capitalism. However, the universe has a different view and need. The universe’s need is growth, expansion, which lies in information – the collection of cells into new forms – after all, what do humans really produce – ideas, then material things. I believe that the universe is empathetic to the human experience wherever it exists, in whatever form. As a way to aid us in life, the universe sends out message of consciousness that spreads (like Sun rays) throughout the planet, and is received by sensitized human antenna, causing the effect of realization into idea, idea into action. Thusly, you have a multitude of humanity rising up for a singular global cause – say, human rights, women’s rights, ecology, etc. I call this cosmic-email. Poetry is cosmic email. And poems are about empathy. It’s peculiar in that, as I mentioned earlier, the spoken-word poet, speaking for him- or herself, is nevertheless speaking empathetically within the poem-speak.

What do you hope to see out of the new generation of emerging Puerto Rican poets?

True Love, not hype. Love for humanity, ambassadors of humanity, peace. Respect for elders, and what came before. Respect for one another, not competition. Unity. And, personally, more respect for the elder poets that are still around. There is no such a thing as an old poet. People are younger and older, chronologically, because of math of calendars, but spirits are young and old simultaneously. Poetry as a professional, life-long pursuit is one that offers wisdom with age, and that’s to be respected. I find that as an art form it seems the only one where one is not required to study the past in order to proceed into the future is a poet; you just get up (or sit down, as the case may be) and do it. Being a poet is a way of being, a life-style, one that might lead a person to stop and take a moment to smell a flower, and in that moment to realize how putrid life on earth can be.

-Jesús Papoleto Meléndez October 6, 2018, El Barrio, New York City

To learn more about this poet, please visit this link: https://2leafpress.org/online/team/jesus-papoleto-melendez/