I will read in NYC
Event: The Brooklyn Rail Presents: Starcherone Books
""hybrid innovative crazyass whachamacallit writing""
What: Performance
Host: Ted Pelton
Start Time: Thursday, May 21 at 6:00pm
End Time: Thursday, May 21 at 8:00pm
Where: Bowery Poetry Club
""hybrid innovative crazyass whachamacallit writing""
What: Performance
Host: Ted Pelton
Start Time: Thursday, May 21 at 6:00pm
End Time: Thursday, May 21 at 8:00pm
Where: Bowery Poetry Club
posted by Johannes at 8:41 AM
3 Comments:
"On the other hand, artistic recognition, which enabled both access to the last remaining public subsidies and decent coverage in the respectable media, went first of all, in cinema as in the other arts, to productions that praised evil--or, at least, that challenged moral values conventionally described as "traditional," in a sort of institutionalized anarchy perpetuating itself through mini-pantomimes whose repetitive nature did not blunt their charms in the eyes of the critics, all the more so as they facilitated the writing of reviews that were predictable and cliched, yet in which they were still able to present themselves as groundbreaking. The putting to death of morality had, on the whole, become a sort of ritual sacrifice necessary for the reassertion of the dominant values of the group--centered for some decades now on competition, innovation, and energy, more than on fidelity and duty. If the fluidification of forms of behavior required by a developed economy was incompatible with a normative catalog of restrained conduct, it was, however, perfectly suited to a perpetual celebration of the will and the ego. Any form of cruelty cynical selfishness, or violence was therefore welcome..."
Houellebecq, The Possibility Of An Island
(this was meant to accompany the post you just deleted)
cheers!
This is a pretty fantastic quote. Sounds like Houllebecq is trying to comment on his own inability to break through the feedback loop which channels his own 'shocking' prose as a product for international consumption. If you're proposing it here as a comment on the kinds of art and aesthetics I try to discuss here on the blog, I can't really see how it applies-- how marginalized, penniless, otherwise unpublishable work supposedly supports capitalist values, as this quote would suggest. That just seems like 'war is peace' thinking to me. Weak.
Johannes
You're funny. I'll just leave it there. I am but a weak medieval scribe who types when the spirit enters me...
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