Andrew Maxwell's Blog, page 13
December 28, 2010
"The origin of shells in high places."
Or, as Julia Lupton suggested, negative anthropology could be an account of culture where you subtract human beings. Think of all the artifacts that are not produced by human civilization, like beehives and seashells and things like that. Those could be the objects of a negative anthropology.
––Aaron Kunin, "Banish the World"
***
Regardless of the theoretical subtraction, does this still import a priori a rather optimistic theory of the human?
Where architecture and mechanism retain value as a shadow of some essential human work of event planning –– or, say, there is still self-flattery in the plastic spirit and autogenous stones of Kircher and Spinoza.
But more interesting: how the negative anthropologist does taxonomy, which may also be a way of studying religion in this modulo universe. Imagine some clever student beginning to rattle that cage––!
"Which is greater, the umbrella or the face?"
––Aaron Kunin, "Banish the World"
***
Regardless of the theoretical subtraction, does this still import a priori a rather optimistic theory of the human?
Where architecture and mechanism retain value as a shadow of some essential human work of event planning –– or, say, there is still self-flattery in the plastic spirit and autogenous stones of Kircher and Spinoza.
But more interesting: how the negative anthropologist does taxonomy, which may also be a way of studying religion in this modulo universe. Imagine some clever student beginning to rattle that cage––!
"Which is greater, the umbrella or the face?"
This Is Our Power
We can scramble the lost.
12.28.10
Dogs are beacons for the fantasist –– never reducible to mere appetite and exchange.
A purely transactional relationship with a dog is a draining curse.
A purely transactional relationship with a dog is a draining curse.
Conditionals
'Sustainability' suggests permeable defenses, occulted valor and melancholy.
It's like the final opiate light ebbing in Altman's McCabe & Mrs Miller.
It's like the final opiate light ebbing in Altman's McCabe & Mrs Miller.
December 26, 2010
Mere Words
That minority is the life of poetry, and also its cruelty. We know this, while holding to the curse.
It can't possibly be an epithet –– but an essence.
It can't possibly be an epithet –– but an essence.
December 25, 2010
27
That within the poem a coming to terms may also mean a refusal to concede.
26
That the poem may not observe through decorum.
Seven Words into Part One of Thomas Browne's Christian Morals
The word "funambulatory."
Like a silver thread through a laughing key.
Like a silver thread through a laughing key.
December 12, 2010
25
That at the back of the thought that the poet is defeated by description there is a theory of labor.
One After Three After Racine
The fitness of an argument is its grimmer muscle.
One shouldn't come to argue for boundedness, as though for responsibility, unless to come for that laughter at stumbling over its tripwires.
One shouldn't come to argue for boundedness, as though for responsibility, unless to come for that laughter at stumbling over its tripwires.
