Le Manteau d’Ernst Jünger 2011
Michel Aubry
roominghouse, winter by margaret atwood
We must resist. We must refuse
to disappear I said, in exile survival is the first necessity. After that (I say this tentatively) we might begin Survive what? you said. In the weak light you looked over your shoulder. You said Nobody ever survives.
be the kind of witch
they are always burning,
but do not burn
i have a poem for & after yoko ono in the beautiful new issue of tinderbox
(via outsidewarmafghans)
A banner listing the names of the six men killed in a mass shooting at a Quebec City mosque this week was hung from the constituency office of Conservative MP and leadership candidate Kellie Leitch.
Images of Leitch’s office in Collingwood, Ont. surfaced online early Wednesday.
“Hate puts us all at risk,” the banner reads, before citing the six people who were gunned down Sunday night during evening prayers:
- Azzeddine Soufiane, 57
- Khaled Belkacemi, 60
- Boubaker Thabti, 44 (his first name was spelled incorrectly on the banner)
- Abdelkrim Hassane, 41
- Ibrahima Barry, 39
- Mamadou Tanou Barry, 42.
Though the banner includes the term “#notmymp,” the organizer behind a lawn sign campaign using that hashtag in Leitch’s Simcoe-Grey riding told the Collingwood Connection Tuesday that her group was not responsible.
Leitch has called for immigrants, refugees, and visitors to screened for so-called “anti-Canadian values” and raised eyebrows by lauding the election of Donald Trump last November.
Though she has long denied that the controversial policy is directed at Muslims, fellow Tory leadership rival Michael Chong dismissed it as “dog-whistle politics”and xenophobic.
Source: huffingtonpost.ca
Top, photograph by Carl Weinrother (?), Drei Pfeile, Symbol der Eisernen Front - Demonstration gegen die NSDAP (Three arrows, symbol of the Iron Front - Demonstration against the NSDAP), December 1931/1932 (?), Berlin. Via. Via. Bottom, screen capture from Australia’s ABC News, Zoe Daniel interviewing Richard Spencer as he gets punched, Washington DC, January 21, 2017. Via.
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You may have seen it, it’s a meme now, set to backing tracks of Bruce Springsteen, New Order, even a song from Hamilton. The punch, landed by a masked protester on Inauguration Day, lends itself perfectly to a beat. Spencer, who states that America belongs to white men, was in the midst of telling an Australian TV crew in DC that he was not a neo-Nazi, while pointing to his neo-Nazi Pepe the Frog lapel pin. A black-clad figure then jumps into frame, deus ex machina, with a perfectly placed right hook to Spencer’s face. The alt-right poster boy stumbles away, and his anonymous attacker bounds out of sight in an instant. I don’t know who threw the punch, but I know by his unofficial uniform that this was a member of our black bloc that day. And anyone enjoying the Nazi-bashing clip (and many are) should know that they’re watching anti-fascist bloc tactics par excellence—pure kinetic beauty.
(…) Not everyone can participate in a black bloc. Those with a vulnerable immigration status, or arrest records, or good reasons to fear police repression because of the color of their skin, often don’t participate in activities where the risk of arrest is high. Friday’s bloc was by no means all white, but it was predominantly white. If bearers of white privilege can do one thing, it is put ourselves on the line and take risks where others can’t.
Natasha Lennard, from Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer Got Punched - You Can Thank the Black Bloc, A dispatch from inside the J20 protests for The Nation, January 22, 2017
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Getting to this real abstraction entails an analysis of what I call capitalist realism. Capitalist realism – which by no means collapsed with the banks last year; on the contrary, there is no greater testament to its continuing power than the scale of the bank bail-outs – is the notion that capitalism is the only viable political-economic system. It maintains that there is an inherent relation between capitalism and reality. Capitalist realism is a kind of anti-mythical myth: in claiming to have deflated all previous myths on which societies were based, whether the divine right of kings or the Marxist concept of historical materialism, it presents its own myth, that of the free individual exercising choice. The distrust of abstractions – summarized by Margaret Thatcher’s famous denial: ‘there is no such thing as society’ – finds expression in a widespread reduction of cultural ideas and activities to psychobiography. We are invited to see the ‘inner life’ of individuals as the most authentic level of reality. Much of the appeal of reality television, for instance, consists in its seductive claim to show participants for what they ‘really are’. The media is a sea of faces that we are encouraged to feel we are on first name terms with. Feature interviews in mainstream papers and magazines are invariably structured around biographical chat and photographs. In Britain, now more than ever, artists and musicians are faced with the choice of representing themselves in this biographical way or not appearing at all. Attempts to appeal to abstract ideas alone – either in the art itself or the forces it is dealing with – are habitually greeted with a mixture of contempt and incomprehension.
Mark Fisher, from Real Abstractions - The application of theory to the modern world, for Frieze Magazine, January 16, 2017.
“Your Daughter Is One”, 2 color silkscreen. Collaboration with Mimi Thi Nguyen for the 2014 Silvia Rivera Law Project Fundraiser.
Okay I might want this for my daughter’s bedroom?
When my abusive ex made shirts that read “break barriers burn bridges respect each other” I immediately thought how dare this person appropriate tenderness and a ‘ethics’ for community when they do not enact the same politics interpersonally.
Yesterday my friend and co-editor of a forth-coming zine “Witches Heal” posted this amazing response to abusers appropriating tenderness:
When abusers appropriate softness, we must be hard and cutting.
We must grasp our knives tightly, between bared teeth, ready to strike. Puncture. We can pop pneumatic predators luring in the vulnerable and newly recovered. We learn to take care of ourselves and our own. We learn vigilance. We strike. Backs up. Blades out.
There is a difference between a victim becoming a bully and a victim having an appropriate response, a response that is Step off Fuck off Do not fuck with me I will cut you do not think I won’t. There is a learning here. It is a deep learning. It comes from the gut. We process trauma and spit it out. Our bodies can learn to reject violence, not absorb it. This is where we step into Fuck off. Become it. Learn it. Chant it. Tattoo it on our forearms. Repeat mantra day in day out. Mantra.
Too often victims (of crime, rape, abuse) are further punished when they refuse to smile sweetly and kiss the feet of their perpetrators. This is a broken system. We are punished when we stand up for ourselves. When we know our worth. When we dare to have self respect. We are told: Do not rock the boat. We are told: This is just how things are. We are told: He can do what he wants. We are told: Suck it up. Swallow. Make yourself small. We are told: Disappear. We are told: Tell no one.
I tell and tell and tell. I tell everyone who will listen, and also the ones who don’t. This is where my softness lies: in truth telling. This is vulnerability, testimony, memoir. This is a knife, hard blade, two edges. They say: A witch who can’t harm can’t heal, a witch who can’t curse can’t cure. They are right.
Softness without hardness means we will die. Means: We disappear. Means: We abandon our truth and our worth because being engulfed in niceness narratives is easy, feels safe even though when we are in this boat it is always already sinking.
I ask:
Where do you keep your knife?
I know where I keep mine.
Written by fellow witch friend Sabrina Scott, they are the author of the beautiful book Witch Body
⚔🔪💄🌑
(Dedicated to my beautiful friend Clementine)
Some writing doesn’t brush up against sentimentality as often as other writing. But whatever ‘bad’ edge your writing brushes up against, I think it’s important to touch it. You can always pull back from it, but at least you know where it is. It’s like when I was a dancer, we were always encouraged to fall in rehearsal, so that you could know what the tipping point of any given movement was. That way, when you did it on the stage, you could be sure you were taking it to the edge without falling on your face. It sounds like a cliché, but really it’s just physics — if you don’t touch the fulcrum, you’ll never gain a felt sense of it, and your movement will be impoverished for it.
Maggie Nelson, in response to ‘Is it important to risk sentimentality?’ in an interview with Genevieve Hudson for Bookslut (via arabellesicardi)
Always, still, misquoting this in my head.
(via durgapolashi)
Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience
January 26 – March 4, 2017
A project by Kent Monkman Opening reception January 26, 2017 6:30-8:30pm University of Toronto Art Centre
Kent Monkman’s new, large scale project takes the viewer on a journey through Canada’s history that starts in the present and takes us back to a hundred and fifty years before Confederation. With its entry points in the harsh urban environment of Winnipeg’s north end, and contemporary life on the reserve, the exhibition takes us all the way back to the period of New France and the fur trade. The Rococo masterpiece The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard is reinterpreted as an installation with Monkman’s alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, in a beaver trimmed baroque dress, swinging back and forth between the Generals Wolfe and Montcalm. As both artist and curator, Kent Monkman’s first major solo-exhibition at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto includes his own paintings, drawings and sculptural works, in dialogue with historical artefacts and art works borrowed from museum and private collections from across the country. The exhibition narrates a story of Canada through the lens of First Nations’ resilience. With a focus on his new paintings and drawings, Monkman’s visceral and moving exhibition provides a searing critique of Canada’s colonial policies in response to celebrations of Canada’s 150th birthday. As Monkman explains, “The last 150 years—the period of Modernity—represents the most devastating period for First Peoples, including the signing of the numbered treaties, the reserve system, genocidal policies of the residential schools, mass incarceration and urban squalor.” After premiering at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, this large scale exhibition will travel across Canada over the next two years. A catalogue is forthcoming in the fall of 2017. It will be published in English, French, and Cree.
The R.K. Teetzel Lecture in Art by Kent Monkman
Wednesday, February 1, 2017, 4:30-6:00pm University College, Room 140 The lecture will be followed by a reception from 6:00-7:30pm at the University of Toronto Art Centre
Curatorial Tour with Kent Monkman Saturday, February 4, 2017, 2:00pm Meet at the University of Toronto Art Centre
Hi I’d like to teleport to Toronto in February please make this possible.
The disease which is passed from mother to daughter is the disease of being female – an abject creature not far removed from the animal world and one dominated totally by her feelings and reproductive functions.
Barbara Creed, The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis. (via batarde)
Sing out to Darkness: Favourite Songs of 2016
- w.o.r.l.d. - Nancy Pants & Julie Doiron
- Coo Coo - Weaves
- Nobody’s Baby - SHEER MAG
- Shut Up Kiss Me - Angel Olsen
- Says You - The Luyas
- Palms Lose - Casey Mecija
- Companion - Braids
- on the sidewalk - s.ayton
- The Wheel - PJ Harvey
- Newfoundland - Lonely Parade
- Nothing to Something & Vice Versa - Laura Sauvage
- Paul - Big Thief
- Opposite House - Cass McCombs
- Fool - Basia Bulat
- Golden Days - Whitney
- You Are Not Here - Aidan Knight
- La guitomane - Sarah Toussaint-Leveillée
- White Feather Roses - EONS
- Elegy - Leif Vollebekk
- You Want it Darker - Leonard Cohen
- Cranes in the Sky - Solange
- Freedom - Beyoncé
- Sila - A Tribe Called Red ft Tanya Tagaq
- S.O.S. - Portishead
It is strange to see the evidence laid out before me: 2016 is probably the year I saw the least amount of live music, bought the least amount of music, listened to the least amount of (new) music. Of the handful of concerts I did attend, they were in far more formal settings than in boisterous basements, d.i.y. venues. Since I was a teenager I’ve had an insatiable appetite for everything to do with music, but a combination of factors have lead to this slow decline.
On the other hand, 2016 may indeed be the year I have sung the most, mostly to the small amazing baby I am still getting to know. Songs before she left my body, songs encouraging her to leave my body so I could meet her. Songs I wondered if she could feel when I experienced them live, music by Tanya Tagaq, music by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It is the year I cried tears of joy when hearing a lullaby generous friends wrote for my baby - with her name! just for her! It is the year I smiled, the most sincere kind of smile, while watching my mother, my father, my husband, my friends sing songs to my baby. Music has become something new, something different.
But back to my way(s) of consuming music; it has become impossible to find one place to share the music I listen to. This year I bought music online, on vinyl and on cassette (notably Lonely Parade & s.ayton). I listened to music on the radio, streamed it on NPR’s First Play, CBC’s First Listen, on blogs (yes, they still exist!), on bandcamp, on SoundCloud, and 8tracks. Most recently I just signed up for Spotify, but it all feels like such a mess. Remember when it was all on one computer, one device?
So I settled here on Tumblr, where link sharing is still pretty straightforward. Links to YouTube videos, bandcamp pages. Here they are, laid out for you in no particular order. Some of these songs are so so so close to specific moments I experienced this year, the melodies woven into the memories. The songs I sang in the pink dawn on the first mornings Marguerite was in my arms. I listened to so much David Bowie, so much Prince, so much O Paon, so much Leonard Cohen in the days following their deaths. I sang along to songs I had heard a million times before, songs I didn’t even realize I knew all the words to, as Gord Downie screamed them out on a stage in Kingston, Ontario. I sang to Marguerite, I whispered words written by a woman who died far too soon, shortly after becoming a mother.
There was joy, too - boisterous, unrestrained joy. Dancing to S.O.B. at my sister’s wedding, dancing to Chance the Rapper with strangers and new friend’s at Iris’ wedding. I hope you find a gem for yourself in my selections.
Favourite albums
- Puberty 2 - Mitski
- Extraordinormal - Laura Sauvage
- Masterpiece - Big Thief
- Each Other - Aidan Knight (biggest surprise to me, gorgeous record)
- We are the Halluci Nation - A Tribe Called Red
- 99.9% - Kaytranada
- Lemonade - Beyoncé
- Hopelessness - ANOHNI
- No Shade - Lonely Parade
- The Magic - Deerhoof
Albums I still haven’t had the chance to check out (more for myself)
- case/lang/veirs
- Andy Shauf (love the handful of songs I’ve heard)
- Black Star - David Bowie
- Cass McCombs - Mangy Love
- Wacław Zimpel - Lines
- Anderson .Paak
- Blood Orange
- Pup
- Weaves - Weaves (a little late to the party on this one)
Unknown Artist Martyrdom of St. Lawrence
Door Handle, Parish Church of St. Lawrence, Salzwedel, Germany; ca. 1230
But the ill and their loved ones know that bodies do not always heal or recover. We are not always resilient. Many illnesses can be treated but not cured, and pain can only be managed. We know that disability isn’t the result of bad luck or poor health: it’s the inevitable transformation and breakdown of the body. The ability to ignore your body is a temporary privilege. We will all find ourselves in the position of patient and the position of caregiver, someday.
Anna Altman, Every Body Goes Haywire. (via batarde)
Source: nplusonemag.com
I measure the full horror of the possibility of such love. Motherhood mellows you, they say. Rubbish. Since having my child I’ve turned nasty. At long last I’m certain about that horror, at last I’ve grasped it, at last believers have become complete strangers to me.
Marguerite Duras, rough draft of “The Horror of Such Love.” (via batarde)
Nearly a year ago, Indigenous women from Val-d’Or publicly denounced violence and police abuses against them on the episode of Enquête.
Today, at the dawn of a year since the denunciations, it was announced that 41 police officers of the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) filed a lawsuit against Radio-Canada, for sharing content that is, in their view, defamatory.
Systemic violence against Indigenous women is undeniable and leads to situations where more than 1,200 Indigenous women are gone missing and murdered in Canada in 2016.
Quebec Native Women recalls the importance of continuing to provide accompaniments services to women who have denounced or want to denounce violence and abuse. The SQ’s lawsuit against Radio-Canada makes this reality even more accurate.
“For QNW, these denunciations were only the tip of the iceberg. Despite the government efforts to pick up the pieces by financing projects and providing training to its officials, QNW reminds that the central issue remains the abuse and violence that still exist in the relationship between Indigenous women and the police. We therefore reiterate our position and we claim an independent investigation that would shed light on this situation.”- Viviane Michel, QNW’s President. QNW press release
Louise Bourgeois I Had a Flashback of Something that Never Existed, no. 28 of 34, from the fabric illustrated book, Ode à l’oubli. 2002