Hello! Apologies about the slight delay on this month’s edition of the Blogger’s Digest. I spent the transition from July to August over at my parent’s house, before having drinks with friends who I haven’t seen in at least three years. It was essentially the first “house party” since Covid began. I’m still nursing the hangover three days later…
Anyway, onto the last month’s blogging activity:
Rest in Power, Dawn Foster
I was very, very sad to hear that Dawn Foster passed away last month. I didn’t know Dawn, but she was something of a legend. Her Twitter presence was second-to-none and she was also the debut author published by Repeater. The tributes poured in on Twitter all night. It was very reminiscent of when Mark died. Surreal and sad but an opportunity to celebrate Dawn and all that she did. I wrote a little tribute here:
Blogging as Infinite Conversation
Last month I wrote a preamble about a little blog project I had in mind, reading Maurice Blanchot’s The Infinite Conversation, particularly its last section, as a thought from the proto-blogosphere. I’ve often found that book inspiring for thinking through the strange politics of fragmentary writing, but Blanchot makes it an art in itself. Though it may take me some time as I work on other commitments, here’s the first installment proper, reading the first chapter of the book’s last section, which is on Rimbaud, through Mark Fisher’s writing on Drake.
— Lately I’ve Been Feeling Like Arthur Rimbaud
The Sharp Object of Ideology
A few unconnected posts that nonetheless share a thread from this past month, on ideology and capitalist realism:
— Learning and Trauma: The Shape Object of Ideology
— The Tomorrow War
— Children of /Acc: Waiting for a Post-Pandemic Politics
— Postmodernism and Gender Realism
— Orgies of Stupidity Fuck the Painful Present Away
— Post-Covid Horizons
— Imagine You Have Two Memes…: On Memetic Negativity
— Olympic Refusal: Simone Biles and Herbert Marcuse
Narcissus in Bloom
I threw another book chapter draft on the blog this past month. (I previously shared the introduction here.) I’m not sure why; Repeater might tell me off later and it might have to come down. But this is what I started writing when I took a prolonged break from my accelerationism book. I had an urge to share some of the fruits of my labours:
— I Paint, Therefore I Am: On Painting, Patrons, and the Rise of Liberalism
Podcasts, Etc.
After some delay, we finally got round to recording our BwO episode on the first third of Deleuze’s The Fold. It was quite a daunting episode, and the rest of the book is going to take some effort to digest in a timely fashion as well!
We’re also back with a new Patreon reading group, working our way through Ben Bratton’s The Revenge of the Real.
— Buddies Without Organs — Episode #07: The Fold (Part 1)
— XG Reading Group 3.0: The Revenge of the Real
Photography