Hello!
This post is a retrospective one. September was so intense that the monthly digest totally passed me by and — I’m embarrassed to say — so did October 1st as well…
This is all for good reason. Lots of book-writing going on, I flew to give a talk abroad for the first time in 2 years, and I went on holiday for the first time in about 4 years! It has been good to forget about the blog as real life starts up again, but I also know people appreciate these debriefs.
So, my apologies. Better late than never!(?)
Ljubljana
September’s main event was flying over to Ljubljana, which was announced at the end of August here:
— Is there (Still) No Alternative?: XG in Ljubljana
Capitalist Realism
In the lead up to the Ljubljana talk, Capitalist Realism was very much on my mind and it resulted in a bunch of related posts:
— Communism Within, Communism Without: The Paranoia of Capitalist Realism
— Parameters of Change: Notes on Queer Accelerationism and Libidinal Materialism
Nancy
We lost a philosophical giant in Jean-Luc Nancy in August. He was very influential on me when I was studying for my MA. I wrote a brief reflection on his work.
Music
There were a few big late-summer music drops in August. I wrote a bit about Lorde and Kanye.
— They do not live nature as nature, but as a process of production: On Lenz and Lorde’s Desiring-Productions
— DONDA
Narcissus in Bloom
The focus of my attention at the minute is the next book. I’ve mentioned it here before, although I’m trying to resist the temptation to tease it on the blog ahead of time. It’s going to be quite short (~40k words) and about something I’ve not written on before. I’m excited about doing something quick, contrarian and novel.
Though I’m trying not to share any of it… Some things are still sneaking onto the blog, including this:
— Unconditional Love: A Note on Acid Narcissism
Podcasts and Chats
I spoke with James ‘Meta-Nomad’ Ellis for the Hermitix podcast about my book Egress. This was quite a late interview, considering the book came out over a year ago, and it was interesting to talk about it having had that amount of time to reflect on it.
You can listen to the episode below, and read a debrief post I wrote about some of my feelings, clarifying a few points that I didn’t think I made as well as I could have done.
— Egress: Livestream on the Hermitix Podcast
— Egress and Immanence: Hermitix De-Brief
We also kept discussing Ben Bratton’s The Revenge of the Real and Natasha Eves and I went on Acid Horizon to talk about our For k-punk events.
— XG Reading Group 3.1: Post-Pandemic Patchwork
— Solidarity at the Rave: For k-punk on Acid Horizon
— XG Reading Group 3.2: Trust is Key
Photography