What We Get Wrong, When We Talk About Abigail Zwerner

When I first heard about Abigail Zwerner's story, I had the strong feeling that we shouldn't talk about it. To clarify, I do not feel that the story shouldn't be addressed by the relevant community officials; rather, I feel that the widespread American public is inadequately informed to make meaningful statements about it. It is…

Reading One’s Body: On the Speed of Observation, Pt. V.5.2

Let's say that one were to read these comments while being an anti-natalist who still believes firmly in the importance of child welfare. Such a reader might want to look at how the affiliative dimensions of human cultural production--which is to say nurture, the care for the young and the establishment of linguistic, cultural artifacts--have…

Concert Notes

I have been to more concerts in the past month than in any other of my life. The intention is partly to do more things, and partly to better understand the difference between 'recorded' sound and 'live' music. Last night, I went, alone, to see Tamino perform. The opener was a woman whose name, whose…

Reading One’s Body: On the Speed of Observation, Pt. V.5.1

"Moreover, the persistence of the poetics of entanglement in these discourses suggests the possibility of an anthropological position, a position which attempts to identify how metaphors gain semantic valence according to worldly relationships, a position which may remain meaningful so long as these worldly relationships are shared among human bodies--even as those bodies become stretched…

Reading One’s Body: On the Speed of Observation, pt. V.5

"Indeed, Derrida closes his Truth in Painting with a series of associations that evoke fidelity, lacing, commitment, binding, and restriction--so maybe it's all tied together." Maybe. But part of what I am attempting to do is resist the temptation of those literary, "maybe" moments, those moments when an authorial voice dissolves into something called polysemy…