A kind of a "dangerous supplement", marked, scarred on a body, post-orgasmically, always, already in anticipation of (a) crisis OR for a desert avec 'agape'. Mindb(l)ogg(l)ing Noise.
"Avalanche, would you share my last pursuit?" (Baudelaire)
The recent debates about the necessities of redefinition of the art market - in terms of both production and consumption - and cultural industries in Cyprus have all more or less found their heads banging against the doors of money vaults. The moaning and the growling was all about incl. in budgets, in purchases, in possible purchases and in possibilities opening up purchases. What? Ideas? Developing found itself being narrated again across restaurant bills, and most significantly, signed dotted lines of rectangular pieces of paper we do not usually see anymore. Even the odd reporter who claims to be a cultural one rapidly pulled the focus ring from the modalities of dialogue and intentions to the wallet.
The wallet is in this case a mimetic one. Mimesis is easy in the land of the look-alikes since it does not after all command size. Only looks. Taking its cue from the Dakis, the wallet thought that the Dakis is some kind of Guggenheim or Louvre or even Middlesex University, thus to be found in every other fucking desert. So, undersized, the wallet begun doing the Dakis; the wallet started dong the undersized Dakis; an undersized Dakis jumped out of the wallet. Franchise I think it's called. And I have no problem with that. I know of at least one marriage that has happily avoided a head on collision when a certain other franchise venture facilitate itself as a culinary option. (And we all thank you for that too.) This franchise though, the Dakis one, missed the plot. He started off by firing the cook - never a good thing in a restaurant - and hiring just cleaners. Hm. What happened to the waiters you might ask. Waiters! Middle men, hey, like curators, theorists, writers, designers. Fucking suggestions and ideas people. Screw the waiters. After all I am cooking. Always. Give me anything and I 'll make you a pasta ala mana hese mese polyzwni pou de giname evzwnoi. (Apologies. Fefkou mou.)
The wallet is now a sort of hope, they say. The Dakis that never went away, who knows my dad and my dad knows the wallet, and probably yours too, who is committed - Adorno, allagi! - generate an excitement again, propel motivations to pracitce, who will bring in more people, more capital; stop, i'm full. Really? More? More people? Where? At his private residence, to shower with a champagne and goat's butter concoction while watching Tarahi thinking that this is the postmodern trahanas they were promised if they stayed long enough? Or at the stand up he is planning (fuck fuck fuck i gave the gender away!) where closure will be served at the opening?
And then you get the vampire. Ah the vampire. Bought, bought more, but invested, preserved, sold, kept and now exploited all just for a name. Not a Dakis. But a name. A brand if it suits you. When art historians look back on postwar art, one name that will come up time and again... How? They call them social responsibility gestures where I sometimes work. Part sale, part sail and a dash of renovation. See the chisel? The tea-mug? The key ring? See the t-shirt? The franchise even? And d' Offay mind you sells no sugar or papers for that matter. Never did. Yes, you might say, but the wallet can not do the d'Offay primarily because, well, he only just started and the vampire was out long, long before him. Let the wallet bite a bit too! Yes. And I am going to have two sons, get a divorce, remarry, divorce again and enter a global network. Your Freudian Marxism In! The trick of dong the d'Offay is not in the age. Not in the steps. It's in the foresight. Yes, in realising that the waltz is actually a syncopated dance with a lot of hot air in between and some jet fumes. And not only realising it but dancing it like a hot mama on coke wearing sneakers.
Anassa! Each his own. And again. Exhale.
Does Dakis wear glasses? I don't think so, but even if he does why does the wallet, our Dakis, has to too? There is so many opticians around.
Sign the petition here to save this exemplary ideas-piece of architecture of the Smithsons. Yes, it might be a social and structural mess but architecture is not just about populism and accommodation. And certainly not just about making space for Canary Wharf's lofts-of-residence across the street (or the river).
"The f(r)iction with the Real guarantees a critical relationship - far from the instruments of power we nevertheless need to deal with. Those who still attempt to associate it with the future of the masses, toward their emancipation and activism on a macro-level always finish in the dustbin of academism. Today we know it." Francois Roche, 'Don't Fuck With Authorshiplessness', 2002
"If universities have a vital social function, it is to form intellectuals. If intellectualas have a function, it is to generate 'ideas'. 'Ideas' are a form of political and cultural imagination that can guide societies as they seek to manage change." Paul Hirst, Education and the Production of Ideas' IN AAfiles 29, pp. 44-5
"Architecture is not important. Life is what's important." Oscar Niemeyer
"Only the Other can write my love story, my novel." Roland Barthes, 'A Lover's Discourse', p. 93
However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes - I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.
-Frank O'Hara "Meditations in an Emergency" Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology ed. Paul Hoover.
“Grab the nearest book, open to page 123, go down to the 5th sentence, and type up the 3 following sentences.”
: Literature exceeds the framework of any assumed cultural identity and troubles the frontiers that readers can be tempted to erect. This form of writing performs the dissemination of culture; it withdraws from community while instituting other types of interaction that transcend conventional identity categories. If literature is seen by Nancy as endlessly self-singularizing, then this also demands a more open-ended mode of reading that would both seek to specify and close down the meaning of the text.
Jane Hiddleston, The Politics of Literary Criticism: Nancy and Rushdie, IN The Oxford Literary Review, Vol. 27, 2005
>>> Ombiouhoi, Drakouna, Noullis, Sraosha, Roam
N.B If the above doesn't count as a book:
As a fatuous artist on a museum's madonna thirsts his eye, lovesick and keen, so I, down from the heavens, scattered to the stars look upon New York through Brooklyn Bridge. New York, until evening so tough and sultry, has forgotten its toughness, and its height, and only house-sprite's souls appear in the translucence of fenestral light. Here there's scarcely a tingle of an elevated chuff.
Vladimir Mayakovsky, "Brooklyn Bridge" IN Vladimir Mayakovsky My Discovery of America, 1926 (2005)
Allagei orologias: Me vasi ta nea dedomena, i thesi tou anwtatou leitourgou tou Ypourgeiou Paideias & Politismou metonomazete apo Ypourgos se Episkopos. News headline: O Episkopos Paideias & Politismou enegkrine ton neo proipologismo gia tis drastiriotites pou tha stiri3ei (Eshipe mas tz' eglepe mas - askopa na doume episkope!) Kalws ta dextikes!
The couple - even though my wine eats my liver out to spit the word Chinese or Asian off my mouth especially the male one, and jumping to the credits it is disclosed to one that the production is of Armenian descendancy - in the plot of the film named Cypriot couple, untimely of its time rushing after marriage because they were not rushing earlier and now they rush and they don't reach - a metonymy of "better safe than sorry" in collaboration with "Agami Thite" - or rude words about early pregnancy or even student no-badget productions based on friendly assistance including non-actors and nonon-film-makers utilizing the video planet as their refuge - one's eye shines though, like shinobi's sword, on the determinant fragment of a frame rather than the whole. An unintentional accident, an overgaze from the continuity / set design manager or even subversive signatures and flags from third waves. Unknown to us, and of little relevance. Second 59 is the frame 223 of the assassination undertaken. Zapruder, Zapruder! "Edw" according to Kosiaris "Na efxaristisoume ta paidia katw sto conntrol. O agwnas kaliptete apo 28 cameres + 3 geranous simera, apokleistika mono gia tous sindromites tis LTV, i LTV panta dipla sto Kypriako podosfairo" i LTV, i LTV, i LTV, i Nea Orleani, i Nea Orleani, i Nea Orleni, i Nea Kypseli sti Nea Orleani (L. Khlahdonis) Yet the short with side pockets duration video, like the trousers of the British Empire's policemen, under interrogation is stalked by a single camera. Others have talked about multiplicity of angles, allow me to name it monopoly of viewpoint. Immerse. Cyclope, alas, you thought you will be the King in the blind's kingdom. But what a noisy, what an unsound thought. A choice (accidental, not significant?) has been made for this early capture of the (a) Cypriot couple-coupling to cast a UN audi. Unspeakable. A bicommunal snippet or another SEKIN maneuvre? A Fight Club trickery or a heterogenity to thought? Flat tire Coffee Ananas and manipulation by a third birthday party with the supplement of a lug nut wrench and the posted , stamped hit of the hub cap (to tasi - a well known target of petty criminals and small time crooks). No compromises! No Famagusta in sales! No Tangarines and Mandarine Chinese for "Portokallies tou Karava pou kamnoun portokkallia". No Mesaoria, but the full tendorium of "Our borders are in Kyrenia". And yet the monty pythesque bicyclish-man car-man - the engine god, and car engineering consultant, the salvador from a certain violation - has been engaged with orange thieving - a very well known national sport - second only to hunting - covering a wide variety of birdy-birdy-nums-nums from pournelles to klimatofilla, and from papoutsosika to mespila (nobody has yet claimed authorship over snails / karaolous). Is the Ananas plan the base for reconciliation given a few happy slappies on its hubby cappy, or did the late moustache (fourth in the row, left out from K. Papagiwrgis) drove full speed (fuspi), head on to crash the negotiations ("na 'ttoumpari' tis diapragmatevseis")? Or was always already the Silverstone of the race like Armeniou Avenue? (famous for its "never use it on your bike" and yet "agrotis is round the corner" + the famous Luna Park that's no longer there). The couple-coupling is foreign to language and misgiving to its army and its navy ("a language to be official needs to have an army and a navy", a dialect then?). An Armenian conspiracy. Ararat Alas! Unforgetable pastourmali and laxmatsiun. It can't be; wars are fought for religion not for food, right? Egoyan, Egoyan! Summers at Costantia. Costantia at Summers. The "I had a fight with a gay in the ministry of culture" puppet of bicommunal-projects founding monopoly invading home videos. Family viewing supra-looked by the ancestor of family and of viewing. "Aaaaa Makarios!" in Chinese accent. Undoubtly, the nails are still on the chair; and they are hot like charcoal.
Architecture (and I admit the term, alluding to the construction of space, is being radically stretched here) should not be the center of human events, but something that emerges from within them. This does not mean that it remains subordinate, filling only a supportive role. Indeed, it may come to dominate the event, at least in memory. After the party is over, what will be remembered? The music? No, it is more or less designed for the background. The wine? Hardly. Even at the Whitney it was probably mediocre and unmemorable. A chance conversation with someone unknown? Perhaps. A first encounter, a first kiss? (...)
Ellininike Kypriake Lae, Gnwrimi einai i fwni pou akoueis. Eimai o mexri xthes igetis pou esi eixes ekle3ei. Twra eimai anergos. Anagkastika na steilw to viografiko mou se diaforous topous gia na 'vrw doulia. Telika epikoinwnisan mazi mou apo to Trikkis Palace gia na entaxthw sto sxima "Oi Anepanaliptoi" - eneka afton pou apotigxanoun na epanalivthoun - mias kai oi fwni mou einai xaraktiristiki + gnwrimi fwni tou laikou - pinnw 60 Graven A tin imera - pentagrammou. Mia pentaetia mazi, kataferame na xtisoume ena pentagrammo. Ela + esi twra na deis to apotelesma aftis tis prospathias.
Kathe Paraskevi idikes parastaseis me xoreftika pou diefthini o Giwrgos Lillikas.
FN. The next president with a moustache should be Groucho Marx.
Xena tragoudia mou harizoun difthoga na koutsoperasw.
Exantlimenoi ex archis Enantiwnomaste tin ropi Kai tin ithageneia. To fws omoio twn Aplytwn mas potiriwn Kathws sygkatoikoume Monoi. Mia enohi kai Mia apohi Ta matia sou ta dyo.
Goethe, arriving in Paris for first time, expressed his sorrow: "It is a discomforting thought to be aware of not seeing Paris for the first time again", he said, in these words or in some other words my memory fails to recover in their preciseness. What are the actual words, word to word, that Goethe put claim on when uttering for the first time his despair for the irretrievability of the firstness? I fail to reconcile with them in their plenitude. And what are the precise and irretrievable words, together with their firstness, one articulates when seeing the beloved one for the first and yet last first time? "Which [the memory of first seeing the beloved] in the flight of years we trace is dearer than all" (James Joyce). Betrayed by memory. Was is actually Goethe who said that? With or without the assistance of a foley artist? And who said all these? Failure to reconcile with that initial vocabulary of love leaves me without consolation. Her initial; the omega scene in an alphabet with no omegas; irreconcilable. Followed by none and yet by an omega. Desiccation of language. Stagnation. It is a discomforting thought to be aware that I am not seeing Goethe's phrase for the first time again, and even more discomforting not to be able to recover the first time I saw it in its plenitude - in its precise linguistic outfit; irreconcilable firstness. There are no bookmarks for love. Was it Goethe who said that? In stereo or mono? Mist you are the only site of love; the only sight of love.
The present implies presence thus unauthorized by the present these letters are left authorless--
Before:
There is no Life or Death, Only activity And in the absolute Is no declivity. There is no Love or Lust Only propensity Who would posses Is a nonentity. There is no First or Last Only equality And who would rule Joins the majority. There is no Space or Time Only intensity, And tame things Have no immensity.
'I should like to see revived a state of things in which port wine and long leisure over the table, and donnish, maybe rather selfish manners and high gentlemanly traditions, possibly a little too heavy drinking, and classical topics for discussion – in which all these were considered to be the really high standard of living.’ (Ford Maddox Ford)
i allws pws ki afierwmeno:
- Μὲ σφίγγει μία ἀλήθεια, τῆς παραδίνομαι. Μὲ σφίγγει μία ἄλλη, κι αὐτηνῆς τῆς παραδίνομαι. Διατρέχοντας τοῦ μυαλοῦ τὴν ὠμότητα. Λέω αἷμα τοῦ ψύλλου κι ἀμέσως ὀσφραίνομαι ρούμι.
Omada Ergasias announces the permanent withdrawal of number 9 as a tribute to its own achievement to be top scorer in a league of its own. After a humble celebration, Omada Ergasias has been awarded the golden boot for its significant achievements in an unknown realm. The boot was granted by its predecessor and close fan and benefactor from the very first moment of the team's genesis, Mr. Sotiris Kaiafas, who has generously donated one of his backhoes to be the team's emblem. After the ceremony Mr. Sotiris Kaiafas announced the donation of three all inclusive forklifts to Omada Ergasias, one for each member, plus walkie-talkies with their own frequency. Omada Ergasias' last achievement was to discover a pataphysical kinship between Sylvain Chomet and Jacques Tati long before its official inauguration which is planned to take place in 2009. During Art Forum Berlin 2007, when Omada Ergasias was invited to present I'm Marxist with Groucho leanings, the team compiled a film program (amongst others, including Macgyver and Monty Python) bringing together Sylvain Chomet's Belleville Rendez-vous and Jacques Tati's L' école des facteurs, the short-pilot film that preceded Tati's Jour de Fete. There is no official information that either Sylvain Chomet or Jacques Tati were present in the audience. There is no unofficial information either. For more information about Tati's and Chomet's affiliation please follow this link. Before the ceremony, Omada Ergasias was involved in various experiments of undetermined outcomes like this one, this one and this one. All three have been achieved after the generous support of its benefactor Mr. Sotiris Kaiafas and a few other volunteers.
After the ceremony Omada Ergasias continued doing the same three theses and many more.
(...) Τώρα μ' ένα ούρλιασμα γίνομαι παγκόσμιος. Αυτό μεινέσκει πανανθρώπινο.
Νίκος Καρούζος, Αυτοδίδαχτος Τρόμος
(...) Κι ο ποιητής αργοπορεί κοιτάζοντας τις πέτρες κι ανα- ρωτιέται υπάρχουν άραγε ανάμεσα στις χαλασμένες τούτες γραμμές τις ακμές τις αιχμές τα κοίλα και τις καμπύλες υπάρχουν άραγε εδώ που συναντιέται το πέρασμα της βροχής του αγέρα και της φθοράς υπάρχουν, η κίνηση του προσώπου το σχήμα της στοργής εκείνων που λιγόστεψαν τόσο παράξενα μες στη ζωή μας αυτών που απόμειναν σκιές κυμάτων και στοχασμοί με την απεραντοσύνη του πελάγου ή μήπως όχι δεν απομένει τίποτε παρά μόνο το βάρος η νοσταλγία του βάρους μιας ύπαρξης ζωντανής εκεί που μένουμε τώρα ανυπόστατοι λυγίζοντας σαν τα κλωνάρια της φριχτής ιτιάς σωριασμένα μέσα στη διάρκεια της απελπισίας ενώ το ρέμα κίτρινο κατεβάζει αργά βούρλα ξεριζωμένα μες στο βούρκο εικόνα μορφής που μαρμάρωσε με την απόφαση μιας πί- κρας παντοτινής. Ο ποιητής ένα κενό. (...)
Γιώργος Σεφέρης, Ο Βασιλιάς της Ασίνης
As Brandon LaBelle points out Henri Chopin's work transcend the limtiations of phonetic language and textual scripts, expanding the terrain of applications of the Kristevian semiotics to a voice other than the voice of logocentrism, but at the same time it reclaims silence as a viatal element in meta-Pindar poetics. For Pindar - and even for Artaud or Jarry - non-language commemorates not. Heroics are rarely experienced yet always (re)told, narrated, or else they are forgotten, no trace of them left behind, no epic at all. Ubu Roi for example is essentially a history lesson, later retold by Brecht least we forget, regardless of its absurdist affinities and social critique claims. Oblivion Pindar writes is nurtured by aglossia, the lack and the insufficient possession of verbal skills, of poetic virtue, of the 'voice'. Chopin's tongue, mouth, nostrils echo nothing but that inability, magnified. Historically and technologically his works are an accumulation of silence amplifiers, of the universal void of gasps, chokes, of humings, a realisation it seems of Boll's Murke's collection of silences. Pindarian poetics, the poetics of a poetry of words demand from the poetic utterance a "sounding voice" a sonorisation; Chopin gives us a resounding gap. An uncommunicable echo. The voice is dead and what can not be said - mute horror, positivist historical narrative, ideological clarity - substitutes it via allegoric appropriations of silence. As such Chopin's work re-work the figure, and history of the poet as an anthropocentric subjectivity of scribbling memoranda away. What is 'forgotten' then in Chopin's works is the full presence of a poetic utterance, an epic narration. The poet is empty, gasping, howling, on the path not of words anymore but of modalities of silence. Poetry becomes not interpretation but reproduction, not the celebration of articulation and audition but the x-ray of a fragmented whole and an aporetic listening-not. Of what Adorno describes as "silent music-making", amplified.
