The Situationists and the New Forms of Action in Politics and Art
SI conference – Gothenberg, Sweden – Aug 61
GUY DEBORD 1963: “The situationist movement can be seen as an artistic avant-garde, as an experimental investigation of possible ways for freely constructing everyday life, and as a contribution to the theoretical and practical development of a new revolutionary contestation. From now on, any fundamental cultural creation, as well as any qualitative transformation of society, is contingent on the continued development of this sort of interrelated approach. The same society of alienation, totalitarian control and passive spectacular consumption reigns everywhere, despite the diversity of its ideological and juridical disguises. The coherence of this society cannot be understood without an all-encompassing critique, illuminated by the inverse project of a liberated creativity, the project of everyone’s control of all levels of their own history. To revive and bring into the present this inseparable, mutually illuminating project and critique entails appropriating all the radicalism borne…
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7/21/2023 – “Pariah” Putin forced to cancel travel plans over fears of war crimes arrest
From Atlantic Council By Peter Dickinson: Vladimir Putin will not be traveling to South Africa in August for a summit of BRICS leaders, it was confirmed this week. The change of plan reflects fears in Moscow that the Russian dictator may face arrest for war crimes if he attends the annual event in Johannesburg. In early 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin over his alleged role in the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. As an ICC signatory nation, South Africa would have been expected to arrest Putin if he entered the country.
Russia’s efforts to pressure South Africa into providing the necessary assurances clearly failed, leading to the July 19 announcement that Putin would not be attending. This exercise in damage limitation comes as no surprise. Speculation over Putin’s possible arrest in South Africa was rapidly becoming a PR disaster for the Kremlin, drawing…
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7/23/2023 – “Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God…”
From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 512):
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.
Psalm 62:8
Over the past three days, Russia launched 56 missiles at Ukraine. Last night, they especially hit Odesa and Mykolaiv.
In Mykolaiv, they destroyed residential buildings, killed 2 and injured 19 people, including children.
In Odesa, an administrative building was destroyed, and residential buildings were damaged. At least 4 people were injured.
In Sumy, a drone hit a children’s recreation center building.
In the Chernihiv region, drones targeted residential buildings. There may be injured.
We’ve already had several air raids this night and who knows what morning news will bring.
Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that…
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7/21/2023 – Ruzzians are pushing the world to starvation…
From Maia Mikhaluk in Kyiv (512th): Odessa ad Mykolaiv were under fire again last night. On the night of July 20, the Russian occupiers launched another massive missile attack on the south of Ukraine. Various types of missiles and drones were used in the attack. They hit the port, piers, residential buildings and trade networks. In Odesa, four people were injured during a night attack. Nine people were hospitalized in Mykolaiv.
Russia launched 38 munitions: 19 cruise missiles and 19 kamikaze drones, the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reports: 18 targets ( including 5 missiles) were shot down by our air defense.
Ruzzians are pushing the world to starvation. The attacks on the port infrastructure, which Russia inflicted for the third night in a row, and the deliberate destruction of grain stocks for export by the aggressor country are barbaric acts that will lead to a large-scale food…
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Fifty Years Later, Looking for Last Exit
Hubert Selby Jr was a great writer !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And a nice person.
I heard him speak a few times at USC’s Writing Program yearly event.
An aerial view of Bush Terminal in 1958.
BKLYNR October 10, 2014: “Fifty years ago this fall, Grove Press published Last Exit to Brooklyn, a collection of revolting interweaving stories — which Hubert Selby Jr. had begun publishing in literary magazines as early as 1957 — that became a controversial instant classic of postwar urban degeneracy, populated by drunks, drug addicts, violently repressed homosexuals, victimized transvestites, worn-out laborers, and idle thugs. It’s not the only one of Selby’s six novels (and one story collection) still in print — Da Capo Press still publishes his other best-known book, Requiem for a Dream, thanks surely in part to Darren Aronofsky’s 2000 film adaptation — though it’s the only one I’ve ever seen on shelves in Brooklyn’s independent bookstores, when they stock any Selby books at all. Still, neither Grove nor anyone else has announced plans for a 50th anniversary edition…
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7/20/2023 – Three Nights of Fear and Destruction in Odesa
From Kyiv Post by by Ugo Poletti: Kyiv Post’s special correspondent in Odesa reports on three nights of terror from massive Russian missile attacks intended to paralyze the port and prevent grain shipments.
Odesahas suffered hundreds of Russian attacks since Feb. 24, 2022. But from Feb. 18 to 20 it was the target of an unprecedented, three straight nights of intense missile and drone strikes, all concentrated on the sea port.
The pattern repeated itself with astonishing precision. The naval missiles and kamikaze drones attacked together, three successive nights, starting at 2:00 a.m., with the all-clear sounding after two hours, around 4 a.m.
The inhabitants of Odessa who live near the port, which is next to the historic center, felt the walls of their houses and the windows shaking from the shock waves on all three nights.
7/20/2023 – Their terrorism will do little to scare Ukrainians, for we’ve been through too much to be afraid now…
From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 511):
Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer;
from the end of the earth I call to you
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I,
for you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.
Psalm 61:1-3
Last night, Ukraine survived a massive attack from the air. Russia attacked Ukraine with cruise missiles “Kalibr,” cruise missiles Kh-22, cruise missiles “Oniks,” a guided air missile Kh-59, and Iranian-made Shahed drones. Most of these weapons were aimed at Odesa. Russia needed leverage, having suspended the grain agreement, so they attacked seaport infrastructure and grain storage. They destroyed 60,000 tons of grain intended for China that had to be shipped as part of the grain agreement.
One of the missiles left a huge…
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The Outsider – Colin Wilson (1956)
Strange life: “Like Aldous Huxley and C S Lewis with John F Kennedy, the English writer Colin Wilson had the misfortune of dying on the same day as a vastly (and justly) more famous man: Nelson Mandela. When Wilson’s first book, The Outsider, came out in 1956 — coinciding with the arrival of a noisy cohort of anti-establishment writers labelled the ‘Angry Young Men’ — he became an overnight sensation: a self-taught, ‘staggeringly erudite’, working-class, provincial 24-year-old hailed by highbrow reviewers as Britain’s answer to Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Almost as quickly, he was dropped, and his subsequent prolific literary career, which moved from philosophy and religion through psychology and parapsychology to the wilder shores of Atlantis and science fiction, is usually taken to vindicate those second thoughts. A handful of obituaries have appeared in the quality press since 5 December. Most have a tincture of condescension…
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7/19/2023 – An old man on a curbside
Slava Ukraine!
From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 510):
Oh, grant us help against the foe,
for vain is the salvation of man!
With God we shall do valiantly;
it is he who will tread down our foes.
Psalm 60:11-12
A couple of days ago, we were meeting someone at a train station. We got there early, so we had time to walk up and down the platform. We noticed an older man sitting on a curbside. It looked like he was waiting for someone. Our son was getting restless, so this man invited him to sit on the curbside with him. Being a friendly, talkative boy, our son started telling him who we were waiting for. The man apparently knew the train schedule well because he asked if we were waiting for the specific…
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dean ramser 