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Friday, February 21, 2003
Today in Literature: The Birth of Futurism
Today in Literature Today is my birthday. Today is also regarded by many to be the birthday of the Futurist school. On feb. 20, 1909, futurist ringleader F.T. Marinetti published "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism." I don't know much about Futurism, other than it was preoccupied with industrialization and modernization and higher faster harder fantasies of human progress. This conception has always resonated with me; although Marx has been important to me, I'm still obsessed in a really sympathetic way with the merger of man and machine implied by industrialization. I've always been entranced by the allied images of skyscrapers thrusting, locomotives blaring, radio waves pulsing unspeakably quickly through space. All that activity! So, basically, what I'm saying here is that Futurism and I deserve to share a birthday; I couldn't ask for a more happy coincidence. Sunday, February 16, 2003
Former Symbionese Liberation Army Members Sentenced
AP Wire at Salon Four graying former members of the Symbionese Liberation Army -- the '70s radical group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst -- were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to eight years Friday for a deadly 1975 bank robbery. I used to have really conflicted feelings about the Symbionese Liberation Army. Their acceptance of violence as a necessary component of social struggle seemed to make sense. After all, violence was the glue that held America's racist and economically exploitative system in place. Groups like the SLA seemed to offer an aggressive corrective. But somewhere along the line, I realized how impossible it is to justify violence you like without accidentally justifying violence you don't. So, no violence. But that's not exactly true. I read somewhere about a group of radicals that travel to Klan rallies to physically assault the Klan members. I have a hard time thinking there's anything wrong with that. Ok, maybe I do think it's wrong, but I'd probably enjoy watching it. I have no idea where that gets me. |  |
RECENT MUST-READS: To Our Readers film prof Ray Carney plushie/furry subculture - - - - - Goffmania is a weblog dedicated to the influential American social psychologist Erving Goffman. Who's responsible? Neel is a college student in eastern Pennsylvania. Jason is a writer in the Midwest. Sue has driven a school bus in Wisconsin for 34 years. Goffman links: Excerpts from The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Article: Celebrating Erving Goffman - - - - - Goffman Biography A sociologist well-known for his analyses of human interaction, Erving Goffman relied less on formal scientific method than on observation to explain contemporary life. He wrote on subjects ranging from the way people behave in public to the different "forms" of talk, and always from the point of view that every facet of human behavior is "significant in the strategy and tactics of social struggle, " a Times Literary Supplement critic says. Roy Harris, in another Times Literary Supplement review, calls Goffman "a public private-eye. . . forever on the lookout for candid-camera evidence which might lead to divorce proceedings between ourselves and our social images." NEEL'S DAILY: Follow Me Here Arts & Letters Daily wood s lot simcoe JASON'S DAILY: Slate Romenesko McSweeney's Pitchfork SUE'S DAILY: Gotham Gazette Tom Tomorrow Media Whores Online |
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