Myth of the Open Road Closes Doors
Motorways are a fact of modern life, but are frequently seen as boring, or are completely ignored. This is a state of affairs Moran seeks to redress, positing motorways as an example of the ‘infra-ordinary’, a term used by Georges Perec to refer to that which is often overlooked as insignificant in contemporary existence. The everyday, however, is double-edged; while potentially a site of radical change, it is also where one can locate an intense conservatism: the world could collapse around us as long as the bus comes on time, our sandwich is just so, or petrol prices remain affordable, so we can drive wherever we like.
Karl Whitney on Joe Moran‘s On Roads: A Hidden History.
The Intense Humming of Evil
He raised not a word of protest when a government decree dismissed his former teacher and assistant; he had complained that the universities had been ‘Jewified’ under Weimar, and organised his study sessions as outdoor ‘work camps’ in a creepy homage to the horror that was coming. Heidegger rejected the abstract pursuits of art and humanities. Authentic existence could only be experienced through confict and struggle; the lectures fairly drip with blood and soil. He justified racial selection, eugenics and dictatorship. Reading Faye’s book, I had two thoughts going through my mind. How the fuck did he get away with this? And: Why did anyone take this guy seriously? It’s not the case that a romance with totalitarianism corrupted Heidegger’s philosophy. Heidegger’s philosophy was structured around his support for Nazism. There was nothing else.
Max Dunbar reviews Emmanuel Faye‘s Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy.
Maintenant #2: Elena Vladareanu
I published my first book, which was an unusual and bizarre book and there were some people who said “wow, this is courageous” and other people who said “oh, no, this in not literature, this is not poetry, this is pure pornography”. And that’s how I became a controversial and well known writer… I’m joking of course, but this bad reputation helped me a lot. I was invited to open the Euridice literary group because I played the pornography card. I read some aggressive and erotic texts written especially for this occasion, there were again people who advised me to give up writing. But Euridice’s moderator, Marin Mincu — who was a very important writer and a textuality theoretician — encouraged me to continue with poetry. He published my second book with his publishing house. I was more disobedient, I continued to be so.
For the second in his series on new voices from Europe, SJ Fowler interviews the Romanian poet Elena Vladareanu.
Three Poems
this is how things stand:
mom will never
leave romania
dad will never
leave romania
if you die you’ll never
leave romania…
history is a piece of the wall
in a city at europe’s center
history is the corner of a photograph…
in every street urchin ragged and high
there’s a part of me
in every dog haunted and starved
there’s a part of me
By Elena Vladareanu.
The Missing Links
The Baader-Meinhof blog. * Thinking and drinking. * The neuroadvertising paradox. * Jenni Fagan‘s new site. * The trailer for Marc-Edouard Nabe‘s new book. * The music of Friedrich Nietzsche. * John Bulmer‘s pictures of the north of England in the 60s and 70s. * Ben Marcus‘s website. (Related: me on Notable American Women.) * […]
3:AM Reloaded
What you (may have) missed on 3:AM recently: Fiction: ‘Fabled Streams’ by Daniel Hales Reviewed: Max Dunbar on Natasha Walter’s Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism Non-fiction Terry Southern is 3:AM‘s Cult Hero, Stewart Home on BFI Flipside series, Will Stone on Elem Klimov’s Come and See: The ordeal of filming and the difficult subject […]