That is what I wrote on my ticket to the national art museum in Latvia, while looking at socialist realist painting. I learned about Nationalist Modernism that day, and the National Constructivism of Romans Suta. I saw how the St. Petersburg institution where painters were trained, had constrained them. The museum also had a wonderful … More “Socialist realism is condescending and Republican”
ILLI is also organized in seminars now. I really like this format. Axé.
This post should describe me. I do not think it does. What I actually have is a violent workplace. It does not help to try to say the problem is internal to me. I have already tried ignoring the violence, trying to step around it, good faith negotiation with it, organizing it. I have not … More The writing-stalled professor?
Que me cago en la muy podrida leche de la puta madre que parió a mis llamados colegas. If I, on frequent flyer miles, in transit to and then in the former SSR my ancestors are from, and while looking at their names on the commemorative ghetto wall, and walking into one of the cattle … More Tu rechingada madre
I asked, should I move out of the country? Where is home? The layout was the Celtic Cross and I am looking at the Wild Unknown Tarot and the Biddy Tarot. I will meditate upon this. Heart of the matter/present: Six of Swords. Crossing water, leaving something regretfully but getting somewhere calmer, brighter. Challenge/obstacle: Ten … More Tarot reading, and the fifties
Today I am buying skin products. Fancy ones, if I can. Things for the eyes, and things with vitamins C and E. I will get T-Mobile cell service, too. I will balance my checkbook and pay all bills. This is the week to patch the paint on the house. I’ll have the car detailed, and … More Aujourd’hui
There is so much to do here that is of interest to me, and it is so beautiful. I want to come back, and soon, but one does not know when that would be. After my dear month in Mexico City in 2012 I said I would be back within the year. I have not … More Last sunset in Lettland
I should have bought: ceramics, salt scrub and other cosmetics with Latvian herbs, black balsam, mittens, belts, amber, and perhaps other high-quality, traditional and artisanal things. What I really bought is: – Books: an interesting guidebook in German, a Latvian grammar, an English translation of a Pushkin story – Postcards: many, from a bookstore, scenes … More What I bought in Latvia
I said by mail: Is the main cathedral Lutheran? It looks like it inside, but then again that might be because it is reconstructed, having been more or less destroyed by German bombs on 29 June, 1941. I went to the organ concert there and determined that this organ and these players are not actually … More An evening in Riga
THIS is why the people with their alarm clocks and hourglasses, upping their so-called productivity, seem so antithetical to the life of the mind. “The world of labor and wealth is armed against the idleness and utopia that it sometimes promises. Thinking and dreaming require unregulated time; intellectuals lingering over coffee and drink threaten solid … More On having time to yourself
coldhearted scientist وداد 