Gertrude Stein: Sentences and Paragraphs, in, How to Write

A sentence is from this time I will make up my mind.

Then they have hurried.

A sentence can be three things they can use. A sentence

can be three things made with hurry.

Come and see me.

Come Thursday and you will see them.

Wait for what you are waiting for.

By the time that it is here they have had it and it is what

they selected.

I like what they give me. Now all these sentences have

been made with their assistance.

Now make a sentence all alone.

They remember a walk. They remember a part of it. Which

they took with them.

Now who eases a pleasure.

I ought to be a very happy woman.

Premeditated meditation concerns analysis. Now this is a

sentence but it might not be.

Premeditated. That is meditated before medeitation.

Mediation. Means reserved the right to meditate.

Concerns. This cannot be a word in a sentence. Because

it is not of use in itself.

Analysis is a womanly word. It means that they discover

there are laws.

It means that she cannot work as long as this.

It is hard not to while away the time.

It is hard not to remember what it is.

With them they accord in the circumstances.

Sentences make one sigh.

There were three kinds of sentences are there. Do sen-

tences follow the three. There are three kinds of sentences.

And there three kinds of sentences that follow the three.

If his ear is back is it drying. One says there are three kinds

of sentences and every other one is just alike. Butter spreads

thinly.

pp 28-29

[how many know that angela is a marxist lesbian?]

zappa lyrics:

Freak Out! Version

Well I’m about to get sick
From watchin’ my TV
Been checkin’ out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it’s gonna change, my friend
Is anybody’s guess

So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best

 

pl

playing both sides of the broken record…

from: understanding america…

Nietzsche: Writings from the Late Notebooks, Rudiger Bittner, ed. Kate Sturge, trans. Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 29-31.

Notebook 37, June – July 1885, 37[4]

Morality and physiology

– We find it ill-considered that precisely human consciousness has for so long been regarded as the highest stage of organic development and as the most astonishing of all earthly things, indeed as their blossoming and goal. In fact, what is more astonishing is the body: there is no end to one’s admiration for how the human body has become possible; how such a prodigious alliance of living beings, each dependent and subservient and yet in a certain sense also commanding and acting out of its own will, can live, grow, and for a while prevail, as a whole – and we can see this does not occur due to consciousness! For this ‘miracle of miracles’, consciousness is just a ‘tool’ and nothing more – a tool in the same sense that the stomach is a tool. The magnificent binding together of the most diverse life, the ordering and arrangement of the higher an lower activities, the thousand-fold obedience which is not blind, even less mechanical, but a selecting, shrewd, considerate, even resistant obedience – measured by intellectual standards, this whole phenomenon ‘body’ is as superior to our consciousness, our ‘mind’, our conscious thinking, feeling, willing, as algebra is superior to the times tables. The ‘apparatus of nerves and brain’ is not constructed this subtly and ‘divinely’ so as to bring forth thinking, feeling, willing at all. It seems to me, instead, that precisely this thinking, feeling, willing does not itself require an ‘apparatus’ but that the so-called apparatus, and it alone, is the thing that counts. Rather, such a prodigious synthesis of living beings and intellects as is called ‘man’ will only be able to live once that subtle system of connections and mediations, and thus lightning-fast communication between all these higher and lower beings, has been created – and created by nothing but living intermediaries: this, however, is a problem of morality, not of mechanics! Nowadays we’ve forbidden ourselves to spin yarns about ‘unity’, the ‘soul’, the ‘person’: hypotheses like these make one’s problem more difficult, that much is clear. All for us, even those smallest living beings which constitute our body (more correctly: for whose interaction the thing we call ‘body’ is the best simile – ) are no soul-atoms, but rather something growing, struggling, reproducing and dying off again: so that their number alters unsteadily, and our living, like all living, is at once an incessant dying. There are thus in man as many ‘consciousnesses’ as – at every moment of his existence – there are beings which constitute his body. The distinguishing feature of that ‘consciousness’ usually held to be the only one, the intellect, is precisely that it remains protected and closed off from the immeasurable multiplicity in the experiences of these many consciousnesses and that, as a consciousness of a higher rank, as a governing multitude and aristocracy, it is presented only with a selection of experiences – experiences, furthermore, that have all been simplified, made easy to survey and grasp, thus falsified – so that it in turn may carry on this simplification and making graspable, in other words this falsification, and prepare what is commonly called ‘a will’ – every such act of will requires, so to speak, the appointment of a dictator. However, what presents this selection to our intellect, what has simplified, assimilated, interpreted experiences beforehand, is at any rate not that intellect itself; any more than it is the intellect which carries out the will, which takes up a pale, watery and extremely imprecise idea of value and force and translates it into living force, precise measures of value. And just the same kind of operation as is enacted here must keep being enacted on all the deeper levels, in the behavior of all these higher and lower beings towards one other: this same selection and presentation of experiences, this abstraction and thinking-together, this willing, this translation of always very unspecific willing back into specific activity. Along the guiding thread of the body, as I have said, we learn that our life is possible through an interplay of many intelligences that are very unequal in value, and thus only through a constant, thousand-fold obeying and commanding – speaking in moral terms: through the incessant exercise of many virtues. And how could one not speak in moral terms! — Prattling in this way, I gave myself up dissolutely to my pedagogic drive, for I was overjoyed to have someone who could bear to listen to me. However, it was just then that Ariadne – for this all took place during my first stay on Naxos – could actually bear it no more: ‘But sir,’ she said, ‘You’re talking pigswill German!’ – ‘German,’ I answered untroubled, ‘Simply German! Leave aside the pigswill, my goddess! You underestimate the difficulty of saying subtle things in German!’ – ‘Subtle things!’ cried Ariadne, horrified, ‘But that was just positivism! Philosophy of the snout! Conceptual muck and mish-mash from a hundred philosophies! Whatever next!’ – all the while toying impatiently with the famous thread that once guided her Theseus through the labyrinth. – Thus it came to light that Ariadne was two thousand years behindhand in her philosophical training.

Note:

In case you’re not aware, Bittner’s selection of texts is from the critical edition of Nietzsche’s Nachlass edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, Freidrich Nietzsche, Samtliche Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967-77). All N’s papers reside in the Goethe-Schiller Archive in Weimar.

Bittner’s selection is based on several criteria, but I’ll note here only that he’s following his own interpretation of fragments that have ‘philosophical import.’ The texts are chronological but discontinuous, which I find very frustrating, and am critical of Bittner’s choices of what to leave out. All the texts are among those compiled by N’s sister and translated by Kaufman in Will to Power. Again, in case you’re not aware, there is much dispute among N scholars about whether intended a book of that title. Bittner thinks not. I don’t think so either. More, the view I ascribe to is that he in the end downgraded if not entirely abandoning the concept of will to power. Sorry for foregoing lack of diacritical punctuation…

the long version of the documentary is here:

 

the american left is a lost cause. it’s lost to some fantasy of ‘protest.’ while, the UK left is lost to it’s equivalent – that ‘socialism’ a la corbyn can rise up again.

meanwhile, syriza which for a while held such promise, ignominiously capitulated to the the diktats of the EU’s unelected  cabal of economists and bureaucrats under the control of goldman sachs, the world bank, an the international monetary fund, to the dark GATT court, and in general, to the control of friedman’s theorized, neoliberal, ann rand type, corporate power, the head of which is  big oil, now literally embodied as the secretary of state in the US, the result of a simple social darwinist fiat.

‘democracy’ has long been dead in the water, in fact, it was only ever still born. it has never been anything other than a fantasy kept in play only in order to control the empty machinery that has always only ever given cover to the lack of it, in practice. ‘democracy’, as a game,  has taken it’s most modernly blatant form in israel – ‘democracy’ is a cover for peace under the guise of a highly exploitative and lucrative war machine directed against a small and powerless people. so all capitalist elite in control of their client states are reflected in its image, and thus cannot condemn it for it’s blatant genocidal/apartheid practices. ‘we’ has never been democratic. the illusion of ‘democracy’ has always only ever been a means by which to control taxes that are then siphoned off to fill the pockets of the rich, made global policy by friedman’s theorizing of a pure market-state, free of political control, which has been dubbed, ‘deregulation’, and which has now given rise to the ‘thug state’ on a global scale. ironically, there is no doubt that the election in the US of donald trump is far better than the election of hilary clinton. she would have done nothing but maintain the illusion that democracy was still extant. while the election of trump has been inevitable, as inevitable as  the false concepts that has kept liberalism alive. just as marx predicted, that the rise of the bougeosie was a positive overcoming of feudalism. so trump’s crass authoritarianism and blanket thuggery makes clear what the capitalist system really is – pure exploitation of the great cash of trillions of taxpayers money. capitalism is now pure, rapacious anti-socialism, unmasked. that is, capitalism is now pure socialism masquerading as the ultimate exploitative system C-M-C, at the extreme of an eviscerated M-C-M. capital today, has achieved its most historically pure form, to date, AS, socialism in it’s most alienated form. capitalism today, IS, socialism for the extremely wealthy. capitalism is a machine that produces the wealth not of nations, but merely for the maintenance of less than a few thousand. the rest are literally slaves. the entire left professoriate are slaves, indebted to banks and enslaved to institutions in which they don’t believe. but they will rarely acknowledge this since they live in million dollar houses and make half million dollar combined salaries.

this entry is a draft, but i’m going to post it anyway, because while not argued as well as it should be, i need to sleep. and i’m posting it anyway, at the cost of friendships, i suspect. but ‘truth’ must be told. i learned this from nietzsche.

england was once a state that believed in giving all its citizens, housing, health care, and education, for free or low cost. it attempted to do that until 2008, and accomplished that to a great degree. until 2008, the general citizenry assumed those conditions as rights. after 2008, the UK americanized and lost that sense of just equality on those three fronts. and, lost far more, including its humanity, by imitating the friedman-esque, ann rand vision of life dominant in the US. i witnessed this happen, up close, over a decade. well, this isn’t quite accurate. thatcher began to undermine these three ‘rights’ in 1980, and made great inroads on doing that. and blair continued her agenda. and they both were very successful in that. but the resistance to that was still strong when i arrived in 2007. education was still basically free then. as was health care. and the aspiration for housing was then still alive, even though the real possibility was low in urban centers, and thatcher has initiated the selling off of council flats. so i’m only trying to distinguish between the states hostility to its citizens, and the expectations of those same citizens – and say a bit about the difference between the political consciousness of UK citizens, and the lack there of of those in the US who have never been much more than consumers. US subjects have never really been ‘citizens.’ while UK subjects once were.

therefore, the ‘left’ in the US has little political consciousness based on expectations other than a consciousness of consumerism; while in the UK, there is at least a residual consciousness based on citizenship. again, my analysis is overly simplistic. but it isn’t entirely wrong.

 

 

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/1/27/angela_davis_on_resisting_trump_we

https://theintercept.com/2017/02/12/dark-essays-by-white-house-staffer-are-the-intellectual-source-code-of-trumpism/

 

 

and with The Rump in office, he’s more important than ever.

http://28blackdaysin2017.blogspot.com/

my black history month project.

28 days. 28 posts. 28 freestyles. Minus Sundays cuz even slaves got to rest.

http://28blackdaysin2017.blogspot.com/

Freak Out! Version

Well I’m about to get sick
From watchin’ my TV
Been checkin’ out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it’s gonna change, my friend
Is anybody’s guess

So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Wednesday I watched the riot . . .
Seen the cops out on the street
Watched ’em throwin’ rocks and stuff
And chokin’ in the heat
Listened to reports
About the whisky passin’ ’round
Seen the smoke and fire
And the market burnin’ down
Watched while everybody
On his street would take a turn
To stomp and smash and bash and crash
And slash and bust and burn

And I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Well, you can cool it,
You can heat it . . .
‘Cause, baby, I don’t need it . . .
Take your TV tube and eat it
‘N all that phony stuff on sports
‘N all the unconfirmed reports
You know I watched that rotten box
Until my head begin to hurt
From checkin’ out the way
The newsman say they get the dirt
Before the guys on channel so-and-so

And further they assert
That any show they’ll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up
They will be the first to tell,
Because the boys they got downtown
Are workin’ hard and doin’ swell,
And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster
Their coverage can’t be beat

And if another woman driver
Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They’ll send some joker with a brownie
And you’ll see it all complete

So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Hey, you know something people?
I’m not black
But there’s a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I’m not white

Well, I seen the fires burnin’
And the local people turnin’
On the merchants and the shops
Who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every other household item
Watched the mob just turn and bite ’em
And they say it served ’em right
Because a few of them are white,
And it’s the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin’ “You can’t understand me!”
‘N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don’t appeal to him
(No matter if it’s black or white)
Because he’s out for blood tonight

You know we got to sit around at home
And watch this thing begin
But I bet there won’t be many live
To see it really end
‘Cause the fire in the street
Ain’t like the fire in the heart
And in the eyes of all these people
Don’t you know that this could start
On any street in any town
In any state if any clown
Decides that now’s the time to fight
For some ideal he thinks is right
And if a million more agree
There ain’t no Great Society
As it applies to you and me
Our country isn’t free
And the law refuses to see
If all that you can ever be
Is just a lousy janitor
Unless your uncle owns a store
You know that five in every four
Just won’t amount to nothin’ more
Gonna watch the rats go across the floor
And make up songs about being poor

Blow your harmonica, son!

YCDTOSA 5 Version

Well I’m about to get sick
From watchin’ my TV
Been checkin’ out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it’s gonna change, my friend
Is anybody’s guess

So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Wednesday I watched the riot . . .
I seen the cops out on the street
Watched ’em throwin’ rocks and stuff
And chokin’ in the heat
Listened to reports
About the whisky passin’ ’round
Seen the smoke and fire
And the market burnin’ down
Watched while everybody
On his street would take a turn
To stomp and smash and bash and crash
And slash and bust and burn

And I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

You can cool it,
You can heat it . . .
‘Cause, baby, I don’t need it . . .
Take your TV tube and eat it
‘N all that phony stuff on sports
‘N all those unconfirmed reports
You know I watched that rotten box
Until my head begin to hurt
From checkin’ out the way
The newsman say they get the dirt
Before the guys on channel so-and-so

And further they assert
That any show they’ll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up
They will be the first to tell,
Because the boys they got downtown
Are workin’ hard and doin’ swell,
And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster
Their coverage can’t be beat

And if another woman driver
Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They’ll send some joker with a brownie
And you’ll see it all complete

So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Well, I seen the fires burnin’
And the local people turnin’
On the merchants and the shops
Who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every other household item
Watched the mob just turn and bite ’em
And they say it served ’em right
Because a few of them were white,
And it’s the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin’ “You can’t understand me!”
‘N all that other crap they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some asshole say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don’t appeal to him
(No matter if it’s black or white)
Because he’s out for blood tonight

Roxy & Elsewhere Version

Well I’m about to get sick
From watchin’ my TV
Been checkin’ out the news
Till my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
(Sure ’nuff!)
And when it’s gonna change, my friend
Is anybody’s guess (Well!) (Woa!)
So I’m
Watchin’ and I’m a–waitin’
I’m hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
There’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
There’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Wednesday I watched the riot
I seen the cops out on the street
I watched ’em throwin’ rocks & stuff & chokin’
In the heat
I listen to reports
‘Bout the whisky passin’ around
I seen the smoke & fire
And the market burnin’ down
I watched while everybody
On his street would take a turn
To stomp & smash & bash & crash & slash & bust & burn
I’m a–watchin’ and I’m a–waitin’
But I’m hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
There’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
There’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Watchin’ and I’m a–waitin’
I’m hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’, oh, yeah…

DHBIM Version

(It’s a boy in a muumuu)

Well I’m about to get sick
From watchin’ MTV
I been checkin’ out the HO HO HO!
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten group
(Right you are, girl)
And when it’s gonna change, my friend
Will probably make you stoop, I don’t know
So I’m
Watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
(Oh no!)
There’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
There’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Wednesday I watched the riot
I seen those cops out on the street
I watched ’em throwin’ rocks & stuff & chokin’
In the heat
I listen to reports
(Oh, we gotta . . . )
‘Bout the whisky passin’ around
(Sho’ nuff . . . don’tcha!)
I seen the smoke & fire
And the market burnin’ down
Watched while everybody
On his street would HA HA HA!
To stomp & smash & bash & crash & slash & bust & burn
And I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
(Oh no!)
There’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
There’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
(Oh no!)