discursive lacerations @discursivelacerations - Tumblr Blog

"Of course, the industrious consider themselves the salt of the earth, and despise the lazy idlers, because if it were up to those lazy people, we would never have made any progress, we would still be in the Stone Age. This is false, because idleness is the condition of all progress. Properly understood, technique is a cunning strategy of idleness." - Franco Berardi, QUIT EVERYTHING, 2024

#berardi #franco

1. "When you were talking to him, discussing any subject at all, X frequently seemed to be looking away, listening to something else: you broke off, discouraged; after a long silence, X would say: 'Go on, I'm listening to you'; then you resumed as best you could the thread of a story in which you no longer believed." (Like a bad concert hall, affective space contains dead spots where the sound fails to circulate. —The perfect interlocutor, the friend, is he not the one who constructs around you the greatest possible resonance? Cannot friendship be defined as a space with total sonority?) 2. This evasive listening, which I can capture only after some delay, involves me in a soridid calculation: desperately trying to seduce, to divert, I imagined that by talking I was lavishing treasures of ingenuity, but these treasures have produced only indifference; I am spending my "qualities" for nothing: a whole program of affects, doctrines, awareness, and delicacy, all the brilliance my ego can command dies away, muffled in an inert space, as if—culpable thought—my quality exceeded that of the loved object, as if I were in advance of that object. Now, the affective relation is an exact machine; coincidence, perfect pitch in the musical sense are fundamental to it; what is out of phase is immediately de trop: my language is not, strictly speaking, a discard but rather an "overstock": what is not consumed in the moment (in the movement) and is therefore remaindered. (This distracted kind of listening generates an anxiety of decisions: should I continue, go on talking "in the void"? This would require precisely the assurance which amorous sensibility does not permit. Should I stop, give up? This would seem to show anger, accusation of the other, producing a "scene." The trap all over again.)

Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse, 1977

John Gottman studied more than two thousand marriages, and he concluded that the "Four Horsement of the Apocalypse" associated with dissatisfying and unstable marriages are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and withdrawal. He also found that while disagreements and even anger are an integral part of a marriage, satisfying and enduring relationships require that for each negative emotional event (such as an argument), there must be five times as many positive ones (such as showing interest, care, concern, appreciation, acceptance, empathy, or affection; sex; joking around; and sharing joy).

Bruce Levine, Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic, 2007

"We all have our erotic likes and dislikes, and none of us should have any kind of sex, inter or outer, that we really don't want. No means no, and the ability to say no to something we don't want is as vital to sexual intelligence and practicing the Bonobo Way as the courage to say yes to the things we actually (often secretly) desire. Interestingly, studies from the Max Planck Institute show that bonobos shake their heads, in the exact same manner as most people do, to say "no." But if you say "no" a lot, especially to the one(s) you love, whether human or bonobo, rejection becomes cumulative and backlash is inevitable. When you constantly reject, belittle or ignore your lover's desire for a particular kind of outercourse, foreplay, fetish or fantasy, it doesn't just go away. Sometimes it gets even stronger and more urgent, transgressively rattling its cage inside your partner's head, pushing for release, possibility through infidelity, alienation or both. Your disgruntled partner, trying to respect you and sidestep your negativity, will simply seek outlets outside of you, such as secret love affairs, clandestine phone sex, discreet porn viewing, obsessive social media networking, hiring an escort, serving a dominatrix, or engaging in an embarrassing affair with your hot and unhappily married sibling, to name just a few common possibilities. Or perhaps he or she won't be so sexually adventurous and will simply curl up into a big, seething ball of erotophobic resentment and bitterness toward you, without ever mentioning the ... problem. And both of you will be left wondering how "that lovin' feelin" (apologies to the Righteous Brothers) got flushed down the sinkhole-loo."

Susan Block, The Bonobo Way, 2018

#susan block #the bonobo way

For much of human history, interacting with the natural world to hunt, gather, or grow food was a source of great joy, as was the communal experience of preparing and eating food. It is difficult to imagine that humans are hardwired to shop alone at a giant supermarket for a frozen dinner, which is then microwaved and eaten alone. By contrast, it is easy to feel vital when acquiring food in nature.

Bruce Levine, Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic, 2007

it's probably better to manipulate ourselves than to allow marketers to manipulate us.

Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food, 2008

Last week I watched two carpenters repair old double-sash windows at Larry’s, our local dive bar. One of the carpenters ground the bevel of his chisel on the pavement and then polished it off on the granite step of the bar with the help of a loogie. Then he went back to work, doing a nice job.

Christopher Schwarz, Peace Among Good Woodworkers, Lost Art Press Blog, 2021

One morning M. Aicardi came into the kitchen twenty minutes before lunch and offhandedly informed me that the number of guests had doubled. Fortunately, I had enough ingredients for the meal, but I was short of the small, crunchy rolls that we always served. "I don't have enough bread," I said. However, as usual, a couple of the other members of the premier's household staff were hanging around the kitchen, including a chauffeur, who had frequently benefited from my efforts. He put down his coffee cup and said, "Come along, Chef." I hopped in the back of a stretch limo bearing the presidential flag and proceeded through the streets of Paris at sixty miles per hour to myfavourite bakery. At every intersection, police officers stopped traffic, snapped to attention, and saluted.

Jacques Pépin, Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen, 2003

Preparing the dishes that our bosses [the highest officials of the French government] demanded was fascinating, time consuming, costly, and practically never done in a restaurant. No one whose livelihood depended upon turning a profit at the end of the month could have afforded the time and expense such dishes required. We were delighted to be in the service of connoisseurs."

Jacques Pépin, Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen, 2003

When professionals work with ease and rapidity, it is a result of long years of practice and discipline. There are no secrets or tricks, only feats of skill (tours de main) acquired with prolonged effort. Through endless repetition, these techniques will become so much a part of you that you'll never forget them.

Jacques Pépin, New Complete Techniques, 2012

To change, Albert must understand why he has abused women. He locates that will to abuse in the trauma of his upbringing when he is coerced to choose against his true self as part of being indoctrinated into patriarchy. Dehumanized himself, it is easy for him to feel justified in dehumanizing others.

bell hooks, The Will to Change, 2004

I’m very happy in one way because the cook used to be really at the bottom of the social scale. Certainly during all my years it was this way, and apparently now we are seen as kind of genius. I don’t know what happened. It’s kind of crazy. Chefs are celebrities now. I think it’s also maybe because, in our time of political correctness, we cannot talk about gender, about race, about religion, about anything, so people feel comfortable with food. That’s about the only thing that you can talk about and have a good time.

Jacques Pépin, Interview with Jacques Pépin, Los Angeles Times, 2017

alanreedwrite

In which you come here bearing wine and brie

and we suck on each other’s bodies for life.

- Aisha Sasha John, Thou

florizels

I, too, overflow; my desires have invented new desires, my body knows unheard-of songs.

Hélène Cixous, from The Laugh of the Medusa (via florizels)

alanreedwrite

We are not mad. We are human. We want to love, and someone must forgive us for the paths we take to love, for the paths are many and dark, and we are ardent and cruel in our journey.

– Leonard Cohen

wordsnquotes

There is no shame in being hungry for another person. There is no shame in wanting very much to share your life with somebody.

Augusten Burroughs, This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike. (via 7-weeks)

alanreedwrite

“Egalitarian cities, even regional confederacies, are historically quite commonplace. Egalitarian families and households are not. Once the historical verdict is in, we will see that the most painful loss of human freedoms began at the small scale – the level of gender relations, age groups, and domestic servitude – the kind of relationships that contain at once the greatest intimacy and the deepest forms of structural violence. If we really want to understand how it first became acceptable for some to turn wealth into power, and for others to end up being told their needs and lives don’t count, it is here that we should look. Here too, we predict, is where the most difficult work of creating a free society will have to take place.”

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