SIMON'S EXISTENTIAL CRISIS

I try to be encouraging and consoling.

[simonobirek]

alberto giacometti.

subversivetheory.

[simonobirek]

[simonobirek]

“AN ACADEMIC DEFINITION of Lynchian might be that the term "refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter." But like postmodern or pornographic, Lynchian is one of those Porter Stewart-type words that's ultimately definable only ostensively-i.e., we know it when we see it. Ted Bundy wasn't particularly Lynchian, but good old Jeffrey Dahmer, with his victims' various anatomies neatly separated and stored in his fridge alongside his chocolate milk and Shedd Spread, was thoroughgoingly Lynchian. A recent homicide in Boston, in which the deacon of a South Shore church reportedly gave chase to a vehicle that bad cut him off, forced the car off the road, and shot the driver with a highpowered crossbow, was borderline Lynchian. A Rotary luncheon where everybody's got a comb-over and a polyester sport coat and is eating bland Rotarian chicken and exchanging Republican platitudes with heartfelt sincerity and yet all are either amputees or neurologically damaged or both would be more Lynchian than not. A hideously bloody street fight over an insult would be a Lynchian street fight if and only if the insultee punctuates every kick and blow with an injunction not to say fucking anything if you can't say something fucking nice.

For me, Lynch's movies' deconstruction of this weird irony of the banal has affected the way I see and organize the world. I've noted since 1986 (when Blue Velvet was released) that a good 65 percent of the people in metropolitan bus terminals between the hours of midnight and 6 A.M. tend to qualify as Lynchian figures-grotesque, enfeebled, flamboyantly unappealing, freighted with a woe out of all proportion to evident circumstances ... a class of public-place humans I've privately classed, via Lynch, as "insistently fucked up." Or, e.g. we've all seen people assume sudden and grotesque facial expressions-like when receiving shocking news, or biting into something that turns out to be foul, or around small kids for no particular reason other than to be weird-but I've determined that a sudden grotesque facial expression won't qualify as a really Lynchian facial expression unless the expression is held for several moments longer than the circumstances could even possibly warrant, until it starts to signify about seventeen different thin sat once.”

—from “David Lynch Keeps His Head” by David Foster Wallace, Sept. 1996.

[simonobirek]

james dean.

[simonobirek]

The Sexuality of Fascism – Simon Obirek – Medium

Sexuality resides in bodies. It resides in assemblages of bodies. Looking carefully, sexuality lodges itself in the gaps between people…

If you like philosophy, Deleuze, critical theory, and discussing resistance to Fascism, I wrote a think piece on those things.

[simonobirek]

Kendrick Lamar / KUNG FU KENNY

[simonobirek]

Rap & Philosophy: Nietzsche, Childish Gambino, Freud, and xxxtentacion

Rap music, though popular in the form of SoundCloud rap, emo rap, and trap music, has a nasty reputation of only being about smoking, going clubbing, and dri...

Video on how the lyrics of xxxtentacion and Childish Gambino reflect the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud.

[simonobirek]

Made a lil video of Zizek.

[simonobirek]

Ferdinand de Saussure: Semiotics and Language

Ferdinand de Saussure is one of the most important people of Modern philosophy. He invented a version of semiotics, and even though he wasn't the first to tr...

Made a video on Ferdinand de Saussure and his structural linguistics approach to semiotics.

[simonobirek]

How to Write Like Søren Kierkegaard

So, you wanna learn how to write like the Grandfather of Existentialism, Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard himself? Well, you came to the right place! A h...

AYO

[simonobirek]

How to Write Like Søren Kierkegaard

So, you wanna learn how to write like the Grandfather of Existentialism, Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard himself? Well, you came to the right place! A h...

HOW TO WRITE LIKE THE GRANDFATHER OF EXISTENTIALISM, WHAT UP

[simonobirek]

Two girls, one objet petit a.

[simonobirek]

if kierkegaard was on twitter, he’d subtweet @ hegel while low-key going through his favourites

[simonobirek]

The Lonely Landscape: Poetic Existence (Heidegger and Cioran)

My favourite game of all time is Shadow of the Colossus. I've been playing it a lot, and I made this video essay to illustrate just how much Fumito Ueda and ...

Ayo. NEW VIDEO up on MARTIN HEIDEGGER’s concept of dwelling, EMIL CIORAN’s concept of cosmic loneliness, and the game SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS.

[simonobirek]

BROCKHAMPTON

Me llamo Roberto, y este el fin de una era. Muchas gracias a todos.

No, thank you, you beautiful bastard. 

[simonobirek]

Video Essay: Nihilism in television

This video examines how nihilism is established and treated in the current TV landscape. The video particularly deals with the character-driven nihilism of R...

A video essay I did on nihilism in television.

[simonobirek]

Video Essay: Nihilism in television

This video examines how nihilism is established and treated in the current TV landscape. The video particularly deals with the character-driven nihilism of R...

Hey, I made a video essay on nihilism in television.