So good to hear Jennifer on this and MC Schmidt of Matmos:
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Thursday, July 4, 2019
We Are The Asteroid III in Houston
Do you know I've made this artwork with Justin Guariglia? And would you like it in your town/country? Let's do it! It was so prominent at the Extinction Rebellion in London and it's in the USA in Alaska Oklahoma New York Chicago and now in Houston, right in oil town...
It's a huge road sign that among other things says
WE ARE THE ASTEROID
Look at this lovely essay about it from the local press. Pictures!
It's a huge road sign that among other things says
WE ARE THE ASTEROID
Look at this lovely essay about it from the local press. Pictures!
My Verso Editor on Brexit
Well, not him directly, but my genius Verso editor Federico Campagna and I see totally eye to I on this: labour movements are planetary and international, and do not involve huddling into smaller and smaller insular fascist enclaves (duh). So he just posted this so here am I posting it. I commented:
Who was it out of Corbyn Milne and I forget who said "we don't give a toss about Brexit" or something like that recently? And where in the manual aka the Communist Manifesto does it say "always listen to thugs to tell you what to do like it's an ersatz focus group like the ones you hated Blair for creating"? And I could've sworn that in the textbook aka Capital the sequence goes globalization--international unions--the next bit or something...
Who was it out of Corbyn Milne and I forget who said "we don't give a toss about Brexit" or something like that recently? And where in the manual aka the Communist Manifesto does it say "always listen to thugs to tell you what to do like it's an ersatz focus group like the ones you hated Blair for creating"? And I could've sworn that in the textbook aka Capital the sequence goes globalization--international unions--the next bit or something...
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Hypothesis: There Is Only One Graviton
What do I know, I just read Nature Physics and quantum theory textbooks, but I so don't have a physics degree (unlike my grandfather).
But here's an idea. And it does have the merit of extreme simplicity and not needing to invent shit we can't observe because they're too tiny or multidimensional.
We can't find gravitons or make them work, not because of anything mysterious about dimensions, but because there's only one graviton. The singularity like "point" that expanded and became our universe is just a graviton and it has a really really really low frequency called the spacetime continuum.
Dark energy that is sucking the universe somewhere, and all those galaxies appearing to accelerate and maybe disappear in one sector of the sky: that's the one antigraviton, which by definition is what the universe isn't (and it thus "outside" of it). Our graviton is just being attracted towards the antigraviton somehow, hence the acceleration.
When they touch, a universe destroying-creating energy will be released and there will be another graviton–antigraviton pair.
Black holes are like the fractal nature of radio waves observed in Bell Labs: there are little versions of the wave inside the wave, so your cell phone aerial needs to be crinkly, like maybe a Sierpinski carpet. The universe makes little versions of itself because that's the shape and activity of a graviton.
But here's an idea. And it does have the merit of extreme simplicity and not needing to invent shit we can't observe because they're too tiny or multidimensional.
We can't find gravitons or make them work, not because of anything mysterious about dimensions, but because there's only one graviton. The singularity like "point" that expanded and became our universe is just a graviton and it has a really really really low frequency called the spacetime continuum.
Dark energy that is sucking the universe somewhere, and all those galaxies appearing to accelerate and maybe disappear in one sector of the sky: that's the one antigraviton, which by definition is what the universe isn't (and it thus "outside" of it). Our graviton is just being attracted towards the antigraviton somehow, hence the acceleration.
When they touch, a universe destroying-creating energy will be released and there will be another graviton–antigraviton pair.
Black holes are like the fractal nature of radio waves observed in Bell Labs: there are little versions of the wave inside the wave, so your cell phone aerial needs to be crinkly, like maybe a Sierpinski carpet. The universe makes little versions of itself because that's the shape and activity of a graviton.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
1500 Citations for The Ecological Thought
I'm very pleased to announce that my second big old ecology book has now been cited 1500 times in scholarly publications. That's getting close to Ecology without Nature, which was kind of the icebreaker (as it were--what a bad noun in ways). The Ecological Thought is definitely my most integrated book--it says two things really really smoothly. I originally wrote the whole thing in 3 pages then over the course of 8 weeks I added more and more sentences to those pages, until I had a book.
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Spencer Glendon with We Are the Asteroid Pin
...laying down some intense stuff about ice and warming (if you don't know about the pin, it's based on the work I made with Justin Brice Guariglia, which featured big in the Extinction Rebellion):
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Correct
On Monday evening, Trump held a campaign rally in Pennsylvania at which he ranted that his campaign had been spied on and that the federal investigators who had probed Russiagate had committed “treason.” In response, the crowd chanted, “Lock them up!” This was both absurd and dangerous. Yet it showed once again that Trump has a simple, if false, story to peddle: He’s the victim of a wide-ranging fraud orchestrated by a cabal of nefarious connivers who despise him and the country. Those who give a damn about protecting democracy, though, also have a simple story: Putin attacked an election to help Trump, and Trump actively went along with it—and lied to cover up the attack. Yet Trump’s political opposition—up against a bombardment of spin and deception—has not continuously presented this case clearly. It’s not too late to do so. They need to fight false spin with truthful drama—and, whatever happens on the obstruction and impeachment fronts, they ought to do it soon. (Mother Jones)
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Friday, May 10, 2019
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Hyperobjects in iD
Thanks to the amazing Greta Thunberg, I get to be in iD for the first time. I guess there was a very good review of Hyperobjects in Vice by Ingrid Luquet-Gad, that's about it... And it's an honor to be in there because of Thunberg, she is obviously doing an amazing job and it's shameful that a child has to do it (this is child labor, think about it). iD formed some of my thoughts about where I was at in the later 80s, so it's very nice to be in it.
Croatian Dark Ecology
...so glad to have been translated into this language! Soon, and I guess it's somewhat close geographically speaking, comes Romanian Hyperobjects (I think! Hard to keep up.)
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Thursday, March 28, 2019
This Is Why I Really Respect AOC
Unlike Sanders, who comes off elitist in his purity, she's ready to help people without much money have nice things, now. This was exactly why I loved and still love Obamacare. Try for national health and fail nobly? Millions of people die. Make a bit of a compromise? Succeed and set it up for people to start demanding more healthcare as their right.
When I first arrived in America, from a country whose health care is way way more socialist than single payer, I was desperate for someone to say out loud how fucked it was that there was this "pre-existing conditions" thing. Like not even wealthy people who needed health insurance understood. Now they do. Good. Why? Obama. Yes. So now they're ready for Medicare for All or whatever. Respect to the Obamacare and for avoiding looking perfect and good and holy at the expense of real people's lives.
My friend's brother, a doctor, tried to charge me $250 for some sample antibiotics when I got sick. Coming from the UK, I was able to say fuck off really fast.
What about progressive hopes for a more fundamental health care overhaul? Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got it exactly right: While still calling for hearings on “Medicare for all,” she declared herself “happy to support any provision that strengthens the A.C.A. and plugs some of the gaps that we’re seeing.” (So far, Bernie Sanders has refused to support the plan. Let’s hope he walks that back.) (Paul Krugman)
When I first arrived in America, from a country whose health care is way way more socialist than single payer, I was desperate for someone to say out loud how fucked it was that there was this "pre-existing conditions" thing. Like not even wealthy people who needed health insurance understood. Now they do. Good. Why? Obama. Yes. So now they're ready for Medicare for All or whatever. Respect to the Obamacare and for avoiding looking perfect and good and holy at the expense of real people's lives.
My friend's brother, a doctor, tried to charge me $250 for some sample antibiotics when I got sick. Coming from the UK, I was able to say fuck off really fast.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Which Body? Witchbody!
I really do think you would like to read this book called Witchbody that Sabrina Scott wrote, and drew, and drew-wrote, and wrote-drew...I wrote the foreword, then this amazing comic book publisher has made it be everywhere. The amazon page lets you read some of it:
We keep looking in the wrong place for happiness and fulfillment. We think it must be next week. Tomorrow. Maybe 5 minutes from now I'll be truly happy. Or maybe we have regret. Happiness was then, last month, when we were small. Can't have it now. Happiness couldn't be now, could it, because that would mean it's somewhere inside.
What do you call someone who shows you that you don't have to look elsewhere for magic?
You call them a witch. And you can be that. You can be a Witchbody. Which is also a which body? Things are full of gaps and breaks, they are full of illusion, suffused with moonlight. Things are kinked and queer, everything.
You can't ever tell exactly which witch body you are. What a relief! You get to explore the strangeness of that beautiful unique twist that is just exactly you, without an official you copyright stamp in sight.
You will want this book by your side, like a window on the moon. You've invited the witch to heal you. The truth is they never really left.
If you don't know about Sabrina and her righteous brilliance, you can start with this:
[as soon as I get off this plane I will embed a nice video]
Nice Review of Time Time Time
[excerpted from Peter Margasak's review of the Borealis festival]
One of the most anticipated performances of the fest was TIME TIME TIME by composer/performer Jennifer Walshe and philosopher Timothy Morton. The richly humorous work weaved together pop culture references – one particularly hilarious section riffed on grief management in the hyperactive style of an infomercial, while another video projection overlaid the text “National Physical Laboratory, Supplier of Time for the UK,” over an image of computers – with constantly shifting notions of time. Morton’s ecological writing constantly returned to the pressing issue of global warming, playing with the idea that humans won’t trifle with the urgency of addressing the situation because of the earth’s timescale. Archival video footage toggled between films of people performing antiquated mechanical tasks over a staccato rhythm shaped by Walshe’s remarkable ensemble, cartoonish animations of dinosaurs, and a mandala-like images of the earth’s crust evolving over millennia.
The comic delivery of Walshe, adorned in a garish, green sequined gown, was expertly complemented by the straight-man deadpan of M.C. Schmidt of Matmos, wearing his trademark suit-and-tie, who at one point played a pair of paper cups as if they were maracas with utter earnestness. One of Walshe’s masterstrokes was allowing the disparate ensemble members to do what they do best, while masterfully blending those elements into a cogent whole: the microscopic lowercase sounds of Lee Patterson, summoning a tactile, earthbound vocabulary, the locked-in improvisations of Streifenjunko (trumpeter Eivind Lønning and saxophonist Espen Reinertsen, who moved from easily from breathy abstraction to fanfare-like clarity), the crisp string articulations of double bassist Inga Margrete Aas and violinist Vilde Sandve Alnæs, and the alternating glistening and lyric, and brittle and jagged harp passages of Irish polymath Áine O’Dwyer, who also sang a series of harrowingly beautiful melodies, especially near the end of the performance.
Morton sat in silence, yogi-style, on a pillowed dais for the entirety of the performance, contributing a mix of new age absurdity. The first half of the 90-minute performance was infectiously fast-paced, mirroring the information overload of the text, while the second half slowed-down—including an extended section of glacial movement, with only occasional plucks from O’Dwyer’s harp. The piece was unwieldy, but its vastness made sense considering the massive scope of what Walshe and Morton are grappling with.
One of the most anticipated performances of the fest was TIME TIME TIME by composer/performer Jennifer Walshe and philosopher Timothy Morton. The richly humorous work weaved together pop culture references – one particularly hilarious section riffed on grief management in the hyperactive style of an infomercial, while another video projection overlaid the text “National Physical Laboratory, Supplier of Time for the UK,” over an image of computers – with constantly shifting notions of time. Morton’s ecological writing constantly returned to the pressing issue of global warming, playing with the idea that humans won’t trifle with the urgency of addressing the situation because of the earth’s timescale. Archival video footage toggled between films of people performing antiquated mechanical tasks over a staccato rhythm shaped by Walshe’s remarkable ensemble, cartoonish animations of dinosaurs, and a mandala-like images of the earth’s crust evolving over millennia.
The comic delivery of Walshe, adorned in a garish, green sequined gown, was expertly complemented by the straight-man deadpan of M.C. Schmidt of Matmos, wearing his trademark suit-and-tie, who at one point played a pair of paper cups as if they were maracas with utter earnestness. One of Walshe’s masterstrokes was allowing the disparate ensemble members to do what they do best, while masterfully blending those elements into a cogent whole: the microscopic lowercase sounds of Lee Patterson, summoning a tactile, earthbound vocabulary, the locked-in improvisations of Streifenjunko (trumpeter Eivind Lønning and saxophonist Espen Reinertsen, who moved from easily from breathy abstraction to fanfare-like clarity), the crisp string articulations of double bassist Inga Margrete Aas and violinist Vilde Sandve Alnæs, and the alternating glistening and lyric, and brittle and jagged harp passages of Irish polymath Áine O’Dwyer, who also sang a series of harrowingly beautiful melodies, especially near the end of the performance.
Morton sat in silence, yogi-style, on a pillowed dais for the entirety of the performance, contributing a mix of new age absurdity. The first half of the 90-minute performance was infectiously fast-paced, mirroring the information overload of the text, while the second half slowed-down—including an extended section of glacial movement, with only occasional plucks from O’Dwyer’s harp. The piece was unwieldy, but its vastness made sense considering the massive scope of what Walshe and Morton are grappling with.
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