In Which Yet Again I Go after Cynical Reason (must be why I can't sell a lot of stuff)

Ugh, my head feels like it’s full of poison. Songs of Experience, when they’re not Blake poems but fully unaware of themselves, are so hard to bear. Lies in the form of the truth. That’ll teach me. I swore off this person’s stuff in 2020, having enjoyed little nuggets of it on Twitter. But when you take a big bite, it’s poison. A little bit of poison can smell and taste nice, that bitter almond thing. But a lot…I made myself endure it just to make sure it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. 

The Black woman and man in the Thread (see below) could plausibly have said the same thing to this person, educated and best selling as they are, as they said to the white woman in the video…

This author is on that Zizek path…it’s like I made myself eat a huge bag of sweets just to make sure they really do give you a headache. So many times I’ve finished reading Slavoj to find my brain burned to a nihilistic crisp, just little wisps of smoke coming out of my head. 

It allows rage and cynicism to overlap with complacency…

T

Run, Don't Walk, to This Video and WATCH It; Stop What You're Doing, and Watch. This. Video.

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I replied: 

This is hands down the most incredibly brilliant thing I've ever heard, ever. I'm quite serious. And I read a lot. I'm including Marx, I'm including Freud and a whole lot of other things, I really am. I write books for my job. This is beyond succinct. I teach cultural and literary theory, since 1989. I've been trying to tell people about this for years. Clearly I have not done so well. I would very much like to use this in my classes at Rice University if that is okay? With a correct reference?

Writing Blake Poems Became Disturbingly Easy

 ...you can see how and why he did it, living during the times of terror with (what we would now call) martial law and starvation and war. 

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Here Come Some Threads

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I'm on the Telly!

It's an Apple TV show called Cosmosis and it's about UFOs. And episode 2 talks about hyperobjects. I had no idea about this until my friend Jeff Kripal told me. Then curator extraordinaire Kate Emery took this picture. 

They're Reprinting Hell

 ...thanks to everyone who bought it! I hope you're enjoying it. Once again if you email me (tbm2@rice.edu) with proof of purchase and a good address, I'll send you a signed bookplate. 

The New Being Ecological Blurbs Are Incredible

With wit and playful creativity, Being Ecological challenges us to think beyond the conventional and embrace the complexity of our ecological entanglement in a way that matters most, how we think!

Susan Kucera, director, producer and filmmaker 

A freewheeling, essential guide from one of our foremost ecological philosophers. Very useful for anyone wanting a better understanding of our relationship to the biosphere. Morton points to how we can live a meaningful life in an uncertain modern era

Jeff VanderMeer, author of the Southern Reach trilogy

If you're still just grooving along with Alan Watts and thinking that nature is wiggly, think again. Timothy Morton's flat ontology and his leveling of the uncanny valley contradict earlier clichés to open up new possibilities for conceptualizing a better future together. And, to tune a bit to the register of Being Ecological, it's all accomplished in a vivid discussion with excellent bookfeel.

Nick Montfort, Professor of Digital Media, MIT; author of The Future

Being Ecological is another essential  message from one of our most articulate and soulful eco philosophers. 

Laurie Anderson (artist)

Imagine if Silent Spring was updated and remixed through the prism of our current poly-crisis (many crises in one crisis) as a meticulously documented stream of thought that meditates on the new paths of thought we need to explore if we are to come out of this Anthropocene Era with even a glimmer of hope. Timothy Morton is this generation’s philosopher of the climate crisis. The 21st Century’s most powerful critique of climate change and humanity’s role of thinking our way out of this outline of possible future scenarios in lush prose. A must read.

Paul D. Miller aka Dj Spooky, musician, author, artist

In an age of collective denial and misinformation the pleasure of accompanying Timothy Morton as he dives head first into the choppy, green and gray waters of our current moment cannot be underestimated.

Adam McKay (director, Don’t Look Up)

New Being Ecological!!!

Coming very soon from MIT Press. 

What if a philosopher showed you how working on ecological issues was EASIER than you thought? What if thinking about ecology made you feel HAPPY and INSPIRED? 

The world is bursting into flame. The way we think about that shouldn't burn us alive. 

The world is flooding. Ecological thought shouldn't inundate us with  overwhelm.

Being ecological is like being a good parent or being a good teacher. The more you try, the harder it gets. Stop trying and start trusting. 

Being ecological is inclusive, not exclusive. 

Being ecological doesn't mean you have to change your religious beliefs. 

Being ecological is much easier than you've heard about. 

Having a sense of humor and having a sense of doom are not incompatible are all. 

We need to face our catastrophic conditions with a cheerful mind and courageous heart. 

 

Black Man Responds to Blustering White Oaf, Wins

Mockery and interruption and bluster are just symptoms of what a pathetic bootlicker Joe Scarborough has become. Go Michale Steele! 

I stopped watching this stupid show in June when they started to whale on Biden for his DISABILITY, a stammer (which I share). For not narcissistically reflecting their slick TV-ness back to them. 

I stopped watching legacy media altogether after the election. I had already quit the New York Times and Washington Post and on and on and on. I'll read local news. I'll watch new stuff like Meidas Touch (see my Substack post on that). 

But watch this. This is a cornered white man blustering because he doesn't have a fucking leg to stand on, while a Black man insists on the Truth. 

New York Times, MSNBC, you're all complicit. 

 

UFO as Hyperobject (new TV show)

 Dropping as we speak on Apple TV, it looks luscious. Episode 2 features the concept heavily. My pal Jeffrey Kripal is in it! 

My Music PhD Student Is Performing in Houston (please come!)

 Got this message from Tim Roy today. His music is haunting and brilliant. 

Harpist (and Rice alum) Hope Cowan will be performing my dissertation piece Valentina V. during her faculty recital at University of Houston on February 17, 2025. The event will take place in the Moores Opera House. We are collaborating with a professor in the theater department to execute the lighting component of my piece. Here is a link to the event on the UofH calendar:

https://www.uh.edu/calendar/index/.php?view=e&id=645887

Histories of Fascism Concur That This is How It Starts

 From today's Houston Chronicle. 

Steve Schmidt Gets It Very Right

 His view here is spot on in terms of what MAGA is offering. I would however be a lot more generous to the Democratic Party. What has happened here is a terrible combination of structural racism and propaganda, endlessly spewed forth from Fox News and Twitter etc. 

I would however however ad an extra caveat: I am at present reading Simone Weil and she is VERY interesting on the deficiencies of party politics. And I wonder whether what is happening is also to do with a moribund metastasis of party politics as such. 

Good Analysis

Jan. 6, Seen in Comparative Perspective, Shows How Far Democracy Has Declined in America by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

The Outcomes of Self-Coups in the US, Venezuela, Brazil, and South Korea Tell the Story

Read on Substack

Freeze Power Usage

 Mostly wind. TX has a lot of wind power (and solar). 

A Great Episode of John Fugelsang's Show

 John is fantastic. He interviewed me about Hell a few months ago. This is a great recent episode, featuring Native American politics and Jimmy Carter. 

It's Worse If They're UNrelated

 The terrorist and terrorist-adjacent attacks--the man driving the car into people in New Orleans, and the man blowing up a Cybertruck (he wanted Democrats killed)--were from the same Texas Army base. Think about it--if they weren't related, it means we have a real big problem (they are related at a deeper or higher or more expansive level, if they're not contiguously related).