Oh dear! No Levinas, Foucault, Agamben and Rancière for you, hooman.

Malabou is a careful interpreter, but also a swashbuckling one, with no time for reverence. Needling Derrida, the deconstructionist who supervised her dissertation, she asks in a parody of his tone: “Is deconstruction reformist? Yes and no. Anarchist? Yes and no”. Then she quotes the man himself (from his essay “Force of law”): “Is that what deconstruction is? Is it a general strike or a strategy of rupture? Yes and no”. Malabou herself wields the deconstructive technique with aplomb, even where where she is showing that Derrida’s ideas tend to devour or refute themselves, and where she is evidently accusing him of intellectual cowardice. ©

Setting aside all the middle class social imagery, such as “being an educated liberal person,” “a middle-aged woman” or whatever is fancy these days as a suitable mask of self-representation, while spending time on decaying social media, I will be as dull and as unequivocally direct as possible: everything quoted below is an evidence of sexual abuse, no matter how hard anyone would try to prove otherwise. It’s also painful to read, and, of course, you can google this particular work of Freud, if you are curious.

Nothing had been discussed, I just assumed I would be naked. I got undressed and asked him what he would like me to do. He said it was up to me. I lay on the sofa, but I didn’t want to look obedient in my portrait, I didn’t feel obedient. I wanted my father to paint me but not like the others – there was some kind of battle going on, unacknowledged but expressed in the muscles of my bent leg – I was alert, prepared to spring up at any moment.

I asked him not to paint in my hairy legs. He said it was not like that. We talked about make-up. He didn’t like to paint it, but I was not going to take off my mascara. In the end he decided it was part of me. That was a small victory. ©

(Lucian Freud’s daughter on posing naked for him at 19)

Эрлю 77

Знакомство с Эрлем, пусть только и виртуальное, было, как теперь уже очевидно, подарком судьбы и счастьем. Поэт-Хеленукт и хармсовед, текстолог и котолюб-анахорет (как не вспомнить зелень глаз его кошицы Хню), он стал для меня, живущей в англоязычном пространстве, отечественным Лиром и Эдвардом Гори — и останется таким теперь уже навсегда.

С Днем Рождения его в лучшем (уверена в этом) мире и светлая ему память.

***

На море парус плещет из-под ветра.

На палубе виднеется суровый капитан.

В трубу подзорную ворону наблюдая,

он видит: на расстоянии около десяти метров

несет она в когтях оптический обман,

да и на вид она — еще довольно молодая.

«Когда б она была Даная,

когда б она была Даная!» —

вздыхает молчаливый капитан

и мчится — дальше в океан. ©

We are somewhat late to the party (the British asparagus time runs from St George's day on the 23rd April through to Summer Solstice on the 21st June: so tantalisingly brief and almost elusive!), but have finally opened our Asparagus/ Cromer crab season.

You know it’s May when you suddenly spot lilies of the valley in your garden (in the darkest corner near the garage, of course), and they are already on the brink of fading, which gives you permission to collect them. Their sublime scent is incredible.

К 100-летию Б. Окуджавы

...а за Окуджаву в семье отвечал папа. Первые детские воспоминания складываются из хрестоматийно-ярких отрывков — резиновый мячик и шарик для пинг-понга, чья-то гигантская нога, взмахи рук (подхватывают на лету), громкие голоса и размытые пятна, а чуть позже (хотя кажется, что прошли миллионы лет) звуки оформляются в песни — и получается «Комсомольская богиня». Отец запевал под гитару, я тянула

— но комсомольская богиииииня

Ах, это, братцы, о другом!..

Мой фальцет вместе с папиным пеньем записан на бобинную пленку, которая хранится (хранится ли?.. бог весть: я не помню) в недрах запорожской квартиры: тиксинские и запорожские записи чередуются на ней с квартирниками Высоцкого.

A couple of thoughts while reading this FT piece:

Only yesterday I came across a post made by a very respectable author of the horror academic community* who was invited to give a talk as a keynote speaker for a student writing workshop (or an event of a similar nature), but was forced to step down, because several people in charge of the event weren’t happy with his association with horror (mind you, those were NOT the people who invited him in the first place). As ridiculous and, quite frankly, offensive as it sounds, it’s somehow still not *that* surprising, as the very idea of horror being a frowned upon/ shallow/ para-literature-like genre seems to be prevalent in some scholarly circles, and I decided for myself not to waste my time and resources to prove those folks wrong witchcraft is better anyway

________________

* I will not publish his name as we are not FB friends: although his post was made public, I still think it’s the right thing to do

Как больно, что невозможно праздновать сегодня, пока идет новая война. Только молиться о памяти моих стариков и всех павших, благодарить их, просить у них прощения и молчать.

Вчера исполнилось два года, как ушел Пикол, и все меньше хочется писать о своих чувствах в соцсетях. Ощущение боли того дня заглушается переключением на обыденные вещи и работу, но стоит начать вспоминать обо всем в подробностях, как мгновенно накрывает, и этим уж точно делиться не хочется, как и профессионально аутсорсить свои воспоминания и эмоции, превращаясь в трудолюбивого плакальщика.

“Why everyone is a novelist” (The TLS archive: September 16, 1988)

Oddly enough, I was thinking about those never-ending fluctuations between Naturwissenschaft vs Geisteswissenschaft, while preparing my presentation to the Suffolk Symposium (I touched it upon, but just ever so slightly in my opening lines), and here we are—a brilliant piece from the late Dennett, may he rest in peace.

A self is also an abstract object, a theorist’s fiction. The theory is not particle physics but what we might call a branch of people-physics; it is more soberly known as a phenomenology or hermeneutics, or soul-science (Geisteswissenschaft). The physicist does an interpretation, if you like, of the chair and its behaviour, and comes up with the theoretical abstraction of a centre of gravity, which is then very useful in characterizing the behaviour of the chair in the future, under a wide variety of conditions. The hermeneuticist or phenomenologist – or anthropologist – sees some rather more complicated things moving about in the world (human beings and animals) and is faced with a similar problem of interpretation. It turns out to be theoretically perspicuous to organize the interpretation around a central abstraction: each person has a self (in addition to a centre of gravity). In fact we have to posit selves for ourselves as well. The theoretical problem of self-interpretation is at least as difficult and important as the problem of other-interpretation. ©

 Прекрасной Аврил (Дики) Пайман 4 мая исполнилось 94! Многая лета! 

Пасха-2024

Христос Воскресе! Christ is Risen! Χριστός Ανέστη! Christus Resurrexit!
Христос воскресе из мертвых, смертию смерть поправ, и сущим во гробех живот даровав!
Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

Великая Суббота и новость о кончине отца Рафаила

Накануне Светлого Христова Воскресенья узнала, что отошел ко Господу отец Рафаил Армор, настоятель нашего кембриджского прихода Свт. Ефрема Сирина. Умер он, оказывается, еще в прошлом году, 23 июля, а узнала я только сегодня. Никогда не забуду его любовь и отеческую поддержку и заботу: вспомнила, как он, уже тяжело больной, отслужил панихиду по папе в марте прошлого года... Царствие ему Небесное, вечный покой. +

Eastern Orthodox Good Friday (En)

There is hope even in the middle of mourning and darkness. The fact that I managed to find Ukrainian patterns for my Easter eggs (Pysanki) makes everything a bit better.

“Sequestered Places, Having Seas: The Life & Works of M.R. James”: Part 2 (En)

Panel 1 “Uncanny Innovations”

Done my talk “Jamesian Unheimlich: the evolution of the ghost story.” Hope it wasn’t boring!

“Sequestered Places, Having Seas: The Life & Works of M.R. James”: Part 1 “An Introduction” (En)

Ok, it is time to post my conference tutti quanti. So, the next series of updates will be dedicated to the Symposium: let’s go.

***

Keynote 1: Simon Loxley, “M.R. James amd the Suffolk landscape”