a thread for mundane ironists

[iambiguous]

Oliver Stone

I think that many people in history who had power were bumped off because they had power.

What, even the good people?!

We are seeing entertainment become politics and we're seeing people acting out in ways that are extremely violent and destabilizing. No rules apply. We're in an era of no rules now, it seems.

No rules? No, more like my rules and only my rules.

I was trying to find out what happened in my lifetime, because I was an older man. We lived through two terms of George Bush, and I was wondering, "Is he an exception to the rule, or he is a continuation? What is driving all these wars? What is driving this attitude of aggressiveness and militarism?" I got my answer - and it was a shocking answer. I found is this whole strain of history, this whole school has been denied by the media. It is a bizarre blindness, because we are such an intelligent country. It's bizarre that we can't get our own history straight.

Capitalism and the military industrial complex. End of story.
Though perhasps not his.

The first casualty of war is innocence.

Actually, that would be naivety. Followed closely by downright stupidity.

Each year, the The U.S. Army & its contractors SHOOT, STAB, MUTILATE, & KILL more than TEN THOUSAND live animals in cruel training exercises.

Pick one:
https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-use ... r-animals/
https://www.bileckilawgroup.com/court-m ... al%20abuse.

I think everyone has the same question on their mind: Is the glass half-full or half-empty?

Or, sure, it's fallen to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces.

[iambiguous]

Anne Carson

Give me a world, you have taken the world I was.

Go ahead, try to take mine. I dare you.

We're talking about the struggle to drag a thought over from the mush of the unconscious into some kind of grammar, syntax, human sense; every attempt means starting over with language. Starting over with accuracy.

You know, like polishyouth.

No need to fear death. There will be a tunnel and light.

Yo, anyone! Actual proof please!!

What makes life life and not a simple story? Jagged bits moving never still, all along the wall.

Think Repulsion: https://youtu.be/c77FZCLUDuA

Then a miracle occurred in the form of a plate of sandwiches. Geryon took three and buried his mouth in a delicious block of white bread filled with tomatoes and butter and salt. He thought about how delicious it was, how he liked slippery foods, how slipperiness can be of different kinds. I am a philosopher of sandwiches, he decided.

Of course you might be a philosopher of something else.

Do you remember when they taught cursive in schools? I think they don't anymore. But I still enjoy it - just the physical act and all the - the whole business of making a thing out of language.

No, really, do they still teach cursive in schools?

[iambiguous]

Existential Comics

Sorry, but telling me to actually read "1984" before calling everything Orwellian is thought policing and very Orwellian.

Well, we do now live in a Brave New World.

people say that cops are pigs but i've never seen any evidence that pigs are racist

Let's decide if this goes too far.

With the Presidency, House and Senate all under Democratic control we should expect historic left wing reform, like:
- official declaration that Trump was bad
- fuck it impeach Trump a 3rd time
- rename "trump card" in card games to "privilege card"
- increase military budget 15%

Stay tuned.

Literally though, what is Joe Biden's plan to stop the rising tide of fascism? Aside from, of course...you know, to compromise with them.

Stay tuned.

Since everyone likes quoting George Orwell right now, here's my favorite quote of his on why he joined the Spanish Civil War:
"When I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist — after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct."

Or, here, ban them?

Yes, I believe in the "Marketplace of Ideas". That's when we have a superficial choice to consume different media all owned and controlled entirely by the billionaire capitalist class, right?

Not counting any number of "social issues" though. There a liberal media is very clearly distinguished from a conservative media.

[iambiguous]

Frank Gehry

Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone. It can for children - for anyone. It still does for me.

Anyone not including me though.

We don't see the banality, but we accept banality. We accept it as inevitable, and it's not.

Yo, Mr. Fulminating Fanatic! Explain that to the Kids.

Ninety percent of the buildings we live in and around aren't architecture. No, that's not right - 98 percent.

Wow, that probably includes my apartment.

There are a great many things about architecture that are hidden from the untrained eye.

Or: There are a great many things about philosophy that are hidden from the untrained mind.

You've got to bumble forward into the unknown.

Stumble too.

I don't know whose box I'm in, and I don't really care.

Fortunately, no one actually knows what this means.

[iambiguous]

Jeff Koons

Art is obsolete now. New technologies are taking over.

Someone run this by phoneutria. You know, to be absolutely sure.

When people make judgments they close all the possibility around them.

On the other hand, try not making them.

I'm making some of the greatest art being made now. It'll take the art world ten years to get around to it.

You tell me:
https://www.google.com/search?source=un ... 42&bih=597

Abstraction and luxury are the guard dogs of the upper class.

Seriously?

I don't believe that artists really are interested in money. That's not the motivation for art.

Wow, just like philosophers!

The media, the galleries, the collectors - it's all very chaotic actually. The artworld doesn't have this defined corporate structure that people imagine.


Unless of course, it's true.

[iambiguous]

Doth

I like my women like wolves, wandering around the woods at night & could kill me at any moment.

Not many of them still around, he suspected.

Ideal first date: we both secretly plot each other's murder & our hands touch when reaching for the same knife.

I petition for phoneutria and Mr. Reasonable to do the deed.
Anyone second it?

Be the horrifying backstory of your family's lineage.

Would you like details?

My kink is fascist politicians face-up in a guillotine so they can see the blade.

Or, sure, fascist Kids.

Of course I have body issues, the moon can’t turn me into a fucking wolf.

Yo, Will!

Marriage goals: I will die of mysterious causes & you will be the most feared widow in the village.

Or, sure, like me, a run-of-the-mill divorce.

[iambiguous]

Doth

I like my women like wolves, wandering around the woods at night & could kill me at any moment.

Not many of them still around, he suspected.

Ideal first date: we both secretly plot each other's murder & our hands touch when reaching for the same knife.

I petition for phoneutria and Mr. Reasonable to do the deed.
Anyone second it?

Be the horrifying backstory of your family's lineage.

Would you like details?

My kink is fascist politicians face-up in a guillotine so they can see the blade.

Or, sure, fascist Kids.

Of course I have body issues, the moon can’t turn me into a fucking wolf.

Yo, Will!

Marriage goals: I will die of mysterious causes & you will be the most feared widow in the village.

Or, sure, like me, a run-of-the-mill divorce.

[iambiguous]

Leonora Carrington

Then it seemed that a cloud formed itself into an enormous bumble bee as big as a sheep. She wore a tall iron crown studded with rock crystals, the stars of the underworld. All this may have been a collective hallucination although nobody has yet explained to me what a collective hallucination actually means.

Let's try to imagine our own collective hallucination here.

The long tentacles of vision and understanding have withdrawn and all that is left to me is the ragged black hole of my loss. Loss and the world around. A noisy puzzle whose solution is another puzzle noisier and more stupid. The circle widens toward nothing.

You know, being optimistic.

There is nobody that can make you happy, you must take care of this matter yourself.

You know, being optimistic.

"Do not fear those who bear you ill will, they soon shall fall in shame," read Georgina, cackling with mirth.

Cackling for starters anyway.

A Brotherhood with the grim knowledge of what is better for other people and the iron determination to better them whether they like it or not.

Got one of them here: The Coalition of Truth

My soul? replied Virginia. I sold it a long time ago for a kilo of truffles.

So, is that worth it?

[MagsJ]

Doth

I like my women like wolves, wandering around the woods at night & could kill me at any moment.

Not many of them still around, he suspected.

Ideal first date: we both secretly plot each other's murder & our hands touch when reaching for the same knife.

I petition for phoneutria and Mr. Reasonable to do the deed.
Anyone second it?

Be the horrifying backstory of your family's lineage.

Would you like details?

My kink is fascist politicians face-up in a guillotine so they can see the blade.

Or, sure, fascist Kids.

Of course I have body issues, the moon can’t turn me into a fucking wolf.

Yo, Will!

Marriage goals: I will die of mysterious causes & you will be the most feared widow in the village.

Or, sure, like me, a run-of-the-mill divorce.

[iambiguous]

Olga Tokarczuk

Annushka also needs to feel someone’s gaze on her, to feel that her crying is witnessed by someone, to feel it isn’t just addressing a void.

Yeah, that takes me back some.

...it must be noted that Chinese people have two names: one given by their families, used to summon the child, scold and punish him, but also the basis for affectionate nicknames. But when the child goes out into the world, he or she takes another name, an outside name, a world name, a personage-name. Donned like a uniform, a surplice, a prison jumpsuit, an outfit for a formal cocktail. This outside name is useful and easy to remember. From here on out it will corroborate its person. Best if it’s worldly, universal, recognizable to everyone; down with the locality of our names.

Interesting, he thought. But not interesting enough to Google.

As I gazed at the black-and-white landscape of the Plateau, I realized that sorrow is an important word for defining the world. It lies at the foundations of everything, it is the fifth element, the quintessence.

Sorrow? I'm more a despair man myself.

For the best conversations are with yourself. At least there’s no risk of a misunderstanding.


He noted glumly.

I cannot be someone other than I am. How awful.

On the other hand, only if it actually is.

In reality, movement doesn’t exist. Like the turtle in Zeno’s paradox, we’re heading nowhere, if anything we’re simply wandering into the interior of a moment, and there is no end, nor any destination.

On the other hand, there's that other reality. You know the one.

[iambiguous]

Jan Mieszkowski

Samuel Beckett explaining to the actor cast as Godot that he doesn't actually make an appearance on stage.

You'll have to imagine it.

Science: This
History: This then that
Literature: This means that
Philosophy: This therefore that
Economics: I’ll give you this for that
Politics: I'll keep this and take that

Yes, in that exact order.

French lit: Love made me do it
British lit: Pride made me do it
German lit: The devil made me do it
Russian lit: No excuses – I just love axes

American lit:

You know, of late.

Sure sex is cool, but have you ever read something you've written and thought it was pretty good?

We get that, right?

Clever people said fascism was impossible. Clever people have always made it easy for barbarians by being so stupid. Horkheimer & Adorno

After all, look at all the barbarians we have here.

Who is the worst modern philosopher and why is it Ayn Rand?

True. But not objectively.

[iambiguous]

Angela Carter

Women's sexy underwear is a minor but significant growth industry of late-twentieth-century Britain in the twilight of capitalism.

Okay, Brits, weigh in on this.

I always used to suffer a great deal if I let myself get too close to reality since the definitive world of the everyday with its hard edges and harsh light did not have enough resonance to echo the demands I made upon experience. It was as if I never experienced experience as experience. Living never lived up to the expectations I had of it---the Bovary syndrome.

Of course you may have another name for it.

Just because we're sisters under the skin doesn't mean we've got much in common.

"Under the skin". What the hell does that even mean?

They were connoisseurs of boredom. They savoured the various bouquets of the subtly differentiated boredoms which rose from the long, wasted hours at the dead end of night.

They being them of course.

Not many people can boast a photo of their grandmother posing for kiddiporn.

Nope, no boasting here from me.

It is far easier for a woman to lead a blameless life than it is for a man; all she has to do is to avoid sexual intercourse like the plague.

Of course there are other things to be blamed for.

[iambiguous]

Jostein Gaarder

How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.

Like there's any alternative.

It's not a silly question if you can't answer it.

Next up: all the silly answers.

A joker is a little fool who is different from everyone else. He's not a club, diamond, heart, or spade. He's not an eight or a nine, a king or a jack. He is an outsider. He is placed in the same pack as the other cards, but he doesn't belong there. Therefore, he can be removed without anybody missing him.

Hey, let's get rid of ours!

Superstitious. What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called faith. But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people's belief superstition?

Let's explain the difference. If that's actually possible.

A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.

We'll need a context of course.

It takes billions of years to create a human being. And it takes only a few seconds to die.

So?

[iambiguous]

God

The best argument against white supremacy is white supremacists.

Yeah, sure, that includes the ones we have here.

I like some of you but I hate all of you.

Let's explore this epistemologically.

Mosquitoes are to you what you are to Me.

God, the kidder.

Donald Trump has absolutely no convictions.
That's about to change.

Never happen. No, really.

Sentencing the serial killer to life in prison would only lead to more hate.
We need unity, and the best way to get it is to let the serial killer go free.

So, what's God telling us here?

Impeached once, shame on you.
Impeached twice, fuck you.

Sounds like Trump might be going to Hell.
Unless of course this already is Hell.

[MagsJ]

Angela Carter

Women's sexy underwear is a minor but significant growth industry of late-twentieth-century Britain in the twilight of capitalism.

Okay, Brits, weigh in on this.

So good, you had to post it twice?

That would be the spirit of Zeitgeist, inherited from an Anglo past, existing in an Englisc peoples..
Ergo.. they are both known for their kink.

[iambiguous]

Ernest Cline

No giant two-headed hermaphrodite demon unicorn avatars were allowed. Not on school ground, anyway.

And certainly not here.

The ability to mute my peers was one of my favorite things about attending school online, and I took advantage of it almost daily. The best thing about it was that they could see that you’d muted them, and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Believe it or not back in my day there were no online schools. Let alone mute buttons.

It occurred to me then that for the first time in as long as I could remember, I had absolutely no desire to log back into the OASIS.

Yo, karpel tunnel! Just like you here!
Not that you're reading this of course.

You know, sort of like Obi-Wan, watching over Luke while he was growing up on Tatooine.
You’re a bold-faced liar like Obi-Wan, too! I shot back. That’s for sure.
Ray’s smile vanished, and his eyes narrowed. And you’re being a whiny little bitch, just like Luke!''

Next up: their take on Kirk and Spock.

It was the dawn of new era, one where most of the human race now spent all of their free time inside a videogame.

Though not us, right?

It's chick flick disguised as a sword-and-sorcery picture. The only genre film with less balls is probably... freakin' Legend. Anyone who actually enjoys Ladyhawke is a bona fide USDA-choice pussy!

No, this is a real controversy.

[iambiguous]

tiny nietzsche

we can be heroes, just for one day

Or sons of bitches.

all the president's pillows

This guy: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/my-pillo ... ae62f93beb

"let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is blink one eighty two." - revelation 1:82

A new revision.

life comes at you fast, but occasionally it really speeds up when you commit federal crimes

But: only if they catch you.

sure sex is cool but have you ever impeached a motherfucker?

Twice, for example.

making drugs out of nothing at all

Trust me: it's not as easy as it sounds.

[iambiguous]

Martin Scorsese

There's no such thing as simple. Simple is hard.

Okay, he thought, what's that make hard then?

Now more than ever we need to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this.

Okay, so what's that make what we do then?

Your job is to get your audience to care about your obsessions.

Like my job here then.

More than ninety percent of directing a picture is the right casting.

And the other ten percent?

Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.

Wow, who would have thought that?!

You've got to love something enough to kill it.

Just what we need, another fucking paradox.

[iambiguous]

Anne Carson

I've come to understand that the best one can hope for as a human is to have a relationship with that emptiness where God would be if God were available, but God isn't.

Don't even pretend to understand what it means, okay?

What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs activate the names. Adjectives come from somewhere else. The word adjective (epitheton in Greek) is itself an adjective meaning 'placed on top', 'added', 'appended', 'foreign'. Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions, but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being.

Next up: adverbs. Then later: prepositions.

He came after Homer and before Gertrude Stein, a difficult interval for a poet.

Uh, if she says so?

Sometimes a journey makes itself necessary.

For example the one between birth and death.

Existence will not stop until it gets to beauty.

That and the beast.

It takes practice to shave the skin off the light.

I'll bet it does.

[iambiguous]

tiny nietzsche

postmodernism can't melt steel beams

Let alone objectivists

man is condemned to cope

He means mope of course.

on this national law enforcement appreciation day please remember: fuck the police

You know, if you are "one of them": the evil libtards.

the fact that I live rent free in my own head should be sufficient

Tell that to your landlord.

Orwell called. he said stop using his name as an adjective

Let alone a preposition or conjunction.

late stage schadenfreude

Or, for some, early stage postschadenfreude

[iambiguous]

Frank Gehry

We live and work in boxes. People don't even notice that. Most of what's around us is banal. We live with it. We accept it as inevitable. People say, "This is the world the way it is, and don't bother me."

Me, I have come to live more and more inside my head. The box that's in just has to be comfortable.

There's a drive in us to express ourselves in some way or form. We pick up whatever material is available. It's primitive. Kids see sand on the beach, build something and show their parents: "Look what I did, Mama." It's necessary to us.

Here, for some, let's call it drivel.

I refuse to work unless I get paid, so I don't get a lot of work sometimes.

Anyone here pay me to post?

I didn't have any interest in doing rich people's homes. I still don't.

Good for him! I guess.

I think you've got to accept that certain things are in process that you can't change, that you can't overwhelm. The chaos of our cities, the randomness of our lives, the unpredictability of where you're going to be in ten years from now - all of those things are weighing on us, and yet there is a certain glimmer of control. If you act a certain way, and talk a certain way, you're going to draw certain forces to you.

Just vague enough to be true, he thought.

As much as we pretend otherwise, we want what's comfortable, and we're afraid of the different. We're afraid of change.

If only 11 out of 10 of us.

[iambiguous]

Jeff Koons

I think about my work every minute of the day.

1,440 times.

When I view the world, I don't think of my own work. I think of my hope that, through art, people can get a sense of the type of invisible fabric that holds us all together, that holds the world together.

Of course we know that's philosophy.

As morality seems to have supplanted civilization, I move on to the spiritual.

Like the song says, "it's so deep it's meaningless."

Nothing can touch me now - I'm Jeff Koons and my art can defend me!

Jeff, the asshole.

The moment we live in is a great time to make art.

Though a terrible time to make philosophy.

Whenever you finish an artwork and the viewer comes and views it, at that moment you've given up control.

Or, here: Whenever you finish a post and someone comes and reads it, at that moment you've given up control.

[iambiguous]

so sad today

being born is a lot of pressure

Good thing there's death, he thought.

there are two types of people and i’m isolating from both of them

Or three types if you count me.

shhhh, listen, it's the sound of everything getting shittier

Hell, you can hear that around a jackhammer.

i’m insecure does that turn you on

With me, you'd have to be.

i’m always the last to know everything and i’m glad

That makes me the next to last then.

shoutout to my demons

Next up: my demons shoutout to me.

[iambiguous]

Leonora Carrington

I am sure it would be very pleasant and healthy for human beings to have no authority whatever. They would have to think for themselves, instead of always being told what to do and think by advertisements, cinemas, policemen, and parliaments.

Or, here, by me, right?

Her dressing gown was made of live bats sewn together by their wings: the way they fluttered, one would have thought they didn’t much like it.

Yo, Peta!

Darling stop being philosophical, it doesn’t suit you, it makes your nose red.

Could be a lot worse though, couldn't it?

Do not fear those who bear you ill will, they soon shall fall in shame.

You know, in the best of all possible worlds. Though, sure as shit, not this one.

The full moon shone brightly between the trees, so I was able to see, a few yards in front of me, the origins of a distressing noise. It was two cabbages having a terrible fight. They were tearing each other's leaves off with such ferocity that soon there was nothing but torn leaves everywhere and no cabbages.
Never mind, I told myself, It's only a nightmare. But then I remembered suddenly that I'd never gone to bed that night, and so it couldn't possibly be a nightmare.

This ever happen to you?

Beauty is a responsibility like anything else, beautiful women have special lives like prime ministers but I don’t want that.

Beautiful men too. Right, Pedro?

[iambiguous]

Emma Donoghue

Ma's still nodding. You're the one who matters, though. Just you. I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.

Yo, Mom! You missed that part.

Everybody's damaged by something.

Being born for example.

I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.

Actually, they can be other things too.

There are some tales not for telling, whether because they are too long, too precious, too laughable, too painful, too easy to need telling or too hard to explain.

Or, like mine, just too damn depressing.

...sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words.

A serious philosopher in the making.

When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything.

An objectivist in the making.