K-Punk

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Just to clarify, I was quoting some random on ILM. I don't have an opinion on whether or not Mark was an intellectual.

Oh sure. ftr I do think the kitchen sink mixed bag pop intellectual has their merits, but more in the literary/aesthetic realm. Something Mark was very good at. Which is exactly why I wished he'd tried to develop some of those talents into fiction. Because as Luke says being the overly-learned type can be cloistering and constricting.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
oh yeah. that's true. as much to with libertarian politics which partially explains the 80s swing to the right (ie it didn't come out of nowhere) i think i was polite about it fwiw. it's in the "bbow". i'm pretty sure jeremy gilbert must have read it and that's why he very kindly gave me an endorsement for retreat.

Yes, and we saw this in rave. Any political reading which wants to endow it with socialist resonances has to grapple with characters like Staines and Colston-Haytar. Easy to shrug them off as cynical opportunists for a clean conscience, but were they really? The culture quite easily/comfortably made room for that kind of entrepreneurialism. It was no 60s scratch orchestra or Derek Bailey was it, how could it be!
 

version

Well-known member
Oh sure. ftr I do think the kitchen sink mixed bag pop intellectual has their merits, but more in the literary/aesthetic realm. Something Mark was very good at. Which is exactly why I wished he'd tried to develop some of those talents into fiction. Because as Luke says being the overly-learned type can be cloistering and constricting.
Now that I think about it, I dunno how I'd distinguish between an intellectual and a pseudointellectual. My instinct would be to look at academic qualifications, but dunno that that's particularly reliable. Often seems to come down to whether or not someone agrees with them.
 

version

Well-known member
I like this,

As autobiographical as this first, depressing encounter might be, it is also artificial, constructed by the cultural landscape which inherited Fisher’s work. It is clearly not my raw experience of Mark’s writings – it is far too romantic to be the real deal, even though I would swear that the whereabouts are correct and that it is just how it happened. It is surely my encounter with those words plus the collective dreamwork that his readers have been weaving around them from their publication onwards.
 
More skull stuff, although at least this guy is aware of the trap.

might be worth a thread, exploring skull stuff. Why we can’t take a particular form of death worship seriously. A certain morbid style that feels a bit adolescent. We’ve touched on it when talking about trench coats and metallers with their clunky boots etc but it needs a proper analysis. Nick land loves all that, Tolkien bros etc

For me, I think it’s partly because, much like the psychedelic experience, all attempts to represent death fall short, for obv reasons. So it always just feels a bit silly and comical and naff
 
Im not sure there's any substance to what im saying. It might just be a deeply ingrained childhood thing about looking down on goths for example
 

catalog

Well-known member
What about that thing where people hammer a nail into their skulls, is that related? Trepanning is it called. Thought to relieve pressure/open your third eye.

Otherwise tho its the gothic imagination, skulls to represent death, long tradition of it throughout art and literature for at least several hundred years. We all love thinking about death a5 one point or another.

Facile post this, its not what youre on about is it?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
What about that thing where people hammer a nail into their skulls, is that related? Trepanning is it called. Thought to relieve pressure/open your third eye.

Otherwise tho its the gothic imagination, skulls to represent death, long tradition of it throughout art and literature for at least several hundred years. We all love thinking about death a5 one point or another.

Facile post this, its not what youre on about is it?
Trepanning is when you cut a hole in your skull to relieve pressure on the brain yeah. Not sure that's a death cult thing though.
 
This isn't to say say that i'm not fascinated and terrified of death myself. or that this fear and obsession doesn't animate a lot of my behaviour in ways I don't even realise, it does. But there's something about attempts to own describe or channel it that fall short. like psychedelics its terrifying and beautiful precisely because its incommunicable
 
And im not saying these things shouldnt be discussed obviously!! but its about the disappointing ways in which theyre stylised, coded, the common tropes
 

version

Well-known member
ive sometime wondered why do sone peiple become death cultists. dress in balck etc
I dress in black. I have a pair of black Nikes, black socks, black trousers, black boxers, black t-shirts, black sweaters, a black jacket and a black hat and I sometimes wear them altogether. My mates have said I look like a burglar or SWAT team member or something.
 

version

Well-known member
might be worth a thread, exploring skull stuff. Why we can’t take a particular form of death worship seriously. A certain morbid style that feels a bit adolescent. We’ve touched on it when talking about trench coats and metallers with their clunky boots etc but it needs a proper analysis. Nick land loves all that, Tolkien bros etc

For me, I think it’s partly because, much like the psychedelic experience, all attempts to represent death fall short, for obv reasons. So it always just feels a bit silly and comical and naff
 
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