i should read (and reread part) of that when home from work
on a related note, i was especially queasy at the idea of a need for "left accelerationism" someone was arguing for on twitter the other day. just, no
― mh š, Tuesday, 14 March 2017 18:18 (seven years ago) link
http://blissout.blogspot.com/2017/10/leaving-some-signs-now-legend.html
In a way, it's a shame Burial stopped doing the interviews - he was almost born to do them, even more than make music! He's better at describing his own music and motives than any of his critics, except K-punk himself. I remember Mark telling me after he'd done the interview that he couldn't believe his own ears - the stuff that Burial was coming out with was so poetic and evocative, too good to be true almost. A dream of an interview. Anwen Crawford told me of a similar experience: as I recall it, it was like she was hypnotized, sent into a trance by his voice over the phone. But at same time he was completely real and genuine - somehow down to earth and an ethereal being floating out there at the same time....
― j., Saturday, 28 October 2017 02:38 (six years ago) link
pete wolfendale
https://deontologistics.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/transcendental-blues/
When I found out Mark Fisher had finally been cornered by the black dog, I was standing at a bus stop on a chill morning in Ryhope. I could see the sea from where I was, and I could hear the pain in my friendās voice, but I couldnāt connect with either of them. I couldnāt connect with anything. My life had unravelled around me. Iād recently admitted to myself and others that I couldnāt return to my postdoctoral position in South Africa. I couldnāt write or read. I couldnāt even understand my own work. I couldnāt enjoy anything. Not music. Not food. Not the morning sea. I could barely stand to be in the same room as people who cared about me. All because I was being chased by the same black fucking beast.I was dragging myself out of bed every morning and walking a tooth grinding forty-five minutes to the nearest swimming pool in order to get the thirty minutes of exercise that was supposed to keep the beast at bay. The path follows the route of an old colliery railway line, over a bridge my great-grandfather helped build more than a century ago. Every day, once on the way there, and once on the way back, Iād think about throwing myself off of that bridge. It would never quite rise to the level of volition. I could consider the burdens Iād lift from others, the anxieties Iād finally be free of, even the bleak poetry of it. What I couldnāt do was ignore it. This was the first time this had ever happened to me.I couldnāt process the significance of Markās death. I was too numb. Deep depression washes all the colour out of the world, turning the contrast down until you canāt tell the difference between real loss and mundane misery. Itās leaked in slowly, bit by bit over the last year, as I regained enough sensitivity to properly feel it, and enough understanding to properly mourn it. Itās the sort of thing you get periodically reminded of, discovering new layers of response each time, be it wistful sadness or blistering anger. I donāt think this process is finished, it wonāt be for a while, but I hope that writing this post will help it along. Back then, there was one meaningful signal that cut through the depressive noise: this fucking thing shouldnāt have been allowed to take him from us, and I shouldnāt let it take me too....For the moment, I want to pay my respects to Mark through pale imitation. I want to talk about my mental health and what it means. Mark eloquently explained the difficulty of being public about depression, and how secrecy can eat away at you when youāre in its grasp. As Iāve slowly come back into the light, Iāve tried to be open about it, but I havenāt been as open about it as possible. This is an attempt to do that in such a way that it canāt eat away at me the next time Iām lost in the dark. In case the introduction wasnāt sufficient warning, this is going to get personal. Itās also going to be long, and in some parts technical and wildly speculative. If you donāt want any neuroscience, skip Ā§2.1, if you donāt want any logic skip Ā§3.2, and if you donāt want any computer science, skip Ā§4. Iāll reference some of this in the conclusion, but you should be relatively safe.
I was dragging myself out of bed every morning and walking a tooth grinding forty-five minutes to the nearest swimming pool in order to get the thirty minutes of exercise that was supposed to keep the beast at bay. The path follows the route of an old colliery railway line, over a bridge my great-grandfather helped build more than a century ago. Every day, once on the way there, and once on the way back, Iād think about throwing myself off of that bridge. It would never quite rise to the level of volition. I could consider the burdens Iād lift from others, the anxieties Iād finally be free of, even the bleak poetry of it. What I couldnāt do was ignore it. This was the first time this had ever happened to me.
I couldnāt process the significance of Markās death. I was too numb. Deep depression washes all the colour out of the world, turning the contrast down until you canāt tell the difference between real loss and mundane misery. Itās leaked in slowly, bit by bit over the last year, as I regained enough sensitivity to properly feel it, and enough understanding to properly mourn it. Itās the sort of thing you get periodically reminded of, discovering new layers of response each time, be it wistful sadness or blistering anger. I donāt think this process is finished, it wonāt be for a while, but I hope that writing this post will help it along. Back then, there was one meaningful signal that cut through the depressive noise: this fucking thing shouldnāt have been allowed to take him from us, and I shouldnāt let it take me too.
...
For the moment, I want to pay my respects to Mark through pale imitation. I want to talk about my mental health and what it means. Mark eloquently explained the difficulty of being public about depression, and how secrecy can eat away at you when youāre in its grasp. As Iāve slowly come back into the light, Iāve tried to be open about it, but I havenāt been as open about it as possible. This is an attempt to do that in such a way that it canāt eat away at me the next time Iām lost in the dark. In case the introduction wasnāt sufficient warning, this is going to get personal. Itās also going to be long, and in some parts technical and wildly speculative. If you donāt want any neuroscience, skip Ā§2.1, if you donāt want any logic skip Ā§3.2, and if you donāt want any computer science, skip Ā§4. Iāll reference some of this in the conclusion, but you should be relatively safe.
― j., Saturday, 23 December 2017 05:20 (six years ago) link
http://thequietus.com/articles/23832-take-care-it-s-a-desert-out-there-in-memory-of-and-for-mark-fisher-the-caretaker
― j., Saturday, 13 January 2018 17:52 (six years ago) link
https://ninapower.net/2018/01/13/in-memoriam-mark-fisher-january-13th/
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 14 January 2018 11:29 (six years ago) link
i think one of the people in that picture round the tree might be me!
― mark s, Sunday, 14 January 2018 11:34 (six years ago) link
I've just finished the Red Riding quartet and have been re-reading Mark's writing on Peace (on the blog and in Ghosts of My Life), which is patchy ad brilliant in all the usual ways. It led me to a bunch of places (Owen Hatherley's blog, Padraig Henry's blog, various excellent Peace interviews) and christ do I mourn the passing of that little milieu and its world of possibilities. Has it simply ceased to be, become more diffuse, or is it happening somewhere, and I'm missing it?
― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Saturday, 4 August 2018 09:19 (five years ago) link
it still just-about exists but yes, it's quite diffuse now -- i guess repeater books is its central nexus if anywhere, but no, it has no real conversation space now*. ppl now have jobs and families, and various sharp political splits have taken their toll (i'm on-line acquaintances with a number of people who have become mutual foes -- of one another not me -- and will i imagine never speak to one another again).
*actually someone recently told me that dissensus also still rumbles on but i haven't checked
― mark s, Saturday, 4 August 2018 10:19 (five years ago) link
this has been interesting readingI always assumed this was a thread about Korean punk rock
― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 4 August 2018 15:12 (five years ago) link
It isnāt?
― Suspicious Hiveminds (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 4 August 2018 15:13 (five years ago) link
I always assumed this was a thread about K records K Punk imprint
― Īį½ĻĪ¹Ļ, Saturday, 4 August 2018 15:18 (five years ago) link
^Thatās what I assumed when I clicked just now
― empire bro-lesque (morrisp), Saturday, 4 August 2018 16:48 (five years ago) link
so glad NRQ and Dom are gone
― sleeve, Saturday, 4 August 2018 17:07 (five years ago) link
For real
― Īį½ĻĪ¹Ļ, Saturday, 4 August 2018 17:44 (five years ago) link
Wow, hadnt known he passed away. Ive been a big admirer of his article on the "pulp modernism of The Fall", for years now. Reread it a few times. Great stuff indeed! Think i will imagine him badgering old man MES with his theories, in the great hereafter. RIP.I will miss them both.
― VyrnaKnowlIsAHeadbanger, Saturday, 4 August 2018 18:00 (five years ago) link
yeah.
with regard to what mark s said about beefs you'd have hoped that one good thing that could have happened after mark f's death is that people would put those behind them and moved on.
― Britain's Sexiest Cow (jed_), Saturday, 4 August 2018 18:01 (five years ago) link
xpost
― Britain's Sexiest Cow (jed_), Saturday, 4 August 2018 18:02 (five years ago) link
I was with a friend on Saturday who teaches at Goldsmiths and he intimated that part of the issue with Mark was that Gs were wary of legitimising his research and kept him on a part-time contract, accordingly. Which is kind of staggering, but makes sense all the same.
― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Monday, 6 August 2018 16:18 (five years ago) link
Which specific aspects?
― Britain's Sexiest Cow (jed_), Monday, 6 August 2018 16:31 (five years ago) link
I'm not sure of the specifics. The intimation was more a general response to his writing, ideas and research. It does sort of make sense from an academic institution, I suppose, but it looks more short-sighted by the year. And what it must have done for a general sense of precarity is immeasurable.
― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Monday, 6 August 2018 16:42 (five years ago) link
An article by? about? with? How To Dress Well, in which they mainly talk about Mark Fisher
https://www.talkhouse.com/how-to-dress-well-on-mark-fishers-theory-of-capitalist-realism/
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 21 November 2018 21:00 (five years ago) link
jeremy gilbert and pals have released a mark fisher-inspired podcast abt radical/leftist culture
https://soundcloud.com/novaramedia/acfm-trip-1-out-of-the-box
― ogmor, Thursday, 22 November 2018 09:23 (five years ago) link
Interesting - will have a look.
I'd like to read a few reviews of the book.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 22 November 2018 10:44 (five years ago) link
there's one in the wire by some fool
― mark s, Thursday, 22 November 2018 10:50 (five years ago) link
lol I need to get myself to an actual shop that stocks it.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 22 November 2018 10:51 (five years ago) link
I was just chatting the other day about how (as someone who was addicted to checking the blog bitd) his recent semi-lionisation seemed to come out of nowhere - this is a case of me not being switched on probably. Anyway there is never enough talk about how classic it was when he would call ppl āsmugonautsā
― Pierrot with a thousand farces (wins), Thursday, 22 November 2018 10:55 (five years ago) link
I fell asleep while reading the new anthology and had unsettled, f-ed up dreams. Serves me right.
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 19 December 2018 08:21 (five years ago) link
Kinda always wanted him to do more dialectical-ish historical accounts on popular music culture (modern, post-modern, post-post-modern type of deal) instead of so much personal critique, much of which I found a bit contrived. The hauntology stuff is underrated, though.
Also, what does the opening statement of this thread mean?
― ninthyoung, Wednesday, 19 December 2018 14:29 (five years ago) link
start of this thread is relatively scathing
― ( Ķ”ā ĶŹ Ķ”ā) (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 19 December 2018 18:45 (five years ago) link
<3
― j., Sunday, 13 January 2019 23:45 (five years ago) link
aye <3
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Sunday, 13 January 2019 23:55 (five years ago) link
Otm
― slack thompson (Drugs A. Money), Monday, 14 January 2019 17:10 (five years ago) link
Hold your loved ones close, believe in a better world, read loads of k punk pic.twitter.com/ojKmghKBCr— Ellie Mae O'Hagan š“ó §ó ¢ó ·ó ¬ó ³ó æ (@MissEllieMae) January 13, 2019
― mh, Monday, 14 January 2019 20:18 (five years ago) link
i love the sentiment of that quote but it badly needed an edit to trim it down :(
― mark s, Monday, 14 January 2019 20:23 (five years ago) link
booooooooo
― j., Tuesday, 15 January 2019 05:32 (five years ago) link
xp fair
― mh, Tuesday, 15 January 2019 20:21 (five years ago) link
i love you, k-punk but that quote is so garbled i'm amazed that someone thought it should go on a wall.
― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Tuesday, 15 January 2019 20:25 (five years ago) link
"we can have better things and the people who tell you otherwise have reasons"
― mh, Tuesday, 15 January 2019 20:28 (five years ago) link
― Pierrot with a thousand farces (wins), Tuesday, 15 January 2019 20:37 (five years ago) link
http://mattiswiedmann.co.uk/how-many-have-we-lost-due-to-our-failure-to-treat-them-as-comrades/
The main takeaway from the lecture was an emphasis on the importance of comradeship. How many have have we lost due to our failure to treat them as comrades? This does not mean, as Dean emphatically said during the Q&A, that justice for wrongdoing goes out of the window, merely that it is important for us to acknowledge that people change, and that we should be more willing to allow people a path back to the movement, not to simple ācancelā individuals for good once they say something slightly out of line, the credo of the twitter call-out, the social media whirlpool of knee jerk and absolutist moral judgements which forms the heart of so much modern politicizing.It was stirring stuff, despite her concession that her deeply apocalyptic framing of capitalism may not have made anyone feel good about themselves, and the lecture left off on distinctly positive sentiments. It may have been divisive to some, but the message of comradeship, of abstract political belonging, is one that feels apt to any emancipatory desire, for how can we hope to get anything done if we hole up inside our cocoons, so assured of our importance as individuals? To create we must act, to act we must think we act, and to act and think effectively we must think and act relationally. We must in Spinozist terms generate encounters of joy, and to do this we must work together, as Comrades, not as the mythic hero acting alone to save the planet. For the collective is the embodiment of action, the action of embodiment. It seems like a painfully obvious point, but it is when we act for and with others that may reach for the communist horizon and find our way out of the murk of Capitalism.
It was stirring stuff, despite her concession that her deeply apocalyptic framing of capitalism may not have made anyone feel good about themselves, and the lecture left off on distinctly positive sentiments. It may have been divisive to some, but the message of comradeship, of abstract political belonging, is one that feels apt to any emancipatory desire, for how can we hope to get anything done if we hole up inside our cocoons, so assured of our importance as individuals? To create we must act, to act we must think we act, and to act and think effectively we must think and act relationally. We must in Spinozist terms generate encounters of joy, and to do this we must work together, as Comrades, not as the mythic hero acting alone to save the planet. For the collective is the embodiment of action, the action of embodiment. It seems like a painfully obvious point, but it is when we act for and with others that may reach for the communist horizon and find our way out of the murk of Capitalism.
― j., Tuesday, 22 January 2019 04:58 (five years ago) link
The above K-Punk quote seems a bit overtaken by events now. I think he originally applied it to neo-liberalism, and how neo-liberal capitalism presented itself as some sort of "natural order". Of course, in the brexit/trump era, we're seeing neo-liberalism replaced with something even worse
― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 22 January 2019 05:50 (five years ago) link
https://k-postpunk.blogspot.com/2019/01/and-jesus-said-follow-me-and-i-will.html
an epigone! bloomian!!!
― j., Friday, 1 February 2019 17:22 (five years ago) link
Neoliberal capitalism still positions itself that way tbh
― resident hack (Simon H.), Friday, 1 February 2019 17:30 (five years ago) link
His ideas of cyberspace-time and the dominant mood of modern capitalism being anxiety, not boredom as in the past, are beyond vital. Iām happy there is still such interest in his work.
― TrĻµĻµship, Friday, 1 February 2019 17:49 (five years ago) link
excellent long review of the collected works:https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2019/02/28/long-read-review-k-punk-the-collected-and-unpublished-writings-of-mark-fisher-2004-2016-by-mark-fisher-edited-by-darren-ambrose-with-simon-reynolds/
― Neil S, Friday, 1 March 2019 15:52 (five years ago) link
in my (not so long) review i also forgot to say "why doesn't this 800-page book have a fkn index?" even tho it is literally the book's biggest and most obvious failing
― mark s, Friday, 1 March 2019 16:23 (five years ago) link
While some of the distinctive qualities of the blog are indeed absent, the book compensates for this by providing a clearer sense of continuity than is available from posts accessed individually via a web browser.
Show your workings...it doesn't sound like the collection is giving a lot more than what Capitalist Realism does.
Reading through the review I have a feeling of not wanting to read anymore around that brand of anglo anti-middlebrow culture like Joy Division/The Fall/Ballard/Cronenberg. It never reckons with the limitations that kind of escapism provided and the reviewer doesn't address how that stuff totally bypasses the younger left ppl he connected with.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 1 March 2019 16:52 (five years ago) link
all that stuff maybe not but KP also raves abt moloko!
i want fizzles to explain why the three-part fall essay is bad not good
― mark s, Friday, 1 March 2019 21:54 (five years ago) link
i'm not sure i'd say it was bad not good. i remember reading it and thinking it was great that someone was going in deep on The Fall in ways that I also found interesting. There were things that I disagreed with iirc, but that may just have been hair-splitting. I'll give it a re-read and report back.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 2 March 2019 19:22 (five years ago) link
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-necessity-of-being-judgmental-on-k-punk-the-collected-and-unpublished-writings-of-mark-fisher/
― j., Saturday, 9 March 2019 22:58 (five years ago) link