The Blanchot School of Management

cvm 09:48: Am also re-reading Blanchot in order to protect own wanker status; “Act in such a way that I can speak to you.” – “Yes, but do you have any idea of what I should do to accomplish that?” – “Persuade me that you hear me.” – “Well, then, begin; speak to me.” – “How could I begin to speak if you do not hear me?” (Blanchot 5)

rheiner 10:01: I love it. Resolve to conduct next business meeting along similar lines. “Before I start this meeting I’d like everyone to consider exactly the possibility or extent to which one might be able to “speak” to an/Other.”

<ten minute silence; occassional shuffling noises>

cvm 10:20: It could be like one of those motivational speaker workplace exercises except it ends with half the room in existential crisis and the other half singing the Marseillaise whilst contructing barricades with the office furniture.

You survey this scene with a gallic sense of satisfaction and reward yourself with another Pernod. And another lover.

More (unsuccessful) letter writing for the revolution

So, John Howard says he accepts that most Australians oppose the sale of the Snowy Hydro scheme, but he still believes it is the right decision. (Snowy sale’s no scandal, says PM). Hang on. In Dublin, just a few days ago, wasn’t Howard justifying his stance on same-sex marriage by saying that the majority of Australians don’t want it? Assuming Howard’s claims are correct, why is he willing to do the ‘right’ thing in the name of the Snowy, but not in the name of social equality?

Oh, that’s right. He’s a hypocrite.

Mocking the Catholic Church: easy and fun

This man (on the left, wearing a fabulous vintage chiffon-lined Dior gold lamé gown over a silk Vera Wang empire waist tulle cocktail dress, accessorized with a 3-foot beaded peaked House of Whoville hat, and the ruby slippers Judy Garland wore in The Wizrd of Oz) is worried that The Da Vinci Code might make the Roman Catholic Church look foolish.

mix:tape 2 – The Sound of the Office Splitting

II: The Sound of the Office Splitting Look, part two of an ongoing series! The following tracks have been keeping me from licking the powerpoint or going on a postal rampage in the office the past few weeks. Alas, they weren’t quite good enough to keep me from throwing a brochure across the room this past week. Although I still haven’t blurted out “if I puked in a fountain pen and mailed it to the monkey house I’d get better copy than this!” so all is not yet lost.

01 Sigur Rós Ó Friður 02 Audrey Mecklenburg 03 Ane Brun To Let Myself Go 04 Anja Garbarek Dizzy With Wonder 05 Brooks Man-Size 06 Ellen Allien + Apparat Under 07 Tujiko Noriko むぢんきゅうこう 08 Françoiz Breut La Boîte de Nuit 09 Film School He’s a DeepDeep Lake 10 Pakku Spectators 11 Aoki Takamasu + Tujiko Noriko Alien 12 Joanna Newsom Peach Plum Pear 13 Bear Quartet The Repairing of the Red Sea 14 Apparat Organ Quartet Sofðu Litla Vél 15 Tortoise + Bonnie Prince Billy Thunder Road 16 Barbara Morgenstern + Robert Lippok Kaitusburi 17 Set Fire to Flames Steal Compass/Drive North/Disappear…

Gay haiku

You were perfection,

Then you misspelled “embarrassed”.

Don’t call me again.

Publishing success at last

Finally: publishing notoriety is mine. Cast your eye in the direction of today’s SMH if you will. Kusjes aan Claudia voor de inspiratie.

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The suggestion that the murder of one kind of person is “worse” than another is not only getting into very murky ethical waters, it would also result in a sentencing minefield (Debnam vows police killers will get life, May 11). Lucky, then, that Peter Debnam says his bill is “not going to leave the discretion with the judiciary on the sentence”. So much unnecessary confusion arises when the judiciary is independent of the government.

How, exactly, do we calculate the relative value of a police officer’s life over anyone else’s? Can you knock over two school teachers and a pharmacist for the same sentence as you would get for a beat cop? Is a detective sergeant worth more than the guy holding the breathalyser tube? At the moment it’s just a little too “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” for my liking.

A note on personal hygiene

Memo to straight men everywhere, but particularly straight men with whom I find myself sharing a gym changing room:

Lynx deoderant does not smell good. It does not make you hot. It will not make women fawn all over you. There is a reason you can get it at Woolworths for just $2.99. It smells like flyspray. I don’t care how bulky your chest is or how toned your biceps are, Lynx deoderant makes you repellent. This is not a difficult concept. You know, you’d smell better with nothing in your armpits except sweat, and not just because I like that kind of thing. Lynx deoderant is one of those things we use to separate us from them. It marks you out as someone who still lives at home, or at College; and there is nothing appealing about a fragrance (for want of a better word) that conjures up nothing but the mental sensation of a sixteen year old’s bedroom. I’m not trying to get all Queer Eye for the Straight Guy here, but I just thought you should know. So that the next time I’m admiring your physique in the changeroom I don’t suddenly erupt in a fit of coughing and have to start taking deep breaths from my Issey Miyake bottle.

Thank you.

Nous y voila

Françoiz Breut | Sydney | @Newtown

intro
motus
sur le balcon
une ville allongée sur le dos
please be angry
ciudad del mar
la certitude
le verre pilé
km 83
boîte de nuit
le premier bonheur du jour
sans souci
derrière le grand filtre
over all
si tu disais
l’origine du monde
plain gold ring
—————
ma colère
le ravin
everyone kisses a stranger
—————
my wedding man

What would Deleuze eat now?

Thankfully, Air China has finally provided the answer to the question of what Deleuze would eat inflight:

From the Air China website:

Indian vegans diet
It excludes meat, fish, eggs, dairy, game animal products, seafood, and rhizome such as ginger, garlic, onion and potato.