1 The Color Purple 3 { A bildungsroman. A trilogy response. [ ] A hand- book to courtship, a primer on glam. Gestalt documen- tary. Literary crossdressing, the feminine as form. Does form transform content? [ ] Literary criticism on the writing of Maggie Nelson, Ottessa Moshfegh, Chris Kraus, McKenzie Wark, Kathy Acker, Anne Carson, Andrea Long Chu, Tavi Gevinson, and Phoebe Waller- Bridge. A fog of confusion. A record of [ch-ch-ch-ch-] changes. The good-bad bad-good years, the years be- tween, entre-deux-guerres. 5 , Eberly College of Science, 2011 press release: “They found that the growing fungus filled the ant’s body and head, causing muscles to atrophy and forcing muscle fibers to spread apart. The scientists observed that the zombie ants walked in a random manner, unable to find I. their way home.” } B: How can you watch a bunch of Girls episodes and then feel embarrassed about your gchat rants? This is life. :// Let the person who wants a vision hang himself by his neck. When his face turns purple, take him down and have him describe what he’s seen.1 :// Pothos (Greek: Πόθος “yearning”): one of Aphrodite’s erotes and brother to Himeros and Eros. In some versions of myth, Pothos is the son of Eros, or is portrayed as an independent aspect of him.[5] He was part of Aphrodite’s retinue, and carried a vine, indicating a connection to wine or the god Dionysus. Pothos represents longing or yearning.[17] 1 Kelsey, Bernadette Corp. 7 “Somewhere along the way I lost my nerve” I said at one shutting out light. I thought about waiting it out until the point, “and only now am I wondering if I can recover it.” endtime. Pothos, it merely takes believing to believe. In the bar, actors trau- Maybe I perked up, hungry for a second. Maybe I thought matized by the business of professional vulnerability, worn about this hunger, weighed it against the costs of getting thin inside from keeping double books, the private/pub- out of bed. Breaking a state. Undergoing change. Having lic ledgers.// Romantic relationships that require turning to readjust the self. Getting up; settling back in. Again... parts of your brain off.// I was having one of my fanta- Settle back again... Again I settled back again. sies—I forget specifically which; one of those daydreams endemic to the under-30, these being fantasies of death, Perhaps I laid down on sweaty sheets and stretched my fantasies of consummation, fantasies of power. shoulders, gave into all the tugging things, the longings and desires. Perhaps I turned to the dark side of the room. The Lou Reed’s vision of a city as machine of transformation, lavender turns deeper violet in the corner where the early not unlike the old immigrant ceremony where fresh-off- light can’t reach. the-boat’ers lined up in Old World dress, climbed into a lit- eral & symbolic pewter pot 20 feet wide, were ceremonially ∞ smelted emerging reborn in New World garb. In the morning, thinking of G & Himeros, commuting Drink: a 1:2 ratio the Goldilocks zone for a gin and ton- to work. :// “…reading Nietzsche in the subway, read- ic// Ep. notes at home: the thrill of the Chuck-Blaire pair- ing Proust, reading David Foster Wallace, jotting down ing-off == the thrill of raw (social) power in play, pulling [...] brilliant thoughts into a black Moleskine pocket note- out stops, pursuing ends. Prohibition never stood a chance book… The worst was that those guys tried to pass off their 1 next to exhibition.// um, like… I would just describe the writing insecurity as ‘sensitivity,’ and it worked.” style as taking that blaknwhite 70s New York style and just dunking it A whiff of perfume. A switch from treating the self as Sys- in lavender techno synths? and I grinned. tem 1 to treating the self as System 2. From Cartesian du- The second century’s Aulus Gellius: «It is said that Demos- alism to brain-self monism to the idea that these desires are thenes in his dress and other personal habits was excessive- not you. A necessary coping: self as ferryman who shuttles ly spruce, elegant and studied. It was for that reason that he impulse to reality, and can elect to carry passengers. was taunted by his rivals and opponents with his “exquisite, Young women with xerophthalmia. Silver boots and a pretty mantles” and “soft, pretty tunics”;25 for that reason, raincoat cum peignon. Entropic prophecies of personal too, that they did not refrain from applying to him foul and collapse, self-imposed limitations on personal agency, these shameful epithets, alleging that he was no man and was being the only outcomes one can, if desired, ensure with even guilty of unnatural vice.» reasonable certainty. Love is a speech act. A Milo jumpsuit, When I tried to sleep I thought of Beckett’s Endgame. I oat, with pockets the size of paperbacks. Thee who spends thought about putting the lids on the garbage cans and 1 Moshfegh, My Year of Rest & Relaxation, 2018 9 time underground. Sea Witch, between 21st and 22nd, el Greco colors in a wall mural behind the tables where I wait for her. She cams To get the most out of Blunt’s Lost Souls, imagine the al- parttime; her hair is boyish, pixie. In bed, lips on a Co- bum as a knowing performance, a project by Stereolab or ca-Cola bottle. “What’s it like?” “Whatchu mean, prison?” Stephen Merrit in tribute to the Pumpkins’ “1979.” An ar- “No, armed robbery.” “It ain’t like anything.” Beat. “Shoot, rangement normcore but tight, a churning of minimalist I knew you never robbed a place you faker.” I draw a small pop songs that break into Wayne Coyne falsetto. //To ask gun, flick a matchstick between the teeth. She reaches out what happened and hear, «Gradually, then, he changed lightly, looks down at it. “But you wouldn’t have the gump- himself in my image. He became me in many parts of tion to use it.”3 It’ll be months before I see her again: from a himself, because we are not strong enough to behave oth- distance, dressed in the black-and-white uniform of her ca- erwise… My particular wommanness in him got to be as tering company, working at an art fair under a plastic tent. unbearable to me as, certainly, it is unbearable to him.» X: might not be able to relate anymore, now that i know how shame- At Cafe Bari a beautiful Swiftian Swede gives a 20% smile lessly Anglo your taste in women is. i mean damn. “lover of sheep... at the register. I tell you, I will not cede sexual power until it is and bernadette devlin”? that’s a borderline offensive stereotype of an properly acknowledged in the field of discourse as existing. This is my irish person. this is not an any way a defense of my own taste—last only political position! e-girl i had a crush on was a LA-based soundcloud rapper who made ironic/erotic flash games in 2014. i guess i don’t feel i can relate to the ://You have six stats. Meat is how physically adept your hobby of knitting/crocheting. “what are you doing, babe?” “perform- body is. Brains is how smart you are. Spark is how creative, ing gender.” “oh, nice!” alive, aware, and unfettered you are. Slack is how lucky and laid back you are, in the sense that higher Slack scores ∞ give you more affordance to roll with punches, AND fewer punches to roll with. Mana is how much force of will or Beach life. Ride life. Road life. Jeep life. Singles life. Dou- force of personality you have. Class is how well your social bles life. Part of the late-night crew. Study life. Greek life. aesthetics jive with other people’s.2 (Yeah, but it forgets seduc- Train life. Island life. Intern life. Acting out The Graduate. tion, only tangentially related to spark & mana.) Ship life. High life. Life!—kill yr tall boy. Hermit life, monk life, chaste life, van life. Shwick life; my unemployed ass. What was G like? She was high class. She was high mana, Tour life, grind life, studio time, public life, public hustle. smart. Not much slack but a lotta luck. She had a pied-à- Working to keep a single ledger, a single set of books, won- terre downtown. She never felt comfortable with food, or dering if its the easy way out or the hard one, noble or stu- with her relationship to it (second-order). She read Ottessa pid. Envying and not envying the riches available to savvy Moshfegh. double-keepers. ∞ I said, the Kantian imperative that art-making be for or about other people. 2 Drethelin, chatroom 3 Bonnie & Clyde, 1967 11 I said, “$400,” knowing you’ll balk. You say $250, I say say. This is what makes him sought-after.6 $325. Ze thinks ze2 isn’t taking ze seriously, so ze goes over- the-top with dogma and rhetoric to skew ze2’s response. 8. Perhaps nothing at all. I said, thank you Keren Cytter! 9. He of an agenda takes steps to ensure contact and consum- mation. These steps are inevitably legible. Only theee who I said, I started listening to Leonard Cohen. I said, I’d takes no steps to ensure consummation brings it, paradox- stayed away from Leonard Cohen for a while because of G. ically, about. 1. What the masculine entails is a calcification of self, a con- “I think I’m missing some chemicals and that’s why I have taining of the psyche.