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Marina Abroamovic:

The underlying question in all of this is, of course: why? Why put yourself though such suffering in the name of art? Abramovic has no easy answers to that question. “I am obsessive always, even as a child,” she says, suddenly serious, and, for the first time, pausing for thought. “On one side is this strict orthodox religion, on the other is communism, and I am this little girl pulled between the two. It makes me who I am. It turns me into the kind of person that Freud would have a field day with, for sure.” She hoots with laughter again and reaches for the English tea.

…

“The brother of my grandfather was the patriarch of the Orthodox Church and revered as a saint. So everything in my childhood is about total sacrifice, whether to religion or to communism. This is what is engraved on me. This is why I have this insane willpower. My body is now beginning to be falling apart, but I will do it to the end. I don’t care. With me it is about whatever it takes.”

compare: the Hunger Artist, Ashley Z’s ‘private performance’, pornography

Benjamin Disraeli’s father, Isaac D’Israeli, was apparently a bookworm of monomaniac dedication. According to his son:

He was himself a complete literary character, a man who really passed his life in his library. Even marriage produced no change in these habits; he rose to enter the chamber where he lived alone with his books, and at night his lamp was ever lit within the same walls. Nothing, indeed, was more remarkable than the isolation of this prolonged existence;

One of his projects was Curiosities of Literature, an immense notebook full of whatever had struck him over a lifetime of reading.

He seems to have had a particular fondness for anecdotes of people more book-obsessed than himself. For example Anthony Magliabechi, the extreme case of the reader-hoarder. This is the kind of person who in other circumstances would open a secondhand bookshop, sell almost nothing, but sit all day surrounded by piles of books.

the passage below stairs was full of books, and the staircase from the top to the bottom was lined with them. When you reached the second story, you saw with astonishment three rooms, similar to those below, equally full, so crowded, that two good beds in these chambers were also crammed with books.

This apparent confusion did not, however, hinder Magliabechi from immediately finding the books he wanted. He knew them all so well, that even to the least of them it was suffiicient to see its outside, to say what it was; and indeed he read them day and night, and never lost sight of any. He ate on his books, he slept on his books, and quitted them as rarely as possible… Nothing could be more simple than his mode of life; a few eggs, a little bread, and some water, were his ordinary food.

[Via Bruce Sterling’s latest State of the World discussion thread.]

Somewhat surprised that I’ve yet to encounter a gay bar, or similar, called the

Large Hardon Collider

. Too much spontaneous sniggering at the time, insufficient organization to solidify and institutionalise the bad jokes

Adam Curtis, via Charlie Brooker:

“What I’m hoping they’ll do is pull back like in a helicopter and look at themselves and think about how they’re a product of history, and of power, and politics, as much as a product of their own little inner desires. We’re all part of a big historical age. That’s just what we are. And, sometimes, we forget.”

Europe: Not just boring, but old:

Now the Europeans really do seem to be acting old — not

delusionary and bewildered, like the USA, but elderly, crotchety. Bent

over their knitting.

Without Americans and Soviets around to boss and screech at

them, the Europeans are obsessed with immigration and internal

minorities. It’s all about the lazy, job-stealing Polish plumber or

the North African guy next door who killed a goat in his bathtub….

Obviously immigration is a big deal for small, relatively homogenous

societies with big language and heritage issues. But something about

this pervasive anxiety really makes contemporary Europeans seem feeble

and small-minded. These used to be massive, globe-spanning,

imperial states. Even in the Cold War, they were at least the major

pieces on the planetary chessboard. Now you can ask what the glorious

European Project is about, and it’s mostly about a cushy retirement

for what’s left of their managerial class. Europe’s younger generation

is getting one of the rawest deals you can imagine.

I do somewhat try to overlook politicians saying silly things — most of us are intermittently idiotic, and are just lucky not to be constantly filmed. Still, when the stupid is both extreme and premeditated, we’re surely allowed a bit of mockery.

First: Michael Gove takes ‘Red Tory’ in a bewildering direction, declares himself proud to be a Maoist. Because when you’re introducing such an extreme

attack on

modernization of the education system, you run out of models to follow. And China has the best example* in living memory* of how to annihilate education (and much else) in only a few years. So of course Gove wants “

in education…to implement a cultural revolution just like the one they’ve had in China

“. [The whole article is a spectacular case of “what was he thinking?”] [via jacinthsong]

Meanwhile in the US, the incoming chair of the House subcommittee on energy and the environment**, apparently believes that the Bible guarantees us no climate change

So I want to start with Genesis 8, verse 21 and 22. “Never again will I curse the ground because of man…” I believe that’s the infallible word of God, and that’s the way it’s going to be for His creation.

…

The second verse comes from Matthew 24. “And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood. And I appreciate having panelists here who are men of faith, and we can get into the theological discourse of that position, but I do believe God’s word is infallible, unchanging, perfect.

So, in order to get him taking climate change seriously, we need him to believe we’re living in the end-times?

* Or almost; I guess the Khmer Rouge still have the edge. Fortuantely Phnom Penh wasn’t on Gove’s itinerary.

** I’ve no idea if this is an important committee, or just a dumping ground for annoying congresscritters. I hope the latter.