#9 Delanda Harman;The Rise of Realism

[thehumoredhost]

Dear Murray, 

I have been unable to reply any sooner to your last letter which reached me quite some time ago. [8] I have read it twenty times. [3] There is too much irony in it, it is too knowing to be serious. [5] There is still much I don't even begin to understand, but for seven days, the bits have been clumping together into a vague picture. [7] I don't see how this could work [9]. I don't like it.[7]

Your plan contains a central tower a central observation post [10],giving you a stage to ‘talk’, with not only Venetian blinds on the windows of the central observation hall, but, on the inside, partitions that intersected the hall at right angles and, in order to pass from one quarter to the other, not doors but zig zag openings; for the slightest noise, a gleam of light, a brightness in a half opened door would betray the presence of the comedian, you[11] I wonder will you allow us totalk. [13] With you every statement is converted to a rhetorical question. [5] Always talking, never giving, staying in a good position in irreversible logic. [12] This device, by itself, politicises talking,[5] it automatizes and disindividualizes power [11]

What goals are such systems designed to achieve?[14] It’s not just you; nobody, appears to know exactly what anyone else is talking about, the terms of discussion having become either too generic or too divergent to achieve any mutual understanding. [15] People talk about you a bit: forget you. [13] They wonder if they should talk any, or talk the whole time, or what to talk about.[16]Our mind cannot embrace many objects or many situations at the same time. [17] What if there is no word, real or fabricated, which will accomplish that? [18] What will you do then?

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what all this talk of “issues" is about. [18] We know how greatly laws are disregarded during war, when all things are under the control of violence rather than reason [19] War and chaos there might have been, but these were hardly new phenomena in the recent history. [20] The body, the statue, our knowledges or memories, libraries or cenotaphs: all imprison the phantom by denying its existence. [21] lt is far easier for us to imagine chaos than the proper proportions of the universe. [17] Talking ,in this case, is just pointless. Words to put you to sleep, wine to put you to sleep, words and wine to put the tragic and comic of existence to sleep.No bread for the poor, no love for the men, no wine for the feasts, nothing, always nothing, wind, nothing but wind. [ 22]

In your letter you say: I executed this project slowly, and at different times, but with as much application and care as I was capable of employing, being fully persuaded that the repose of my life and future happiness depended on it. [3]

So I would like to know if you have any clarifications on this point, because this is what I'm thinking: [23]Happiness without glass   how stupid is that![24]

I believe that the mystery which defeats me is a mockery, a joke, that is played on me.[25] Verily, you comedians are the most pleasant people in point of tongue and the subtlest in jest, and this is but a joke of thine; but all times are not good for funning and jesting.[26]

You’re such fun, always joking, you’re so clever at it, nothing that you thought was serious ever seems to be when you’re around, and yet you're a very serious man. [27] However, it remains questionable whether you, for your part, can really be serious about the antithesis to it: "to mean it seriously.” [28]

Just a little heart to heart talk.[13]This friend, in whose company you are jesting, is in fear. [29]I see your peace of mind is in danger…For a condemned man, a mask is not a mask, it is a shelter. [2] It’s an obsession with you, it isn’t natural that you should always be talking about it. [30]

I know, you won’t listen. I know you’ll do exactly as you please and write it off as a joke. If you’re going to talk, then talk so we can hear you! Talk about centralisation! [25] Talk about superfluous overpackaging! [30]Talk of mysteries! [32] Talk about an irresistible offer! [16]Talk about apple dumplings, piuttosto. All a kind of attempt to talk. Talk: as if that would mend matters. [13] But don’t you dare make me a part of it! 

Istanbul 

#1 Aquinas;Summa Theologica #2 Hugo; Les Miserables #3 Rousseau;Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau #4 Eliade; The Sacred and The Profane #5 Carter; Shaking A Leg #6 Abulafia; The Boundless Sea #7 Asimov;Complete Robot Anthology #8 Spinoza; Complete Works #9 Delanda Harman;The Rise of Realism #10 Giedion; Space Time and Architecture #11Foucault; Discipline and Punish #12 Serres;The Parasite #13 Joyce; Ulysses #14 Russell Norvig; Artificial Intelligence #15 Costelloe; The Sublime #16 Hovestadt Buehlmann; Quantum City #17 Harrison Wood Gaiger; Art in Theory 1648 1815 #18 Hofstadter; Godel Escher Bach #19 Calvin; Harmony of the Law Vol 2 #20 Burke; Rethinking the High Renaissance #21 Serres; The Five Senses #22 Serres; The Parasite #23 Deleuze; Desert Islands and Other Texts #24 Leatherbarrow Eisenschmidt; Twentieth Century Architecture #25 Marx; Collected Works #26 The Book of the Thousand and One Nights #27 Rand; The Fountainhead #28 Sloterdijk; Critique of Cynical Reason #29 Seneca; Complete Works #30 Proust; In Search of Lost Time Vol V The Captive The Fugitive