Now comes the invigorating voice of philosopher Costica Bradatan, author of In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility, on order here at DP HQ. A recent interview in the LARB is worth close reading in its entirety; an excerpt below, with an image added by DP.
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On a day when the courageous voice of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has been silenced by “a small man in a bunker”, we offer a passage from his bold & lucid statement made during a court hearing in 2021:
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Now comes The Republic of Imagination, a fascinating exploration of American literature written by the distinguished Iranian American author Azar Nafisi, who was expelled from the University of Tehran in 1981 for refusing to wear the veil, an early post-revolutionary harbinger of more severe repression to come. Though dating from 2014, Nafisi’s words continue to resonate ever more strongly today.
A few salient paragraphs below, with an image added by DP: a spiral galaxy as observed through the Webb telescope.
FIRESTORM FOR THE IMAGINATION
We note Nafisi’s more recent book, Read Dangerously; on our list for 2024!
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No, we are not referencing the village of cannibals among The Walking Dead, but rather the world’s most recent spasm of human supremacist oblivion, being a bloated vessel christened by “iconic” genius of global footie Leo Messi, here transmuted into a feckless shill for commercial whatevs; a megametamaxi casserole of kitsch launched (perversely) as “Icon of the Seas.” Below, a few images from the promo video; captions added by DP.
MOTHER OCEAN NOT WELCOME INSIDE THIS STORY
ICON OF THE ME, ME & ME: STICK A FORK IN IT
PASSENGER PREPARES TO BE FLUSHED
SO MUCH PASTA REQUIRES A LENGTHY DIGESTIVE TRACT
BAKE FOR TWO WEEKS AT 350 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT AND THEN PROCEED TO THE VOMITORIUM
APPARENT SIMULACRUM OF A GHOST MALL IN PARAMUS NEW JERSEY INVADED BY A HOVERCRAFT IN THE SHAPE OF A SUPPOSITORY.
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Courtesy of a faithful DP correspondent aware of our keen interest in abandoning an entrenched ethos of Human Supremacism, now comes Geneen Marie Haugen, a guide to the experiential, intertwined mysteries of nature and psyche with the Animas Valley Institute.
ENTWINED MYSTERIES
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This week, we relay a graphic from a Guardian report that was on the front page this morning, yet not this afternoon. Apparently, the all-powerful Algorithm (nicknamed “Oz”) has decided there have not been sufficient eyeballs scanning the page to justify a front page spotlight any longer.
No surprise, given ongoing widespread lethargy and complacence in the face of a crisis that will soon be irreversible.
One person who understands the dire implications of the above: Andrew Dessler, a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A & M, who provided us with our title by stating, “Every year for the rest of your life will be one of the hottest [on] record. This in turn means that 2023 will end up being one of the coldest years of this century. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
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As relayed from the Webb telescope:
Grateful for the ever-expanding circles of DP correspondence and community.
With best wishes for a creative and joyful New Year;
more soon.
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ADORATION OF THE MAGI circa1390
Above, as relayed from the Met Cloisters ; below, Philip Stopford’s glorious setting for There is No Rose of Such Virtue.
Against the senseless blather of COP 28, which has disintegrated into a desert rave for fossil fuel lobbyists, we offer three simple graphs that confirm we are a long way from facing the brutal truth of our deepening crisis:
Reality is what’s still there when you stop believing in it.
(DP, with a nod to PKD)
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As the world’s hapless & increasingly irrelevant climocrats gather, in oil-stained Dubai of all places, to perform their annual COP Theatre of Blah Blah Blah, we bend an ear to the voice of philosopher and deep ecologist Roman Krznaric, via an interview earlier this year. Every word rings more loudly with each passing moon.
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Desperado Philosophy 