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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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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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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Here at DP, we are often accused of being Late Adopters. Not true; we are Early Rejecters!
For example, every member of the editorial staff at our vast mountainside scriptorium proudly carries an ancient flip phone and writes picture postcards to our global network of correspondents. Thus we shouted our collective affirmation upon reading a recent Earth Tongues posting by fellow Early Rejecter Eileen Crist, regarding use of AI.
The entire (concise & lucid) essay is worthy of close consideration; a brief excerpt below, with DP editorial emphasis in bold.
“The technosphere, defined as the total mass of all things manmade, now weighs more than all living things. It has taken over the face of the Earth and remains tenacious in its colonizing march. The technosphere has subjugated land, seas, and animals. It has smashed the atom, disassembled life, and projected itself into outer space. Now, the technosphere wants to take over, to replace, our thinking and our creative expressions; it so innocently offers to “assist in the content creation process.”
Methinks, NO. I do not want to know what AI “thinks.” I especially do not want AI to think or write for me. Additionally, I decide not to consider its input. This position is not motivated by prejudice against machines and by attachment to my cherished human distinction from them. Rather, in a world so slavish and reckless in every regard toward technology, with no evidenced capacity for either restraint or free choice, it behooves us to draw personal boundaries mindfully decided.”
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Now comes the Equal Justice Initiative, announcing the creation of yet another dimension to their profoundly transformative work, bringing obscured or suppressed histories fully into the light.
Below, we relay the press release together with a video link.
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Opening early 2024, the new 17-acre Freedom Monument Sculpture Park will bring together history, narrative, large-scale sculptures, contemporary art commissions from many of the greatest living artists, a new National Monument to Freedom honoring enslaved people who were emancipated after the Civil War, and many historic artifacts that together create an immersive, multifaceted examination of America’s history with a focus on slavery and its legacy.
The Sculpture Park will join EJI’s award-winning Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice to form the Legacy Sites. The Sculpture Park fuses the power of art with history, animates the humanity and struggle of enslaved Black Americans, and sheds light on our nation’s history. Designed to be experienced as one journey, visitors are encouraged to visit all three Legacy Sites.
The Freedom Monument Sculpture park will feature newly commissioned works by artists including Alison Saar and Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, alongside major sculptures from Wangechi Mutu, Rose B. Simpson, Theaster Gates, and Kehinde Wiley.
The National Monument to Freedom will be the highlight of the experience. Standing 43 feet tall and over 150 feet long, the Monument will honor all four million enslaved Black people who were emancipated at the end of the Civil War by memorializing more than 120,000 unique surnames documented at the time.
The Monument will celebrate the courageous survivors of this horrific era by recognizing the families they created and millions of their descendants, many of whom still carry the names chosen by their formerly enslaved foreparents.
The plaza surrounding the National Monument will feature writings from Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and James Weldon Johnson. Visitors will be able to honor formerly enslaved people by placing flowers in a stream that flows next to the Monument.
Space for reflection, remembrance, and contemplation will mark the conclusion of the journey through Freedom Monument Sculpture Park.
“In order to deepen our collective understanding of racial injustice and its impact on contemporary issues, our country must reckon with the painful history and legacy of slavery,” said EJI Director Bryan Stevenson. “Historical examination and memorialization are critical to help move us forward and build healthier communities, and we’re honored to work with some of the greatest contemporary artists to provide a cultural space for all visitors to engage with this vital part of history.”
“Slavery touched almost every corner of the world—from the Americas to Africa and Europe—and we invite everyone to visit Freedom Monument Sculpture Park for a profound experience that will illuminate challenging aspects of our past, while inspiring a more hopeful future shaped by truth and justice.”
Situated on the banks of the Alabama River, where tens of thousands of enslaved Black people were trafficked by boat and rail, the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park creates an immersive experience in a historically significant physical space where visitors can deepen their knowledge and understanding of history, the power of art, and the importance of justice.
More details about the opening of Freedom Monument Sculpture Park will be announced in the coming months.
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Desperado Philosophy 