sisyphus-i - Tumblr blog

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'Therefore, the American dream cannot be blamed for being merely a dream: that is precisely how it wants to be, drawing all its power from the fact that it is a dream.' (Gilles Deleuze: John Ford)

Ethel Cain: 'The American Dream is unachievable'

Land of Hope and Dreams - Bruce Springsteen

"But it seems that what matters for John Ford is that the community can hold certain illusions about itself. That would be the great difference between healthy environments and pathogenic ones. Jack London wrote beautiful passages to show that, ultimately, the alcoholic community has no illusions about itself. Far from making one dream, alcohol 'refuses to let the dreamer dream'; it acts like 'pure reason' that convinces us that life is a masquerade, the community a jungle, and life, a despair (hence the alcoholic’s sneer). The same could be said of criminal communities. On the contrary, a community is healthy as long as a sort of consensus reigns that allows it to maintain illusions about itself, about its motives, desires, ambitions, values, and ideals: 'vital' illusions, realistic illusions more true than pure truth. This is also Ford’s view, who, as early as 'The Informer,' depicted the almost expressionist degradation of a betraying informer, in that he could no longer hold any illusions. Therefore, the American dream cannot be blamed for being merely a dream: that is precisely how it wants to be, drawing all its power from the fact that it is a dream. Society changes and constantly evolves, for Ford as for Vidor, but its changes occur within an Embracing Whole that covers them and blesses them with a healthy illusion of continuity in the nation. Ultimately, American cinema has never ceased to make and remake the same fundamental film, which was the Birth of a Nation-civilization, of which Griffith had given the first version." Gilles Deleuze: CINEMA 1, The Movement-Image, The Action-Image: The Large Form

Video: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Land of Hope and Dreams (Live in New York City)

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Edgar Allan Poe, from a letter to Mrs. Maria Clemm, July 1849

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Unknown Bear

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"You were in my dreams last night" yeah our souls have been clawing through our chests to get to each other since we met but I'm glad you noticed

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Sheep on moped, Australia - unknown photographer

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i have a theory that any franchise that lasts long enough eventually becomes incestuous and ends up eating its own tail, thematically. stories in these franchises can only ever comment on themselves

i think a lot about what alan moore said about his work on the killing joke, about how hollow it is in hindsight since the theme really just boils down to "batman and the joker are kinda similar when you think about it", which i suppose is a pretty novel observation, certainly changes the way i read batman comics, but what is there in that insight for me as a human being living in the real world that i can apply to my actual life? not a whole lot. all it can do is reward emotional investment in the brand of batman. if you don't really give a shit about batman there's nothing there for you.

the disney era of star wars is especially bad about this. by and large they're really just about our relationship to star wars. even the last jedi, which tries to be a little more critical about it, still can't break out of the thematic black hole the franchise has become. andor is possibly the only exception to this, and i steadfastly believe that was a total fluke. don't get it twisted, andor is good despite its connection to star wars, not because of it, and if it were just an original tv show about resisting space fascism, it would probably be better for it (if less popular). we're all lowkey dreading the second season bc we know that no star wars property can resist devolving into a nostalgia wank fest forever

there's nothing inherently wrong with hollow entertainment, but i do think there's something grotesque about pumping the gdp of a small nation into an entertainment product that doesn't aspire to be anything more than an advertisement for itself

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the sick irony of the new yorker in 2024 bravely and unflinchingly obtaining and publishing previously hidden photos of usmilitary massacres of iraqi civilians in 2005 to reveal the horror of those atrocities to the public, when in 2003 the editor in chief david remnick famously and controversially published a piece "making a case" for the military intervention in iraq and then in the leadup to the war they published a number of articles basically manufacturing consent for it using claims from unnamed sources or just parrotting usgovt statements that were ultimately proven false (all while the new yorker in real time continues to manufacture consent for israel's genocide of gaza)

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If your boss could, they would work you to death and dump your body behind your workplace without the police caring. If they cannot do this to you right now, that is historically contingent - they used to be able to do this to you, they currently can do this to other people, and in the future they will likely be able to do this to you again. The only thing that has ever prevented them from doing so is worker organisation and violent resistance against violence. You are livestock to the ruling class. Never trick yourself into thinking that these people will not slaughter you as soon as it benefits them, and do not avert your eyes from the slaughter now.

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one must imagine sisyphus happy

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Whenever I try and relate the core problem with the Barbie movie to somebody, I just say the phrase "BARBIE GENOCIDE MONUMENT". It's pretty much been burned into my brain from thinking about that one detail so much.

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respecting chappel roans privacy and boundaries by not listening to her music

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““What I believe” is a process rather than a finality. Finalities are for gods and governments, not for the human intellect.”

— Emma Goldman, “What I Believe”, New York World, 19 July 1908

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16 days to 2015 and I still think I’m in 2012

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Emily Dickinson