#Socialist Hotels

[easternblocrelics]

1980s hotel room in the High Tatras Czechoslovakia

[gabrielsbubblegumbitch]

We need capitalist Vox jokes I simply can’t function without everybody’s favorite babygirl CEO committing mass atrocities against humanity 💔/j

Gentlemen, my fellow whites, let’s raise a glass to this pyramid of money. The foundation of which was built upon our favorite pastime: Fucking the poor!

[renest]

LUNIK (Die Blumen) / 17.08.2024

[troythecatfish]

[ilona-mushroom]

Not socialist in a “I won’t have to work” type of way but socialist in a “I’ll still be working but I won’t be worried I won’t make the rent” type of way. In a “billions won’t be hoarded by one person” type of way. In a “janitors, fast-food workers, child care workers, preschool teachers, hotel clerks, personal care and home health aides, and grocery store cashiers, will live comfortably” type of way. In a “the sick and elderly will be cared for” type of way. In a “no child should work” type of way.

[trollocks-in-my-bollocks]

Hello it's 35°C and I just had the worst disorienting nap

[herejusttosufferalong]

Luke is responsible for his choices, yes? Well he’s choosing Antonia. A zionist. There you go. That’s your Luke. Keep him away from fucking Nicola. Thank you

LMAO

Why are you so mad anon

What proof do you have that she is a zionist?

Also what does it matter to you if she is?

Is she over there dropping bombs or murdering people?

No, she did some promo for a hotel

I fear we might be coming to a point where the word Zionist is going to mean nothing just like Nazi, Commie or Socialist to the masses because of all the "boys who cried wolf"

Also, it's unfortunate but not everyone chooses work based around their political beliefs

[txttletale]

my favourite film of all time is pretty far from being socialist cinema, it's in fact deeply reactionary

What is your favourite film, if you don't mind me asking?

the grand budapest hotel. it's a beautiful meditation on loss and nostalgia and what it feels like when the world changes under your feet -- it's also very very reactionary, as with most of anderson's films and as is the natural tendency for films that use a broad-scoped social story to explore nostalgia. i like it a lot because i think it's the film that makes the best use out of his reactionary tendencies by actually raising an interesting critical lens to the nostalgia it's basking in, all but admitting that the past it longs for is a deluded fantasy. & also because it's a loving tribute to film history, beautifully directed, funny as fuck, and has some unbelievably good main performances.

[isawken]

disco elysium and transmasculinity:

i don't want to be this kind of animal anymore

there is no such thing as an inherently masculine trait, only those which we have culturally prescribed to be masculine. muscular, tall, strong, stoic. self-destructive. repressive. angry. unhinged. violent. addictive.

Disco Elysium markets itself with the tagline “what kind of cop are you?”. to put it bluntly: you get to choose what man you want to be. the actual gameplay mechanic is the game keeps track of your dialogue choices and, among other RPG things, neatly divvies them up into 4 main Cop Categories: Sorry Cop, Apocalypse Cop, Superstar Cop, Boring Cop. after some time establishing your identity you can branch off into 3 other copotypes: honor cop, art cop, and hobocop. These are all exactly what you think they would be.

a supremacist stands tall, immovable, shirtless, tattooed, in the way of one of your objectives, and if you let him he will tell you all the ways your body betrays your degeneracy. all the indulgences you make, with drugs and alcohol and sex, are allegedly clear as day written across your reddened swollen face. you are not a man. you are pathetic. a pair of women reassure his divine masculinity even when he admits his impotence. there’s no denying it: that’s one man of a man right there.

your former detective partner is an eternally scowling pockmark faced asshole. he approaches every interaction with you with a nice solid baseline of aggression. if you choose to put your points into something called “espirit de corps”, you get small vignettes of his previous actions. in one of them, it’s joked that you two are near-marital in your relationship. in some of them, he worries about you. muttering under his breath, mostly to himself, not unkindly. but he certainly never shows that to you face to face. 

two old men play pétanque outside every day by the sea. they have done this for years. they have known each other since they were kids. one is a fascist, the other a democratic socialst. if you’re nosy, you can go to the watchman’s post and find a picture of him, his socialist buddy, and a young woman whose attentions they supposedly both vied for. if you decide to become a fascist, the game gives you something more. your abilities Pain Threshold, Composure, Endurance, Volition, Conceptualization, and Inland Empire take turns showing you tiny slices of a truth viciously stamped beneath the heel of his brilliant boot. a love for his dear hated socialist. and when he dies, that socialist tells you the same. but they never told each other. never even came close. because how could you?

harry dubois wakes up face down ass up covered in piss and vomit and full of foggy confusion after drinking himself into amnesia. he's tall, he's got giant arms, a proud beer gut, and he's self-destructed himself into literal oblivion. this pitiful bastard doesn't even remember his own name. the first person he encounters outside of the hotel room in which he fucked himself up beyond his limbic system’s reach tells him at some point during his bingeful weekend she heard him scream, "i dont want to be this kind of animal anymore". you don’t know why you said this. but after a while you have some pretty good guesses.

i could talk forever about the unique circumstances of growing up as a girl in modern western society. but i have nothing interesting to say that hasn't already been said much more eloquently. learning to hate my body, learning to be afraid, learning that you need to want to be consumed. the eternal unpacking of all the issues a patriarchal society burdens you with. it never ends. but i've at least reached a point where i've done my base legwork. i know the oppression i've fought. it is nameable. i have labeled each and every patriarchal burden like a so many papers in a filing cabinet. few are going in the shredder, but at least they're known. next to that filing cabinet, i have a big pile of loose papers slowly sliding off a desk with the word "masculinity" in neon lights flickering above them. i want to dive into those papers. but the thought of it fills me with such apprehension. i've always wanted masculinity. i've purposefully adopted affectations to make myself more stereotypically masculine. most are hilariously shallow, and not exactly innovative. i smoked camels for 8 years. i drink my coffee black. i picked up a nice little alcohol habit. i've shoved down more feelings than i would ever willingly admit in the hopes to appear unbothered. I’ve told myself to “man the fuck up” my fair share of times. none of it got rid of my hips or my tits or my anxiety or my painfully high pitched voice. i’ve quit smoking. i sometimes think i should start again for many reasons, but one is in the hope that my voice will drop. just one octave. at least. it’s silly, i know. believe me. i know.

when harry drags his sorry ass out of that hotel room, he isn't free of his past. he has shadows in his mind reminding him of the things he's forgotten. shadows that still influence his views of masculinity. there is no way to truly escape the bitter leaden paint stuck to the inside of your mind so violently applied by our beloved patriarchal society. there is a hilarious dialogue option where, if you so choose, you can proclaim that you would never let anyone androgynous touch your hair. because the “others” (unnamed) would laugh at you. here we have a man who cant remember his own name, but he is certain that he absolutely cannot under any circumstances have a non-manly haircut for fear of mockery and rejection by his peers. how many coats of that leadened paint must have adhered to his poor, poor limbic system that even when he’s forgotten the concept of money, he still knows about the boundaries of masculinity.

 as harry tries to be a good person (or a fascist or a doom prophet or a disco superstar) he cannot really shake the pieces of himself that make him him. and he meets another bastion of masculinity, kim kitsuragi immeasurably measured, willful, and kind (for a cop), he helps you rediscover the world around you as you try to rewrite your tabula rasa'd self. he is firm, but nice. he lets you make your choices and mistakes. and he only stops supporting you when you start fucking up like, literally everything, and indulging in racism. naturally, there is a lot of fanart of them kissing, and yearning. both are beacons of masculinity, different sides of the same coin. where harry is physically imposing, kim is slight. where kim is calm cool and collected, harry will break down crying after a brief conversation with his necktie. but both are undeniably masculine. i mean, they’re cops after all. what more masculine profession is there?

as kind as kim is to you in your lowest possible state, it can be easy to overlook the ways in which he is not kind. when you tell him you think you really, seriously, need to go to the hospital, seriously kim i can't even remember my name i think i could have brain damage, kim responds with the equivalent of "walk it off" by encouraging you to start working on the case and see if that makes you feel better instead. it is in this light that you recognize which affectations of his are conscious posturing. his fitted jacket and trousers, matching the uniforms worn by air brigades in a past war. his careful collection of tools he keeps in his beloved kineema. his vast knowledge and care for the car itself. looked at in a certain different light- you know the one- you could see these traits being the result of a very careful construction. he found pieces of overt masculinity and decided to subsume them as a defense. a bolstering, a reinforcement of chosen masculinity.

there are so many different flavors of masculinity that the game offers you to experience and explore yourself. you decide whether to value them. you can follow in mister phenology’s footsteps and try to build yourself into a supremacist ideal. maybe that will make you happy. you can also chase after a barely-coded homosexual man, who makes you stutter in most available dialogue options. even if that may make you happy, you don’t get to pursue it. you can think for 20 hours about the "homosexual underground", but you can't join it yourself. you can however join fascism. interesting how harry is more susceptible to fascism than homosexuality. interesting to prod and poke at his masculine limits.

“what kind of cop are you” is a loaded question. harry is rebuilding himself from the ground up as a man. and how funny is it to learn that is inextricable from his profession.

what do you find inextricable from your gender? what of those traits make you happy? what of those traits make you want to throw your fucking shoe through a god damn window and punch the bathroom mirror and scream and scream and scream and scream?

i want to emerge from a hotel room, at my lowest point, and have the power to rebuild myself from scratch. i want a cool man who i maybe want to kiss guide me with a gentle yet firm hand. i want to have large arms, and a proud beer gut, and a stupid beard, and i want to destroy a hotel room and drink myself into a beautifully tragic state. i want to have non-political body hair. i want to get stared at for my gaudy tie and green snakeskin shoes instead of my tits. i want become a different kind of animal.

[easternblocrelics]

Hotel in the High Tatras Color negative 1990

[federer7]

Three men in the window of the Hotel Colón, headquarters of the PSUC (United Socialist Party of Catalonia). Barcelona. August 1936

Photo: Gerda Taro

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 21 July 1936 one of the most iconic photos of the Spanish civil war was taken on the rooftop terrace of what is now the Iberostar/Apple store buildings in Barcelona. Taken by German photographer Hans Gutmann, the photo depicts 17-year-old socialist, Marina Ginestà. Although she is captured holding a rifle, it is doubtful that Ginestà actually fought on the front lines during the war. Instead, as she was partially brought up in France and spoke fluent French, Catalan and Spanish she worked as a journalist during the war and more notably as a translator and interpreter for the Soviet correspondent form the Pravda newspaper, Mijaíl Koltsov. Gutmann had come to Barcelona to cover the anti-fascist Popular Olympiad games and at the onset of the war decided to stay to cover the conflict. He then castilized his name to Juan Guzmán. A communist himself, he had easy access to what was formerly the Hotel Colón, a building taken over by the PSUC (the Catalan Socialist Unification Party) where he took many of his renowned photos. When the photo was taken of young Ginestà she never had held a rifle in her hands - Guzmán offered it to her to pose with and the same rifle appears in another photo in the same hotel of the writer Ludwig Renn. Ginestà survived the war and fled to France as a refugee. She later escaped the Second World War by fleeing to the Dominican Republic. With the rise of the dictatorship under Trujillo Ginestà moved to Venezuela where she settled for many years working as a journalist and a novelist. In 2014 she passed away in Paris, France aged 94. Learn more about the Spanish civil war in our podcasts episode 39-40: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e39-the-spanish-civil-war-an-introduction/ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=665675658938986&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[enriquemzn262]

Next week in Venezuela presidential elections will be held, in which the future of the country is at stake, as the current socialist asshole that has completely ruined the country, Nicolas Maduro, has for once a united opposition party going against him, lead by a woman named Maria Corina Machado, herself a former member of the National Assembly, until she was illegally removed from her position, and former presidential candidate, until she was also illegally removed from that, forcing her to nominate her deputy, Edmundo Gonzalez, as the main opposition candidate.

Currently the Venezuelan regime claims the elections will be fair, yet they have engaged in a massive intimidation campaign against supporters of Corina, closing roads for her caravans, many times actually destroying them all together, while fining and even closing down businesses like restaurants and hotels that gave their services to her and her supporters.

But so far those campaigns don’t seem to be working, and instead have galvanized support for her even more, all the while Maduro and his cronies have to literally force state employees to attend his rallies or be fired, and even with that public support has been at best pathetic.

I guess we will see if this will or won’t be a repeat of the fraudulent 2018 elections, in which now disgraced opposition candidate, Juan Guadió, “lost” the election, triggering a worse emigration crisis that continues to this day, with some 5 million Venezuelans already leaving the country as of 2024.

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Finish the Feed and Plug the Thing! (And Play the Music!)

Today, under the cut, I shall demonstrate my new ability to create original music that might be recordable! (Guest Starring the Radio Demon from Hazbin Hotel!)

My web serial! My brainchild! My empire of dirt! I write this, I'm only on social media because I want people to look at it, and they're not. I suspect I've sold my cow for some magic beans and it turns out they're not even regular beans, they're foam peanuts. Nevertheless, the people in my orbit seem decent in general SO I WILL CONTINUE TO BROWBEAT YOU WITH GUILT-INDUCING REMINDERS UNTIL MY READERSHIP IMPROVES! No need to thank me! It's a service I provide!

Current known readers: 3 (hi!), 1st Goalpost: 10?

Current supporters: 2 (hi Kith and 5th!), 1st Goalpost: 5?

So! I am doing a Hazbin Hotel fic, while working sporadically on the serial. It involves David and I have a lot to say about mental health, fictional universes and massive multiversal crossovers, so it's still technically serial content, even if you may not want to read it.

But, I like to use side projects to experiment. I have to have something I like enough to put a lot of effort in, but I don't want to feel terrible if that effort comes to nothing. The fic happened because I drew David Vivzie-style to test my drawing ability and stamina. (It's improving! I can draw! Slowly!)

I am writing MUSIC with STAGE DIRECTIONS for David's stay at the Hotel, both reprises of Hazbin Hotel tunes with new lyrics, and new songs with public domain melodies. There is a LOT of music in the public domain. I've been filking pop songs, but that's still legally grey. When I filk this stuff, there's no limits!

...but that's not true, because a lot of it doesn't have lyrics. My process up until now has involved rewriting music with existing lyrics. Never before did I tackle an instrumental. Now I have!

I would call it a 75% success. It scans, fairly well, but I think I made an error in choice of melody. I LOVE this raggy 1925 arrangement of Hungarian Rhapsody - I listened to it a million times to do this and I STILL love it - but if you actually had to sing it at speed, I think your tongue would fly off. Hamilton has unsingable music like that, too, but I think this came out too complex to be catchy. I can barely sing it and I WROTE it!

Nevertheless, here it is (stage directions omitted for ease of reading along fast enough to keep up), with some background on the fic for context: David has, at this point, convinced Alastor they were best friends in the 20s, and made friends with Angel Dust in a more conventional way. Alastor does not wish to be second-best at anything (we've already got a canon song about that!) and is registering an objection from the piano.

...That's probably still incomprehensible, but the point is, it scans. You gotta ignore the intro and start reading when the treble kicks in, but I do think it scans.

ALASTOR: Funnily, we’re both used to dining with refinement Trust two chefs to know I thought our dinner was almost perfect When the waiter served it But then you fondle The ketchup bottle! There’s bearnaise right there on the platter, what’s the matter? Must you stoop so low? Horrors! It’s just as if you called the sous-chef over —  “This needs salting!” So insulting! DAVID: Darling! The sauce is no improvement If the meat is poor With ketchup, there’s no dressing there to dress up  No one loves a pompous bore, Bestie! A: If that’s better, I’ll do better Don’t we both play well together? Formal wear is not required Friendship outshines one’s attire And I won’t mind, I won’t pretend Remember I’m your dearest friend I won’t compete, it’s not a test I can’t be beat, I’m always best D: Although your doubtful dedication’s Quite despicable I don’t envy your situation That’s forgivable A: I’m dedicated when it’s worth it Is that true for you? And of course my friends deserve it What I’d do for you! D: Oh, I forgot, my poor coat is soaking Might you mop up my reckless joking? A: If that’s better, I’ll do better Don’t we both play well together? D: And one more thing, I’m a little squeamish You think we could keep the murders cleanish? A: If that’s better, I’ll do better Don’t we both play well together? D: You’re so competitive Do you just want to win? A (counterpoint) : (If that’s better, I’ll do better) D: Hey, I need devotion, too, if you’ve a notion to! You can’t be listening Might you do anything? A: (If that’s better, I’ll do better) D: A fur coat, a fancy car, how ‘bout a chocolate bar? A: If that’s better, I’ll do better Don’t we both play well together? D: For the salt lick, I hope I’m forgiven? I show respect with little gifts given A: If that’s better, I’ll do better Don’t we both play well together? D: If I’ve annoyed, I think I should mention I just enjoy all kinds of attention A: And I won’t mind, I won’t pretend Remember I’m your dearest friend I won’t compete, it’s not a test I can’t be beat, I’m always best And I won’t mind, I won’t pretend Remember I’m your dearest friend I won’t compete… D: Can we have sex? A: I ca… [spoken] Old friend, if you were a woman… I’d turn lavender [note: 20s slang for gay] with shame. D: Ah. Tant pis! Shave and a haircut, no sale!

It diverges at the end, they need time to talk to each other, but it's very close!

And I should add how I "transcribed" the music to write that, because it almost broke me. It was so silly I started cackling and had to confess what I was doing and show the spouse the placeholder lyrics. You see, transcribing the beats and stresses as dashes and numbers wasn't working, so I decided to use words. I decided to listen to this music over and over, trying to find words that had a matching rhythm, and place them into stanzas with a rhyming scheme. THIS is what THAT looks like:

It’s okay it’s not even ready it’s a steady It’s an onion bowl Oh but it’s not a begonia-bopper It’s a hot dog topper It’s a taco And it’s a tico It’s okay it’s not even ready it’s a steady It’s an onion bowl Oh ba-by but it’s not a holy hanger it’s a radio And it’s okay but it’s just a Samples! It’s not a rosy robber It’s an onion bowl It’s not a motherfucking compsognathus  It is just an onion bowl But it’s Not a pony in a pickup It’s a doughnut in a slicker It’s no pony in a pickup It’s a tuesday hiccup coat And scrambled eggs, and scrambled eggs And applesauce, and applesauce And jellybeans and jellybeans And polka dots and polka dots It isn’t very much to listen It’s okay but it’s Not much of a good decision It’s okay but it’s It isn’t very much to listen It’s okay but it’s Not much of a good decision It’s okay but it’s Not a dog, it’s okay but it isn’t Not a dog, it’s okay but it isn’t Not a pony in a pickup It’s a doughnut in a slicker Not a dog, it’s okay but it isn’t Not a dog, it’s okay but it isn’t Not a pony in a pickup It’s a doughnut in a slicker It’s a blue doughnut boy he’s got a taco truck (not a pony in a pickup) And it’s a tree it’s a tree it’s a tree but it’s not It’s a blue doughnut boy he’s got a taco truck (not a pony in a pickup) And it’s a tree it’s a tree it’s a tree but it’s not Not a pony in a pickup It’s a doughnut in a slicker It’s not a puddle puck in a piston It’s just a whiny duck who won’t listen Not a pony in a pickup It’s a doughnut in a slicker It’s not a puddle puck in a piston It’s just a whiny duck who won’t listen And scrambled eggs, and scrambled eggs And applesauce, and applesauce And jellybeans and jellybeans And polka dots and polka dots And scrambled eggs, and scrambled eggs And applesauce, and applesauce And jellybeans and jellybeans And polk— It’s not anybody it is just a Camaro cap!

I can't sing that version either ("It's not a motherfucking compsognathus!" I'm dying! 😵I'm dead!) but I'm still fond of it. And look, it worked! Kinda!

If I want to do this for the actual serial, I may have to pick simpler music, or simplify it by choosing PART of the melody to use and repeat. I can't write or read musical notation, but most people can't either, so if I can link you to a piano roll or someone's recording of an old record, we can both sing along on the internet. And maaaybe some day I'll be able to record something. I wouldn't be good at playing or singing, but if you throw enough money at me, I can pay someone!

SO PLEASE GO BEG PEOPLE TO READ ME AND GIVE ME MONEY! THANK YOU!

[east-side-militia]

Millennium headcanons: Their parents and life growing up

Since yes I do have thoughts on that tw for multiple counts of unhealthy to abusive parenting, patricide and matricide, fratricide and talk of nazism (without endorsement)

The major: Inspired by his Coyote backstory but not so similiar. Was raised by his mother, who was part of the early national socialist political scene, before it rose to power. Unfortunately, she died when he was around 12 years old. Max was taken under the wing of one of his mom's "friends" from the political circle, but wasn't particularly close to him. His closeness to the "higher-ups" of the nazis would fortunately grant him some privileges later on in life.

The doctor: Was raised as the only child of a middle class family. His parents were people driven purely by logic and void of emotion, which led to them verbally and occassionally physically abusing him under the guise of "motivating him". This greatly impacted Av's mental state, and his own parenting style later on. He would eventually be unable to take it and would sign up to fight in the first world war, still as a teenager, just to get away from them.

The captain: Grew up in a small village, circa the middle ages. I imagine his childhood was more or less normal and happy. He was the oldest of many siblings, and to this day sees some of them in Schrodinger. When he was of age, he left home to pursue finding a job. He still misses his family, and hopes they lived an easier life than him.

Rip Van Winkle: Was the youngest of three sisters (inspired by a fairytale trope). I headcanon her family is descended or related to a knight bloodline, and was quite wealthy. Not aristocratic but definitely upper-class. Because she took after her father way more than her sisters, she was daddy's girl, but her relationship with her mother was more difficult, especially as puberty settled in. She also had a turbulent relationship with her sisters, because they sided more with her mother and viewed her as the "rebellious, delusional airhead" of the family. Her ultimate "rebellion" would be when her father helped her secure a job as an SS officer.

Zorin Blitz: Was abducted as a baby by a witch. The witch would call herself Zorin's mother, and would raise her as her apprentice, along with several other girls in a middle of nowhere rural area. Her environment growing up would be extremely "kill or be killed" and she would watch her "sisters", those who weren't strong enough to keep up, die one by one. She realized that eventually, it would only be one of them who would survive, and she would have to make sure it would be her. So she started strenghtening herself, deceiving, lying to the others, pitting them against each other, and killing them off herself until she stood alone. She killed her "mother", freeing herself from her control, and went to pursue something better.

Schrodinger: Was created in a test tube, as the ultimate weapon against Alucard (haha get it. hellsing ultimate). In his younger years, he was isolated from the rest of Millennium, even kept as a secret to most, and raised primarily by Dok. When he was eventually let around the other members of Mill was coincidentally around the time his "unruly" phase kicked in, which sent Dok spiralling and essentially flip-flop between blaming himself and blaming everyone else for "corrupting" him, when all it essentially was was a normal phase for a child. Schro never had friends his age, only adults, so he would have a hard time communicating to other teenagers, I imagine.

Tubalcain Alhambra: If there's one thing I'm clueless about it's the state of Brazil circa the first half of the 20th century. But I like to think he was born into some-semi influential family (perhaps one who owned establishments like hotels, casinos, etc.), and grew up a socialite. Maybe he's not even brazilian by origin, his name sounds more middle eastern than anything to me, maybe he just happens to reside there. He probably has the skills resources to control the government and the media at least to some level. Probably to the level that they don't care about his family housing literal nazi refugees on their property. Yes that is my headcanon. Tubalcain was Millennium's landlord and you won't convince me otherwise.

The Valentine Brothers: They aren't biological brothers, but their parents were both single with a kid and got together, so they're step-siblings (valentinecest still sucks stfu). Both of their parents were absolutely terrible, terrible enough for the brothers to set their house on fire when Luke was 18 and Jan was 15, to make the authorities think they died along with their parents, and go pursue a life of crime instead.

[familyabolisher]

In 1937, urban planners debated turning Tel Aviv into a ‘Riviera city’ in a proposal called the Grunblatt scheme, which is reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s unrealised 1933 Plan Obus to demolish the Cape of Algiers and construct an elevated highway along its coastline. Today, many of the Palestinian beaches belong to private developers and hotels. This is part of a longstanding policy of effacement, whereby Palestinian scenes of dispossession become sites of Zionist leisure. After the massacre of residents in al-Tantura (occupied May 22–23, 1948; population of 1,500) in 1948, the Palestinian population was driven out. A mass grave of several dozen bodies remains, and today it lies under the parking lot of Dor beach, near Haifa. These processes are not unique to Palestine, architecture and redevelopment play essential roles in the construction of a revisionist urban coloniality. Both Tel Aviv and Algiers were given the moniker ‘White City’.

But Tel Aviv is not particularly white. Off-white maybe, mostly grey. Sharon Rotbard’s WHITE CITY, BLACK CITY (2015) examines the Bauhaus style that is the city’s pride. The Ashkenazi elite of Tel Aviv sought refuge in the ‘values of order and rationality’, she explains, against ‘the amorphous black chaos’ of the present. ‘It enabled many Tel Avivians to conduct wealthy bourgeois lifestyles, and at the same time to expose a socialist and progressive façade, to take solace in the assurance that while their city was clearly grey and faded, it was actually white and clean; that although it was no more than a provincial Western outpost, it was as international as the International Style; and that although it was modern, it was historic.’

The early essays about the local International Style in HA’IR and HA’ARETZ newspapers praised it as neither historic nor revolutionary, but as a sensible innovation, emphasising ‘usability, economy, modesty, cleanliness’. Tel Aviv’s Bauhaus represents the aestheticisation of sterility, which was the style’s original function, in a clear through line from the sanatorium that helped to popularise it. The export of this architecture to the colonies held the promise of ridding the cities of their distinct character, of curing the tropics of their diseases.

These architectures, then, reinforce a psychogeography of ‘cleanliness’. In light of the increasing visibility and political power of the messianic-Zionist bloc in the Israeli governing coalition (Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud alongside the Hasidic political parties United Torah Judaism and Shas), the re-emphasis of Tel Aviv’s White City’s heritage serves as a coping strategy of sorts for Tel Aviv’s settlers in particular. It allows them to self-narrate as ‘liberal’ and to separate themselves from an unwashed ‘Other Israel’, supporting the story that Tel Aviv’s relationship to the rest of the state is of a cosmopolitan vestigial organ. This is romantic, but untrue. While the fanatical settler foot soldiers that roam the frontier are perhaps the most visible parts of the Israeli project, a quieter enemy remains at work – the state’s bureaucratic violences, dressed as system planners and administrators. Tel Aviv’s ghouls in their windowless offices stare at population registries of Palestinians, a blinking red button in front of them, adding to their press releases a Biblical or archaeological citation to camouflage the ethnic cleansing.