09 December 2004
As I can't sleep at all, I've been reading (again). Of course St Paul was wrong about all that "philosophy and vain deceit" stuff, no doubt about it, absolutely.....
The best story of late is definitely this one from Crumbling Loaf. When I check Sean's blog there's usually just one post hovering about that subsequently disappears within a day or two. And no archive. Truly....A master of the modern-day fragment.
Oh yeah, went to see Carlo Ginzburg last night. He spoke for exactly an hour about Bataille, Callois and fascism, with welcome and thrilling detours through de Maistre, Sade and Voltaire. He made great links between 'sur-fascism' and the phallic, to the, er, Acephalic, concern for rituals and the political equivocation of the College de Sociologie, etc. He got attacked by some demented old ladies (and how many of these are there on the London lecture scene?), for not being more morally condemnatory of these pesky French intellectuals (but they never actually sacrificed anyone!). Anyway, that was just cos they hadn't paid any attention at all to the talk, which was, in actuality, somewhat harsh on old Georges and co, the big bunch of sloppy Catholics...(and, no, please don't anyone accuse me of being anti-papish. Again).
To the accusation by yet more boorish elderly thugs that his talk was not concerned with 'real people' and was overly bookish, Ginzburg gave the splendid reply: 'books exist....unless you burn them', thus turning real, concrete history against the naff empiricists. Class. Fahrenheit far too clever for you!
The best story of late is definitely this one from Crumbling Loaf. When I check Sean's blog there's usually just one post hovering about that subsequently disappears within a day or two. And no archive. Truly....A master of the modern-day fragment.
Oh yeah, went to see Carlo Ginzburg last night. He spoke for exactly an hour about Bataille, Callois and fascism, with welcome and thrilling detours through de Maistre, Sade and Voltaire. He made great links between 'sur-fascism' and the phallic, to the, er, Acephalic, concern for rituals and the political equivocation of the College de Sociologie, etc. He got attacked by some demented old ladies (and how many of these are there on the London lecture scene?), for not being more morally condemnatory of these pesky French intellectuals (but they never actually sacrificed anyone!). Anyway, that was just cos they hadn't paid any attention at all to the talk, which was, in actuality, somewhat harsh on old Georges and co, the big bunch of sloppy Catholics...(and, no, please don't anyone accuse me of being anti-papish. Again).
To the accusation by yet more boorish elderly thugs that his talk was not concerned with 'real people' and was overly bookish, Ginzburg gave the splendid reply: 'books exist....unless you burn them', thus turning real, concrete history against the naff empiricists. Class. Fahrenheit far too clever for you!
