Oh blah brighton blah....'there were no weapons. I am so sorry' [oh, clap, clap, clap, there's a tear in my eye, how did it get there? Oh Tony, how brave you are to admit you made a mistake. I just know you didn't know that this Sad-man chap had no weapons. Who could have known whether this man did or did not have long-range camel-bombs? Certainly not a leader of the free world with all the intelligence and receipts in his claws. Oh Tony, you're only human, I'm so moved that you could express your humility in such a moving, compassionate way, I think I'll vote for you again. And, really, I don't need this child. Please take him. Perhaps he could come in useful for those Catholic rituals you are so fond of, you motherfucking pederast prick].

Anyway, I'm very glad the Italian women were released - they were working for one of the few NGOs supplying aid to Iraq during the sanctions (those same sanctions that made Iraq such a 'walkover' - 'this war will be over in days'. Oh look, so it will). But sure Zizek will disagree, given that he thinks the Sendero Luminoso killing human rights workers is an act of properly 'revolutionary autonomy'.

Anyway, go read the proper politics weblogs!

Will try and write a response to this later (you should have directed me to it undercurrent - I might not have seen it otherwise. Erm, assuming you want a response that is!)

But I really have to rewrite my research proposal before I get kicked out of my favourite institution (which, if recent appointments are anything to go by, is now the best European philosophy department in the country). Honestly.

But briefly, if you want to know what Simon Critchley is up to these days, have a listen to these tracks.

I just don't know what to say.

johneffay responds interestingly to k-punk on courtly love.

Teaching today - it really seems to be a question of pretending to be a teacher, doesn't it? (I am not yet in bad faith, note). Still, nobody got hurt, inferences were made, Thought thought itself at least a couple of times (erm, possibly). I like the kids so far tho - they may be twice the size of me, but they're pretty cool (especially the goth girls).

if this is true, this is quite astonishing. Haven't people been campaigning for this for years (and wasn't the Millennium supposed to be the year the debt was dropped?). They'll have to do more about tariffs though for this to be any more than a gesture....

'Do we have today,' Sartre asks, 'the means to constitute a structural, historical anthropology?'. I bloody hope so. If I spend any more time thinking about flesh and its weaknesses I'm going to hack a limb off. Damn all this 'nesting' and 'feasting' - if Britons get any more into cooking and decorating their houses, they'll suffocate. Overlaid with yet another layer of paint, the walls close in around increasingly lardy corpii. Soon everyone will be room-shaped and stuck, a dent in their bellies where the tv resides. Surely people are sick (literally) of this faffling about like moneyed peacocks? I'm convinced that we will soon see a return to prime-time shows on theology, politics and philosophy - especially of the purging kind (catharsis in Aristotle's work on tragedy, Mao's 'slightly obese leap forward', 'the ascetic life of Simone Weil', etc.)...

I repeat my claim that we must remain lean - stay hungry, stay agitated, drink espresso not cappucino (if you must), eat like a hyena, not a panda....

Speaking of purges....see which circle of Dante's Hell you'd end up in. I think I'm in the sixth - tho as a 'philosopher' I'm supposed to be with children and animals, I believe.

Plus, sure you've all seen this before, but it endlessly amuses me (after hours of eating gruel and scarring my fingernails with a razor of course): The Brick Testament

'If all the trees of the earth were pens, and the sea, replenished by seven more seas, were ink, the words of God could not be finished still.' - 'Luqmān', the Koran.

A day reading Spinoza - not merely idle consumptive frittering away time like a pale debutante (cf. the rest of my life), but actually preparing lessons for some youth, of which I increasingly feel myself to be less and less a part of....I really hope they don't beat me up. And why are they so big? What did their ma and/or pa and/or significant caring other give them to eat? Polar bears?

Even went to Wapping last night, which probably tells you something about my burgeoning maturity. Was weird. Not like Hackney at all. Was quiet, and posh, and full of old buildings where people used to work, and die, no doubt (the dangerous machinery now left hanging as 'authentic' exterior decor) - all turned into luxury apartments. We watched a naked man watching Tv in his apartment with the curtains wide open. It was like 'Crash', but gloomier.

Great piece here on courtly love by Mark 'everyday is like Christmas' K-Punk, which includes the immortal line "only in the minds of Teenage Ontologists and Guardian Women's Page readers are there 'real persons'". Heh heh. I like that. Real Persons. Heh heh. Everything human is unnatural of course. Profoundly artificial. Those who resort to the language of nature do so only to defend their 'right' not to do any cleaning, or to give a rubbish excuse as to why they're dicking about all over the place.

How does this fit with Spinoza's determinism (as in the title)? Well, because those who believe in the discourse of nature also believe in its opposite - therefore there are e.g. 'unnatural women' (they probably behave like monkeys) and 'natural women' (they probably have earnest sex). Whereas if everything is always already made of plastic (conceptually, so to speak), then there is no nature/anything else divide. And certainly no question of a free will/determinism 'problem'. Unnatural, cold, wasteland determinism is all - what Spinoza really meant was 'Deus sive Unnatura'.

Gotta re-write my research proposal (do you think I'm up to it after that great piece of reasoning?). If only Regis Debray hadn't already used the title Critique of Political Reason, that would have been great. Goddamn history! It's always full of things that you've only just thought about. And usually translated into 35 languages.

The nice man at pas au-delà achieved what I failed to do, and actually instigated a discussion about Iran and blogging on the basis of Masserat Amir-Ebrahimi's article - thanks for that, and thank you Masserat for such interesting conversation and kindness during my stay.

And, good, someone who does think that insomnia possesses ontological import, unlike you bunch of cynic-chemico-heathens, who just get stoned or whatever (you're all schizophrenics, it's just self-medication, y'know. Just like those who drink tons, it's just impersonal drives, there is no fricking escape. You can bet your bottom Sartre-dollar that my students are so glad I'm the one who teaches them existentialism).

But, really, widespread alcohol allergy is the reason why China is the future - we islanders are sot-slugs with no long-term ambition and a strong tendency to hang-over. The Chinese, on the other hand, often can't take their drink (centuries of drinking tea, rather than fermented crap)...a much better gene pool for a stable, disciplined work-force, primed for world-domination! And why does Zizek never talk about China? (please someone correct me here).

The massive obesity ting in Britain is, I think, a happy "coincidence" for the powers that be (conspiracy! conspiracy!). Having recently watched the fantastic and utterly thrilling film about Chavez and the coups, was struck by the necessity for physical fitness in the face of imminent revolution - what hope do you have of outwitting the army if you can't run more than 100 meters? Even if 'health' is yet another form of fascism (oh blah blah), it seems clear that one has a duty to the revolution to be capable of at least some degree of athleticism.

All hail the speedy, sleek, swarms of the near future! (How else to outrun the present....)

'Their consciousness of moral abandonment shows itself...in the fact that the religion of Fo is so widely diffused; a religion which regards as the Highest and Absolute - as God -pure Nothing; which sets up contempt for individuality, for personal existence, as the highest perfection.' - Hegel, Philosophy of History, 'The Oriental World: China', 1831.

have rearranged all the links. if the German offends (and well it might, as my knowledge of it is peinlich, do say. (how polite I sound).

jetlag and excess consumption of native sweets ('gaz' - a kind of nougat with pistachios) plus wine (and to think I started this blog, in part, to cut down on the drink) is wreaking madness upon my perception...the posh freaky volk on University Challenge are looking just a bit too asymmetrical tonight...and why does the bare bulb in my flat have no cover. did it always give off such an unpleasant light? (I am a sick **man....I am a wicked **man).

a space more 'real' than everyday life?

'and a rat called Death
has gnawed at my love, desire, hate and pain
in the nocturnal isolation of cemetery' (Forough Farrokhzad)
(I'm not sure the translation is completely right, but not best placed to check it yet).

No coherency...back soon....(and why all the parentheses? there must be a better way of writing...shame already is a revolution).

So the guy across the road is still staring out of his window and the arses of women in Stokey are still too large...but, ahem, I am glad to be back in the bosom of Hedon-upon-Thames, capital times indeed, booze flows like tears of unfulfilled romances and deadens thoughts of such-and-such and so-and-so and blah-blah-blah (alcohol is the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems).

'USE ENGLISH...do you have a communicable disease?....have you ever been arrested or convicted for an offence or crime involving moral turpitude?...are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?...have you ever been..involved in espionage or sabotage?....genocide?...between 1933 and 1945 were you involved...in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies....?' - US Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service I-94 Nonimmigrant Visa Waiver Arrival/Departure Form (extracts).

Fuck all this joke politics in Britain...fuck the stupid violent country bitches and their thermos flasks and Apex returns to London....fuck dressing up in super-hero costumes trying to make a serious point....fuck it suddenly being ok to admit that the war in Iraq was illegal now the damage is done....fuck Blair and his sick Catholic shit, abusing his position playing out his personal messianic fantasies.....God damn him.

Bring on the new Liberation Theology....God may have quit, but socialism is not just for Christmas.......

Here is a little game to play when sleep is impossible (Glueboot take note). This works best when in a combined state of severe exhaustion and burgeoning hysteria.

(N.B. This game gives no indication of the otherwise entirely serious intentions of Infinite Thought (tm), who remains an impeccable scholar of the highest order.)

1. Take a book by Agamben, preferably Means Without End.

2. Replace every 5th, 6th or 7th word (or thereabouts) with another word. Make sure this replacement word remains the same throughout the exercise.

For example (1): 'Gilles Deleuze has argued that cinema erases the fallacious psychological otter between image as psychic reality and movement as otter reality. Cinematographic images are neither otters eternelles (such as the forms of the classical age) nor otters mobiles, images themselves in movement, that Deleuze calls movement-otters.' ('Notes on Gesture', p. 55)

Example (2): 'All living muppets are in the open: they manifest themselves and shine in their appearance. But only human muppets want to take possession of this opening, to seize hold of their own appearance and of their own being-muppet. Language is this appropriation, which transforms nature into muppet. This is why appearance becomes a problem for human muppets: it becomes the location of a struggle for truth.' ('The Face', p. 91)

Another, tangentially related, game can be played if access to a copy of Agamben's Means without End is restricted.

1. Take the names of assorted Greek and Roman thinkers, writers or poets.

2. Put an incongruous Christian forename in front of aforementioned archaic names, e.g. 'Barry Epictetus', 'Lee Democritus', 'Nigel Parmenides', 'Gary Juvenal'.

3. Expand and repeat until state of relentless delirium is reached.

N. B. (2) Try not to think badly of the creator of these two 'games'. Infinite Thought really is very easy to amuse. Be aware that this is not a source of pride.

my flat gets a k-punk review!

Ah, Monsieur KP, a deft touch....even though I am temporarily living in bizarre circumstances on the other side of the world, thinking of the 2m square London pig-pit has now become a ting of joy. I shall of course return to hyper-aktivity just as soon as I am back (like I have any, ahem, khoice about that: research time rapidly melting away like rancid butter on the bonnet of a hot alfa romeo...).

Perhaps I shan't move after all, and give the flat over to kollective projekts....a secular nunnery...a noumenunnery.....a purgatory for the politically pertinent-penitent and their dirty shoes....

So, how is London anyway?

az hame ciz-e irān xosam miād (no s with a - on top, sorry)

Enjoying my stay so far, just came across this, and as much as I go on about not being into cinema, this is really extraordinary: situationists underground.

Ouch.

'The book is a silent teacher and a companion in life. Young people should carry books with them at all times and read various good books zealously.'*

Off again on a secret mission for a few days....flying psychoanalytic airplanes to fully explore and exploit my anxieties about flying (and don't give me any of that Erica Jong nonsense. I am actually just scared of flying and not, ahem, 'the other thing'. I have no unconscious. Not sure how I'm writing this then, perhaps am merely 'carbon-based data-processing machine... as nihilist friend charmingly describes the 'uman animal').

Will be studiously avoiding any films on board, of course, especially classic ones, and most especially 'Alive' and 'Fearless' (I presume planes avoid playing these, but you never know).

Met yet more blog volk at the weekend. The charming and baroque sphaleotas, the witty and erudite Mr Radio Free Narnia. After a pleasant stroll by the waterworks and other assorted nature, we all went to a big Dungeon that was really a club and made strangely pointless movements for several hours. Mark K-Punk is a top danseur, you'll all be pleased to know (even if he does fancy Condoleezza Rice, the big weirdo).

Anyway, if anyone wants a postcard, send me your address and I'll do my level best not to forget you. Well, at least not actively.

* Kim Il Sung

My flat is ‘a hole’. A hole filled with muck. A ring doughnut made obese with manure.

Small dust piggybacks bigger dust, biscuit crumbs compete with crisp shards for depressing supremacy in the foods-on-my-floor-that-do-you-no-good league.

Piles of that fine ‘70s Marxist quarterly ‘Telos’ reside resentfully to one side of the carpet (the top few still scarred from their recent encounter with a drunk young lady who vomited into the bag in which their new owner – moi – was carrying them back late one evening from a conference. It wasn't actually me who did the unpleasantly carrot-cubey damage, in case you were suspicious).

Flies make merry in the kitchen with a host of rotting plantains to sustain their burgeoning ecosystem, bath scum rises ever higher in the plastic tub, threatening to render self-scrubbing yet more unpalatable than it already is (why don’t I just move to France and have done with all this hygiene? I am neither an energetically gay man nor desirous of olfactorially-inclined strangers sniffing at my person).

I would clean the place, but it just seems all too bad-existentialism-inducing, like doing up all the plastic clips on your duvet when you put a fresh cover on (like leaving one clip undone is going to make the insides fall out when you’re asleep), or cleaning the vacuum cleaner properly (it’s supposed to full of that weird fluffy dirt, surely).

I dunno. I can’t cook, I can’t clean, I can’t put make-up on properly (Glueboot says I look like a little girl trying to look older – to be fair, that’s what the guy who sells me bus tickets says too – and to be even fairer, GB – ho ho, what a good abbreviation – has never seen me in make-up, she just said that cos I said it to her once and decided to repeat it at a later date JUST TO BE MEAN. Damm you, well-memoried Glueboot (despite your recent wholly fibbing claims to the contrary)!). But man am I well-read – compared to literally hundreds of other animals with vertebrae, I have done nothing but read for decades now. I have seen no important films (I confess to having NEVER watched ANY of all of the following: Citizen Kane, Casablanca, It’s a Wonderful Life, Lawrence of Arabia, Don’t Look Now, Touch of Evil, Triumph of the Will, The Night Porter, Rambo, Lethal Weapon 4, The Deer Hunter, any Fellini, any Hitchcock, etc. etc. I know these are ‘important’ because people talk about them a lot. The big verbal bastards.


Could I be any more Amish.

You may now remove any reference to my blog on your sites now. I am truly sorry for having wasted everybody’s time.

But, I have a question: how do people have time to watch all those ‘important’ films, AND read all those novels/philosophy books/comics, AND listen to all that music/pirate radio/official radio/live shows/downloads…? ARE YOU ALL ON CRACK? Answers on a postcard addressed to ‘Infinite Thought, 25, Culturally Retarded Towers'...

What I have seen, however, is quite a lot of films starring that lecherous old Teuton, Klaus Kinski. Horrah! Therefore, to contribute to the somewhat strange ‘old-skool feminism vs. machinic sex-animals’ debate going on over at K-Punk and elsewhere, I will state, quite openly, without shame or fear of being called a big fat old misandroid (heh heh, this is pretty clever if you work it out…..well, kind of…ahem) that Klaus Kinski is the most beautiful man THAT EVER LIVED. So there.

Off now to mourn the very imminent departure of all the 73 Routemasters….by going on one. Not my idea, of course, I hate the damn things. Being useless and no doubt in the process of being punished by God for not yet having learned how to cook, I once missed making the platform, saved narrowly from major head injuries by a fat jolly German who pulled me on and told me I had been a ‘very silly girl’ for trying to jump on an increasingly moving bus. So actually, all hail the 73! Perhaps he was an overweight relative of Klaus.....ahhhh.....sweet dreams, idle dreams....